THE FUTURE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS.--THEIR PRESENT NECESSITY.
When, after having fixed our eyes on the vast and interesting picture
which religious communities present to us, after having called to
mind their origin, their varied forms, their vicissitudes of poverty
and riches, of depression and prosperity, of coldness and of fervor,
of relaxation and strict reform, we see them still subsist and arise
anew on all sides, in spite of the efforts of their enemies, we
naturally ask what will be their future? their past is full of glory;
what influence have they not exerted in society, under a thousand
different aspects, and in the thousand phases of society itself? Yet
what spectacle do they show us in modern times? On one hand they have
been weakened, like an old wall which we see ruined by the effect
of time; on the other we have seen them suddenly disappear, like
weak trees overthrown by the whirlwind. Moreover, they seemed to be
condemned by the spirit of the age without appeal. Matter having become
supreme, extended its empire on all sides, scarcely allowing the
mind a moment for reflection and meditation; industry and commerce,
carrying their turmoil to the remotest parts of the earth, confirmed
the judgment of an irreligious philosophy against a class of men
devoted to prayer, silence, and solitude. Nevertheless, facts every day
belie their conjectures; the hearts of Christians still preserve the
most flattering hopes, and these hopes are strengthened and animated
more and more. The hand of God, who carries out His high designs and
laughs at the vain thoughts of man, shows it more and more wonderful.
Philosophy sees a wide field for meditation open before it; it
anticipates the probable future of religious communities; it may make
conjectures on the influence which is reserved for them in society for
the future.
We have already seen what is the real origin of religious institutions;
we have found that origin in the spirit of the Catholic religion, and
history has told us that they have arisen wherever she is established.
They have varied in form, in rule, in object, but the fact has been
always the same. Thence we have inferred that wherever the Catholic
faith shall be maintained, religious institutions will appear anew
under some form or other. This prognostic may be made with complete
certainty; we do not fear that time will belie it. We live in an
age steeped in voluptuous materialism; interests which are called
positive, or, in plainer terms, gold and pleasure, have acquired such
an ascendency that we might apparently fear to see some societies
lamentably retrograde towards the manners of paganism, towards that
period of disgrace when religion might be summed up in the deification
of matter. But in the midst of this afflicting picture, when the mind,
full of anguish, feels itself on the point of swooning away, the
observer sees that the soul of man is not yet dead, and that lofty
ideas, noble and dignified feelings, are not entirely banished from the
earth. The human mind feels itself too great to be limited to wretched
objects; it comprehends that it is given it to rise higher than an
air-balloon.
Observe what happens with respect to industrial progress. Those
steam-vessels which leave our ports with the rapidity of an arrow to
traverse the immensity of ocean, those burning vehicles which skim
along our plains, and penetrate into the heart of mountains, realizing
under our eyes what would have seemed a dream to our fathers; those
other machines which give movement to gigantic workshops, and as if by
magic set in motion innumerable instruments, and elaborate with the
most wonderful precision the most delicate productions: all this is
great and wonderful. But however great, however wonderful it may be, it
no longer astonishes; these wonders no longer captivate our attention
in a more lively manner than the generality of the objects which
surround us. Man feels that he is still greater than these machines
and masterpieces of art; his heart is an abyss which nothing can fill;
give him the whole world, and the void will be the same. The depth
is immeasurable; the soul, created in the image and likeness of God,
cannot be satisfied without the possession of Him.
The Catholic religion constantly revives these lofty thoughts, and
points out this immense void. In barbarous times she placed herself
among rude and ignorant nations to lead them to civilization; she now
remains among civilized nations to provide against the dissolution
which threatens them. She disregards the coldness and neglect with
which indifference and ingratitude reply to her; she cries out without
ceasing, addresses her warnings to the faithful with indefatigable
constancy, makes her voice resound in the ears of the incredulous,
and remains intact and immovable in the midst of the agitation and
instability of human things. Thus do those wonderful temples which
have been left to us by the remotest antiquity, remain entire amid the
action of time, of revolutions, and of convulsions; around them arise
and disappear the habitations of men, the palaces of the great and the
cottages of the poor, but the time-stained edifice stands like a solemn
and mysterious object in the midst of the smiling fields and showy
structures which surround it; its vast cupola annihilates all that is
near; its summit boldly rises towards the heavens.
