Chapter XVIII: Choosing the Path (7)

Here we have what Dr. Newman calls the “expedient of superhuman genius,” the startling, fascinating, terrifying idea, the Protestant view, which forestalls all argument by prepossessing the imagination with a nightmare of preternatural horror. The writer has had this image before him from a child. He alludes to it as something well known to his readers. It is like the “Old Smoker” in the chimney, or the goblin in the garret, or the mad bull around the corner, waiting to execute vengeance on naughty little girls and boys who ask questions. We find it very difficult to argue seriously against this chimera. It is like arguing against the odd fancy of the eccentric Jesuit Hardouin, that the North American Indians are the descendants of devils. It is revolting or ludicrous as it is looked at in different lights. It appears to our mind to be vulgar, silly, superstitious, and fanatical. Not, of course, because it is the use of language and imagery taken from the Scripture, but because it is a wholly arbitrary, fanciful, and unwarrantable use and application of such language and imagery. It is like the grotesque use of Scriptural names and images by the fanatics of the Cromwellian revolution. It is assumed as something certain and well known that the Papacy is foretold and described in these prophetic visions and predictions, as certain and well known as the interpretation of Joseph’s dream, the dreams of the chief butler and chief baker of Pharaoh, the vision of Nabuchodonosor, or the Messianic predictions of Daniel. Nothing short of this would justify the manner in which Protestant writers apply these terms to the Roman Church, and shut out all calm and sober consideration of her claims and doctrines by an appeal to the prophecies respecting Antichrist and Babylon. You cannot argue from a mere hypothesis, as if it were a fact or a certain truth. In this case, the entire probability of the hypothesis depends on first proving that the Roman Church really possesses and exhibits the qualities which must belong to the objects of the prediction. A sober and rational inquiry into the real meaning of these sublime, terrible, and obscure prophecies exacts, first of all, a study of the interpretation of the fathers. It requires, moreover, an examination and due appreciation of the expositions of Catholic commentators. It must be dispassionate and scientific in its character. Now, the vulgar Protestant application of these prophecies to the Roman Church has none of these characteristics. It finds no countenance from any writers before the time of the so-called Reformation. It was invented and used as a convenient and telling weapon of assault. It is rejected by some of the eminent scholars of the Protestant persuasion. On what 405 does it rest? On nothing but the conjectural interpretation of a certain number of individuals. We should find no difficulty in proving its absurdity and falsity if we chose to undertake the task. But that is not our object. All we contend for at present is, that it is an irrational and abusive employment of terms to call the Roman Church by the names of symbolic persons or objects in the prophecies, as if it were certain that this application is just and true, and that these names need only to be repeated in order to designate the Catholic religion as a detestable monster, to be shunned and fled from, but not to be approached and fearlessly examined.

As the Rev. Mr. Scribner has been haunted from infancy by these Apocalyptic monsters, and has always associated them in his imagination with the Roman Church, it is quite natural that distinctive Catholic doctrines should appear to him clothed with the same alarming and hideous outward semblance of monstrosity. So, then, he says that,

“Even if the sincerity of some who profess to have been converted
to the belief of the _monstrous doctrines_ of transubstantiation,
the sacrifice of the Mass, the supremacy of the Pope, purgatory,
the worship of the saints, and the adoration of the Virgin, must
be admitted, still there are some who have secret doubts as to
the possibility of such persons being true Christians” (p. 516).

Why are these doctrines called _monstrous_? Doubtless, all error is more or less monstrous, as a greater or less distortion of the truth. Therefore, one who considers these doctrines erroneous might mean no more in calling them monstrous than if he said they are great errors. But it seems to us that our author used the word to express an antecedent, obvious monstrosity of some sort, which makes these doctrines incredible in themselves, without any reference to the fact of their being either proved or disproved to be parts of revealed doctrine. Now, looking at the matter as if we were mere inquirers or philosophers, what is there more incredible in the doctrine of transubstantiation than in that of the Incarnation, in the sacrifice of the Mass than in that of the Cross, in the supremacy of the Pope than in the supremacy of the twelve apostles, in purgatory than in hell, in the worship of the saints and the Virgin than in the divine adoration of the humanity of Christ? Whoever will take the trouble to read our philosophers and theologians, will find that they demonstrate the futility of all the antecedent objections which can be made to the credibility of any Catholic doctrines. As to the arguments in proof of these doctrines from Scripture, tradition, and reason, whoever maintains that they are so obviously proved to be false by the contrary arguments, that it is only a monstrous ignorance, folly, credulity, or wickedness which can induce any one to hold them as Christian doctrines, had better favor the public with a clear and succinct treatise containing the reasons for his opinion. It might, perhaps, answer the purpose of a Protestant _End of Controversy_, which has been a great desideratum for a long time.

When he incidentally hits on the subject of relics and miracles, our estimable author is still more overcome. Dr. Faber, in his eyes, is always a charming, grown-up infant, who is only made more lovely and attractive by believing everything. But not so with those who cannot claim his sympathy for their sweet simplicity, and must be considered as grown-up men:

“With the exception of a few such men as Faber, it is not to be 406
believed for a moment that the educated prelates and priesthood
of the Romish Church have themselves a particle of faith in what
they teach the people concerning their Popish legends. We do not
know what to think of the man who does not feel intense
indignation at the bare thought of Pope, cardinals, and priests
all encouraging the people to reverence the disgusting pretended
relics with which their churches are filled. Let it be remembered
that the highest Romish authorities in all countries continue to
this day to give their sanction to _what they know to be
imposition_ on the credulity of the people; and can it be
doubted that even the most bigoted person, if he knew the real
facts, would question the truth of a system which rests so
extensively on known and deliberate deception?” (p. 528).

