RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS IN THEMSELVES.
Religious institutions are another of those points whereon
Protestantism and Catholicity are in complete opposition to each
other: the first abhors, the second loves them; the one destroys them,
the other establishes and encourages them. One of the first acts of
Protestantism, whenever it is introduced, is to attack religious
institutions by its doctrines and its acts; it labors to destroy them
immediately; one would say that the pretended Reformation cannot behold
without irritation those holy abodes, which continually remind it of
the ignominious apostacy of its founder. Religious vows, especially
that of chastity, have been the subject of the most cruel invectives
on the part of Protestants; but it must be observed, that what is said
now, and what has been repeated for three centuries, is only the echo
of the first voice which was raised in Germany; and what was that
voice? It was the voice of a monk without modesty, who penetrated into
the sanctuary and carried away a victim. All the pomp of learning
employed to combat a sacred dogma is insufficient to hide so impure an
origin. Through the excitement of the false prophet we perceive the
impure flames which devour his heart.
Let us observe in passing, that the same thing took place with respect
to the celibacy of the clergy. Protestants, from the beginning, could
not endure this; they threw off the mask, and condemned it without
disguise; they attempted to combat it with a certain ostentation of
learning; but, at the bottom of all their declamation, what do we find?
The clamor of a priest who has forgotten his duty; who strives against
the remorse of his conscience, and endeavors to hide his shame by
diminishing the horror of the scandal by the allegations of falsehood.
If such conduct had been pursued by the Catholics, all the arms of
ridicule would have been employed to cover them with contempt, to stamp
it, as it deserves, with the brand of infamy; but it was a man who
declared deadly war against Catholicity: that was enough to turn away
the contempt of philosophers, and find indulgence for the declamation
of a monk whose first argument against celibacy was, to profane his
vows and consummate a sacrilege.
The rest of the disturbers of that age imitated the example of
so worthy a master. All demanded and required from Scripture and
philosophy a veil to cover their weakness and baseness. Just
punishment! blindness of the mind was the result of corruption of the
heart; impudence sought and obtained the companionship of error. Never
is the mind more vile than when, to excuse a fault, it becomes the
accomplice of it; then it is not deceived, but prostituted.
This hatred of religious institutions has been inherited by philosophy
from Protestantism. This is the reason why all revolutions, excited and
guided by Protestants or philosophers, have been signalized by their
intolerance towards the institutions themselves, and by their cruelty
towards those who belonged to them. What the law could not do was
completed by the dagger and the torch of the incendiary. What escaped
the catastrophe was left to the slow punishment of misery and famine.
On this point, as well as on many others, it is manifest that the
infidel philosophy is the daughter of the Reformation. It is useless
to seek for a more convincing proof of this than the parallel of the
histories of both, in all that relates to the destruction of religious
institutions; the same flattery of kings, the same exaggeration of the
civil power, the same declamation against the pretended evil inflicted
on society, the same calumnies; we have only to change the names and
the dates. And we must also remark this peculiarity, that, in this
matter, the difference which, apparently, ought to have resulted from
the progress of toleration and the softening of manners in recent
times, has scarcely been felt.
But is it true that religious institutions are as contemptible as
they have been represented? is it true that they do not even deserve
attention, and that all the questions relating to them can be solved
by merely pronouncing the word fanaticism? Does not the man of
observation, the real philosopher, find in them any thing worthy of
attracting his attention? It is difficult to believe that such was the
nullity of these institutions, whose history is so grand, and which
still preserve in their existence the promise of a great future. It is
difficult to believe that such institutions are not worthy of attention
in the highest degree, and that their study is wholly devoid of lively
interest and solid profit. We see them appear at every epoch of Church
history; their memorials and monuments are found every moment under
our feet; they are preserved in the regions of Asia, in the sands of
Africa, in the cities and solitudes of America; in fine, when, after
so much adversity, we see them more or less prosperous in the various
countries of Europe, sending forth again fresh shoots in those lands
where their roots had been the most deeply torn up, there naturally
arises in the mind a spirit of curiosity to examine this phenomenon,
to inquire what is the origin, the genius, and the character of these
institutions. Those who love to descend into the heart of philosophical
questions discover, at first sight, that there must be there an
abundant mine of the most precious information for the science of
religion, of society, and of man. He who has read the lives of the
ancient fathers of the desert without being touched, without feeling
profound admiration, and being filled with grave and lofty thoughts; he
who, treading under his feet with indifference the ruins of an ancient
abbey, has not called up in fancy the shades of the cenobites who lived
and died there; he who passes coldly through the corridors and cells
of convents half-demolished, and feels no recollections, and not even
the curiosity to examine,--he may close the annals of history, and may
cease to study the beautiful and the sublime. There exist for him no
historical phenomena, no beauty, no sublimity; his mind is in darkness,
his heart is in the dust.
