Chapter XI: A Morning with St. Peter (2)

The girl did not reply. She had been trained in the same opinions, and did not know how to combat them. But sometimes it seemed to her that the streets and the public places were for women as well as for men to see, and that a woman should not be a prisoner because she had not a carriage or a servant to attend her. Moreover, she sympathized, in her simple way, with many of the Signora’s tastes. To her the song of the birds they fed with crumbs from the windows was a sort of thanks, and she regarded them as little Christians; and now and then, when she looked at the sky, something stirred in her for which she had not words—a pleasure and a pain, and a sense of being cramped into a place too small for her. She could not express it all, and did not quite understand it. But there was just enough consciousness to make Adriano’s _pronunciamiento_ rankle a little. The inner ferment lasted while she polished the knives and her companion blacked carefully a pair of boots; then she burst forth with an expression of opinion which astonished even herself, for it sprang into speech before she had well seen its meaning—an involuntary assertion of nature. “I believe that women should settle their own business, and men settle theirs,” she said. “I haven’t seen the man yet that knows enough to teach the Signora how she ought to behave nor what she ought to do; and many’s the man she could teach. Men are poor creatures. Women can’t do anything with them without lying to ’em. That’s what gives them such a great opinion of themselves, because most women flatter them when they want to get anything out of them.”

“_Ma, che!_—well, to be sure!” exclaimed Adriano. It wasn’t worth arguing about. He merely laughed.

Meantime, gathered in the _sala_, the family made plans for the coming days while they waited for supper. Bianca, seated at the piano, was trying to recall a fragment of melody she had heard a soprano of the papal choir sing at a _festa_ not long before. “The cadence was so sweet,” she said. “It was common—a slow falling from five and sharp four to four natural—but the singer put in two grace-notes that I never heard there before. He touched the four natural lightly, then sharped it, then touched the third and slid to the fourth. It was exquisite, and very gracefully done. His voice was pure and true, and the intervals quite distinct.”

“I asked his name,” Isabel said, “and was disgusted to hear a very common one, which I have forgotten. A beautiful singer ought to have a beautiful, birdy-sounding name.”

“He can make his own name sound 'birdy,’ if you give him time,” Mr. Vane said. “Take Longfellow as an example. There couldn’t be a more absurd name. Yet the poetry and fame of the man have flowed around it so that to pronounce the name, Longfellow, now is as though you should say hexameter.”

And then what were they to do, and where were they to go to-morrow, and the day after, and the day after? They ran over their life like a picture-book which was so full of beauties they knew not which to look at first. All felt that they were laying up sunny memories for the years to come—memories to be talked over by winter evening fires in their country across the sea; memories to amuse and instruct young and old, and to enrich their own minds. And not only were they furnishing for themselves and their friends this immense picture-gallery and library of interesting facts and experiences, but they were expanding and vivifying their faith. They were making the personal acquaintance, as it were, of the saints, and seeing as live human beings those of whom they had read in stories so dry as to make them seem rather skeletons than men and women. To enter the chamber where a saint had prayed, had slept, had eaten, had yielded up his last breath; to stand in some spot and think: “Here he stood, on these very stones, and saw faces of heaven lean over him, and heard mouths of heaven speak to him; or here, when such temptations came as we weakly yield to or weakly resist, he fought with prayer, and lash, and fasting”; to look at a hedge of rose-bushes, and be told: “Here, when he was tempted, a man, weak as other men, flung himself headlong among the thorns”—this was to waken faith and courage, and make their religion, not an affair of holidays and spectacles, and communions of once a year, but of every day, and of private hours as well as of public.

“Half our Roman holiday is gone,” Mr. Vane said, “and for at least four weeks of the other half the heat will allow us to do little or nothing. I recommend you girls to treasure all your little pleasures, and keep an exact account of them. The more fully you write everything out, the better. These diaries of yours will probably be the most interesting books you could have after a few years.”

“I am trying to forget all about America,” Isabel said, “to fancy that I have always lived here, and always shall live here, and to steep myself as much as possible in Italian life, so that, when I go back, I may see my own country as others see it, but more wisely. It seems to me that a country could be best judged so by one who knows it well, yet has been so long withdrawn from it, and so familiar with other modes of life, as to see its outlines and features clearly.“

“You are right,” Marion said.

“I never knew how beautiful, how more than beautiful, American nature is till I had seen the famous scenes of Europe. One-half the superiority is association, and half the other half is because attention has been called to them by voices to which people listened. Our very climate is richer. Here nobody knows how beautiful the skies can be. They like sunshine, and rainy weather is for them always _brutto tempo_. The grandeur of a storm, the exquisite beauty of showery summer weather and of falling and fallen snow, they know nothing about. They endure the rainy season for the sake of the crops, scolding and shivering all the time. To watch with pleasure a direct, pelting, powerful rain would never enter their minds; and if they see you gazing at the most glorious clouds imaginable, it would be to them nothing but _curioso_. We do not need to go abroad for natural beauty.”