There is something which seems so honest and unpremeditated about this outburst of indignation that we are disposed to give the author the benefit of that excuse of childlike simplicity which he so kindly makes good in behalf of Dr. Faber. He has no thought of proving his assertions, does not seem to think they require any proof, or that they can be questioned by any one who is not ignorant and bigoted. _Let it be remembered_, he says, as of something learned in childhood, like the rules of grammar or the date of the discovery of America. Evidently, here is the old Protestant view, the old tradition, which has all the force of an infallible authority. Now, it is not the fault of Presbyterians and other Protestants that they have had this prejudice instilled into their minds in youth. While their ignorance is invincible, it is also inculpable. But if they adhere to it without reason, through supine indifference to truth or affection for their old prejudices, when their attention has been called to the reasons and motives for doubt and examination, they become morally blameworthy. A simple denial of the truth of the accusations made in the foregoing paragraph, on our part, is enough to destroy all their prestige in the mind of any candid and intelligent Presbyterian who is not ignorant or bigoted. Our word carries as much moral weight as that of the conductors of the _Princeton Review_. And we deny emphatically, invoking God as a witness to our sincerity and truth, every item of the foregoing accusation. It is an atrocious calumny, and those who have uttered it are bound to prove it or retract it, even if they have been themselves deceived, and have had no intention to calumniate. This is all the reply we have to make to the attack on the personal honor and integrity of the Catholic priesthood. But in regard to the topic itself of relics and miracles, we will say a word out of charity to our bewildered and indignant friend, and to all like him who are willing to hear the other side.

_Disgusting pretended relics._ What is the sense of that word _disgusting_? Does it mean that real relics are disgusting, or that pretended relics are disgusting because of the imposition? If it mean the former, we do not understand the feeling any more than we understand the feeling of one who is disgusted with the furniture which has been in the family for a long time. You cannot argue the question in that way. The only way of arguing the matter at all is to discuss the matter itself. If the relics of the saints are entitled to reverence, and have a secret, miraculous power, the feeling of disgust is simply an abnormal and senseless feeling, which ought to be suppressed by an act of the will. If it is a question about the genuineness of the relics, no one who is not grossly ignorant of history can be unaware of the fact that, from the second century down, relics of martyrs and saints have been highly honored and religiously 407 preserved. There has never been any difficulty in procuring genuine relics in abundance of the contemporary saints. As regards the relics of the cross, and other relics connected with the persons of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, the apostles, and the most ancient and illustrious saints, we must refer the curious reader to books for information. We can only strike, so to speak, a few random blows at the prejudice which encrusts the Protestant mind, and endeavor to crack it. We merely wish to convince our friends of the absurdity of their hasty and wholesale condemnation of our motives, spirit, doctrines, and practices, that they may think it worth while really to examine the matter with seriousness. So, without going into any general examination of relics universally, we will just take up an instance of a particular case of relics in the house where we are writing, as an example of our ordinary and practical conduct in respect to relics. In an oratory which is used for private devotion, there is placed above the altar a large and ornamental sarcophagus, the front and sides of which are of plate glass. Within is a wax figure of a Roman youth reclining on a crimson couch, dressed in crimson silk, crowned with a chaplet of flowers, and with the eyes closed as if he had just died. Within the breast is a reliquary, with relics of a body taken from the Roman catacombs. In the corner is a phial, marked with a red ribbon, and which once contained blood. These are the relics of Justinus, a young martyr of Rome, which are duly and officially authenticated as having been taken from the Catacombs. Now, whoever knows anything of Roman archæology knows that the most learned and careful antiquarians give us certain marks by which the remains of martyrs may be identified. The Rev. Mr. Scribner will not hazard his reputation as a scholar, we presume, by classing the folios of De Rossi and other savants of Rome among the impostures of priestcraft. We have, then, the relics of a true martyr, arranged and placed in such a way as to make an object of contemplation to the eye of taste and of Christian faith, which is pleasing, instructive, and fitted to excite pious emotions. What is there disgusting in this?

