Chapter XLII: Part I: Awakening (6)

By far the most important topic treated of by Prof. Müller is the knowledge of God existing among the varied nations of men. He gives great weight, and deservedly, to the result of his observation in this respect, and we can readily understand why he should lay so much stress on the importance of the study of the “science of religion,” or the comparative study of the different religions of the earth. As a matter of erudition, it must always be a subject of the greatest interest, not only in itself, but also because it serves to illustrate the words of the Apostle to the Romans, ch. i. 18-20: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice: because that which is capable of being known[120] of God is manifest in them: for God hath manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity, so that they are inexcusable.” We shall have occasion to return to these words. Here we may remark that this knowledge of God that transpires in all the citations the learned Orientalist has laid before us, is nothing more than what as Christians we expected to hear. But in this connection we have to say that the contrary effect is produced to that intended by Prof. Müller. This corroboration of the words of St. Paul, uttered more than eighteen centuries ago, and proclaimed long before by the author of the Book of Wisdom, ch. xiii., proves that, so far from the religions of the earth meriting praise for their reference to a Supreme Being, they deserve to be censured because they detained the truth in darkness--in injustice. The words of the Professor are: “We shall learn [from this comparative study] that there is hardly one religion which does not contain some important truth; truth sufficient to enable those who seek the Lord, and feel after him, to find him in the hour of their need.” The first portion of this assertion is true; the second is incorrect in its expression, and dangerous in its tendency. It is incorrect in its expression, inasmuch as it attributes to these religions, as such, the possession of truth--not all, to be sure, but some truth. We say, on the contrary, that the truth contained in these various religious systems is the common inheritance of the human mind.

The light of Almighty God’s countenance shines on us all, no matter who we are. The Psalmist asks: “_Quis ostendet nobis bona?_” and he answers: “_Signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui Domine!_” It is wrong, therefore, to give credit to a false system for the truth it has enveloped in darkness. And the reason of this is palpable. If we turn to the words of the apostle, as given above, do we find him giving credit to the false religions of mankind for the truth they contain? Anything but this. He says: “The invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity, so that they are inexcusable. Because, when they knew God, they did not glorify him as God.... And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds and four-footed beasts, and of creeping things.” Here we have a sentence pronounced against these very religions our author speaks of as containing sufficient truth to enable those who seek the Lord and feel after him, to find him in the hour of their need. The apostle condemns them because “they detained the truth of God in injustice.”

This is to be said of these false religions even at their best. But what is to be said of them when we take into consideration the immense majority of those among the heathen do not attain to any refined spirituality, but are engrossed in the material, sensual forms of idolatry, like the conservative Parsees, so graphically described in the book before us? We must therefore conclude that, granting Prof. Müller intended to refer to man’s natural knowledge or his reason as a means of knowing God, to which the apostle bears witness, he has used an incorrect form of speech in attributing to these religions efficacy in finding God. It would have been in every way better to write that, in spite of the errors of these various systems, there was still light enough left to man, through his reason, to lead him to God--a truth not only substantiated by the teaching of theologians, but, as we have seen, expressly laid down in Holy Writ.

We have said the assertion of our author is not only incorrect in its form, but dangerous in its tendency. That tendency, with all respect to Prof. Müller’s expressed opinions, is latitudinarian; it would lead one to think that, after all, the heathen and all professing a false religion are in a comparatively safe state. If this be so, why do we find the apostle assaulting those systems so uncompromisingly, and asserting that the heathen are inexcusable? And how do we reconcile with this theory the words of the Gospel, “Unless ye be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven”? True, there is the _baptisma flaminis_, the resource of those who have not the blessing of the actual sacrament; but even this requires a rejection, absolute or implied, of the false system, and the act of faith in the true God, accompanied by a firm will of doing whatever it may be known he asks of a sincere soul. The language of the great theologians is certainly not in any way favorable to the safety of those who follow a false religion. They tell us that those who among the pagans of old were saved, were justified by their faith in a true God and in the Redeemer to come. The doctor of grace, the great St. Augustine, whose intellect was one of the most remarkable of any age, says in _Serm. 3 on the 36th Ps._, “All who were just, from the beginning of the world, have Christ as their head. For they believed he was to come, whom we believe to have come already; by faith in him they were saved, as we are.” Then, in the _Comm. on the 128th Ps._, he writes: “Has the church only existed now? The church is of old; from the time the saints were called the church is on earth. Once it existed only in Abel, and was warred against by a wicked and perfidious brother, Cain. Once the church was only in Enoch, and he was taken away from the wicked. Once the church was only in Noah’s house, and it suffered from all those who perished by the flood, and only the ark floated on the waters and escaped to the dry land. Once the church was only in Abraham, and we know how much he suffered from the wicked. The church existed only in Lot, and in his house in Sodom, and he bore with the iniquity and perversity of the Sodomites, until the Lord freed him from them. The church began to exist in the people of Israel, and it suffered at the hands of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. And in the very church itself, amid the people of Israel, there began to flourish a number of holy souls: Moses and other saints suffered from the wicked Jews. We come at last to our Lord Jesus Christ; the Gospel has been preached, and he has said in the Psalms: ‘I have brought the tidings, and I have spoken, and they are multiplied beyond number.’” (See also the writings of the same father against the Donatists.) The same idea of the necessity of faith in Christ is found constantly in the teaching of the church and in the writings of the fathers.