With the intention of hiding the intimate connection which subsists
between religious institutions and religion herself, it has been said
that she can exist without them. This is an incontrovertible truth, but
abstract and wholly useless--a barren and isolated assertion, which
can throw no light upon science, nor serve as any practical guide--an
insidious truth, which only tends entirely to change the whole state
of the question, and persuade men that when religious institutions are
concerned, religion has nothing to do with the matter. There is here a
gross sophism, which is too much employed, not only on this question,
but on many others. This consists in replying to all difficulties by
a proposition perfectly true in itself, but which has nothing to do
with the question. By this means, attention is turned another way; the
palpable truth which is presented to the mind makes men wander from the
principal object, and induces them to take that for a solution which
is only a distraction. With respect, for example, to the support of
the clergy and divine worship, it is said, "Temporals are altogether
different from spirituals." When the ministers of religion are
systematically calumniated, "Religion," they say, "is one thing, and
her ministers are another." If it is wished to represent the conduct
of Rome for many centuries as an uninterrupted chain of injustice,
of corruption, and of invasion of right, all reply is anticipated by
saying, "The supremacy of the Sovereign Pontiff has nothing to do with
the vices of Popes or their ambition." Reflections perfectly just, and
truths palpable, no doubt, which are very useful in certain cases,
but which writers of bad faith cunningly employ to conceal from the
reader the real object they have in view. Such are the jugglers who
attract the attention of the simple multitude on one side, while their
companions perform their criminal operations on the other.
Because a thing is not necessary to the existence of another, it does
not follow that the first does not originate in the second,--does not
find in the spirit of the latter its peculiar and permanent existence,
and that a system of intimate and delicate relation does not subsist
between them. The tree can subsist without flowers and fruits; these
can certainly fall without destroying the trunk; but as long as the
tree shall exist, will it ever cease to give proofs of its vigor and
its beauty, and to offer its flowers to the eye, and its fruits to
the taste? The stream may constantly flow in its crystal bed without
the green margin which embellishes its sides; but while its source is
not dried up--as long as the fertilizing water penetrates the ground,
can its favored banks remain dry, barren, without color and ornament?
Let us apply these images to our subject. It is certain that religion
can exist without religious communities, and that their ruin does not
necessarily entail that of religion herself. More than once it has
been seen that in countries where religious institutions have been
destroyed, the Catholic faith has been long preserved. But it is not
less certain, that there is a necessary dependence between them and
religion; that is, that she has given being to them, that she animates
them with her spirit, and nourishes them with her substance: this
is the reason why they immediately germinate wherever the Catholic
faith takes root; and if they have been driven from a country where
she continues to exist, they will reappear. Without alluding to the
examples of other countries, do we not see this phenomenon take place
in France in a remarkable manner? The number of convents of men and
women which are again established on the French soil is already very
considerable. Who would have told the men of the Constituent Assembly,
the Legislative Assembly, the Convention, that half a century should
not elapse without seeing religious institutions reappear and flourish
in France, in spite of all their efforts to destroy even their memory?
"If that happen," they would have said, "it will be because the
revolution which we are making will not be allowed to triumph--because
Europe will have again imposed despotism upon us; then, and then only,
will be witnessed in France--in Paris--in this capital of the Christian
world--the re-establishment of religious institutions, that legacy of
fanaticism and superstition, transmitted to us by the ideas and manners
of an age which has passed away, never to return."