But then there are the legends about miracles wrought by the relics of the saints, and other miracles. Very true, my dear friend, and, no doubt, very puzzling and startling to one who has been accustomed to believe that the marvellous and miraculous passed away with the age of the Bible. But, reflect for a moment on the full extent of the admission you will have to make to the infidel rationalist, to the enemy of Christianity, who makes our whole religion mythical, if you reject all this portion of the belief of Catholics as founded on the fabulous. Read Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History of England_, the twenty-third book of St. Augustine’s _City of God_, St. Ambrose’s description of the discovery of the relics of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, and Isaac Taylor’s _Ancient Christianity_. You will find that we modern Catholics are in the same boat with the fathers, the prelates, the Christian people of the fifth century. We float or sink together. It seems to us, however, that before one resolves to follow the shallow and sophistical Isaac Taylor and his servile copyist, the translator of the _City of God_, in condemning our Christian forefathers as the authors or the dupes of a gigantic system of imposture, and before one pronounces a similar sentence on the whole 408 body of their modern descendants, it would be well to examine somewhat carefully the evidence in the case. For instance, to confine ourselves to modern times, there are: the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius; the ecstatic virgins of the Tyrol, and the recent similar case in Belgium; the miraculous conversion of the Jew Ratisbon; the case of Mrs. Mattingly of Washington; the miracles of Lourdes; the miraculous cure of a young lady at St. Louis, attested by three physicians; the miracles wrought by the relics of F. Olivaint, the martyr of Paris; the miraculous conversion of sixteen Mohammedans at Damascus, one of whom has suffered martyrdom; and many other events, believed by a vast number of intelligent persons, upon grounds of evidence, to be supernatural and miraculous. We do not ask our Protestant friends to believe these things on our word or without evidence. We simply say that it is the part of good sense and necessary for you, if you expect to sustain your own cause against us, that you should examine these things, and, if you deny altogether this whole class of professed facts, should give good reasons for it. Will you rule the whole case out of court by a sweeping principle that these things are in themselves impossible and incredible, and therefore false? We defy you to do it without subverting the whole basis on which rests the belief in the miracles of the Old and New Testaments. Moreover, we defy any one to evade or rebut the evidence of some of the miracles we have mentioned, especially the cure of Bourriette at Lourdes and of Mrs. Mattingly at Washington. We mention these, because we have given the evidence of the former in our own pages, and of the latter in the edition of the works of Bishop England, prepared for the press by the author of this article more than twenty years ago. The authority of the Roman Church, nevertheless, and the truth of the Catholic faith, do not in any manner rest on any one or all together of the visions, revelations, or miracles in question as their basis, and as the ground of a divine faith. Their highest value, even when fully proved, is to confirm and enliven our faith in truths of which we are previously certain.

The Rev. Mr. Scribner says with great truth that “one great lesson taught by this biography [of Dr. Faber] is the lesson of charity” (p. 531). He is also so obviously correct in his remark that “charity does not require us to admit that to be true which is false,” that we wonder he took the trouble to make it. Moreover, we cannot and do not wish to dispute his right “to pronounce a flaming Roman Catholic professor a child of the devil who shows himself to be one.” But we wish to add to his statement one more, which is that justice requires, as well as charity, that one should not make atrocious charges or apply opprobrious epithets without adequate proofs and motives. Let the reverend gentleman consider, then, coolly and deliberately, and let every Protestant reader of this article consider and judge of the following sentence:

“It would not be enlightened charity which would make us think
that, perhaps, after all, _the licentious Roman Catholic
priests of Spain and Italy, and the brutal priests of
Ireland_, are Christian men” (p. 531).

Charity! We do not ask your charity. We spurn with indignation any such despicable counterfeit of charity as that which is here repudiated. The Catholic Church does not need any mantle to throw 409 over any priests who are either “licentious” or “brutal.” Let the jurisdiction over clerical delinquents, which rightfully belongs to her, be admitted and sustained by the civil governments, and she will treat them with the right kind of charity, by restraining them from all power to sin, and giving them an opportunity of doing penance. Civil governments, when they have been engaged in a conflict with the church, and Protestant leaders, have always been ready enough to encourage, to employ, and to reward these outcasts of the priesthood, or impostors who have falsely pretended to be priests. By their suborned testimony, the British government hanged Oliver Plunkett at Tyburn. For the sake of another of the same sort, an English jury fined and imprisoned the most honorable and illustrious writer in England. Examples nearer home are not wanting, and are not, we suppose, quite yet forgotten. All those worthless members of the priesthood who have been disgraced, or who deserve to be, we leave to bear by themselves the judgment both of men and of God. But on what evidence are the priests of Spain and of Italy called in general and unqualified terms “licentious,” and the priests of Ireland “brutal”? We would like to know what opportunity American Presbyterians have of knowing accurately the condition of the Spanish clergy. Blanco White, as Dr. Newman shows, furnishes no testimony which can be used to prove any such assumption as that of our very confident friend Mr. Scribner. In regard to Italy, is there any testimony given by trustworthy, competent witnesses, who have lived there long enough to know what the character of the clergy is, or anything which the violent enemies of the church in Italy have been able to establish against the clergy, which warrants the opprobrious epithets applied to them in the elegant passage we have cited above? That the busybodies who are trying to make mischief in Italy, and whose proceedings are viewed with intense disgust by some honorable Protestant clergymen, keep some very disreputable company among the Italian clergy, we have no doubt. We suppose there are more than one hundred thousand priests in Italy, and, as we have seen two such specimens as Gavazzi and Achilli, we cannot wonder if there are some scores of similar individuals who are able to keep their places under the protection of so detestable a government as that of Victor Emanuel. These are the men who consort with Protestant emissaries, and who malign the virtue of their brethren, which they hate and envy because of their own wickedness. But, as Dr. Newman remarks, those who leave the Catholic Church, and yet retain some moral probity and gentlemanly honor, do not furnish Protestants with the evidence they want in order to sustain their defamation of the Catholic priesthood. Men like Wharton, Blanco White, Lord Dunboyne, Gioberti,[96] Capes, Hyacinthe, and Döllinger, do not answer the purpose for which they are wanted, because they will not utter the gross calumnies or invent the startling, sensational lies which certain infamous scribblers like Maria Monk, or mountebank lecturers like Leahy and the last new Baron, manufacture for the greedy ears of a credulous public.