We ask after this, who deserve most credit as exponents of the essential requisites of salvation--the early fathers of the church, who explain the words of the apostle, “Without faith it is impossible to please God,” in the sense we have here in St. Augustine, and which too is had in the ancient Athanasian Creed; or gentlemen like our author, whose ideas of Christianity, even when they express them clearly, differ so widely from what was once held as revealed truth, and who moreover cannot come to an understanding among themselves as to what the truth of Christ is? And if we must give the preference to the former, what are we to say of an _opinion_ that serves to lull people into a false security regarding that which is, of all things, the most vital in its importance and consequences?

Prof. Müller rightly says that the knowledge of the false religions of the world makes us appreciate more the Christian religion. Had he taken the view we have given, he would have had a vastly greater appreciation of it. He would not have put it in comparison with other religions, as differing from them by a superior degree of excellence, but would have shown that they differed essentially, as right differs from wrong, as truth from error, and therefore he would, while speaking charitably of individuals and leaving them to the judgment of God, infinitely just, have condemned and rejected these false systems of worship as the curse of the unhappy race of Adam. As we have said before, we are not inclined to charge Prof. Müller with the full consequences of his assertions, since in several places of his work he gives his unqualified acknowledgment of the claims of Christianity. Still we cannot but look on his loose assertions as the result of the rationalistic spirit that has begun so rapidly to pervade the most conservative of English universities. Only a few years ago, when called to give his testimony before the Board of Inquiry of the House of Lords regarding the state of the universities, Canon Liddon said that this tendency to rationalism had come in with the change in the system of studies and the introduction of the higher philosophical branches, and that it was making headway among the students in a marked manner. Nor, when we see those at the head of the university decide, as they did lately, that the Thirty-nine Articles are not to be insisted on for examination except in case of those who are candidates for the honorary degrees, and when we hear in our own country a board of Anglican bishops declare that the word “regeneration” in the formula of infant baptism does not imply any moral change in the one baptized--it does not seem to us that we are doing Prof. Müller injustice in thinking that he, a lay professor in the university directed by the Anglican Church, has, it may be unconsciously, taken in not a little of the leaven of rationalism.

To this may be referred his translation of the text of St. Justin, _Ap._ i., § 46, when he makes this Christian philosopher say, “Christ is the first begotten of God, and we have already proved him to be the very Logos (or _universal Reason_) of which mankind are all partakers.” In the Edit. of the Congr. of St. Maurus of the _Works of St. Justin_, this word universal does not occur; the Greek text has simply the accusative “Logon,” and the Latin simply “Rationem.” Certainly all Catholic theologians hold this doctrine of St. Justin, and teach that the _Logos_ or _Verbum_ or _Ratio_ is the definite wisdom of the Godhead, by which God understands himself and all things in himself, and that all created wisdom or reason is but a participation of that Infinite Reason or Word. But in these days, when the locutions, _universal soul_, _universal intellect_, _universal being_, are used so much in a pantheistical sense, we think an author can hardly find fault with those who very probably misunderstand him when he uses expressions so liable to be misinterpreted, and charge him with some tendency which he seems in other places to disclaim. It seems to us the learned professor should have taken all the greater care in his translation, as St. Justin (in his _Ap._ ii. § 7) disclaims expressly all pantheistic teaching, which he declares to be “foreign to all sound thought, reason and mind.”

To show we do not wish to be unfair to this distinguished scholar, we will do him the justice to cite his condemnation of the pantheistic spirit of the times. He is speaking of Barthélemy St. Hilaire’s _History of Buddhism_, and he quotes the words of the preface of that writer:

“This book may offer one other advantage, and I regret to
say that at present it may seem to come opportunely. It is the
misfortune of our times that the same doctrines which form
the foundation of Buddhism meet at the hands of some of our
philosophers with a favor which they ill deserve. For some
years we have seen systems arising in which metempsychosis
and transmigration are highly spoken of, and attempts are
made to explain the world and man without either a God or a
Providence, exactly as Buddha did. A future life is refused to
the yearnings of mankind, and the immortality of the soul is
replaced by the immortality of works. God is dethroned, and in
his place they substitute man, the only being, we are told, in
which the Infinite becomes conscious of itself. These theories
are recommended to us sometimes in the name of science, or of
history, or philology, or even of metaphysics; and though they
are neither new nor very original, yet they can do much injury to
feeble hearts.”

And a few lines further on:

“It would be useful, however, if the authors of these modern
systems would just cast a glance at the theories and destinies
of Buddhism. It is not philosophy in the sense in which we
understand this great name, nor is it religion in the sense
of ancient paganism, of Christianity, or of Mohammedanism;
but it contains elements of all worked up into a perfectly
independent doctrine; acknowledges nothing in the universe but
man, and obstinately refuses to recognize anything else, though
confounding man with nature in the midst of which he lives. Hence
all those aberrations of Buddhism, which ought to be a warning to
others.” (P. 203, vol. i.)