It was getting late and time to say good-night. A silence fell on them, and a sense of waiting. Then Mr. Vane said: “We have made a Novena together for the communion of this morning. May we not once more say our prayers together in thanksgiving?”

No one replied in words; but the Signora brought a prayer-book and arranged the lamp beside Mr. Vane. He obeyed her mute request, and for the first time, as head of the family, led the family devotions. Then they took a silent leave of each other.

NATALIE NARISCHKIN.[8]

Footnote 8:

_La Sœur Natalie Narischkin_, _Fille de la Charité de S. Vincent de
Paul_. Par Mme. Augustus Craven. Paris: Didier et Cie., 35 Quai des
Augustins.

The name of Narischkin is in Russia like the name of Bourbon in France, Plantagenet or Stuart in Great Britain. The mother of Peter the Great was a Narischkin, and her baptismal name was Natalie. The family have always esteemed themselves too noble to accept even the highest titles, regarding their patronymic as a designation more honorable than that of prince. Madame Craven has just added to the list of her charming and extremely popular works a new one, which is a companion to the _Sister’s Story_, by writing the biography of a lady of the Narischkin family who was a Catholic and a Sister of Charity. Natalie was a friend of Alexandrine and Olga de la Ferronays. The narrative of her early life retraces the ground, familiar to so many, over which we have delightfully wandered in company with the fascinating group of elect souls, whose passage over the drear desert of our age has been like the waving of angels’ wings in a troubled atmosphere.

It seems scarcely correct to call Natalie Narischkin a convert. Her parents belonged to the Russian Church, and of course she was taught to regard herself as a member of the same. They resided, however, always in Italy, and Natalie was accustomed, in her childhood and youth, to associate freely with Catholic children and young people, and to accompany them to the churches and convents where they were wont to resort. Russian children receive infant communion, beginning with the day of their baptism, several times a year until they attain a proper age for confession, when there is a careful preparation and a solemn ceremony for the first adult communion, as with us. They are confirmed immediately after baptism. We are not told anything about Natalie’s receiving either infant or adult communion, but it is to be presumed that she was made to follow the usual practice, since there are Greek churches in Venice and other Italian cities. Her early associations were much more numerous, strong, and tender with the church of Italy and France than with the estranged church of her own nation. There was no difference in faith between herself and her Italian and French companions to make her sensible that the religion in which she was bred was different from the one in whose sacred rites she was continually taking part, at whose altars and shrines she frequently and devoutly worshipped. Even the peculiar ceremonies and forms of the Sclavonic and Greek rites were less familiar to her than those of the Latin rite. The only barrier between herself and her Catholic companions which could make Natalie sensibly feel a separation between them was her exclusion from participating in the sacraments administered by Catholic priests. This separation between priests and people professing the same faith, offering the same Sacrifice, administering and receiving the same sacraments, could only puzzle and surprise the mind of a child; but it requires a more mature understanding and complete knowledge to appreciate the obligation of renouncing all communion with a schismatical sect, however similar it may be to the true church. While Natalie was a child some of the little boys and girls with whom she played, particularly one little boy who became afterwards a martyr in China, used to assail her with controversy. Her older friends were more judicious, and waited patiently until her ripening intelligence and expanding spiritual life should prepare her for a more complete work of grace and a more perfect understanding of Catholic doctrine. In the instance of Madame Swetchine we see how much study and thought are necessary to produce in the mind of one who has grown up to maturity under the influences of the Russian Church a firm intellectual conviction that organic unity under the supremacy of the Roman See is essential to the being of the Catholic Church, and not merely the condition of its well-being and perfection. In Madame Elizabeth Gallitzin we discern how, in another way, national prejudice, and traditional hostility to what is regarded as anti-Russian, caused in her bosom a violent struggle against reason and conscience, even though the Catholic religion was that of her own mother. The case was wholly different with Natalie Narischkin. She did not think about the question of controversy at all, and was free from the national prejudices of a Russian. Her mother took no pains to instil them into her mind, or to place any obstacle in the way of the Catholic influences around her. She grew up, therefore, a Catholic, with only an external barrier between her inward sentiments and their full outward profession. The interior cravings of her spiritual life were the chief and real motive prompting her to pass over this barrier and find in the true church that which the broken, withered branch could not give. The requisite theological instruction in the grounds of the sentence of excision by which the Russian hierarchy is cut off from Catholic communion was a subsequent matter, and not at all difficult to one who was, like Natalie, intelligent, candid, and full of the spirit of the purest Catholic piety. There was really nothing in the way except the authority of her mother, whose chief motive of opposition was the fear of the emperor’s displeasure. When this obstacle was removed, Natalie easily and without an effort leaped over what was left of the external barrier.

We have anticipated, however, what belongs to a later period of her history. And going back to the time of her childhood, we will let Madame Craven herself describe the situation in which she was placed while she was growing up into womanhood. It will be noticed that Madame Craven speaks in the plural number, indicating that Natalie is not the only young Russian to whom her remarks apply. This will be understood when we explain that her sister Catharine sympathized with her in all her religious feelings, though she delayed, on account of her dread to encounter the opposition of her family, until a much later period her own formal abjuration.