The insult offered to the clergy of Ireland is equally offensive and 410 touches us still more closely. It is not so bad an epithet which is applied to them, but, while it is vague enough to make it difficult to seize and expose the precise calumny which the writer intends to fasten, it is forcible enough to make it as insulting and opprobrious as any epithet which a gentleman could well use, or a refined and scholarly periodical suffer to appear on its pages. It is like the gross caricatures of _Harper’s Magazine_. We blush at the thought of noticing such an aspersion on the Irish clergy. The priests of Ireland _brutal_? The Irish people are not a brutal people, and it is impossible that a brutal clergy should spring from them. The clergy are loved by their people, they cannot therefore be brutally cruel; they are respected by them, and therefore they cannot be brutally vicious. They are educated men; they meet noblemen and gentlemen on equal terms. Irish society is cultivated, refined, and polished, and the Catholic priests of Ireland are respected by the respectable Protestants of Ireland. Such an accusation as this could not be made in Dublin, or on the floor of the British House of Commons, without calling derision on the head of the unlucky person who ventured to use a sort of language about Catholics, which polite society is beginning to regard as unfit for its ears.

It is no wonder that a gentleman so prejudiced against the Catholics and their religion as Mr. Scribner has shown himself to be, should be astonished or puzzled at the conversions which have taken place in the past twenty-five years:

“How one educated in the Protestant faith can become a sincere
Papist it is difficult for us to understand, and to many minds
the thing seems impossible” (p. 516).

He tries to diminish, and as far as possible to shirk the difficulty by laying the blame on Anglicanism and Puseyism:

“It must be remembered that for an Anglican or Puseyite to become
a Catholic is a very different thing from the conversion to
Romanism of any other intelligent Protestant.”

The perusal of Dr. Newman’s _Lectures_ will show that the Protestant view and the Protestant prejudice have had as deep and strong a hold in the English Establishment as in the Kirk, and, therefore, the difficulty remains where it was. But, although we may allow that a High-churchman is logically nearer to a Catholic than is a Presbyterian, there are plenty of cases of the conversion of those who were brought up in the other Protestant churches. Hurter, Phillipps, Stolberg, and De Haller were Lutherans. Mr. Lucas was a Quaker, and F. Baker was brought up a Methodist; Dr. Brownson was a Unitarian, and Judge Burnett was a Campbellite. There are numbers of converts in the United States from the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians, and other denominations. It does not alter the case that some of the best known of the converts who were brought up in various sects became Episcopalians first, and afterwards Catholics. For, as our author asserts, they became by that step “almost Catholics.” And how did they first become convinced of those “almost Catholic” doctrines, and altogether Catholic principles which they only logically followed out when they became Catholics? Then, again, we have the two Drachs, the two Ratisbons, Hermann and Veith, who were Israelites. Infidels, too, have been converted, as well as Protestants and Jews; men of every country, rank, and profession, noblemen, 411 clergymen, statesmen, lawyers, physicians, merchants, military and naval officers, have embraced the Catholic faith. Since the time of the so-called Reformation, these converts have amounted to hundreds of thousands, and it is our opinion that there must be at least fifty thousand at the present moment in the Catholic Church of the United States. This fact must, therefore, be looked in the face, and it must be admitted that there is something in the Catholic religion which is capable of convincing the understanding and winning the homage of the most intelligent, upright, and conscientious persons, even though they have been educated in Protestantism.

Mr. Scribner admits, with a commendable candor and frankness, the sincerity and excellence of Father Faber:

“One at least who followed Dr. Newman into that communion
deserves, as far as his love for the Lord Jesus and his
self-sacrificing zeal are concerned, to be held as a
model--Frederick William Faber. In his numerous devotional books,
in all his correspondence, and in his hymns, almost all of which
are of the highest order for beauty, tenderness, and
spirituality, there breathe sweet humility, childlike trust in
Jesus as the Saviour of the lost, and the most loving submission
to the divine will.... And yet this man, whose self-sacrificing
piety and loveliness of Christian character all must acknowledge,
was, during almost the whole period in which he so earnestly
sought the good of others by his incessant toil, as sincere and
thorough a Romanist as if he had drunk in the system with his
mother’s milk.... But as long as one retains with these errors
(‘the monstrous doctrines of transubstantiation, the sacrifice of
the Mass, the supremacy of the Pope, purgatory, the worship of
the saints, and the adoration of the Virgin’), however
inconsistently, the essential truths of the Gospel, his holding
them is not incompatible with piety. Whoever is a true worshipper
of Christ is born of God, and that the subject of this biography
worshipped and loved the Saviour it is _impossible to doubt_....
One great lesson taught by this biography is the lesson of
charity, and that we should be cautious in assuming that a man is
not a Christian because he is a Romanist. Undoubtedly, when we
obey the injunction of the Scripture to pray for ‘all saints,’ we
pray for many who are in the Church of Rome. Even a Romish priest
who prays to the Virgin, and who teaches the people to pray to
her, as Faber certainly did, may be, like him, an humble
worshipper and lover of Jesus. And though he may practise
austerities, he may do so in a different spirit from that which
actuates the masses in his own church, for, instead of being full
of self-righteousness, he may have no confidence in his own
righteousness.... We may admit, etc., and yet believe that God
has a people in the Church of Rome who live and die within her
pale” (pp. 515, 516, 517, 531, 532).