We have one other charge against the learned professor for what, though savoring a little of rationalism, more particularly regards the Catholic Church. He says that “as the Oriental creeds degenerated into grosser forms, so Christianity degenerates into Jesuitism and Mormonism” (p. 185). We grant that the author is striving to be fair to the pagans, and shows an unwillingness to condemn them as a whole on account of the corrupt practices of a portion of them. But in doing so he has shown himself most unjust to a distinguished Order in the Catholic Church, whose piety, virtue, and learning claim for them everywhere from Christians a tribute of respect and gratitude, and nowhere more so than in our own free land. It is really lamentable to see what we must call a total want of knowledge in a person of such extensive information and real ability as Prof. Müller. ’Tis strange that it did not occur to him that there was a great incongruity in coupling the Society of Jesus with the corrupt and sensual community of the Mormons, and it is only another lesson to put us on our guard against prejudice, which has so wonderful a power in perverting the judgments of men so worthy of respect for their zeal in the cause of truth.

This undeserved condemnation of the Jesuit Fathers is not the only error into which Prof. Müller’s dislike of Catholicity has betrayed him. On page 190, he speaks of the Buddhist ceremonies, and in a foot-note refers to the work of the Abbé Huc in which he describes his travels in China and Thibet, and remarks the curious coincidence between the rites of the religion of the Grand Lama and the forms of Catholic worship. Our author tells us that the Abbé Huc pointed out the similarities between the Buddhist and Roman Catholic ceremonials with such _naïveté_ that, to his surprise, he found his delightful _Travels in Thibet_ placed on the _Index_. We confess our surprise at this information. We never heard of the abbé’s work having been signed with “the black mark of Peter,” but we have heard the book very highly praised by persons who would hardly have praised it had there been anything in it to merit the censures of the church. We have too at hand a copy of the _Index_ coming down to six years after the publication of the _Travels in Thibet_, but after a careful search have not been able to find in it the name either of Abbé Huc or of this work. Moreover, it strikes us as very unlikely that this writer should have suffered for what has been stated pointedly by authors of the church from the first ages down to our time. Had Prof. Müller turned his attention to Tertullian’s book, _De Præscriptione Hæreticorum_, he would have found at § 40 the following passage:

“Who is to interpret the sense of what may further heresy?
The devil, forsooth, whose office it is to distort the truth;
who rivals by the mysteries of the idols the very actions of
the divine sacraments. He too baptizes some as believers and
faithful; he promises the putting off of sin by the laver;
and, if I remember aright, Mithras there signs his soldiers
on the forehead, celebrates the offering of bread, and uses
the image of the resurrection, and gains the crown through the
sword (martyrdom). What shall I say more? that he destines his
high-priest for the nuptials of but one (wife)? that he has
his virgins? that he has his celibates? But if we consider the
superstitions of Numa Pompilius, if the priestly duties, emblems,
and privileges, the sacrificial service and instruments, and the
vessels of sacrifice, and the strangeness of their expiations
and votive gifts, has not the devil manifestly imitated the
observances of the Jewish law?”

In the seventeenth century Natalis Alexander, in his _Ecclesiastical History_ (vol. ii. diss. iii. art. 3, § 3, No. vii.) replying to the objections of Spencer, in his Dissertation No. 3 on the _Ritual Laws of the Hebrews_, says: “It is far more probable that the devil, the rival of God, inspired the heathen to use in the rites of their divinities, or to carry about with solemn pomp, arks or mystic vases containing something hidden (arcanum),” than that the Israelites took their idea from them; and further on: “Who does not see that the conclusion can be drawn by just and better right? Therefore, the beaten vases had their origin in the rivalry of the evil spirit seizing on all that was splendid in the worship of God, and turning it to his own worship.” There are besides several rites well known to have existed among the heathen after the coming of Christ that bear so close a resemblance to Christian and Jewish forms, that we are warranted in following those archæologists who attribute them to imitation of the usages of revealed religion. Take, for instance, the taurobolium or criobolium, or baptism by the blood of a bull or goat. In this ceremony the person undergoing it was placed in a pit with a kind of sieve over his head, through which the fresh blood of the animal was made to fall upon his whole body. What is this but the corruption of baptism, the idea of redemption through blood, and of the sprinkling with blood that took place by divine command in the old law? It stands to reason that as the Christian religion gained influence, paganism would, by seizing on what was marked in it and perverting it to its own uses, strive to regain its credit by an imitation which in some way would deceive the ignorant. Prof. Müller can see from this that Catholics are not unaccustomed to making such contrasts, and that they are far from fearing them. And as for the case in point, history tells us that St. Thomas evangelized India and very probably the countries adjacent to it, while we know that St. Francis Xavier, as narrated in his life, found decided traces of Christianity among some of the Indians, though they had not the priesthood. This being the case, we can readily comprehend how the followers of Buddha should have adopted many of the forms in use among Christians, even the recitation of psalms, which we know from the New Testament to have been in use among the apostles, who, we are told, “went out from the supper-room after reciting a hymn with their Master.”