The labors of religion do not remain without fruit; penetrating
minds acknowledge her truths; even those who refuse their submission
to the faith confess the beauty, utility, and necessity of this
divine religion; they regard it as an historical fact of the highest
importance, and agree that the good order and prosperity of families
and states depend upon it. But God, who watches over the safety of
the church, is not content with these avowals of philosophy; torrents
of all-powerful grace descend from on high, and the Divine Spirit
is diffused and renewed on the face of the earth. Even from the
whirlwind of the world, corrupt and indifferent as it is, privileged
men frequently come forth, whose foreheads have been touched with the
flame of inspiration, and whose hearts are on fire with heavenly love.
In retreat, in solitude, in meditation on the eternal truths, they
have acquired that disposition of mind which is necessary to perform
arduous tasks; in spite of raillery and ingratitude, they devote
themselves to console the unfortunate, to educate the young, and to
convert idolatrous nations. The Catholic religion will last till the
end of time, and so long will there be these privileged men separated
by God from the rest, to be called to extraordinary sanctity, or to
console their brethren in their misfortunes. Now these men will seek
each other, will unite to pray, will associate to aid each other in
their enterprise, will ask for the apostolical benediction of the Vicar
of Jesus Christ, and will found religious institutions. Whether they
be old orders only modified, or entirely new ones; whatever be their
forms, rules of life or dress, all this is of little importance; the
origin, the nature, and the object will be the same. It is vain for men
to oppose the miracles of grace.
Even the present condition of society will require the existence of
religious institutions. When the organization of modern nations shall
have been more profoundly examined, when time by its bitter lessons and
terrible experience shall have thrown more light on the real state of
things, it will be evident that errors greater than men have imagined,
have been committed in the social as well as in the political order.
Sad experience has corrected ideas to a great extent, but this does not
suffice.
It is evident that present societies want the necessary means to
supply the necessities which press upon them. Property is divided
and subdivided more and more; every day it becomes more feeble and
inconstant, industry multiplies productions in an alarming manner,
commerce extends itself indefinitely; that is to say, society,
approaching the term of pretended social perfection, is on the point
of attaining the wishes of that materialistic school, in whose eyes
men are only machines, and which has not imagined that society
can undertake any grander or more useful object than the immense
development of material interests. Misery has increased in proportion
to the augmentation of production; to the eyes of all provident
men it is as clear as the light of day that things are pursuing a
wrong course, and that if a remedy cannot be applied in time, the
_dénouement_ will be fatal; the vessel which we see advancing so
rapidly, with all her sails set and a favorable wind, is about to
strike upon a rock. The accumulation of riches, brought about by the
rapidity of the industrial and commercial movement, tends towards the
establishment of a system which would devote the sweat and the lives of
all to the profit of the few; but this tendency finds its counterpoise
in levelling ideas which agitate very many heads, and which, moulded
into different theories, more or less openly attack property, the
present organization of labor, and the distribution of productions.
Immense multitudes, overwhelmed with misery and in want of moral
instruction and education, are disposed to promote the realization
of projects not less criminal than foolish, whenever an unhappy
concurrence of circumstances shall render the attempt possible. It is
superfluous to support the melancholy assertions which we have just
made with facts; the experience of every day confirms them but too much.