Let the reader peruse these passages carefully. They read very differently from the other set of extracts, and yet they occur together, mixed up with each other, and we have separated them in order to exhibit more clearly the singular clashing in the author’s mind between old, timeworn prejudices, and a new, intruding set of thoughts and sentiments derived from the perusal of F. Faber’s life and writings. We have shown how he attempts to reunite the two. But they cannot live peaceably together in the same breast, any more than could Sara and Agar in the same tent. They are incompatible. It is impossible to make out of Father Faber an exceptional case. If the charge of idolatry is sustained against us, and if, in other respects, the Roman Church deserves the epithets applied to her by our enemies, Father Faber went with his eyes open, and remained with his eyes opening wider and wider, and died in a religion which cannot be embraced without bringing death to the soul. He was no adherent of 412 any softening, modifying, minimizing school. He was not like any of those whom Protestants are wont to regard with favor as belonging more to themselves than to us, as a sort of secret, unconscious Protestants, who are only externally united to the Roman Church, while their spirit is alien from her spirit. There was nothing of Pascal, Martin Boos, or Hyacinthe about him. He was not even one of those who stopped short at the line of strictly defined and obligatory doctrine, as if afraid of being extreme Catholics. He was no Gallican, no rigorist, no advocate of anything that might be called Neo-Catholic or Anglo-Catholic. Even in regard to minor and accessory matters, to modes and ways in which there is great room for variation in opinion and practice, he preferred those which characterize the genius of the Italian and Spanish nations, and which seem to the colder and more reserved temperament of the English to be the most remote and foreign to their tastes and intellectual habits. He endeavored to divest himself of everything which bore the semblance of conformity even in accidentals to Anglicanism, and to throw his whole soul into what he considered to be the most perfectly Catholic mould. He outran in this many both of the old English Catholics and of his fellow-converts. Especially in regard to the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, he made himself the champion of the most exalted views concerning the power and glory of the Mother of God, and the importance of her cultus in the practical teaching and piety which is directed to the end of the conversion and perfection of souls. He followed St. Bernardine of Sienna, St. Alphonsus, and the V. Louis Grignon de Montfort, and his entire spiritual doctrine is derived from similar sources, as it were flowing from the very topmost heights of mystic contemplation, above the clouds, and far remote from the paths and ken of ordinary mortals. In his theology, which is remarkable both for accuracy and depth, he always follows those authors whose doctrine accords with the strictest criterion of Roman orthodoxy. It is not, then, anything in Father Faber which is peculiar and self-originated, or which he brought over from his Protestant education, and has mixed with Catholic doctrine as a clarifying ingredient, that makes his books popular with Protestants, and has excited the admiration of the writer in the _Princeton Review_. F. Faber’s doctrine and sanctity are purely Catholic products. The homage which he has extorted is homage paid to the school in which he learned, and the masters and models he followed. The sheep shows the quality of his pasture in the fineness and whiteness of his wool. “Men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles.” If our reverend friend were more familiar with the lives of the Saints and the works of Catholic spiritual writers, he would cease to wonder at F. Faber and his works. We can point him to whole libraries of works in which the characters and actions of a multitude of similar men and women are depicted, and where countless forms of the same divine truths and holy sentiments are presented. Those who “practised austerities” to the greatest possible extent, the solitaries of the desert, the holy monks and nuns, the saints of the most heroic type, are precisely those who were marked at the same time by their entire conformity to the doctrine and spirit of the Roman Church, their profound humility, and their ardent love of the great Lord and Saviour of mankind. Contrasting F. Faber, and others like 413 him, with the great body of fervent Catholics, as if they had a “different spirit,” the great body being “full of self-righteousness,” and these select few having “no confidence in their own righteousness,” is sheer nonsense, and an unmeaning rattle of words. We cannot all pretend to possess the genius, the loveliness of character, the extraordinary graces, or the exalted sanctity of F. Faber. But all those who hold the genuine Catholic doctrine which our holy mother the church teaches, and possess in any degree the genuine Catholic piety which she inculcates, are, so far, like F. Faber. The same spirit is in all, whether they be the frail and sinful confessing their sins with contrition, the sincere though imperfect who are striving to keep God’s commandments with more or less diligence, or the more advanced in Christian virtue and holiness of life. Those who have a false and counterfeit piety, who indulge in the spiritual sins of pride, self-confidence, and vainglory, who are willing victims to the illusions of the devil, and seek to play the part of saints in order to gratify their self-love and win applause, are like other sinners, except that they have more of the hypocrite about them. They generally become heretics, or fall into open sin, and cease acting their wearisome part, unless they are truly humbled and converted. These are the persons who have a “different spirit” from that which actuates the true children of the church. That F. Faber touched the common chords which vibrate through the great Catholic heart is shown by the fact that he is the most popular spiritual writer of this century. Three hundred thousand copies of his works, in some six or seven languages, had been sold some time ago, and they still continue to circulate everywhere. It is not a little remarkable that the same chord is obedient to his touch in the hearts of so many Protestants. What genius, learning, reasoning, philosophy, cannot do, the faith and love which spring from prayer and penance accomplish with ease. It is a remarkable fact, and we call the attention of Catholic preachers and writers to it, as well as that of Protestants. One who disdained the thought of diluting Catholic doctrine to suit the delicate palate of the age, who was regardless of the opinion of men, who plumed his pinions for a kind of audacious flight into the lofty ether in which saints alone are wont to soar and poise in contemplation, who threw off all drapery from the glorious form of Catholic truth, and loudly called on all men to gaze and worship, is the one who wins the confidence and captivates the hearts of the greatest number of the church’s lost and estranged children. We trust that his works will win their way, and exercise their gentle, attractive force still more extensively among evangelical Protestants. The recommendation of a Presbyterian pastor, which goes forth under the sanction of Princeton, will, we trust, produce its full effect, and excite the pious curiosity of a great number of readers to become acquainted with the biography and writings of the gifted, lovely, holy poet, priest, and teacher, who has been called the Bernardine of Sienna of the nineteenth century.