“The entire childhood of these young girls had been passed at
Naples, and they had been there environed by impressions which
nothing in their Greek faith, no matter how lively it might have
been, could counteract. The adoration of Jesus Christ, the
veneration of the Holy Virgin and the saints, faith in the power of
absolution and the real presence in the Blessed Sacrament, were the
grand and fundamental doctrines which they had imbibed with their
mother’s milk. Brought up at a distance from their own country, they
might almost have believed themselves to be in the centre of their
own religion, living as they were within the bounds of that great
church which possesses all the gifts claimed by their own, with the
added power of distributing and communicating them to all, without
distinction of place, language, nation, or race. It is difficult to
comprehend how any Russian whose soul is imbued with piety, on
returning to his own country after having been brought up abroad,
can find himself at ease in the bosom of Greek orthodoxy. In truth,
it appears to us that the limits of a national church must seem very
suffocating to any one who has felt, even for an instant, the
pulsation of that universal life in the heart of the Catholic Church
which is unconfined by mountains, rivers, or seas, which is
contained within no barriers of any kind whatever, and bears the
name of no particular nation, because it is the mother of all
nations collectively. Therefore no one ever has been or ever will be
able to fasten any denomination of this sort upon the only church
who dares affirm that she alone possesses the truth in all its
completeness. At the first view one would say that every church
ought to make this claim under the penalty of being deprived of any
reason for its existence. It is nevertheless true that only one
loudly proclaims it; and those who hate as well as those who love
the Catholic Church alike declare that she is a church in this
respect singular among all others. Thus has she preserved through
all ages a designation expressive of the idea realized in herself,
and will preserve the same for all coming time! A multitude of her
children have separated themselves from her, yet none of them have
succeeded in despoiling her of the glorious title which suffices to
make her recognized everywhere and by all. As for other churches or
sects, when it is not the name of some man or nation which they
substitute for her name, it is some kind of term or epithet which,
even when it aims at giving a semblance of antiquity, betrays
novelty in the very fact that it is necessary to employ it in order
to be understood; and this is true in our own day just as much as it
was in the time of St. Augustine. The overwhelming force of good
sense and all the laws of human language determine _that words
express what they designate_! At this day, as well as at that
earlier period, neither friends nor enemies will ever give this
grand name of CATHOLICS to any except those to whom it really
belongs, and the same good sense proclaims as an indubitable fact
which is that church whose children these are.

“Natalie had remained a long time without paying any attention to
this controversy. She belonged all the while to the Catholic Church
by all her pious habitudes, by all her childlike affections, finally
and chiefly by the bond of the true sacraments which the Greek
Church has had the infinite privilege of preserving, and which form
a tie between ourselves and the Greeks whose value cannot be too
highly estimated—a tie so powerful that even in one case where it is
only imagined to have a real existence (_i.e._, with those Anglicans
who persuade themselves that a chain wanting a multitude of links
has not been broken) it has served in our days more than ever before
to awaken in their hearts a sentiment inclining them to a nearer
sympathy with our own. Belief in the truth of the words of Jesus
Christ and in his real presence on the altar, the adoration and love
of our Lord, the search after those who have possessed in the
highest degree this faith and love, have opened the way by which a
great number of souls have come to prostrate themselves before the
tabernacles of the Catholic Church who had been previously outside
of her visible fold, and had belonged to her only by virtue of their
good faith and love of truth.

“With how much greater reason must one who belonged to the Greek
Church have felt herself closely united to those whose faith was
professed and whose practices were approved in respect to such a
great number of points by her own church, which has even ventured to
adopt the counsels of perfection and to speak of the '_spiritual
life_’ and of '_Christian perfection_,’ after the manner of
Catholics!

“But it is just here that she betrays her weakness; for when it is a
practical question of undertaking and nourishing this spiritual
life, where can she go to seek the living words, the sermons, the
books, the apostolic men whom she requires? Where and from what
source can one draw the vital force of this true and daily life, of
this _living_ life, if I may hazard the expression, always similar
to itself, yet unceasingly renovated like the seasons of the year?
Where can this vivifying influence be found, except in that same
Catholic Church which, although it makes the mind bend under the
necessary and salutary yoke of authority, never permits uniformity
to engender tediousness, and possesses in its completeness that
deposit a part of which the Greek Church suffered to escape on the
day when it broke the bond of unity? Since then, although apparently
rich, she has remained empty-handed; and while the Basils, the
Athanasiuses, the Gregories, the Chrysostoms, and the numerous other
holy and immortal doctors have had immortal successors in the
Occident, the church of the Orient, once queen of eloquence and
science, has become mute; and her children know not to-day whether
she can speak or even write, since it is not given to them to hear
her any more break silence; and, if they would warm up their piety
by holy reading, and give their minds the sustenance they require,
they are forced to have recourse to the Catholic Church, since it is
there alone they can find their necessary aliment. Truly, we cannot
help thinking that if the barrier which separates Greeks from
Catholics were not upheld by hatred, it must fall down in an
instant. This hatred is something which has no argument whatever in
its justification, and which accepts, in behalf of the church which
it covers as a shield of defence, the very conditions of death,
immobility and silence, in lieu of a living existence.

