EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE.
All the world knows, and says over and over again, that education is
less advanced in the Papal States than in any country in Europe. It is
a source of universal regret that the nation which is, perhaps, of all
others the most intelligent by God's grace, should be the most
ignorant by the will of priests. This people has been compared to a
thorough-bred horse, reduced from racing to walking blindfolded, round
and round, grinding corn.
But people who talk thus take a partial view of the question. They
don't, or they won't, see how entirely the development of public
ignorance is in conformity with the principles of the Church, and how
favourable it is to the maintenance of priestly government.
Religions are founded, not upon knowledge, or science, but upon faith,
or, as some term it, credulity. People have agreed to describe as an
"act of faith" the operation of closing one's eyes in order to see
better. It is by walking with faith,--in other words, with one's eyes
shut,--that the gates of Paradise are reached. If we could take from
afar the census of that locality, we should find there more of the
illiterate than of the learned. A child that knows the catechism by
heart is more pleasing in the sight of Heaven than all the five
classes of the Institute. The Church will never hesitate between an
astronomer and a Capuchin friar. Knowledge is full of dangers. Not
only does it puff up the heart of man, but it often shatters by the
force of reasoning the best-constructed fables. Knowledge has made
terrible havoc in the Roman Catholic Church during the last two or
three hundred years. Who can tell how many souls have been cast into
hell through the invention of printing.
Applied to the industrial pursuits of this sublunary sphere, science
engenders riches, luxury, pleasure, health, and a thousand similar
scourges, which tend to draw us away from salvation. Science cures
even those irreligious maladies wherein religion used to recognize the
finger of God. It no longer permits the sinner to make himself a
purgatory here below. There is danger lest it should one of these days
render man's terrestrial abode so blessed, that he may conceive an
antipathy to Heaven. The Church, having the mission to conduct us to
that eternal felicity which is the sole end of human existence, is
bound to discourage our dealings with science. The utmost she can
venture to do is to let a select number of her most trustworthy
servants have free access to it, in order that the enemies of the
faith may find somebody whom they can speak to.
This is why I undertake to show you in Rome a dozen men of high
literary and scientific acquirements, to a hundred thousand who don't
know their ABC.
The Church is but the more flourishing for it, and the State by no
means the less so. The true shepherds of peoples, they who feed the
sheep for the sake of selling the wool and the skins, do not want them
to know too much. The mere fact of a man's being able to read makes
him wish to meddle with everything. The custom-house may be made to
keep him from reading dangerous books, but he'll be sure to take the
change out of the laws of the kingdom. He'll begin to inquire whether
they are good or bad, whether they accord with or contradict one
another, whether they are obeyed or broken. No sooner can he calculate
without the help of his fingers, than he'll want to look up the
figures of the Budget. But if he has reached the culminating point of
knowing how to use his pen, the sight of the smallest bit of paper
will give him a sort of political itching. He will experience an
uncontrollable desire to express his sentiments as a man and a
citizen, by voting for one representative, and against another. And,
gracious goodness! what will become of us if the refractory sheep
should get as high as the generalities of history, or the speculations
of philosophy?--if he should begin to stir important questions, to
inquire into great truths, to refute sophisms, to point out abuses, to
demand rights? The shepherd's occupation is assuredly not all roses
from the day he finds it necessary to muzzle his flock.
Sovereigns who are not Popes have nothing to fear from the progress of
enlightenment, for their interest does not lie in the fabrication of
saints, but in the making of men. In France, England, Piedmont, and
some other countries, the Governments urge, or even oblige the people
to seek instruction. This is because a power which is based on reason
has no fear of being discussed. Because the acts of a really national
administration have no reason to dread the inquiry of the nation.
Because it is not only a nobler but an easier task to govern
reflecting beings than mere brutes,--always supposing the Government
to be in the right. Because education softens men's manners,
eradicates their evil instincts, reduces the average of crime, and
simplifies the policeman's duty. Because science applied to
manufactures will, in a few years, increase a hundredfold the
prosperity of the nation, the wealth of the State, and the resources
of power.
Because the discoveries of pure science, good books, and all the
higher productions of the mind, even when they are not sources of
material profit, are an honour to a country, the splendour of an age,
and the glory of a Sovereign.
All the princes in Europe, with the single exception of the Pope,
limit their views to the things of the earth; and they do wisely.