Senseless men! your revolution _has_ triumphed; you _have_ conquered
Europe; the old principles of the French monarchy _have_ been erased
from legislation, institutions, and manners; the genius of war has led
your doctrines in triumph over Europe, and they were gilded by the
rays of your glory. Your principles, all your recollections have again
triumphed at a recent period; they still live in all their force and
pride, personified in some men who glory in being the heirs of what
they call the glorious Revolution of '89; and yet, in spite of so many
triumphs, although your revolution has only receded as much as was
necessary the better to secure its conquests, religious institutions
have again arisen--they extend, they are propagated everywhere, and
they regain an important place in the annals of our times. To prevent
this revival, it would have been necessary to extirpate religion;
it was not enough to persecute her; faith remained like a precious
germ covered by stones and thorns; Providence sends down a ray of
that divine star which softens stones, and gives life and fertility;
the tree rises again in all its beauty, in spite of the ruins which
hindered its growth and development, and its leaves are immediately
covered with charming blossoms:--behold the religious institutions
which you thought were for ever annihilated!
The example which we have just mentioned clearly shows the truth of
what we wish to establish, with respect to the intimate connection
which exists between religion and religious institutions. Church
history furnishes proofs in support of this truth. Besides, the mere
knowledge of religion, and of the nature of the institutions of which
we speak, would suffice to prove it to us, even if we had not history
and experience in our favor.
The force of general prejudice on this subject is such, that it is
necessary to descend to the root of things, to show the complete
mistake of our adversaries. What are religious institutions considered
generally? Putting aside the differences, the changes, the alterations
necessarily produced by variety of times, countries, and other
circumstances, we will say that a religious institute is a society
of Christians living together, under certain rules, for the purpose
of practising the Gospel precepts. We include, in this definition,
even the orders which are not bound by a vow. It will be seen that we
have considered the religious institution in its most general sense,
laying aside all that theologians and canonists say with respect to
the conditions indispensable to constitute or complete its essence. We
must, moreover, observe that we ought not to exclude from the honorable
denomination of religious institutes, those associations which possess
all the conditions except the vows. The Catholic religion is fertile
enough to produce good by means and forms widely different. In the
generality of religious institutions, she has shown us what man can do
by binding himself by a vow, for his whole life, to a holy abnegation
of his own will; but she has also wished to show us that, while leaving
him at liberty, she could attach him by a variety of ties, and make him
persevere until death, as if he had been obliged by a perpetual vow.
The congregation of the oratory of St. Philip Neri, which is found in
this latter category, is certainly worthy of figuring among religious
institutions as one of the finest monuments of the Catholic Church.
I am aware that the vow is comprised in the essence of religious
institutes, as they are commonly understood; but my only object now
is, to vindicate this kind of association against Protestants. Now we
know that they condemn indiscriminately, associations bound by vows
and those which only consist of the permanent and free adhesion of
the persons who compose them. All that has the form of a religious
community is regarded by them with a look of anger. When they
proscribed the religious orders, they included in the same fate those
which had vows and those which had not. Consequently, when defending
them, we must class them together. Moreover, this will not prevent our
considering the vow in itself, and justifying it before the tribunal of
philosophy.
I do not imagine that it is necessary to say more to show that the
object of religious institutions--that is, as we have just said, the
putting in practice of the Gospel counsels--is in perfect uniformity
with the Gospel itself. And let us well observe that, whatever may
be the name, whatever may be the form of the institutions, they have
always for their object something more than the simple observance
of the precepts; the idea of perfection is always included, then,
either in the active or the contemplative life. To keep the Divine
commandments is indispensable to all Christians who wish to possess
eternal life; the religious orders attempt a more difficult path; they
aim at perfection. This is the object of the men who, after having
heard these words from the mouth of their Divine Master: "If you wish
to be perfect, go sell all you have, and give it to the poor," have not
departed sorrowful, like the young man in the Gospel, but have embraced
with courage the enterprise of quitting all and following Jesus Christ.