“However this may be, and whatever more might be said on this vast
and interesting subject, it cannot in any case be disputed that the
divergences existing between us and the great Greek Church have
nothing in common with those which separate us from Protestantism.
Protestantism has tampered with and altered all our articles of
faith, demolished the Christian mysteries most sacred to belief and
dear to affection. It has retained neither the intercession of the
saints, the worship of the Blessed Virgin, the sacraments of penance
and the Holy Eucharist, nor the veneration of holy images. In fine,
apart from the belief in the merits of our Saviour, of which every
manifestation is severely restrained, there is nothing in common
between Protestants and ourselves.[9] On the contrary, we may say,
in respect to the Greeks, that for the simple faithful the
difference between them and ourselves is invisible, because they
have retained so many things which assimilate their religion to
ours, as affecting the mind, the heart, and even the senses.
Therefore, for many among them, the barrier does not become sensible
until they find themselves disposed to pass over it in order to
satisfy the inward need which they experience of participating in
the riches of that other church, which seems so like their own, yet
differs from it in possessing really what the other offers in a vain
semblance.

Footnote 9:

Our Protestant readers will excuse, we trust, a want of precise
accuracy in some of these expressions, very easily accounted for
by the fact that Madame Craven is a Catholic Frenchwoman, to whom
all the various phases of Protestantism are confused in one vague
and indistinct form.

“What, then, must be the sentiments of a sincere, fervent, simple,
and upright soul, already bathed in the light which radiates from
the great mysteries of the faith, and touched by the infinite love
of Jesus Christ revealed in them, when it discovers the nature of
the obstacles which lie in her path?

“She finds all the articles of her faith more solemnly affirmed; all
the practices which her piety demands more numerous and accessible;
confession, absolution, communion—all is there; and must she refrain
from satisfying her thirst for them?

“Is it credible that a soul thus thirsty for truth, faith, and love
should be much disposed to recoil from the difficulty of accepting
one word more in the confession of faith,[10] or of recognizing the
head of the _universal_ church as the head of the church in the East
as well as of that in the West? Again, is it credible that she will
shrink back from the political obstacle, the greatest and most
formidable of all—the only one, in fact, which she will find pain in
overcoming and need courage to surmount?

Footnote 10:

Filioque.

“Such were the thoughts which importuned the mind of Natalie when
she left Brussels, at the end of February, 1843, in order to return
with her sisters to Paris, having resolved to ask the consent of her
mother to her becoming a Catholic, and fully expecting that this
permission would not be withheld.“

Natalie’s father died when she was fifteen years old. Evidently he had not felt any hostility to the Catholic Church, for he was a great admirer of the Jesuits. Madame Narischkin was not prejudiced, as is shown by the fact that she never at any time was averse to the perpetual intercourse kept up by her family, and especially by Natalie, with the most cultivated and devoted Catholics of Europe, such as the La Ferronays family, and never hindered her daughters from attending all kinds of services in Catholic churches. She undoubtedly looked on the Greek and Catholic churches as essentially identical with each other, and therefore could not see any reason for passing from the communion of the one to that of the other. She supposed that her daughter’s reasons were rather sentimental than conscientious. She naturally felt unwilling to have her take a step which would prevent her from ever again receiving communion at the same altar with the other members of the family. And she was, moreover, decidedly opposed to any act which would expose the family to the emperor’s displeasure. It is not to be wondered at, then, that she positively refused permission to Natalie to be received into the Catholic Church. Natalie was at this time twenty-three years of age, perfectly well educated, and fully instructed in the grounds of the distinctive, exclusive claim which is made by the Roman Church upon the obedience and submission of all baptized Christians. She was competent to decide for herself, and in possession of a complete right to act according to her conscience. It was thought proper, therefore, by the priest who was her spiritual director, and by her friends of the La Ferronays family, that she should be privately received into the church at Paris. An accident frustrated their plan, and Natalie was obliged to leave Paris with her mother without having accomplished her intention. The nuncio and other priests of high position at Paris, when they were informed about the matter, disapproved of the course which M. Aladel had advised, and reproved severely the ladies who had been concerned in the unsuccessful attempt to put it in execution.