Such being the case, may we be allowed to inquire of society, what
means there are, either of improving the state of the masses, or of
guiding and restraining them? It is clear that, for the first of these,
neither the inspirations of private interests, nor the instinct of
preservation which animates the favored classes, are sufficient. These
classes, properly speaking, as they exist, have not the character
which constitutes a class: they are only a collection of families just
emerged from poverty and obscurity, and who rapidly advance towards the
abyss whence they came, leaving their place to other families who will
run the same course. We find nothing fixed or stable about them. They
live from day to day, without thinking of the morrow: far different
from the old nobility, whose origin was lost in the obscurity of the
remotest antiquity, and whose strength and organization promised long
centuries of existence. These men could and did follow a system;
for what existed to-day was sure of existence to-morrow; now all
is changeable and inconstant. Individuals, like families, labor to
accumulate, to lay by riches, not in order to sustain for ages the
power and splendor of an illustrious house, but to enjoy to-day what
has been but just acquired. The presentiment of the short duration
which things must have, augments still more the giddiness and frenzy
of dissipation. The times are past when opulent families were desirous
of founding some enduring establishment to evince their generosity and
perpetuate the splendor of their names: hospitals, and other houses of
beneficence, do not come from the coffers of the bankers, as they did
from those of the old castles. We must acknowledge, however painful may
be the avowal, that the opulent classes of society do not fulfil the
duty which belongs to them: the poor should respect the property of the
rich; but the rich should, in their turn, respect the condition of the
poor: such is the will of God.
It follows from what I have stated, that the resource of beneficence
is wanting in the social organization; and observe well, that
administration does not constitute society. Administration supposes
society to be already existing and entirely formed; when we expect
the salvation of society from means purely administrative, we attempt
a thing which is out of the laws of nature. In vain shall we imagine
new expedients; in vain shall we form ingenious plans, and make new
experiments; society has need of a more powerful agent. It is essential
that the world should submit to the law of love or that of force,
to charity or servitude. All the nations who have not had charity,
have found no other means of solving the social problem, than that
of subjecting the greatest number to slavery. Reason teaches, and
history proves, that neither public order, property, nor even society
itself, can exist, unless one of these is chosen; modern society
will not be exempted from the general law; the symptoms which now
present themselves to our eyes clearly indicate the events whereof the
generations which are to succeed us will be the witnesses.
Happily, the fire of charity still burns on the earth; but the
indifference and prejudices of the wicked compel it to remain under
the embers. They are alarmed at the least spark of it which escapes,
as if it would enkindle a fatal conflagration. If the development
of institutions which are exclusively based upon the principle of
charity was favored, their salutary results and the superiority which
they possess over all that are founded on other principles would
soon be evident. It is impossible to supply the wants which I have
just pointed out, without organizing, on a vast scale, systems of
beneficence directed by charity: now this organization cannot be made
without religious institutions. It cannot be denied that Christians
who live in the world may form associations by which this object
will be accomplished more or less completely; but there are always a
multitude of cases which absolutely require the co-operation of men
exclusively devoted to them. It is necessary, moreover, to have a
nucleus to serve as the centre of all efforts, which presents, by its
own nature, a guarantee for preservation, and which provides against
the interruptions and oscillations which are inevitable in a large
concourse of agents, who are not bound together by any tie strong
enough to preserve them from differences, from separation, and even
from intestine contests.
This vast system which we speak of ought to extend not only to
beneficence, but also to the education and instruction of the many.
The establishment of schools will remain sterile, if not mischievous,
as long as they are not founded upon religion; and they will be thus
founded only in appearance and name, while the direction of these
schools does not belong to the ministers of religion. The secular
clergy may fulfil a portion of this charge, but they are not enough
for the task; on the one hand, their limited number, and on the other,
their other duties, prevent their acting on a scale sufficiently large
to supply all the necessities of the times: hence it follows, that
the propagation of religious institutions in our days has a social
importance, which cannot be mistaken without shutting one's eyes to the
evidence of facts.