Such are the remarks we have thought well to make in the interest of truth in regard to these volumes of Prof. Müller, which, aside from these objectionable features, are full of learning and of interesting information, imparted in an easy and elegant style. They will be of value to the scholar, especially to those whose occupations do not allow them to consecrate much time to researches such as those in which the professor is engaged. They will have the effect of confirming the believer in the truth of Christianity, and of making him thankful for the gift of a faith that has saved him from such fearful enthralment of mind and body as he beholds his fellow-men condemned to in the many forms of Eastern paganism. It is true those who are not favorable to positive religious teaching will wrest not a little of what is said to their own damage--a danger we have tried to point out. Still, the learned author will, after all, be justified in remarking that, if such be the case, it is but another exemplification of the fact that the serpent draws poison from the same plant from which the bee sips its honey.

FOOTNOTES:

[119] _Chips from a German Workshop._ By Max Müller. New York: Scribner & Co.

[120] See Kühner’s _Gr. Grammar_, translated by Messrs. Edwards and Taylor, London and New York, 1859, § 234 (i.), with regard to the force of the verbal adjective. The word in the Greek text of Tischendorf, _Ed. Sept._, is γνωστὸv.

TO WORDSWORTH.

Great poet, I have tasted and admired
These many years, but _known_ thee only now--
With nine-and-twenty winters on my brow,
And much beside that oft thy page inspired.
I find in thee a freshness long desired:
And take thy song as migrant bird a lake,
Which first she shunn’d, yet could not all forsake,
Till, last, she nests there--never to be tired.
To nature I have ever turn’d with love,
But now more fondly, from the world of men.
’Twas erst for sympathy: with Byron then:
But now, with thee, religiously--to prove
The sweets of contemplation, and emove
In other minds high thought and holy ken.

MAY, 1872.

TRUE GREATNESS.

There is a singular power in that pithy summons of the exordium to the preface of the Mass--“Sursum Corda.” It stirs the deepest feelings of the human heart. Human nature is keenly sensitive to every appeal addressed to her true instincts. Man needs not to be told that he possesses the _power_ of fixing his thoughts on things superhuman, educing from them principles of action, and shaping thereby his manifold relations with society. It is in stimulating this latent energy, and lovingly decoying it up to its most congenial atmosphere, that we experience the tender force of “Sursum Corda” as a touching address to our innermost self.

Axioms are beyond demonstration. But man, no less than science, has his own living first principles, and their evidence is of such a clearness as to be but obscured by ratiocination. For instance, it is always agreeable to our better nature to give praise where praise is due. Heathen wisdom has beautifully witnessed to this homely truth: “Palmam qui meruit ferat.”[121] The inspired son of Sirach makes it an imperative duty: “Let us now praise men of renown, and our fathers in their generation.... Let the people show forth their wisdom, and the church declare their praise.”[122] If we should be asked to expound the philosophy of this noble instinct, we should be obliged, we apprehend, either to mystify what is self-evident, or super-illustrate it by the equally undemonstrable fact that greatness of character challenges universal admiration. It is like the golden sunset of Italy, or the many-tinted beauty of the rainbow. We feel, one and all, impelled to do it unsolicited homage.

Further, we secretly covet and thirst after it. For, by a cardinal law of our being, we fain would appropriate and monopolize whatsoever we deem worthy of admiration. Concerning the particular qualities of which true greatness is made up, there may be some difference of opinion. What is indisputable is that its attainment is the result of sustained effort; that that effort is itself a fertile source of pleasure; and that in proportion as we loiter in listless indolence, and shrink from making it, our life is retrogressive and self-condemned.

Artists, in aiming at eminence copy the great masters. They seek to touch their lips to the primal fount of inspiration. Now, it is rather matter of history than abstract speculation or ascetic predilection, that the very best models of greatness of character have been the saints. With their deep piety, lengthened vigils, and extraordinary ecstasies, we are not now concerned. It is as simple men and women we view them. We are dealing rather with effects than with causes. Aside from the supernatural aims whereupon they ever bent and concentrated all their energies, and whereby they daily renewed their youth, and whereat they ceaselessly imbibed fresh draughts of vitalizing nectar, they are the highest types on record of individual excellence. Those fine traits of character which men are agreed in admiring shine out more conspicuously in the saints than in any other class of men. On the other hand, human frailties, social incongruities, personal imperfections, find little or no place in their history.

Only true men love solitude. Not that anybody positively hates it, but that most people prefer, instead of soaring alone with the eagle, to fly low with the herd of the feathered tribe. Hence they hold, with Aristotle, that he who loves solitude must be either a wild beast or a god. It is indeed a godlike love, but it was the cherished heritage of the saints. They were “never less alone than when alone.”