We have endeavored to bring out into strong relief what is really of the greatest moment in the article of the _Princeton Review_, and what the weak though violent counter-protests only make more prominent and definite, that the concessions to the personal and doctrinal purity of Father Faber are a yielding of the most grievous of the charges against 414 Catholics and their religion. It argues, we hope, a change in the spirit and manner of maintaining the controversy with us which is coming on. The teaching of Father Faber is admitted to contain the “essential truths of the Gospel,” and his most distinctively Catholic and Roman doctrines are admitted to be “not incompatible with piety.” The conclusion is rigidly logical and irresistible, that Calvinists must consider the controversy between us as one not respecting _directly_, but only _indirectly_, the essential, fundamental dogmas and precepts of the Gospel and Christianity. Let them, then, realize this view to themselves, think in accordance with it, and regulate their conduct and language in harmony with it. Let them no longer ignore and practically abjure the Christian church from the fourth century to the present moment, and confine their sympathies to an imaginary primitive period and the sphere of modern Protestantism. Let them study ancient, mediæval, and modern Catholic authors, read history and theology, and learn to discuss the real issue with us. The Chinese method of warfare, charging upon us with shields aloft, bearing the hideous figure of the beast with seven heads and ten horns, with outcries and shouts of derision and vituperation, will not answer any longer. Those who choose to follow such tactics will soon be forced to throw their shoes into the air and take to flight. It is too late to frighten even Presbyterian children with such nonsense. The weakness and helplessness of the poor Irish Catholics, and of the handful of Catholics in England, made them for a long time the easy victims of oppression and calumny. But the day for treating the Catholics of the English-speaking world with haughtiness and contumely has passed by. We desire, however, no revenge or retaliation. We ask nothing of Protestants except that they will seek the truth. In the words of Montalembert: “The truth, and nothing but the truth--justice, and nothing but justice--let that be our sole revenge!”[97]

[94] _The Princeton Review_, October, 1871. Art. II.:
_The Life and Letters of Frederick William Faber._ By
Rev. William Scribner.

[95] _Lecture IV._, p. 206. Dublin. Third Edition.

[96] We do not intend to affirm positively that Gioberti
formally renounced the communion and faith of the Catholic
Church, a matter about which there hangs a great obscurity.
But his violent enmity to the Jesuits and his revolutionary
principles in general would have certainly led him to attack
the clergy and the existing order in the most vulnerable
part.

[97] _Monks of the West_, Introduction, last paragraph.

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LIMITATION.

Through limit and hindrance man works: no limit hath God, and no need;
But his wind is musical only when prisoned in the cane of the reed.
AUBREY DE VERE.

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MODERN OPERA.[98] 415

Nothing better pictures an epoch than the art and literature which it produces. The great characters, religious and political, immortalized by history, have always been surrounded by a cluster of noble geniuses, artistic and literary. The generosity and magnanimity of heroes is reproduced in the sublime purity of the works of art of their epoch. Nobility of art bears testimony to the excellence of morals. Our century is no exception to this. Confusion of principles in politics and religion is accompanied by an analogous overturning of morals, of art, and of literature. We are living in a time of general depravity; at least, it is so as regards those who pretend to march at the head of modern civilization. But their depraved literature, their shameless arts, exercise their disastrous influence over those who would wish to resist the current of the bad passions of the day. It is to them that M. Stein gives warning of the danger, in depicting the bad conditions into which dramatic music has degenerated. It is a study of contemporaneous manners, not so much from an artistic as from a religious and political point of view.

GENTLEMEN: A few days ago, it was shown you here how considerable is the influence of the fine arts upon the moral life of mankind; it was demonstrated how they can guide the human sentiment towards different ends, good or bad.

You will permit me now to call your attention to a branch of the fine arts which, more now than ever, and more than all others, exercises its influence on the moral life of the people, and which merits thus the highest degree of interest from this assembly. It is dramatic poetry allied to musical art, that is, the Opera.

You all know the great extent of this branch, which has captivated the favor of the public to a degree perfectly exceptional, and which has banished to the second place all other branches of dramatic art.