If you reflect on the organization of European nations, you will
understand that their real advance has been prevented by some fatal
cause. Indeed, their situation is so singular, that it cannot be the
result of the principles whence these nations have drawn their origin,
and which have given them their increase. It is evident that the
countless multitude which one sees in society, making use of all its
faculties with complete liberty, could not, in the state in which it
now is, have been comprised in the primitive design--in the plan of
true civilization. When we create forces, we should know what we shall
do with them, by what means we shall move and direct them; without
this we only prepare violent shocks, endless agitation, disorder, and
destruction. The mechanician who cannot introduce a force into his
machine without breaking the harmony of the other movers, takes care
not to introduce it; and he sacrifices acceleration of movement and
the greatest strength of impulse to the fundamental necessity of the
preservation of the machine and the order and utility of its functions.
In the present state of society, we observe that power which is not in
harmony with the others; and the men who are charged with directing
the machine pay but little attention to gaining the required harmony.
Nothing acts upon the mass of the people but the ardent desire of
ameliorating their condition, of placing themselves in comfort, and of
obtaining the enjoyments of which the rich are in possession; nothing
to induce them to be resigned to the rigors of their lot; nothing to
console them in their misfortunes; nothing to render the present evils
more supportable by the hopes of a better future; nothing to inspire
them with respect for property, obedience to the laws, submission to
government; nothing to produce in their minds gratitude towards the
powerful classes; nothing to temper their hatreds, diminish their envy,
and mollify their anger; nothing to raise their ideas above earthly
things, their desires from sensual pleasures; nothing to form in their
hearts a solid morality capable of restraining them from vice and crime.
If we pay attention, we shall see that the men of this age have only
three means of restraining the masses, and they regard these as enough;
but reason and experience show that these expedients are not only not
efficacious, but even dangerous; they are these,--private interests
well understood, public force well employed, and enervation of body,
followed by feebleness of mind, which restrains the populace from
violent means.
"Let us make the poor man understand," says the philosopher, "that he
has an interest in respecting the property of the rich; that his powers
and his labor are also real property, which require to be respected
in their turn; let us maintain an imposing public force, always
ready to act on the menaced point, in order to stifle any attempts
at disorder at their birth; let us organize a police, extending over
society like an immense net, and allowing nothing to escape its sight;
let us satisfy the people with cheap enjoyments of all kinds; let us
furnish them with the means of imitating, in their grosser orgies, the
refined pleasures of our saloons and theatres, thereby their manners
will be softened--that is to say, they will be enervated; the people
will become impotent to make great revolutions, their arms being weak,
and their hearts cowardly." This is the system of those who attempt
to govern society and control disturbing passions without the aid of
religion.
Let us pause for a moment to examine these means. It is, no doubt, easy
to say, in fine language, that the poor man is interested in respecting
the property of the rich; and that from this consideration alone he
ought to submit to the established order of things; and this without
even saying a word of the principles of morality, and leaving out all
that is removed from mere material interests. It is easy to write
books to explain such doctrines; but the difficulty consists in making
them understood in the same way by the wretched father of a family,
who, confined all the day to hard labor, plunged into an unwholesome
atmosphere, or buried in the bowels of the earth to work in a
coal-mine, can scarcely earn the subsistence of himself and his family;
and who, returning in the evening to his squalid abode, instead of
repose and consolation, finds only the complaints of his wife and the
tears of his children, asking him for a mouthful of bread. In truth,
is it strange that such a doctrine should not be graciously received
by those wretched beings, whose minds cannot perfectly understand the
parity between the poor and the rich with respect to the interests of
all, and the respect due to property? We will say plainly, that if you
banish from the world the moral principles, and desire to found the
respect due to property exclusively on private interest, the words here
addressed to the poor man are only a solemn imposture: it is false that
his private interest is in accordance with the interests of the rich.