Independence wins the respect of all. Not that reckless thrusting of ourselves against all established usages which borders on silliness, nor yet that waspish spirit of antagonism by which littleness would, in distinguishing and gainsaying anything, fain assume the garb of greatness. Christian independence, which is ever both manly and modest, lies between rashness and sycophancy, but partakes of the nature of neither. The harebrained truant is but little further removed from the saint than the fawning parasite. The kingly prophet of Israel makes frequent and beautiful allusions to independence, as: “Dominus illuminatis mea et salus mea: quem timebo?” And again: “Expecta Dominum, viriliter age, confortetur cor tuum, et sustine Dominum.”[123] If a moral chemist were to analyze independence, he would most likely discover that its seed and stem is love of principle. Men have at all times been found who smiled upon the frowns of fortune, and cheerfully welcomed adversity, simply because principle still survived in unimpaired integrity, though all else had perished. There was yet one rich germ of abiding felicity. Of such it has been well said that “they need not flatter the vain, nor be tried with the impertinent, nor stand to the courtesy of knavery and folly. They need not dance after the caprice of a humorist, nor take part in the extravagance of another.” Perhaps no one sentence in the writings of the illustrious Archbishop Hughes furnishes a true key-note to his character better than this: “I have never had a patron in church or state.” Few are able to pen such words, and, in doing so, defy any impeachment of their veracity. A wholesome disregard for the opinions of others or indifference to human respect is the synonym of independence. It is, indeed, under the latter name we find independence mentioned in hagiology and ascetic theology; and it is one of the insidious poisons which the saints seem most to have feared. They considered the world so whimsical that, do what they might, they never could satisfy it. They everywhere saw good reason for pondering the old argument: “John came neither eating nor drinking, and you say: He hath a devil. The Son of Man is come both eating and drinking, and you say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a drinker of wine.”[124] There is a remarkable instance of independence in the life of St. Thomas à Becket, and it shows how utterly irreconcilable are human respect and love of principle. It was clear to the chancellor that one of two things needs must come to pass. Either he should be allowed to remain chancellor, and continue in kindly relations with Henry, or he should be constrained to accept the archbishopric, and, by denouncing Henry’s conduct, cease to be the friend of the king. The latter would have saints for friends at the cost of principle; he would have precedence given to the crown over conscience; he would have a courtier prelate with elastic convictions; he would have reconciled anomalies and “harmonized impossibilities.” But the independence of conscience is inflexible; and hence the memorable collision between a powerful monarch, whose fraudulence time has unveiled, and a prelate of unsullied integrity, whose glorious martyrdom is one of the great triumphs of the church. A beautiful writer[125] lays down a simple rule whereby men of vacillating character, in matters of conscience and duty, may meet those who would shake their independence with a sort of _argumentum ad hominem_: “Since worldlings look upon us as foolish, let us regard them in the same light.”

Closely akin to independence is steadfastness, or firmness of resolve. Not a mulish obstinacy which spurns counsel, and, by magnifying ourselves above all others, teaches us only to unlearn ourselves. Such a spirit betrays utter want of self-knowledge; for few suffice for themselves, and fewer still see themselves as they are seen by others. Whoever would attain to greatness should avoid the fickle and the inconstant. “He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith.” And as instability in the convictions of the mind and affections of the heart extends to men’s relations and occupations in life, branding them in all things as volatile, supercilious, and untrustworthy, so we should study to be immovably firm in retaining and acting upon principles which we know to be based upon truth and justice. In pursuing any course of action maturely planned, and followed up from commendable motives, we must courteously but firmly resist all attacks materially affecting the nature of our resolve. It is common with the giddy and the irresolute to seek to bring down men of unbending firmness to their own contemptible level. Whoever lacks the courage to be singular, lacks the first element of greatness, is wanting in a source of solid happiness, and can scarcely be a true Christian. To give up a tried and disinterested friend, to relinquish a line of conduct in itself good and deliberately entered upon--unless from motives far more overpowering than those which had hitherto swayed you--besides furnishing clear evidence of fickleness, inflicts upon the will an incurable wound.

If steadfastness be the twin-sister of independence, fortitude is its eldest daughter. It has various manifestations; but it is best evidenced in danger and in time of difficulty. Opposition is its touchstone, elicits its latent powers, displays them in their modest and unborrowed beauty, making us regard their possessor with feelings akin to those with which we behold a gallant ship that has just ridden out a violent tempest, or the conqueror who, having waded, in calm courage, through a sea of blood, conducts his triumphant legions through the captured provinces to survey the rich spoils of victory. Fortitude may be considered the lion-virtue of the human breast. It is the shield of all the other virtues, rising in earnest promptness at the signal of approaching combat, and waiting, with giant force, to crush, if it cannot repel, the invader. Sydney Smith would compare no pleasure to that of conversation with a man of well-stored mind and communicative disposition. It seems to us there is no sight more beautiful to contemplate than that of a brave man in the midst of danger. If aught could enhance its thrilling interest, it would be the elevating assurance that the invincible hero wars with bitter reluctance, and solely for the sacred interests of truth and justice. Yet such, in all instances, has been the struggle of the saints and the eminent servants of the church, in which her history so copiously abounds. Such, in these latter days, was the attitude of Dr. Doyle, before the lords and commons of Britain, disdainfully repelling their calumnies against the Catholics of Ireland, scattering a serried phalanx of Oxford’s ablest champions, and submitting his very examiners to an unexpected ordeal of scrutiny. A still more beautiful instance of quiet courage is that evinced by St. Paul before the judgment-seat of Festus: “Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Cæsar, have I offended in anything. But Festus, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, answering Paul, said: Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things before me? Then Paul said: I stand at Cæsar’s judgment-seat where I ought to be judged. To the Jews I have done no injury, as thou very well knowest. For if I have injured them, or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die. But if there be none of these things whereof they accuse me, no man may deliver me to them: I appeal to Cæsar.”[126] It was not only a fearless assertion of the civil rights and liberty of the subject, but also the stirring rebuke to the perfidious judge for that he sought to transgress the limits of the constitution. St. Chrysostom’s reply to the courtier who brought him the intimation of the Empress Eudoxia’s intention to banish him from his see, breathes the spirit of conscious fortitude: “Is there any place she can send me where God will not be with me?”