Without raising a doubt as to a future existence in another and a
better world, they govern their subjects only with regard to this
life. They seek to obtain for them all the happiness of which man is
capable here below; they labour to render him as perfect as he can be
as long as he retains this poor "mortal coil." We should regard them
as _mauvais plaisants_ if they were to think it their duty to make for
us the trials of Job, while showing us a future prospect of eternal
bliss.
But the fact is that our emperors and kings and lay sovereigns are men
with wives and children, personally interested in the education of the
rising generation, and the future of their people. A good Pope, on the
contrary, has no other object but to gain Heaven himself, and to drag
up a hundred and thirty millions of men after him. Thus it is that his
subjects can with an ill grace ask of him those temporal advantages
which secular princes feel bound to offer their subjects
spontaneously.
In the Papal States the schools for the lower classes are both few and
far between. The government does nothing to increase either their
number or their usefulness, the parishes being obliged to maintain
them; and even this source is sometimes cut off, for not unfrequently
the minister disallows this heading in the municipal budget, and
pockets the money himself. In addition to this, secondary teaching,
excepting in the colleges, exists but in name; and I should advise any
father who wishes his son's education to extend beyond the catechism,
to send him into Piedmont.
But on the other hand, I am bound to urge in the Pope's behalf that
the colleges are numerous, well endowed, and provided with ample means
for turning out mediocre priests. The monasteries devote themselves to
the education of little monks. They are taught from an early age to
hold a wax taper, wear a frock, cast down their eyes, and chant in
Latin. If you wish to admire the foresight of the Church, you should
see the procession of Corpus Christi day. All the convents walk in
line one after the other, and each has its live nursery of little
shavelings. Their bright Italian eyes, sparkling with intelligence,
and their handsome open countenances, form a curious contrast with the
stolid and hypocritical masks worn by their superiors. At one glance
you behold the opening flowers and the ripe fruit of religion,--the
present and the future. You think within yourselves that, in default
of a miracle, the cherubs before you will ere long be turned into
mummies. However, you console yourselves for the anticipated
metamorphosis by the reflection that the salvation of the monklings is
assured.
All the Pope's subjects would be sure of getting to Heaven if they
could all enter the cloisters; but then the world would come to an end
too soon. The Pope does his best to bring them near this state of
monastic and ecclesiastical perfection. Students are dressed like
priests, and corpses also are arrayed in a sort of religious costume.
The Brethren of the Christian Doctrine were thought dangerous because
they dressed their little boys in caps, tunics, and belts; so the Pope
forbade them to go on teaching young Rome. The Bolognese (beyond the
Apennines) founded by subscription asylums under the direction of lay
female teachers. The clergy make most praiseworthy efforts to reform
such an abuse.
There is not a law, not a regulation, not a deed nor a word of the
higher powers, which does not tend to the edification of the people,
and to urge them on heavenward.
Enter this church. A monk is preaching with fierce gesticulations. He
is not in the pulpit, but he stands about twenty paces from it, on a
plank hastily flung across trestles. Don't be afraid of his treating a
question of temporal ethics after the fashion of our worldly
preachers. He is dogmatically and furiously descanting on the
Immaculate Conception, on fasting in Lent, on avoiding meat of a
Friday, on the doctrine of the Trinity, on the special nature of
hell-fire.
"Bethink you, my brethren, that if terrestrial fire, the
fire created by God for your daily wants and your general
use, can cause you such acute pain at the least contact with
your flesh, how much more fierce and terrible must be that
flame of hell-fire which ever devours without consuming
those who ... etc. etc."
I spare you the rest.
Our sacred orators for the most part confine themselves to preaching
on such subjects as fidelity, to wives; probity, to men; obedience, to
children. They descend to a level with a lay congregation, and
endeavour to sow, each according to his powers, a little virtue on
earth. Verily, Roman eloquence cares very much for virtue! It is
greatly troubled about the things of earth! It takes the people by the
shoulders and forces them into the paths of devotion, which lead
straight to Heaven. And it does its duty, according to the teachings
of the Church.
Open one of the devotional books which are printed in the country.
Here is one selected at random, 'The Life of St. Jacintha.' It lies on
a young girl's work-table. A knitting-needle marks the place at which
the gentle reader left off this morning. Let us turn to the passage.
It is sure to be highly edifying.
"_Chapter V.--She casts from her heart all natural affection
for her relations._
"Knowing from the Redeemer himself that we ought not to love
our relations more than God, and feeling herself naturally
drawn towards hers, she feared lest such a love, although
natural, if it should take root and grow in her heart, might
in the course of time surpass or impede the love she owed to
God, and render her unworthy of him. So she formed the very
generous determination of casting from herself all affection
for the persons of her blood.