Natalie accompanied her mother and sisters to Stuttgart, and a few months afterward to Venice. At her mother’s desire she had several conferences with a Greek priest, which served only to strengthen her in her well-formed and solid convictions. Nevertheless, she delayed her formal reception into the Catholic Church, waiting for a more favorable opportunity to accomplish this great desire of her heart. This opportunity came very soon, but in a way which was unexpected and, to her affectionate heart, most painful. During the summer of 1844 her mother was suddenly taken ill and died. The marriage of her two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth—both of whom had been some time before betrothed, the first to M. de Valois, the second to the Baron de Petz—was delayed for a year on account of this sad event, and the whole family was invited by M. Narischkin’s elder brother Alexis to return to Moscow and reside during the year of mourning in his house. Under these circumstances, Natalie resolved to act for herself, and she was accordingly received into the Catholic Church on the 15th of August, although none of her family were made acquainted with the fact. She accompanied her brother and sisters to Moscow, where they met with the most affectionate reception from their uncle and their other relatives. Nothing occurred to make any disclosure on her part necessary, until the time came for all the members of the family to make their Easter communion. In Russia this religious act, and all the preparations for it, are performed with so much publicity that it was impossible for Natalie to escape from it without observation. All the members of the family received the communion together at the same Mass, with the single exception of Natalie, who was nevertheless, as usual, present with the others, and observed the sad and serious look with which her uncle regarded her, as she remained in her place while all the rest of his family approached the altar to receive the sacrament. She now felt that the time had come when concealment was no longer possible, and naturally feared that a severe trial awaited her. It turned out, however, quite differently from what she had expected.

After their return from Mass her uncle sent for her, and in a most kind and paternal manner remonstrated with her on her omission of so grave and sacred a duty as the fulfilment of the precept of Paschal communion, which he attributed to indifference and tepidity, demanding of her, in a most affectionate manner, the reason which had induced her to abstain from communion. He added, at the same time, that he would much rather see her a Roman Catholic than indifferent to the obligations of religion. Natalie had listened to him with downcast eyes, in silence and trepidation. At these last words—prompted, perhaps, by some secret suspicion that her residence abroad had actually been the occasion of a change in her religion, and spoken with evident emotion and sadness—she opened her heart, and gave her venerable uncle a full and unreserved account of her conversion and of all the motives which led her to leave the communion of the Greek Church. When she looked up timidly, at the close of her recital to await her uncle’s answer, she saw his eyes filled with tears and fixed upon her with an expression of tenderness which banished all fear from her heart, and left upon it an indelible impression of love and gratitude. He opened his arms to embrace her affectionately, and assured her of his protection and unalterable kindness. Her maternal uncle, Count Strogonoff, a man whose religious character was both ardent and severe, and who was a thorough Russian of the old type in all his principles and sentiments, when he was informed of the truth, acted towards her in precisely the same manner, and even took pains to distinguish her from her sisters by special marks of affection. All her nearest relatives were informed of what had occurred, but the strictest secrecy was enjoined in respect to all others, for reasons which are obvious without any explanation. The only great trial which Natalie had to encounter, now that she was relieved of the pain and anxiety of keeping her secret from her nearest relatives, was the privation of all opportunity of going to Catholic churches and receiving the sacraments. Under the circumstances this was a privation she was compelled to endure patiently, and during the year she passed at Moscow she was only able to make one short visit, in company with some young friends, to the French chapel, on Holy Thursday, which was three days after the memorable interview with her uncle.

At the expiration of the year of mourning the young Narischkins returned to Italy for the nuptials of Mary and Elizabeth, and Natalie’s uncle arranged for her permanent residence with the latter, in order that she might be free to practise her religion without any embarrassment to herself or her family. She accordingly bade a final farewell to Russia, and with her temporary sojourn in her native country the great trial of her life was also terminated. We can easily imagine with what joy she again revisited Italy, which had been the home of her childhood; and on the occasion of this return Madame Craven’s genius has inspired her to write one of her happiest and most beautiful passages, which we cannot refrain from translating, although without any hope of preserving the delicate aroma of the original.

“We do not believe there is a person in the world who has once lived
in Italy who does not cherish in his inmost soul the desire of
returning there once more, or feel, when he again looks upon its
beautiful sky, that wherever his native land may be, he has really
come back to his own true country. For its beauty belongs to us as
much as to those whose eyes behold it from the day when they are
first opened to the light in infancy. It is no more their peculiar
possession than it is our own; for to both alike it is only an
irradiation from that supreme and essential beauty which is our
common heritage and assured patrimony. This is doubtless the reason
why we can never see the faintest reflection of this splendor of the
eternal beauty without experiencing a sensation which causes the
heart to dilate with joy and at the same time to repose in the
tranquil security of possession. It seems to us that attentive
reflection on what passes within us will show that, whatever degree
of admiration any object of this world may awaken in our minds, even
if it approaches to _ecstasy_, it is very rarely the case that we
feel a positive _surprise_. Even if one who had never seen the
glorious light and splendor of a happy clime were suddenly
transported from the icy regions of the polar circle to the charming
shores of the Bay of Naples, there is a latent image in the depths
of the human heart, the original of which external things are the
copy, whose presence makes one feel, even at the first glance on the
sublime spectacle of the outward world, that all belongs to him and
exists within his soul.