We have now inquired whether association is the best means to carry
into execution so holy an object. It would be easy for me to show this
by adducing various texts of Scripture, where the true spirit of the
Christian religion, and the will of our Divine Master, are clearly
shown on this point; but the taste of our age, and the self-evidence
even of the truths in question, warn us to avoid, as much as possible,
all that savors of theological discussion. I will remove the question,
then, from this level, to consider it in a light purely historical
and philosophical; that is to say, without accumulating citations and
texts, I will prove that religious institutes are perfectly conformable
to the spirit of the Christian religion; and that consequently that
spirit has been deplorably mistaken by Protestants, when they have
condemned or destroyed them. If philosophers, while they do not admit
the truth of religion, still avow that it is useful and beautiful, I
will prove to them that they cannot condemn those institutions which
are the necessary result of it. In the cradle of Christianity, when men
preserved, in all their energy and purity, the sparks from the tongues
of the Holy Spirit; in those times, when the words and examples of its
Divine Founder were still fresh, when the number of the faithful who
had had the happiness of seeing and hearing Him was still very great in
the Church, we see the Christians, under the direction of the Apostles
themselves, unite, have all their property in common; thus forming only
one family, the Father of which was in heaven, and _which had only one
heart and one soul_.
I will not dispute as to the extent of this primitive proceeding;
I will abstain from analyzing the various circumstances which
accompanied it, and from examining how far it resembled the religious
institutions of latter times; it is enough to state its existence,
and show therefrom what is the true spirit of religion with respect
to the most proper means to realize evangelical perfection. I will
only allude to the fact, that Cassian, in the description which he
gives of the commencement of religious institutions, assigns as their
cradle the proceeding we have just mentioned, and which is reported
in the Acts of the Apostles. According to the same author, this kind
of life was never wholly interrupted; so that there were always some
fervent Christians who continued it; thus attaching, by a continued
chain, the existence of the monks to the primitive associations of
the apostolical times. After having described the kind of life of
the first Christians, and traced the alterations of the times that
followed, Cassian continues thus: "Those who preserved the apostolical
fervor in this way, recalling primitive perfection, quitted towns, and
the society of those who believed that they were allowed to live with
less severity; they began to choose secret and retired places, where
they could follow in private the rules which they remembered to have
been appointed by the Apostles for the whole body of the Church in
general. Thus commenced the formation of the discipline of those who
had quitted that contagion, as they lived separate from the rest of the
faithful; abstaining from marriage, and having no communication with
the world, even with their own families. In the progress of time, the
name of monks was given to them, in consideration of their singular and
solitary life." (_Collat._ 18, cap. 5.)
Times of persecution immediately followed, which, with some
interruptions, that may be called moments of repose, lasted till
the conversion of Constantine. There were, then, during this time,
some Christians who attempted to continue the mode of life of the
apostolical years. Cassian clearly indicates this in the passage
which we have just read. He omits to say that this primitive life was
necessarily modified, in its exterior form, by the calamities with
which the Church was afflicted at that period. In all that time we
ought not to look for Christians living in community; we shall find
them confessing Jesus Christ, with imperturbable calmness, on the rack,
amid all torments, in the circus, where they were torn to pieces by
wild beasts, on the scaffold, where they quietly gave up their heads to
the axe of the executioner. But observe what happened even during the
time of persecution; the Christians, of whom the world was not worthy,
pursued in the towns like wild beasts, wandered about in solitude,
seeking refuge in the deserts. The solitudes of the East, the sand and
rocks of Arabia, the most inaccessible places of the Thebaïd, receive
those troops of fugitives, who dwell in the abodes of wild beasts, in
abandoned graves, in dried-up cisterns, in the deepest caverns, only
asking for an asylum for meditation and prayer. And do you know the
result of this? These deserts, in which the Christians wandered, like
a few grains of sand driven by the wind, became peopled, as it were by
magic, with innumerable religious communities. There they meditated,
prayed, and read the Gospel; hardly had the fruitful seed touched the
earth, when the precious plant arose in a moment.