There are few things we more admire in others than energy of character. Indolence is the weightiest of burdens. It has been well said, “People that have nothing to do are quickly tired of their own company.” Sluggishness is the paralysis of the mind, and the grave of physical health. The intellectual faculties of the sluggard are like pearls in the depths of the sea, or ingots of priceless ore in an undiscovered gold-field. They are a lost treasure. But they are more. Their loss entails life-long death. “Desires kill the slothful, for his hands have refused to work.”[127] The most miserable of men is the idler. Pleasure he cannot enjoy. Food without an appetite is worse than useless; it is positively noxious. A keen relish for delightful pastime is the fruit of healthy industry. But from this the sluggard revolts, as do children from ghosts and hobgoblins. For him there needs no demon to tempt; he is the direst of tempters to himself. Sloth is the couch of Lucifer. Moreover, it stifles self-respect, awakening in its stead a rancorous spirit of hostility to those of opposite character. The loudest grumblers are idlers. Being out of sorts with themselves, they can ill brook the conflicting influences of those who relish labor. When positive and negative electricity conflict, lightning is the result. And when the magic charms of ceaseless industry shine like sunbeams on the stagnant, marshy nature of the do-nothing, there is generated a brood of vipers which thrive by diffusing poison.

It is not wonderful that the saints should one and all have declared unceasing war against sloth. They were prodigies of industry. The mighty feats of labor which they successively undertook, and, in most instances, amid harassing embarrassment, carried to speedy completion, astonish the most energetic. It would seem as if their bodies had been recast in some unearthly mould, whence they came forth purged from all animal properties. It was not so much that they acted in harmonious concert with the will, as that they appear instinctively to have in some sort anticipated its behests, outrunning it in the race of industry. And as the sluggard, imperceptibly, becomes so besotted as to seem denaturalized, so, on the other hand, the quickened energies of the saints assumed an unflagging elasticity, second only to the miraculous gift of bilocation, whereby, at sundry intervals, they were empowered to be simultaneously present in different localities. If it be true that no great enterprise has ever been accomplished without sustained effort, and that before the levelling force of persistent determination the most appalling difficulties soon disappear, it is no less certain that by none more than by the saints has this cheering truth been realized. In a just appreciation of the value and dignity of labor, and the refreshing streams of pleasure that flow from it, their history shows them to have excelled: nor is it too much to say that on this one ground alone they would be entitled to the gratitude and veneration of mankind.

Hence the uniform cheerfulness which characterized them, and which they ungrudgingly seized every means of imparting to others. It is among the balmiest comforts which this shifting world can bestow to hold constant, or even frequent, intercourse with men of happy and contented minds. They make life a cloudless sunshine, beneath whose genial warmth the chilling shadows of sorrow and depression must needs melt rapidly away. The happiest of men were the saints. Descrying in nature’s tiniest product but a feebly reflected beam of uncreated beauty, they could sing with the Florentine bard:

“La gloria di colui che tutto muove
Per l’universo penetra, e risplende
In una parte più, e meno altrove.

* * * * *

O gloriose stelle, o lume pregno
Di gran virtù, del quale io riconosco
Tutto, qual che si sia, il mio ingegno.”[128]

If to murmur or grumble was with them a sin, to be blithe and cheerful was the lightest of duties. Hours of sadness they indeed had, when their own and the world’s sins were present to their piercing minds. But through those passing eclipses there evermore shone out a radiant smile--glittering sparks, issuing from the glowing furnace of the heart within, where constantly burned the loving recollection of promises sure to be redeemed and favors graciously vouchsafed.

“Sweet intercourse
Of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow--
To brute denied, and are of love the food.”

There are, it seems to us, but few more desirable fortunes than a state of perpetual cheerfulness. It is one which is not to be purchased with gold. Its roots must be cast in the “eternal hills.” The saints understood this. They held not in fiefdom from men their changeless buoyancy of spirits. It was not with them a vortical flux and reflux. It was not a checkered alternation of rapturous mirth and gloomy dejection. Such is the ephemeral gladness of the shallow humorist or the surfeited _bon vivant_. The cheerfulness of the saints had nothing of the spasmodic. It was not a rushing avalanche of fitfully majestic grandeur. It was a calm, stilly lake of perennial transparency, lying in a hushed valley of mossy verdure, fringed by a redolent clustering of midsummer’s fairest flowers, reflecting the many-colored beauty of a rich autumnal foliage, and resounding to the blessed harmonies of nature’s feathered choristers. It was a fixed and permanent habit of mind, sustaining the faculties in even security, keeping the emotions of the will poised in rational equilibrium, dispelling all care, all discontent, all overweening solitude, and diffusing throughout their being a moral odor of sweet and undying fragrance.