The reasons of this extraordinary success are not so well known. The excessive predilection of public theatregoers for the opera is of quite recent date. Only forty years ago, the masterpieces of dramatic poetry enjoyed the same favor as those of dramatic music. By the side of Mozart and Carl Maria von Weber, Shakespeare and Schiller were found on a footing of equality; to-day they must retire before Meyerbeer and Offenbach, and be contented to remain eclipsed by these favorites of the public. If you question on the subject enthusiastic lovers of the opera, they will answer that, in our day, opera has made progress so considerable, and attained to such perfection, that the understanding of music is so general among the people, that this predilection of an enlightened public for dramatic music is the most natural thing in the world. You know there never can be question of any other than an enlightened public; for it cannot be doubted that every man who frequents the theatre is a man of progress. The gallery 416 represents the preparatory school; the boxes, the pupils in philosophy.

However, it is difficult to believe that artistic taste and love of music are the sole motives which cause the public to fill the halls of the opera-house. Forty years ago, the works of Mozart, of Weber, and other masters were well appreciated by connoisseurs, but they did not meet with as much success from the public as modern operas enjoy to-day. Or is it rather that Donizetti and Verdi, Meyerbeer and Offenbach, understand the art better than Mozart and Weber, Spohr and Spontini? We cannot admit it. The reason must be elsewhere, and surely, gentlemen, you wish to know it.

In a pamphlet published ten years ago, Richard Wagner says: “The essential foundation of art, as practised generally in our day, is industry: its moral end is gain, its æsthetic intention to kill _ennui_.”

This richly endowed artist has in view his colleagues in dramatic music, the composers of opera. He knew these men well, and understood himself how they set to work. But in the words quoted he has perfectly explained the end and tendency of modern opera.

The end is no other than gain; and, as means conducive to this end, effect is necessary, which must be attained at any price. Industrialism, that tyrant of our age, has also submitted the opera to its power, and under its domination the art exhausts itself forcibly, because tied to the fly-wheel of the artistic fabric. To produce effect, to surprise and bring out something which has not yet been seen--these are the objects of actual dramatic music. To this end is sacrificed not only art, but also all that exists--religion, politics, morality, and truth. This unfortunate course has been inaugurated by the Italians. In their dramatic works, Donizetti and Verdi have sought but for effect, theatrical success, and to this end have completely sacrificed dramatic truth. For love of effect, they have trodden upon law, morals, and even reason. The domination of sense over mind is the characteristic feature of their music.

But it is among the French that this style has attained its greatest perfection, and even among the German composers, who, for love of effect, have Frenchified themselves. The most skilful author of scores of operas, Scribe, has offered his pen to these greedy musicians for money, and shows his readiness to sacrifice all to it. Scribe understood the Parisian public for which he worked. He knew its weakness, and he has succeeded in imposing the vitiated taste of that public on the whole civilized world.

In the texts furnished by Scribe, all is intended for scenic effect--all means are employed to reach this end. The requirements of dramatic truth and of morality, even of good sense, are sacrificed to the one end, effect. Frivolous and immodest allusions, which offer gross food to the impure fancy, and necessarily soil the imagination of innocence; doubtful scenes, as, for example, in _Fra Diavolo_, where a young girl unrobes and goes to bed before the audience; scenes of the bath, as in the _Huguenots_; scenes of seduction, as in _Robert le Diable_; political allusions, exaltation of and homage to the revolutionary passions, as in the _Muette de Portici_; base flattery to the irreligious opinions and prejudices of the day; even, in fine, scenes peculiarly religious, that are put into the piece to produce striking contrasts, and bring out voluptuous scenes better--these are the artistic means of which these poets and composers 417 have made use to produce effect, and to make money with this effect. Thanks to these industrials of the opera, it happens that in France a new opera has no longer chance of success, if it be not abundantly provided with these means for exciting bad passions.

Now, how is it in Germany? The German good-nature imitates everything of which the French set the example. It allows itself to be deceived, even to the point of finding _naïveté_ where there is nothing but immodesty. It thinks even that it recognizes a religious character in works which do but abuse and vilify religion. The German good-nature imagines that these creators of French art have carried dramatic music to its highest perfection, whilst in reality they are merely skilful workmen, and often something much worse.

If it be denied that our so-called artistic and intelligent public is intoxicated with drinking from the poisoned cup of the French opera, it must be conceded that in Germany there are still many men who know and love art, and who therefore, at the start, do not sacrifice to this musical Baal, but render testimony to the truth with regard to the modern opera. They do not trouble themselves about the shouts and railleries of the crowd, who are unreflecting, and seek in art only sensual enjoyment and pastime.

Permit me here to recall the memory of a generous man, a grand master of the musical art, whom the city of Düsseldorf formerly counted among its citizens--to wit, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. From the letters he has left, we know that, during his artistic career, he desired earnestly to try his creative power on the opera, but could not succeed because, notwithstanding his multiplied efforts, he could not find a text to please him. During his sojourn in Paris, his father wrote him to employ Scribe to furnish him a text, to make the composition at Paris, and to have the joint work performed there. This letter of the father betrays a man well versed in business. In his answer, Mendelssohn first speaks of the difficulties which are raised against strangers who wish to represent their works in Paris; then says: “It must be added that, among the French, the principal condition is one to which we must always be opposed, even when the epoch requires us to be ready to make concessions to the taste of the day. This essential condition is immorality. I have no music for that. It is ignoble. If the present age exacts such requirements of the opera, I renounce it for ever. I prefer to compose religious music.”