Admirable are the designs of Providence! Christianity, persecuted in
the towns, fertilizes and embellishes the deserts; the precious grain
requires for its development neither the moisture of the earth nor the
breeze of a mild atmosphere; when carried through the air on the wings
of the storm, the seed loses nothing of its vitality; when thrown on
a rock, it does not perish. The fury of the elements avails nothing
against the work of God, who has made the north wind His courser: the
rock ceases to be barren when He pleases to fertilize it. Did He not
make pure water spring forth at the mysterious touch of His Prophet's
rod?
When peace was given to the Church by the conqueror of Maxentius, the
germs contained in the bosom of Christianity were able to develop
themselves everywhere; from that moment the Church was never without
religious communities. With history in our hands, we may defy the
enemies of religious institutions to point out any period, however
short, when these institutions had entirely disappeared. Under some
form or in some country, they have always perpetuated the existence
which they had received in the early ages of Christianity. The fact
is certain and constant, and is found in every page of ecclesiastical
history; it plays an important part in all the great events in the
annals of the Church. It is found in the west and in the east, in
modern and in ancient times, in the prosperity and in the adversity of
the Church; when the pursuit of religious perfection was an honor in
the eyes of the world, as well as when it was an object of persecution,
raillery, and calumny. What clearer proof can there be that there is
an intimate connection between religious institutions and religion
herself? What more is required to show us that they are her spontaneous
fruit? In the moral and in the physical order of things, the constant
appearance of the one following the other, is regarded as a proof of
the reciprocal dependence of two phenomena. If these phenomena have
towards each other the relations of cause and effect--if we find in
the essence of the one all the principles that are required in the
production of the other, the first is called the cause and the other
the effect. Wherever the religion of Jesus Christ is established,
religious communities are found under some form or other; they are,
therefore, its spontaneous effect. I do not know what reply can be made
to so conclusive an argument.
By viewing the question in this way, the favor and protection which
religious institutions always found with the Pontiff is naturally
explained. It was his duty to act in conformity with the spirit which
animates the Church, of which he is the chief ruler upon earth; it is
certainly not the Pope who has made the regulation, that one of the
means most apt to lead men to perfection is to unite themselves in
associations under certain rules, in conformity with the instructions
of their Divine Master. The Eternal Lord thus ruled in the secrets of
His infinite wisdom, and the conduct of the Popes could not be contrary
to the designs of the Most High. It has been said that interested
views interposed; it has been said that the policy of the Popes found
in these institutions a powerful means of sustaining and aggrandizing
itself. But can you not see any thing but the sordid instruments of
cunning policy in the societies of the primitive faithful, in the
monasteries of the solitudes of the East, in that crowd of institutions
which have had for their object only the sanctification of their own
members and the amelioration of some of the great evils of humanity? A
fact so general, so great, so beneficent, cannot be explained by views
of interest and narrow designs; its origin is higher and nobler; and
he who will not seek for it in heaven ought at least to seek for it in
something greater than the projects of a man or the policy of a court;
he ought to seek for lofty ideas, sublime feelings, capable, if they do
not mount to heaven, at least of embracing a large part of the earth;
nothing less is here required than one of those thoughts which preside
over the destinies of the human race.
Some persons may be inclined to imagine private designs on the part
of the Popes, because they see their authority interfere in all the
foundations of later ages, and their approbation constitute the
validity of the rules of religious institutions; but the course
pursued in this respect by ecclesiastical discipline shows us that
the most active intervention of the Popes, far from emanating from
private views, has been called for by a necessity of preventing an
excessive multiplication of the religious orders in consequence of an
indiscreet zeal. This vigilance in preventing abuses was the origin
of this supreme intervention. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
the tendency to new foundations was so strong that the most serious
inconveniences would have resulted from it, without a continual
watchfulness on the part of the ecclesiastical authority. Thus we see
the Sovereign Pontiff Innocent III. ordain, in the Council of Lateran,
that whoever wished to found a new religious house shall be bound to
adopt one of the approved rules and institutions.