"Resolved on conquering herself by this courageous
determination, and on triumphing over opposing nature
itself,--powerfully urged thereto by another word of Christ,
who said that in order to go to him we must hate our
relations, when the love we bear them stands in the
way,--she went and solemnly performed a great act of
renunciation before the altar of the most holy Sacrament.
There, flinging herself on her knees, her heart kindling
with an ardent flame of charity towards God, she offered up
to Him all the natural affections of her heart, more
especially those which she felt were the strongest within
her for the nearest and dearest of her relations. In this
heroic action she obtained the intervention of the most holy
Virgin, as may be seen by a letter in her handwriting
addressed to a regular priest, wherein she promises, by the
aid of the holy Virgin, to attach herself no more either to
her relations, or to any other earthly object. This
renunciation was so resolutely courageous and so sincere
that from that hour her brothers, sisters, nephews, and all
her kindred became to her objects of total indifference; and
she deemed herself thenceforth so much an orphan and alone
in the world, that she was enabled to see and converse with
her aforesaid relations when they came to see her at the
convent, as if they were persons utterly unknown to her.
"She had made herself in Paradise an entirely spiritual
family, selected from among the saints who had been the
greatest sinners. Her father was St. Augustin; her mother
St. Mary the Egyptian; her brother St. William the Hermit,
ex-Duke of Aquitaine; her sister St. Margaret of Cortona;
her uncle St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles; her nephews
the three children of the furnace of Babylon."
Now here is a book that you, probably, attribute to the monkish ages;
a book expressing the isolated sentiments of a mind obscured by the
gloom of the cloisters.
In order to convince you of your error, I will give you its title and
date, and the opinion concerning it expressed by the rulers of Rome.
"Life of the Virgin Saint Jacintha Mariscotti, a professed
Nun of the Third Order of the Seraphic Father St. Francis,
written by the Father Flaminius Mary Hanibal of Latara,
Brother Observant of the Order of the Minors. Rome, 1805.
Published by Antonio Fulgoni, by permission of the
Superiors.
"Approbation.--The book is to the glory and honour of the
Catholic Religion and the illustrious Order of St. Francis,
and to the spiritual profit of those persons who desire to
enter into the way of perfection.
"Brother Thomas Mancini, of the Order of Preachers, Master,
ex-Provincial, and Consultor of Sacred Rites.
"Imprimatur. Brother Thomas Vincent Pani, of the Order of
Preachers, Master of the Sacred Apostolical Palace."
Now here we have a woman, a writer, a censor, and a Master of the
Palace, who are ready to strangle the whole human race for the sake of
hastening its arrival in Paradise. These people are only doing their
duty.
Just look out into the street. Four men of different ages are kneeling
in the mud before a Madonna, whining out prayers. Presently, fifteen
or twenty others come upon you, chanting a canticle to the glory of
Mary. Perhaps you think they are yielding to a natural inspiration,
and freely working out their salvation. I thought so myself, till I
was told that they were paid fifteen-pence for thus edifying the
bystanders. This comedy in the open air is subsidized by the
Government. And the Government does its duty.
The streets and roads swarm with beggars. Under lay governments the
poor either receive succour in their own homes, or are admitted to
houses of public charity; they are not allowed to obstruct the public
thoroughfares, and tyrannize over the passengers. But we are in an
ecclesiastical country. On the one hand, poverty is dear to God; on
the other, alms-giving is a deed of piety. If the Pope could make one
half of his subjects hold out their hands, and the other half put a
halfpenny into each extended palm, he would effect the salvation of an
entire people.
Mendicity, which lay sovereigns regard as an ugly sore in the State,
to be healed, is tended and watered as a fair flower by a clerical
government. Pray give something to yonder sham cripple; give to that
cadger who pretends to have lost an arm; and be sure you don't forget
that blind young man leaning on his father's arm! A medical man of my
acquaintance offered yesterday to restore his sight, by operating for
the cataract. The father cried aloud with indignant horror at the
proposal; the boy is a fortune to him. Drop an alms for the son into
the father's bowl; the Pope will let you into Paradise, of which he
keeps the keys.