Honor to the honest man! Honor to the artist who in acting thus honored himself--who refused to gain money and to make himself famous by selling for so base a use the divine gift which God had given him!

As Mendelssohn indicates here, it is particularly Meyerbeer who has devoted himself to this bad style. In his youth, this talented artist had composed several operas which had not been favorably received. He had tried without success in the German school as well as in the Italian. He gave himself up to the mercantile style, and his career was brilliant. Meanwhile, Meyerbeer employed Scribe to write his texts, and these two minds understood each other wonderfully. The one furnished piquant scenes, without regard to the exigencies of reason and morals, and threw in a profusion of seductions for all the passions. He set to work all the wonders of decoration. The other illuminated the whole with seductive music, which sought but for 418 effect, and had no regard to dramatic truth. In this manner, Meyerbeer has become not only the most famous, but also--and this is the principal thing--the richest musician of the entire world. He knows his business, as no one before has known it.

Meyerbeer is distinguished particularly for his predilection for religious scenes. With consummate skill, he uses them to produce striking contrasts. None of his last operas fail in this spicy seasoning. As a Jew, he is impartial among the different Christian sects. He maligns and mocks them all. In _Robert le Diable_, it is Catholicism which is put under contribution to furnish material for his religious scenes; in the _Huguenots_, he abuses Protestantism in the same manner and to the same end.

Marcel, a personage insignificant and dull, a fanatical Huguenot, interrupts everywhere the action of the piece with a Protestant canticle, always inopportunely and without reason, but producing always a grand effect by contrast. It is the air of the canticle of Luther: “Our God is a tower of strength.” The success of the _Huguenots_, this opera being so much a favorite, rests almost entirely on the contrasts produced by this canticle.

In the first act, a merry company of cavaliers is found at table drinking and singing a riotous song. Marcel, the incomprehensible solitary, proceeds to thunder out, with a loud voice accompanied with brazen instruments: “Hear me, strong God! My voice is raised to thee.” This canticle, in the midst of jovial drinkers, intermingled with the song they are singing--how can it fail of effect? In the second act, there is a very violent scene. At the instigation of Queen Margaret, the Count St. Bris has proposed his daughter to the Chevalier Raoul, who refuses her. Valentina, the daughter, despised and scorned, complains; Queen Margaret preaches peace; all shout and fence, and Marcel adds his chorus in a thundering voice, “God, our guard and protection, listen to our cries!” Is not this a shameful prostitution of sacred things? But it produces effect; and our opera-going public, which boasts of its delicate taste, is enchanted with it, and imagines that the violent impression produced by these contrasts is a religious and edifying sentiment.

In _L’Africaine_, the last production of Meyerbeer, he introduces us immediately, in the first act, to a sitting of the secret council of the King of Portugal. It is understood that the grand inquisitor and a certain number of cardinals play the principal _rôle_. Finally, Vasco de Gama is condemned, loaded with chains, and thrown into the deepest dungeon. Why? Because he has affirmed the existence of distant and unknown lands of which the Scripture does not speak. You know well that ecclesiastical dignitaries have always had the habit of refuting with chains and a prison novel ideas and scientific discoveries. At least, by this scene the public is convinced of it, with the aid of stunning music. This same opera, so much approved, contains also a very piquant amorous intrigue. There are several choruses of prayer, then a large vessel on the stage, and finally a manchineel tree, which spreads death. We must agree that it is the possible and the impossible.

However, it is not the Jew Meyerbeer who has pushed to the extreme his musical industry. The Jew Offenbach has gone much further. The former speculated principally on the curiosity of the unreflecting masses; but while his art is under subjection to frivolity, he still seeks 419 to preserve a certain decorum. But Offenbach has got rid of the last remains of modesty and propriety. Yet the Christian public besiege the workshop, and applaud with frenzy the musical indecencies of this industrious Jew.

_Orphées aux Enfers_, _La Belle Hélène_, _La Vie Parisienne_, such, for several years, have been the favorite works with a public in advance of its age. These operas have been played every day for weeks and months on every stage; and often there are disputes over the tickets for these representations. Of course, it is all owing to the beautiful music.

With these impure works, dramatic music has attained the extreme of degradation. After having been lowered by Meyerbeer and the modern composers of France and Italy to the rank of an _equestrienne_, who rides round the circus in elegant costume, the muse of music has been thrown to the demi-monde by Offenbach. She could not fall lower.

Gentlemen, permit me to repeat the question which was laid before you in the beginning. What is the reason that modern opera has gained the favor of the public to so eminent a degree that not only the classical works of this kind, but also the masterpieces of declaimed drama, are banished from the theatre? Now, we can answer this question. The reason of this surprising phenomenon is that, by the modern opera, art has entered into the service of sensuality, art has lost all generous and elevated motives. It has tasked itself to amuse a public depraved by pleasures of every kind--to satisfy curiosity, to flatter the bad passions, the errors and prejudices of the age, and to make a bad use of the questions of the day.