But let us pursue our design. I can understand how those who deny the
truth of the Christian religion, and turn into ridicule the counsels of
the Gospel, bring themselves to deny all that is celestial and divine
in the spirit of the religious communities; but the truth of religion
once established, I cannot conceive how men who boast of following
its laws can declare themselves the enemies of these institutions
considered in themselves. How can he who admits the principle refuse
the consequence? How can he who loves the cause reject the effect? They
must either affect a religion hypocritically, or they profess without
comprehending it.
In default of any other proof of the anti-evangelical spirit which
guided the leaders of the pretended Reformation, their hatred to an
institution so evidently founded on the Gospel itself should suffice.
Did not these enthusiasts for reading the Bible _without note or
comment_--they who pretend to find all its passages so clear--did they
not remark the plain and easy sense of that multitude of passages which
recommend self-abnegation, the renunciation of all possessions, and the
privation of all pleasures? These words are plain--they cannot be taken
in any other signification--they do not require for their comprehension
a profound study of the sacred sciences, or that of languages; and
yet they have not been heard: we should rather say, they have not
been listened to. The intellect has understood, but the passions have
rejected them.
As to those philosophers who have regarded religious institutions as
vain and contemptible, if not dangerous, it is clear that they have
meditated but little on the human mind, and on the deep feelings of our
hearts, full as they are of mystery. As their hearts have felt nothing
at the sight of those numbers of men and women assembled for the
purpose of sanctifying themselves or others, or of relieving wants,
and consoling the unfortunate, it is but too clear that their souls
have been dried up by the breath of skepticism. To renounce for ever
all the pleasures of life; to live in solitude, there to offer one's
self, in austerity and penance, as a holocaust to the Most High: this,
certainly is a matter of horror to those philosophers who have only
viewed the world through their own prejudices. But humanity has other
thoughts; it feels itself attracted by those objects which philosophers
find so vain, so devoid of interest, so worthy of horror.
Wonderful are the secrets of our hearts! Although enervated by
pleasure, and involved in the whirlwind of amusement and mirth, we
cannot avoid being seized with deep emotion at the sight of austerity
and recollection of soul. Solitude, and even sadness itself, exert
an inexpressible influence over us. Whence comes that enthusiasm
which moves a whole nation, excites and makes it follow, as if by
enchantment, the steps of a man whose brow is marked by recollection,
whose features display austerity of life, whose clothes and manners
show freedom from all that is earthly, and forgetfulness of the world?
Now, it is a fact, proved by the history both of true and of false
religions; so powerful a means of attracting respect and esteem has
not remained unknown to imposture: licentiousness and corruption,
desirous of making their fortunes in the world, have more than once
felt the imperious necessity of disguising themselves under the
mantle of austerity and purity. What at first sight might appear the
most opposed to our feelings, the most repugnant to our tastes--this
shade of sadness diffused over the recollection and solitude of the
religious life--is precisely what enchants and attracts us the most.
The religious life is solitary and pensive; therefore it is beautiful,
and its beauty is sublime. Nothing is more apt than this sublimity to
move our hearts deeply, and make indelible impressions on them. In
reality, our soul has the character of an exile; it is affected by
melancholy objects only; it has not attained to that noisy joy which
requires to borrow a tint of melancholy only for the sake of a happy
contrast. In order to clothe beauty with its most seductive charms, it
is necessary that a tear of anguish should flow from her eyes, that
her forehead should assume an air of sadness, and her cheeks grow
pale with a melancholy remembrance. In order that the life of a hero
excite a lively interest in us, it is requisite that misfortune be his
companion, lamentation his consolation--that disaster and ingratitude
be the reward of his virtues. If you wish that a picture of nature
or art should strongly attract our attention, take possession of and
absorb the powers of our soul, it is necessary that a memorial of the
nothingness of man, and an image of death, should be presented to our
minds; our hearts should be appealed to by the feelings of a tranquil
sadness; we desire to see sombre tints on a monument in ruins--the
cross reminding us of the abode of the dead, the massive walls covered
with moss, and pointing out the ancient dwelling of some powerful man,
who, after having lived on earth for a short time, has disappeared.