Let us suppose the most fearful revolution, let us imagine that the
established order is radically upset, that authority gives way, that
all institutions are swallowed up, that laws disappear, that properties
are divided, or remain abandoned to the first who shall seize them,
there is no doubt that the rich man loses; let us see what can happen
to the poor. Will he be robbed of his wretched possessions? no one will
dream of doing so; misery tempts not cupidity. You will tell me that he
will find no work, and that hunger will therefore be his lot. That is
true; but do you not see that in this case the poor man is a gambler
at a high stake, for whom the chance of loss, arising from the want
of work, is compensated by the probabilities of obtaining a share of
the rich booty? You add that he will not be allowed to keep that part;
but observe that, if his poverty becomes changed into riches, he will
soon imagine a new order of things, a new arrangement, a government
which will guarantee acquired rights, and prevent the destruction of
established things. Will he be without an example to follow in such
circumstances? Have recent examples been so easily forgotten? The poor
man sees clearly that a great number of his fellows will suffer evils
without end or compensation; he is not ignorant that he himself may,
perhaps, be of the number of the unfortunate; but, supposing that he
has no other guide than interest, supposing that new misfortunes, in
the last excess, can bring him only hunger and nakedness--things to
which he is so well accustomed, whether owing to the small return
for his labor, or to the frequent interruptions of work and the
vicissitudes of industry--you cannot charge with rashness the boldness
with which he comes forward, at the risk of increasing his privations
in some degree, and with the hope of being delivered from them, perhaps
for ever. This is a matter of calculation; and when private interest is
in question, we cannot grant to philosophy the right of regulating the
calculations of the poor.
The public power, and the vigilance of the police, are the two
resources in which the best hopes are founded; and certainly not
without reason; for, at the present time, if the world is not
revolutionized, it is owing to them. We no longer see, as in ancient
times, troops of slaves bound together with chains, but we see whole
armies, with arms in their hands, guarding capitals. If you observe
closely, after so many discussions, so many trials, so many reforms,
so many changes, questions of government and public order have, in the
end, resolved themselves into questions of force. The rich class is
armed against the poor; and above both, there are armies to maintain
tranquillity with cannon, if necessary. Assuredly, the picture which
is exhibited to us in this respect, among modern nations, is worthy
of our attention. Since the fall of Napoleon, the great powers have
enjoyed an Augustan peace; for it is not worth while to speak of the
small events which, from time to time, have disturbed this universal
peace; neither the occupation of Ancona, nor the siege of Antwerp, nor
the war in Poland, can be considered as European wars; as to Spain,
limited, as she is by nature, to a narrow theatre, she can neither
traverse the seas, nor pass the Pyrenean mountains. Well, in spite of
this, the statistics of Europe show us enormous armies; the budgets
which are necessary to support them exhaust and overwhelm the nations.
What is the use of this military preparation? Do you believe that such
gigantic forces are kept on foot only that governments may not be taken
unawares by a general war; that war, which always threatens and never
breaks out; that war, which is feared neither by the government nor by
the people? No! they have another object: these armies are intended to
compensate for the moral means, the want of which is deplorably felt
on all sides, and nowhere more keenly than where the words justice and
liberty have been proclaimed with the most ostentation.
The enervation of the numerous classes, by means of monotonous,
effortless labor, and a complete abandonment to pleasure, may be
considered by some as an element of order; as their power of striking
is thereby taken away, or at least diminished. We allow that the
workmen of our age are not capable of displaying the terrible energy
of ancient champions of the Commons; of those men who, throwing off
the yoke of the feudal lords, struggled hand to hand with formidable
warriors, whose names were immortalized on the plains of Palestine.