One of the most evident results of such a state of mind is a spirit of disinterestedness. This rare gift is, we consider, the strongest proof of solid virtue. It is also the most winning attraction observable in Christian character; and this, doubtless, is why it is so frequently counterfeited, and employed as a subterfuge to disguise the petty artifices of selfishness. It was not from disinterestedness, but to be rid of the anxiety attendant upon wealth, that the Grecian philosopher cast his gold into the sea. He was the founder of a numerous school, whose adherents, lacking true greatness of soul, comfort themselves, and seek to hoodwink others, by aping excellence which they do not possess. Disinterestedness, if it implies not sacrifice _in actu_, at least supposes a readiness to submit, as often as need be, to the loss of private interest. It seeks to eradicate, root and branch, all narrow self-seeking. Herein lies the secret of its power in evoking sympathy. It subdues the sternest enemy, wins plaudits from the most callous observer, captivates all well-regulated minds, and goes straight to every true, tender, and impressible heart. Knaves are well aware of its popularity; conceal under its lambkin-like guilelessness their wolfish cunning; and frequently glide, upon its unerring prestige, into sudden and unmerited fortune. But only with the saints--except in instances so rare as but to confirm the rule--has disinterestedness attained its full growth. Riches, high position, the esteem of the great ones of this world, such things they deem it a luxury to be able to despise. But they stopped not here, for this is but the threshold of disinterestedness. A stilly and breathless contentment with the existing state of things; an ever-vigilant eagerness to keep self-interest in the background, giving due prominence to all things else; a prompt readiness to be ignored rather than exalted; to be tossed to and fro upon the sea of life, yet ever be buoyed to the surface by uncomplaining indifference; to be all to all and dead to self--such is the point they sedulously strove to reach. It was this beautiful quality which so much endeared St. Francis de Sales to all with whom he held intercourse. There went out from him that which distinctly assured them that they stood in the presence of a superior being. His sovereign once declared that there was more true nobility in Francis than in any king he had ever read of, and that he regarded his lofty virtue as something far more to be coveted than the throne and sceptre of France. Having been requested by a distinguished personage to accept a purse of gold, he declined for the memorable reason that “he really knew not what to do with it.” Centuries before, Saul of Tharsus spoke in similarly unselfish strains to the citizens of Corinth: “Behold now the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burthensome unto you. For I seek not the things that are yours, but _you_.”[129]

Disinterestedness finds vent in generosity without limit, and in sympathy which admits of no distinction. Greatness embodies these ministering angels of succor, and calls them her almoners and handmaids. Heroes and conquerors have been bravest in their deeds of magnanimity--most honored in their tender considerateness. “Cæsar dando, sublevando, ignoscendo, gloriam sibi adeptus est.”[130] It is said of Napoleon the First that, walking one day on the coast of Calais, and meditating the ruin of the British empire, he descried an English lad furtively launching a tiny skiff, with a view to escaping from the navy of France and revisiting his native land. There was too much of precocious daring in the act not to stir the feelings of a soldier who had conquered everything but his cool contempt for danger. The emperor gave orders that a vessel of the line should be despatched to bear the young Saxon to the shores of Britain. The achievements of human generosity and sympathy fade into insignificance beside the heroism of the saints. Nothing was with them too sacred to be transformed into instruments of sympathy--into healing balsam to staunch the wounds of sorrow and distress. The sacred vessels of the altar were converted into money; the revenues of the church were made the patrimony of the poor; and asylums of mercy went up to meet the ravages of sudden epidemic, wherein the princely blood and fine feelings of a St. Charles Borromeo and the genius of a Bellarmine were happiest and most at home in bending over the pestilential couch of smitten wretchedness. It is written of the “Seraph of Assisi” that, on learning of a dearth of provisions among a horde of banditti, he furnished them with an abundant supply, went in person and publicly embraced the bandit chief, and soon saw them exchange their career of plunder for a life of edifying industry. To the hair-splitting sciolist, he would appear to have travelled beyond the bounds of orthodoxy and sanctioned highway robbery; but to the closer student of the Gospel, he will rather resemble him who, going out from Gethsemani, kissed the worst of robbers, and with his dying breath gave paradise to a public malefactor.

We have thus far indicated a few of those leading characteristics which, if they be not, in the aggregate, true moral greatness itself, are recognized as among its special and essential ingredients. We cannot take leave of this subject without repeating what at the outset we intimated, namely, that it is in the lives of the saints those lofty traits of character are most commonly and most endearingly illustrated. What share grace and nature respectively have had in the formation and development of each individual one, it has not been our object to investigate. “Facienti quod in se est Deus nunquam denigat gratiam.”[131] One thing only the saints sought at the hands of men--to be denied a place in their memory. While here below, their wish was for the most part realized to the fullest. They were of all others the least understood and most abused. Their lowliness is now fittingly exalted, and, while their bodies rest in peace, their names shall be honored from generation to generation. Nor can we conceive any means whereby men may more easily or more surely attain true greatness, even in the natural order, than by striving, however imperfectly, to rival those great men and women, once the earthly gems of our ransomed humanity, now the sharers of its glorified dignity and beauty, whom the church, in the progressive march of time, steadily reproduces to our notice, to strengthen our faith, to vivify our hopes, and intensify our undivided love for the Creator in the first instance, and then for our fellow-creature, without limit or distinction.

FOOTNOTES:

[121] “Let him receive the palm who has deserved it.”