“This reflection suggests another. We shall doubtless experience
something similar to this when we escape from this sphere of shadows
and images and emerge into the region of eternal reality. Certainly
our hearts will then be opened to receive those unknown enjoyments
'which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into
the heart of man to conceive.’ Nevertheless, I think it is allowable
to suppose that, as we shall see the poor human form clothed in
Jesus Christ with all the glory of the divinity, so we shall also
find the reality of all those shadows which in this lower world
charm our eyes and fascinate our hearts. Happy will it then be for
those who have not suffered themselves to be captivated by these
shadows, when they are able to exclaim in a transport of ineffable
happiness: 'Behold at last those objects too beautiful and too
transitory to be loved on the earth by our souls, because they must
either suffer the loss of these or be lost themselves! Here they
are—real, substantial, enduring, transfigured, unfading! We have
found all those things which we desired and sought for, and amid all
these possessions is our eternal abode!’”

Natalie found a very pleasant home with her brother-in-law, the Baron de Petz, during the next three years. It does not appear from the narrative whether he was a Catholic or a Greek in religion. He was certainly a most kind and affectionate brother, and her sisters were always loving and considerate, so that no alienation ever separated the hearts of her near relatives from her own so long as they lived. We shall see presently how noble and tender was the conduct of her brother Alexander. And we anticipate the regular order of events in order to mention in this connection another near relative, Prince Demidoff, whose affection for Natalie was extraordinary, and who acted with singular and admirable generosity not only toward herself, after she had become a Sister of Charity, but also to other members of the same congregation. While he was residing in Italy he established a spacious hospital at his own expense, which he confided to the care of these religious. At Paris he authorized Sister Natalie to draw on him without limit, at her own discretion, for charitable purposes. It is extremely delightful to witness and record actions of this kind, so honorable to human nature, and showing what a high degree of intellectual and moral refinement, as well as how much of a truly Christian and Catholic spirit, is to be found among a certain class of the ancient Russian nobility. And what a contrast do they present to the ignoble persecutions, the mean and petty defamations, to which so many even of those who attempt to assume the guise of Catholics have descended in respect to converts in England and the United States. We do not forget, however, that there are many instances among ourselves of a similar conduct to that of the Narischkins, as there are doubtless others of an opposite kind in Russian families under similar circumstances.

Natalie Narischkin, in the midst of the splendors, gayeties, and most refined enjoyments of the world, during the period of her peaceful, happy youth, ere the severe trials of life had cast their shadow upon her spirit, had been pious, reserved, pearl-like in her purity of character, always aspiring after Christian perfection. After she had begun to participate in all the spiritual advantages thrown open to her by her Catholic profession, her distaste for the world and attraction for the spiritual life increased rapidly, and an inclination toward the religious state gradually matured into a certain and settled vocation. Her friends made some opposition for a time, though not so much as is frequently encountered in the bosom of pious Catholic families. Her brother Alexander examined carefully her reasons and motives, and, being convinced that she was acting with prudence and deliberation, gave his free consent and the promise of his assistance in carrying out her intention, accompanied by the singular request that she would leave the choice of an order to his decision. She had made no choice herself, and when her brother selected the Congregation of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, she was quite satisfied. In fact, she had a predilection for the Convent of the Rue de Bac in Paris, which had been one of her places of favorite resort in former years. Her brother discussed the whole matter with M. Aladel, a Lazarist priest of Paris, and Natalie conferred not only with him but with several other experienced directors, who concurred in approving her vocation as a Sister of Charity. Here, accordingly, she entered, in her twenty-eighth year, and here she worked and suffered, as one saint among a thousand others, in an institute where heroism is as common as the ordinary virtues are elsewhere, and sanctity is the universal rule. During her religious life, which had twenty-six years of duration, she was first the secretary of the superior-general, and afterwards the superior of a small community in the Faubourg St. Germain. She died in 1874.

The narrative of Natalie’s religious life, enriched as it is with copious extracts from her letters and numerous personal anecdotes, is interesting and edifying as it is presented in the pages of Madame Craven’s biography. No doubt an English translation will soon place it within the reach of all our readers; and as it is precisely just one of those histories which is spoiled by condensation, we will not attempt to give it in an abridged form. Leaving aside, therefore, all further personal details, we shall confine our attention to that one aspect of our subject which has the most general interest and importance—viz., the position and attitude of the members of the national church of Russia in reference to the Catholic Church. As an illustration of this topic we have presented the history of the conversion of a Russian lady of high birth and education—one specimen of a number of equally choice souls whom the Russian Church has produced but has not been able to retain, and who are, we trust, the precursors of all the people of their nation in returning to the bosom of Catholic unity. Although Natalie Narischkin had lived so very little in her own country, she was nevertheless an ardent and patriotic Russian in her sentiments, and of course, as a well-instructed and devout Catholic, had very much at heart the religious welfare of her own nation. Among all the illustrious Russian converts, Count Schouvaloff, who became a Barnabite monk, was the most zealous in promoting the great work of the reconciliation of the Russian Church to the Holy See. Madame Craven tells us how enthusiastic Natalie was in her interest in the cause which this good man consecrated by the oblation of his own life as a sacrifice for its success—a sacrifice which he offered in obedience to the counsel of Pius IX., and which was accepted by God.