Joy does not satisfy us, it does not fill our hearts; it intoxicates
and dissipates them for a few moments; but man does not find there
his happiness, because the joys of earth are frivolous, and frivolity
cannot attach a traveller who, far from his country, walks painfully
through the valley of tears. Thence it comes that, while sorrow and
tears are accepted--we should rather say, are carefully sought for by
art--whenever a deep impression is to be made upon the soul, joy and
smiles are inexorably banished. Oratory, poetry, sculpture, painting,
music, have all constantly followed the same rule; or, rather, have
always been governed by the same instinct. It certainly required a
lofty spirit and a heart of fire to declare _that the soul is naturally
Christian_. In these few words an illustrious thinker has known how to
express all the relations which unite the faith, morality, and counsels
of this divine religion, with all that is most intimate, delicate, and
noble in our hearts. Do you know Christian pensiveness; that grave and
elevated feeling which is painted on the forehead of the Christian,
like a memorial of sorrow on that of an illustrious proscribed one;
this feeling which moderates the enjoyments of life by the image of
the tomb, and lights up the depths of the grave with the rays of hope;
that pensiveness so natural and consoling, so grave and noble, which
causes diadems and sceptres to be trodden under foot like dust, and
the greatness and splendor of the world to be despised as a passing
illusion? This melancholy, carried to its perfection, vivified and
fertilized by grace, and subjected to a holy rule, is what presides
over the foundation of religious institutions, and accompanies them
as long as they preserve their primitive fervor, which they received
from men who were guided by divine light, and animated by the Spirit
of God. This holy melancholy, which carries with it freedom from all
earthly things, is the feeling which the Church wishes to instil into
and preserve in, the religious orders, when she surrounds their silent
abodes with a shade of retirement and meditation.
That amid the fury and the convulsions of parties, a mad and
sacrilegious hand, secretly excited by malice, should plunge a
fratricidal dagger into an innocent heart, or set fire to a peaceful
dwelling, may be conceived; for, unhappily, the history of man abounds
in crimes and frenzies; but that the essence of religious institutions
should be attacked, that their spirit should be considered narrow and
imbecile, that they should be deprived of the noble titles which give
honor to their origin, and the beauties which adorn their history,
can be allowed neither by the intellect nor by the heart. A false
philosophy, which dries up and withers all that it touches, has
undertaken so mad a task. But, setting aside religion and reason,
literature and the fine arts have rebelled against this attempt;
literature and the fine arts, which have need of old recollections,
and which are indebted for their wonders to lofty thoughts, to grave
and noble scenes, and deep and melancholy feelings; literature and the
arts, which delight in transporting the mind of man into regions of
light, in guiding the imagination through new and unknown paths, and in
ruling the heart by mysterious charms.
No; a thousand times no! As long as the religion of that God made man,
who had not where to repose his head, and who sat down by a well on
the wayside to rest, like an humble traveller, shall last; of that
God-man, whose appearance was announced to the nations by a mysterious
voice coming from the desert--by the voice of a man clothed in a
goat-skin, whose reins were bound with a leathern girdle, and who lived
on nothing but locusts and wild honey: as long as this divine religion
shall last, nothing will be more holy or more worthy of our respect
than those institutions, the true and original object of which is to
realize what Heaven intended to teach man by such eloquent and sublime
lessons. Times, vicissitudes, and revolutions, succeed each other; the
institution will change its form, will undergo alterations, will be
affected more or less by the weakness of men, by the corrosive action
of time, and the destructive power of events; but it will live--it will
never perish. If one society rejects it, it will seek an asylum in
another; driven from towns, it will take refuge in forests; if there
pursued, it will flee to the horrors of the desert. There will always
be, in some privileged hearts, an echo for the voice of that sublime
religion, which, holding in her hand a standard of sorrow and love--the
sacred standard of the sufferings and death of the Son of God--the
Cross, will proclaim to men: "Watch and pray, that you enter not into
temptation; if you assemble to pray, the Lord will be in the midst of
you; all flesh is but grass; life is a dream; above your heads is an
ocean of light and happiness; under your feet an abyss; your life on
earth is a pilgrimage, an exile." Then she marks his forehead with the
mysterious ashes, telling him, "Thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt
return."