The Romans themselves are not duped by their beggars. They are too
sharp to be taken in by these swindlers in misery. Still they put
their hands into their pockets; some from weakness or humanity, some
from ostentation, some to gain Paradise. If you doubt my assertion,
try an experiment which I once did, with considerable success. One
night, between nine and ten o'clock, I begged all along the Corso. I
was not disguised as a beggar. I was dressed as if I were on the
Boulevards at Paris. Still, between the Piazza del Popolo and the
Piazza di Venezia, I _made_ sixty-three baiocchi (about three
shillings). If I were to try the same joke at Paris, the
_sergents-de-ville_ would very properly think it their duty to walk me
off to the nearest police-station. The Pontifical Government
encourages mendicity by the protection of its agents, and recommends
it by the example of its friars. The Pontifical Government does its
duty.
Prostitution flourishes in Rome, and in all the large towns of the
States of the Church. The police is too paternal to refuse the
consolations of the flesh to three millions of persons out of whom
five or six thousand have taken the vow of celibacy. But in proportion
as it is indulgent to vice, it is severe in cases of scandal. It only
allows light conduct in women when they are sheltered by the
protection of a husband.[12] It casts the cloak of Japhet over the
vices of the Romans, in order that the pleasures of one nation may not
be a scandal to others. Rather than admit the existence of the evil,
it refuses to place it under proper restraint: lay governments appear
to sanction the social evil, when they place it under the control of
the law. The clerical police is perfectly aware that its noble and
wilful blindness exposes the health of an entire people to certain
danger. But it rubs its hands at the reflection that the sinners are
punished by the very sin itself. The clerical police does its duty.
The institution of the lottery is retained by the Popes, not as a
source of revenue only. Lay governments have long since abolished it,
because in a well-organized state, where industry leads to everything,
citizens should be taught to rely upon nothing but their industry. But
in the kingdom of the Church, where industry leads to nothing, not
only is the lottery a consolation to the poor, but it forms an
integral part of the public education. The sight of a beggar suddenly
enriched, as it were by enchantment, goes far to make the ignorant
multitude believe in miracles. The miracle of the loaves and fishes
was scarcely more marvellous than the changing of tenpence into two
hundred and fifty pounds. A high prize is like a present from God; it
is money falling from Heaven. This people know that no human power can
oblige three particular numbers to come out together; so they rely on
the divine mercy alone. They apply to the Capuchin friars for lucky
numbers; they recite special prayers for so many days; they humbly
call for the inspiration of Heaven before going to bed; they see in
dreams the Madonna stuck all over with figures; they pay for masses at
the Churches; they offer the priest money if he will put three numbers
under the chalice at the moment of the consecration. Not less humbly
did the courtiers of Louis XIV. range themselves in the antechamber he
was to pass through, in the hope of obtaining a look or a favour. The
drawing of the lottery is public, as are the University lectures in
France. And, verily, it is a great and salutary lesson. The winners
learn to praise God for his bounties: the losers are punished for
having unduly coveted worldly pelf. Everybody profits--most of all the
Government, which makes £80,000 a year by it, besides the satisfaction
of having done its duty.
Yes, the holy preceptors of the nation fulfil their duty towards God,
and towards themselves. But it does not necessarily follow that they
always manage the affairs of God and of the Government well.
"On rencontre sa destinée
Souvent par les chemins qu'on prend pour l'eviter."
La Fontaine tells us this, and the Pope proves it to us. In spite of
the attention paid to religious instruction, the sermons, the good
books, the edifying spectacles, the lottery, and so many other good
things, faith is departing. The general aspect of the country does not
betray the fact, because the fear of scandal pervades all society; but
the devil loses nothing by that. Perhaps the citizens have the greater
dislike to religion, from the very fact of its reigning over them. Our
master is our enemy. God is too much the master of these people not to
be treated by them in some degree as an enemy.
The spirit of opposition is called atheism, where the Tuileries are
called the Vatican. A young ragamuffin, who drove me from Rimini to
Santa Maria, let slip a terrible expression, which I have often
thought of since: "God?"--he said, "if there be one, I dare say he's a
priest like the rest of 'em."
Reflect upon these words, reader! When I examine them closely, I start
back in terror, as before those crevices of Vesuvius, which give you a
glimpse of the abyss below.
Has the temporal power served its own interests better than it has
those of God? I doubt it. The deputation of Rome was Red in 1848. It
was Rome that chose Mazzini. It is Rome that still regrets him in the
low haunts of the Regola, on that miry bank of the Tiber, where secret
societies swarm at this moment, like gnats on the shores of the Nile.
If these deplorable fruits of a model education were pointed out to
the philosopher Gavarni, he would probably exclaim, "Bring up nations,
in order that they may hate and despise you!"