“When Father Schouvaloff—who, like herself, was a Russian, a
convert, and devoted to the religious life—had given a definite form
to this desire, and had founded an association of prayers in aid of
this object which all Catholics were invited to join, there was not
a single person in the world who responded more fervently to this
appeal than Sister Natalie. The desire of propagating the truth,
natural in the case of all who have embraced it, is particularly
strong in those who have come from the Greek Church. To see the
fatal barrier which separates the Eastern from the Western Church
fall down, and to hear henceforth these two communions designated
only by one common name: _The Church!_—no one else can comprehend
the ardor of this desire in the hearts of those Russians who are
animated both by the love of the truth and the love of their
country.

“While we are on this topic we cannot help remarking how surprising
are the tentative advances toward union between the Greek Church and
Protestantism which we have recently witnessed. Such an alliance the
clear mind of Natalie, even before her conversion, rejected with
repugnance as impossible and absurd. Does not, in fact, the most
simple reflection suffice to demonstrate that by uniting herself to
the Catholic Church the Greek Church would preserve the traditions
of her venerable antiquity together with the august dogmas which she
holds, and would, at the same time, in ceasing to be local and
becoming universal, recover the power of expansion and
evangelization which she has lost by her schismatical isolation? In
this case she might be compared to a princess of high lineage
regaining, by a return to the bosom of the family to which she
belonged, the royal rank from which she had fallen. But, in truth,
to make a union with Protestantism would be for her the worst of
misalliances, for she would then resemble a princess marrying a
_parvenu_ and with the utmost levity renouncing all the rights of
her high birth and illustrious descent.”

Some of our readers may find it difficult to understand the anomalous position in which the Russian Church stands, so completely different from that of any of our Western sects, and requiring only the one act necessary for its corporate reunion to the Catholic body for its rectification, and yet so completely severed from the true church in its actual state that it is not a branch, a limb, or any kind of part or member of the same, but only a sect, completely outside of the universal church. Some Catholics may suppose the Russian Church in a worse condition than it is in reality. They may not understand that its priesthood and sacraments are any better than those of the English or Scandinavian churches, which have an outward form of episcopal constitution. Or, if better informed on this head, they may ascribe to it heresy, and regard some of its differences of rite and discipline as vitiating essentially the Catholic order. On the other hand, these misapprehensions being set aside, and the likeness of the Russian Church to the Catholic Church clearly understood, they might find it difficult to perceive that essential difference which, as Madame Craven remarks with truth, is to most of the Russian laity invisible. Still more will a Protestant having a tincture of Catholic opinions and sentiments fail to see why a member of the Russian Church should be convinced of the imperative obligation of abjuring the Greek schism and passing over to the communion of the Roman Church.

The question of heresy is easily settled by the way of authority. We have only to inquire, therefore, whether the Holy See has ever condemned the adherents of the schism begun by Photius and renewed by Michael Cerularius, of heresy as well as schism, and whether the standard authors in theology consider them as heretics in view of their ecclesiastical position and in virtue of general principles, although no formal judgment has been pronounced by the Holy See. It is certain that no such formal sentence has ever been pronounced by the Holy See. The Nestorian and Monophysite sects of the East have been formally condemned as heretical. But the _soi-disant_ Orthodox Church likewise condemns these and all other heretical sects condemned by the Roman Church before the time of the schism. At the Council of Florence the Greeks were not judged to have professed any heresy, the Council of Trent was specially careful to abstain from any such condemnation, and the Council of the Vatican equally refrained from it. The same is true of all the official pronouncements of the popes. In the exercise of practical discipline, when it is a question of reconciling Greeks, whether they are in holy orders or laymen, they are treated as schismatics, but not as heretics. Theologians also, in treating of the doctrine of the several national churches in communion with the schismatical patriarchate of Constantinople, which they hold in common as their profession of faith, regard it as orthodox, conformed to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and consequently free from any mixture of heresy. The only doctrines in regard to which any one could suppose the Greek Church to be heretical are the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, and the supreme, infallible authority of the Pope. The Greek Church has never, by any solemn, synodical act, denied the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son. The omission of the _Filio-que_ from the Creed is not in itself equivalent to such a denial, and the Roman Church has never required the Orientals to insert it as a condition of communion. Neither has the Greek Church ever by any solemn act denied the supremacy and infallibility of the Pope. The liturgical books, and specifically those of the Russian Church, contain abundant testimonies to the Catholic doctrine on this head. The heretical doctrines of individuals, whether prelates, priests, or laymen, are therefore their own personal heresies, and not the doctrine of the public formularies of faith, which remain just what they were at the time of the separation. The only conciliar decrees of a dogmatic character which have been enacted since that time by a synod which could be regarded as representing the so-called Orthodox Church are those of the Synod of Bethlehem, in which the principal heresies of Protestantism are condemned. There is only one essential vice, therefore, in the constitution of the Russo-Greek Church which needs to be healed, and that is its state of rebellion against the See of Peter. The one act of abjuring the schism implies and involves in it the recognition of all the decrees of the Holy See and of œcumenical councils during the period which has elapsed since the rebellion of Photius, by virtue of the doctrine of the infallibility of the Catholic Church which the Greek Church professes.