[122] Ecclus. xliv. 1, 15.

[123] “The Lord is my light and my salvation: whom shall I fear?... Wait on the Lord, act bravely, let thy heart be strengthened, and wait for the Lord.”

[124] Luke vii. 33.

[125] St. Francis de Sales, _Introduction_, part iv. chap. 1.

[126] Acts xxv.

[127] Prov. xxi. 25.

[128] _La Divina Commedia_, _Paradiso_, canti i., xxii.

“The glory of him who gives life and motion to all things, penetrates the universe, and shines forth with more splendor in one part, and with less in another.

* * * * *

“O glorious stars! O light impregnate with powerful virtues! to which I am indebted for all my genius, such as it is.”

The above rendering is taken from the admirable prose translation of the Rev. E. O’Donnell.

[129] 2 Cor. xii. 14.

[130] “Cæsar gained glory for himself, by giving, by raising up, by pardoning.”

[131] “God never denies grace to one who does what he can.”

RELIGIOUS PROCESSIONS IN BELGIUM.

In Belgium the patronal feasts of the churches and towns are celebrated with great pomp and splendor. Each church, on its feast, is adorned in the richest style, the streets and houses of the parish are decorated with green branches and banners; high and low, rich and poor, unite to do honor to the Blessed Sacrament, that is carried in procession on the Sunday during the octave, within the limits of the parish. From the houses of the nobles hang the banners, and oriflammes emblazoned with their armorial bearings; one common bond of sympathy and love unites all ranks, one common desire to show homage and reverence to the dear Lord and Master, who is to be borne in triumph in their midst.

Catholicity has so thoroughly moulded the habits and customs of the people, the festivals of the church make the festivals of the people; consequently, the feast of the church is also the _Kermesse_, as it is called, of the people. The parish feast is the _Petite Kermesse_; the patronal feast of the city the _Grande Kermesse_, when all business is suspended, and universal rejoicing prevails.

Bruges celebrates the _Grande Kermesse_ on the 6th of May, in honor of the Precious Blood, which is on that day carried in procession from the chapel of _Le Saint Sang_ to the cathedral. In the chapel of _Le Saint Sang_, the oldest Christian building in Belgium, is preserved the holiest of relics, the precious blood of our Lord, which was expressed from the sponge with which his sacred body was washed after the descent from the cross. It was brought from the Holy Land by Comte Thierry d’Alsace, one of the first and most distinguished of the early crusaders, and presented to the bishop of his native city, Bruges; where it has ever since remained, the object of the most faithful love and veneration.

Every year, on the 6th of May, the Bishop of Bruges and the canons of the cathedral go in procession to the chapel of _Le Saint Sang_, carry the relic, which is inclosed in a shrine of inestimable value, to the cathedral; high mass is sung, benediction given, and then the procession returns to the chapel, where, during the octave, the precious relic is exposed to the veneration of the faithful.

Bruges is one of the oldest and most Gothic of the Belgian towns; in the middle ages it was the great commercial _entrepôt_, canals intersect it in every direction, but trade has moved off to Antwerp and other cities, and Bruges is left with only the traditions of its former importance. It is, too, one of the quaintest of places; grass grows in the streets, and, ordinarily, it is the quietest of towns; consequently, the English affect it a great deal, particularly converts. In the most retired part of the town is the great convent of the _Dames Anglaises_; the chapel is magnificent; around the walls are tablets with the names of the Talbots, Giffords, Somersets, Middletons, and others who have died in the convent, and were its benefactors. The habit is beautiful, pure white with black veil; they follow the rule of St. Augustine, and are principally English; nothing can be more calm and peaceful than their retreat.

The Hôpital St. Jean is also well worth seeing, as its gallery of paintings contains many of the gems of Memling and other masters of the Flemish school. The hospital is under the charge of the _Sœurs Hospitalières_, who are also Augustinians, dress in white like the _Dames Anglaises_, but are not quite so elegantly picturesque.

The Palais de Justice, the beautiful little Hôtel de Ville, and the Chapel of the Saint Sang, surround the Grande Place. It was the eve of the _Grande Kermesse_ when we arrived in Bruges, and all the country and adjoining towns had emptied into it; the streets and Places were crowded with peasants in every imaginable costume; women in round caps, pointed caps, peaks on top and wings on the side; every age and style was represented. Near the Grand Place is a belfry, immensely high, called the Carillon, with the most delicious chime of bells, which made music all the afternoon and evening. The bells of Bruges are the most famous in Belgium.

In the Grand Place two or three gymnasiums were in full operation; at all the _Kermesses_ there are machines called _moulins_, like enormous rotary engines, with chariots for the girls and women, and horses for the boys and men, decorated with red and gold in the most fantastic manner. Some of the carriages were red, others blue, then yellow, and so on; round and round they went, the bands of music playing, the children screaming with enjoyment, the women waving their handkerchiefs; the people around looking on delightedly, some smoking, some drinking, all enjoying themselves. In another place, a circus was performing in broad daylight, clowns jumping and turning somersaults, boys standing on men’s heads, girls poised on the shoulders of other muscular individuals. The chimes were ringing their merriest, and the great bells of the cathedral and Notre Dame joined their loud voices to the chorus to celebrate the eve of the great festival.