The new revolutionists want, also, that courage and that enthusiasm
which are communicated to the soul by great and generous ideas. The man
who fights only to procure enjoyments will never be capable of making
heroic sacrifices. Sacrifices demand self-denial; they are incompatible
with egotism: now the thirst for pleasure is egotism, carried to the
last degree of refinement. Nevertheless, it must be observed that a
mode of life purely material, and deprived of the stimulus of the moral
principles, ends by extinguishing the feelings, and plunges the soul
into a sort of stupidity, into a forgetfulness of self, which may, in
certain cases, supply the place of valor. The soldier who marches with
tranquillity to death, when leaving a brutal _orgy_, and the man who
commits suicide with imperturbable calmness, without anxiety for the
future, are precisely in the same position. The boldness of the one,
and the firmness of the other, show contempt of life. So, if we suppose
their passions to be excited by the trouble of the times, the numerous
class may display an energy of which they are supposed to be incapable;
the sight of their numbers may raise their courage; bold and cunning
leaders, putting themselves at their head, may succeed in rendering
them terrible.
However this may be, it is at least certain that society cannot
continue its career without the aid and influence of moral means;
these means cannot suffice, shut up within the narrow circle in which
they are confined; consequently, it is indispensable to encourage the
development of institutions adapted to exercise moral influence in a
practical and efficacious manner. Books are not enough; the extension
of instruction is but an inefficient means, which may even become
fatal, unless based upon solid religious ideas. The propagation of
a vague religious feeling, undefined, without rules, without dogmas
or worship, will only serve to propagate gross superstitions among
the masses, and to form a religion of poetry and romance among the
cultivated classes; they are vain remedies, which do not stop the
progress of the disease; but, by augmenting the delirium of the
patient, precipitate his death.
The education, the instruction, the improvement of the moral condition
of the people, these words, which are in the mouth of everybody, prove
how keenly and generally the wound in the social body is felt, and
how urgent is the necessity of the timely application of a remedy, in
order to prevent incalculable evils. This is the reason why projects
of beneficence ferment in so many minds; why it is attempted, under so
many different forms, to establish schools for children and adults, and
other similar institutions; but all will be useless, unless the work be
confided to Christian charity. Let us profit by the knowledge acquired
by experience in this matter; let us take advantage of administrative
improvements, the better to attain our end; let the establishments
be accommodated to present wants and exigences; let charity never
embarrass the action of power, and power, on its side, never oppose the
action of charity: all this will be well; but nothing of all this is
inconsistent with a system, in which the Catholic religion will recover
the influence which belongs to her; of her it may be said, with perfect
truth, _that she makes herself all to all, to gain the whole world_.
The little minds which do not carry their views beyond a limited
horizon; bad hearts, which nourish only hatred, and delight only in
exciting rancor and in calling forth the evil passions; the fanatics of
a mechanical civilization, who see no other agent than steam, no other
power than gold and silver, no other object than production, no other
end than pleasure; all these men, assuredly, will attach but little
importance to the observations which I have made; for them, the moral
development of individuals and society is of little importance; they do
not even perceive what passes under their eyes; for them, history is
mute, experience barren, and the future a mere nothing. Happily there
is a great number of men who believe that their minds are nobler than
metal, more powerful than steam, and too grand and too sublime to be
satisfied with momentary pleasure.
Man, in their eyes, is not a being who lives by chance, given up to the
current of time and the mercy of circumstances, who is not called upon
to think of the destinies which attend him, or to prepare for them,
by making a worthy use of the moral and intellectual qualifications
wherewith the Author of nature has favored him. If the physical world
is subject to the laws of the Creator, the moral world is not less
so; if matter can be used in a thousand ways for the profit of man,
the mind, created to the image and likeness of God, is also endowed
with valuable powers; a vast sphere opens before him; he feels himself
called to work for the good of humanity, without confining himself
to combinations and modifications of matter, like an instrument or a
slave of the material element, whereof the empire and control have been
granted to him by God. Let faith in another life, and charity, which
have come down from God, fertilize these noble feelings, and enlighten
and direct these sublime thoughts; you will then clearly see that
matter has no claim to be the ruler of the world; and that the King of
the creation has not yet abdicated his rights. But if you attempt to
build on any other foundation than that which has been established by
God, do not indulge flattering hopes, your edifice will be like the
house built upon sand; the rain came, the wind blew, and the edifice
was overturned with violence.[27]