Any Catholic can understand from this explanation how completely different is the position of the people of Russia who belong to their national church from that of the Protestants of Western Europe and the United States. They have the Catholic faith explicitly taught to them, and believed as firmly as it is by ourselves in all those things which relate to the great mysteries of religion and its practical duties and devotions. They hold implicitly, so long as they are in good faith, all that the Catholic Church believes and teaches, although they are ignorant of the full and complete doctrine of the centre of unity and chief source of authority in the church. They have bishops and priests whose ordination is valid, the sacrifice of the Mass, the seven sacraments, the fasts, feasts, ceremonies, and outward forms of worship which they had before the schism. In fact, as Mrs. Craven remarks, the difference between their church and the Catholic is invisible to the eyes of the majority, and, if they were to-day to be restored to their ancient union with the universal church, there would be no perceptible change in their customs. There are differences in discipline and ritual between the Latin and the various Oriental rites, but it is a fixed maxim of the Roman Church not to require the Eastern Christians to adopt the discipline and ritual of the Western church in matters which are not essential, when they are received into her communion.

These things being as they are, it becomes naturally somewhat difficult to those who have not carefully studied the question to understand why it is a strict obligation, and necessary to salvation, for a member of the Greek Church who discovers that it is in a state of schism to abjure its communion. We can see, in the case of Anglicans believing in nearly all Catholic doctrine so far as even to acknowledge the primacy of the pope and desire a corporate reunion with the Catholic Church, that, so long as they believe in the validity of their own orders and other sacraments, it is very hard for them to realize that they are not in the communion of the true church. They generally find their ground of security give way under their feet by their loss of confidence in the validity of their ordinations. But it is not easy to convince them that, apart from this essential defect in their church, and apart even from the question of its heretical doctrine, the mere fact of schism makes an ecclesiastical society, no matter how much it resembles a church in outward appearance, as really a mere sect as amputation makes the most perfect and beautiful hand a mere piece of dead matter. A mere collection of bishops, priests, and baptized persons, professing the true faith, administering and receiving the true sacraments, is not a portion of the Catholic Church, if the organic, constitutive principle of lawful mission and jurisdiction is wanting, which gives pastoral authority to the persons who possess the episcopal and sacerdotal character, and thus makes the collection of people under their rule a _lawful_ society, under _lawful_ pastors, and under the supreme rule of the _Chief Pastor_, who is the Vicar of Christ. It is not enough, therefore, for a person to profess the faith and receive the sacraments in order to keep fully the law of Christ. It is necessary to profess the faith in the external communion of the lawful pastors, and to receive from them, or priests whom they have authorized to minister within their jurisdiction, the sacraments. Bishops and priests who exercise their functions in a manner contrary to the law sin by doing so, and those who communicate in their unlawful acts also sin, and thus both parties profane the sacraments and incur the censures of the church. Nevertheless, if they act in invincible ignorance and good faith, they are excused from sin and escape the censure. And, in case of necessity, the church even dispenses from her ordinary laws. Any priest is authorized to administer sacraments in any place, to any person not manifestly unworthy, in case of necessity. So, also, one may receive the sacraments in a similar case from any priest, if there is nothing in the act which implies a direct or tacit participation in heresy, schism, or manifest profanation of sacred things.

The Russian clergy and people, we must suppose, are generally in good faith, and therefore innocent of any sin in respect to the schism of the national church. There is, therefore, no reason why they should not administer and receive the sacraments worthily, so as to receive their full spiritual benefit, and thus sustain and increase the living communion with the soul of the church and with Christ which was begun in them by baptism. The external irregularity of their ecclesiastical position cannot injure them spiritually when there is no sin in the inward disposition or intention. Moreover, it is morally and physically impossible for the Russian clergy and people, generally, to alter their position. They are, therefore, really placed in a necessity of administering and receiving the sacraments without any further and more direct authority from the Holy See than that which is virtually conceded to them on account of the necessities of their position. Since the church always exercises her power, even in inflicting censures and punishments, for edification and not for destruction, we may suppose that she tolerates the irregular and disorderly state into which they have been brought by the fault of their chief rulers, so long as it is out of their power to escape from it, and are not even aware that the irregularity exists.

It is plain, however, that every one who knows that the Russian hierarchy is destitute of ordinary and legitimate authority, and has the opportunity of resorting to the ministry of lawful Catholic pastors, is bound, under pain of incurring mortal sin and excommunication, to comply with this obligation. The excuse of ignorance and good faith is no more available after the law is made known. The reason of necessity ceases as soon as recourse is open to the authority which has a claim on obedience. The censures pronounced on the authors and wilful adherents of schism take effect as soon as one knowingly and wilfully participates in and sustains or countenances rebellion against the supreme authority of the Catholic Church.