We shall perhaps be asked why the faithful cannot practise evangelical
perfection while living in the bosom of their families, without
assembling in communities? We shall reply, that we have no intention
of denying the possibility of that practice, even in the midst of the
world; and we willingly acknowledge that a great number of Christians
have done so at all times, and do so now; but this does not prove that
the surest and easiest means is not that of the life in community with
others who have the same object in view, and in retirement from all
the things of this world. Laying aside for a moment all consideration
of religion, are you not aware of the ascendency which the spirit of
repeated examples exerts on those with whom we live? Do you not know
how easily our spirit fails when we find ourselves alone in a difficult
enterprise? Do you not know that, in the greatest misfortunes, it is a
consolation to behold others participate in our sorrows? On this point,
as well as on all others, religion accords with sound philosophy, and
both unite in explaining to us the profound meaning contained in those
words of Scripture: "_Væ soli! Wo to him who is alone!_"
Before concluding this chapter, I wish to say a few words on the vows
which commonly accompany religious institutes. Perhaps they are one
of the principal causes of the violent antipathy of Protestantism
against these institutions. Vows render things fixed and stable; and
the fundamental principle of Protestantism does not admit of fixity
or stability. Essentially separating and anarchical, this principle
rejects unity and destroys the hierarchy; dissolving in its nature,
it allows the mind neither to remain in a permanent faith nor to be
subject to rule. For if virtue itself is only a vague entity, which
has no fixed foundation--a being which is fed on illusions, and which
cannot endure the application of any certain and constant rule, this
holy necessity of doing well, of constantly walking in the path
of perfection, must be incomprehensible to it, and in the highest
degree repugnant; this necessity must appear to it inconsistent with
liberty; as if man, by binding himself by a vow, lost his free will;
as if the sanction which a promise given to God imparts to a design,
at all diminished the merit of him who has the firmness necessary to
accomplish what he had the courage to promise.
Those who, to condemn this necessity which man imposes on himself,
invoke the rights of liberty against it, seem to forget that this
effort of man to make himself the slave of good, and secure his own
future, besides the sublime disinterestedness which it supposes, is the
vastest exercise which man can make of his liberty. By one act alone,
he disposes of his whole life, and by fulfilling the duties resulting
from that act, he continually fulfils his own will. But we shall be
told that man is so inconstant: this is the reason why, in order to
prevent the effects of this inconstancy, he finds himself penetrating
into the vicissitudes of the future, renders himself superior to them,
and governs them in advance. But, it will be said, in that case, good
is done from necessity: this is true; but do you not know that the
necessity of doing good is a happy one, and in some measure assimilates
man with God? Do you not know that Infinite Goodness is incapable of
doing evil, and Infinite Holiness can do nothing that is not holy?
Theologians explain why a created being is capable of sinning by
pointing out this profound reason. "It is," they say, "because the
creature is made out of nothing." When man forces himself, as far as
he can, to do well, when he thus fetters his will, he ennobles it, he
renders himself more like to God, he assimilates himself to the state
of the blessed, who have no longer the melancholy liberty of doing
evil, and who are under the happy necessity of loving God.
The name of liberty, from the time when Protestants and false
philosophers took possession of it, seems condemned to be ill
understood in all its applications. In the religious, moral, social,
and political order, it is enveloped in such obscurity, that we
can perceive the many efforts which have been made to darken and
misrepresent it. Cicero gives an admirable definition of liberty when
he says, that it consists in being the slave of law. In the same
way it may be said, that the liberty of the intellect consists in
being the slave of truth; and the liberty of the will in being the
slave of virtue; if you change this, you destroy liberty. If you take
away the law, you admit force; if you take away the truth, you admit
error; if you take away virtue, you admit vice. If you venture to
exempt the world from the external law, from that law which embraces
man and society, which extends to all orders, which is the divine
wisdom applied to reasonable creatures; if you venture to seek for an
imaginary liberty out of that immense circle, you destroy all; there
remains in society nothing but the empire of brute force, and in man
that of the passions; with tyranny, and consequently slavery.