influence, not only on his own but on the succeeding generations. His
“Treatise on the Education of Girls” guided French opinion on the
subject for almost two centuries. This book brought him literary glory
together with the position of tutor to the grandson and heir of Louis
XIV. During the eight years at court he published the “Fables,” the
“Dialogues of the Dead” and finally “Télemaque.” These books were
intended primarily for the instruction of his pupils; they became,
however, universally popular. Fénelon was banished from Paris as a
result of a doctrinal difference with Bossuet. Pope Innocent XIII, while
upholding the latter, gave this verdict: “Fénelon errs by loving God too
much and Bossuet by loving his neighbor too little.” Excessively
delicate from childhood, Fénelon’s health grew more and more feeble.
While Archbishop of Cambrai, to which city he had retired after his
disgrace, we read that he was forced to make his bed his retreat from
whence to say his offices and administer his diocese.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, French “philosopher,” occupied during three years
of his youth the position of footman in various houses. From his own
account, he made an uncommonly bad one, impertinent, mean, untruthful
and dishonest! Rousseau had a most despicable character, and although he
never lacked patrons, quarrelled with each in turn. Rousseau leapt into
fame in 1749, when he was thirty-seven years old, by reason of an
article extolling the savage over the civilized state. His two most
celebrated books are “Le Contrat Social” and “La nouvelle Heloise.” Only
the indulgence of his contemporaries would have granted him the title of
“philosopher,” but as a “man of letters” he occupies “a place unrivalled
in literary history.” His fame, great as it was during his lifetime,
reached to vertiginous heights after his death. Rousseau’s health was
execrable and like Voltaire it was said of him that he “was born dying.”
It might have been better for Lord Chesterfield if he had not dabbled
with medicine; he would perhaps not have “been so often his own patient,
or entrusted his health to the care of empirics.” Even before reaching
middle age, his debilitated constitution had given him repeated warning
of what he had to expect. When he wrote the renowned letters to his son,
he was a deaf, solitary, sick man, who had to resort almost habitually
to drugs to help him to endure his sufferings.
Boswell’s “Life of Samuel Johnson” is so universally familiar that I
need only remind you that Dr. Johnson was scrofulous and half-blind.
Horace Walpole occupied a curiously large place in the literary as well
as the social life of the eighteenth century. Despite his prolific pen
the only one of his books which achieved popular success during his
lifetime was “The Castle of Otranto.” It was translated into both French
and Italian and has been frequently republished. It is a strange book,
and I doubt if it will ever again be read with pleasure. Whatever
significance it has for us lies in the fact that it forms the starting
point of the great romantic revival. Walpole’s diary, published after
his death, is of the utmost historical importance. It is, however,
chiefly by his letters that he will be remembered, for he is undoubtedly
the greatest of the English letter-writers. Walpole suffered all his
life from frequent attacks of gout which at times completely crippled
him.
Winckelmann, the famous German archæologist, was the son of a poor
shoemaker. He became librarian to Cardinal Passioni in 1754, and while
occupying this position he gave to the world a succession of admirable
books. It was from him that scholars first obtained accurate information
as to the treasures excavated at Pompeii. His greatest contribution to
European literature is the “History of Ancient Art.” It is a delightful
book, written with a free and impassioned pen and marked an epoch by
“indicating the spirit in which the study of Greek art should be
approached and the methods by which investigators might hope to obtain
solid results.” He was a great friend of Goethe and many, if not all, of
their letters have been preserved. Winckelmann was so delicate that he
could never partake of anything but a little bread and wine. His gentle,
blameless life was cut short by the hand of a murderer, who killed him
for the sake of a few ancient coins, the gift of the Empress Maria
Theresa.
Herder, one of the most influential writers Germany has produced, was
exceedingly delicate; so also was our own Washington Irving, which
perhaps accounts for the extreme sensitiveness of the latter’s
impressions.
Thierry, the eminent French historian, ransacked the archives with such
unremitting zeal that on the eve of beginning to write his history, he
became totally blind. “But he never lost heart and in making friends
with darkness,” as he puts it, he returned to his work, and by means of
dictation was able to finish the masterpiece that was to prove the
foundation of a new school of history!... Thierry said: “If, as I
believe, the progress of science is to be numbered among the glories of
our land, I should again take the road that brought me to this pass.
Blind and suffering, without any respite or hope of recovery, I can
still witness to one point, that, coming from me, admits of no doubt;
that there is something in the world of higher value than material
enjoyment, nay, even than bodily health, and that is—devotion to
science.” Thus was the road discovered which was to be followed by
Prescott, Sismondi, Macaulay and many others, including Professor Ranke.
Charles Lamb had a mental breakdown at the age of nineteen, and Mary
Lamb suffered from frequent attacks of insanity.
Sir W. F. P. Napier’s health was permanently injured during a campaign
which carried hostilities into Spain. This obliged him to retire from
the army at the age of thirty-four. This unwelcome leisure was an
inestimable benefit not only to himself but to the world, as it
permitted him to become the greatest military historian that England has
ever produced.
Carlyle became a chronic invalid in his twenty-fourth year. The precise
nature of his ailment it is impossible to ascertain, but he declared
that a rat was continually gnawing at the pit of his stomach.
A most remarkable example of achievement in the face of terrible
physical disabilities is presented by the historian, Francis Parkman. He
was unable to open his eyes except in the dark, so that all his
information had to be read aloud to him while he made notes with his
eyes shut, by means of a machine he had invented as a guide to his hand.
For years he suffered so intensely that half an hour’s application
exhausted him. The superb works he left behind, composed despite such
incredible physical obstacles, have been a splendid legacy to his
country.
Prescott, the eminent American historian, suffered, while at Harvard, an
accident which changed the course of his life. A hard piece of bread,
thrown at random in the commons hall, struck his left eye and destroyed
the sight. Nevertheless he graduated honourably, but when he entered his
father’s office as a student of law the uninjured eye showed dangerous
symptoms of inflammation. He was urged, therefore, to travel and it was
at the Azores where he had to spend much of his time in a darkened room,
that he “began the mental discipline which enabled him to compose and
retain in memory long passages for subsequent dictation.” His secretary
gives this picture of him, while writing the “History of the Reign of
Ferdinand and Isabella”—“seated in a study lined on two sides with books
and darkened by screens of blue muslin, which required readjustment with
every cloud that passed across the sky.” Prescott trained his memory
until he was able to retain sixty pages of printed matter, “turning and
returning them as he walked or drove.” After fifty his remaining eye
showed serious symptoms of enfeeblement and his general health also gave
cause for alarm. Nevertheless he gallantly set to work on his “History
of Philip II.” The third volume was, however, not through the press,
before an attack of apoplexy put an end to his life.
Alfred Ainger, English divine and man of letters, chiefly remembered for
his sympathetic writings on Charles Lamb and Thomas Hood, was often
speechless with prostration from headaches and sickness. Ainger was no
more than a charming writer. I only insert him because his handicap is
one of the most difficult to overcome.
Synge, the remarkable Irish dramatist, was delicate and died young.
XVI
PROTESTANT REFORMERS
Luther stands out as the most powerful figure of the Reformation.
Protestant churches of every denomination owe to him their inception,
not so much on points of dogma, as because the success of his revolt
made theirs possible. Luther was afflicted with epilepsy and at times
from other disabilities, the exact nature of which I have been unable to
ascertain. Like so many other renowned invalids, we are struck with the
amount of work he accomplished. During the last ten years of his life he
suffered from continuous ill health, yet he spent them in incessant
labor. He was preaching with vehemence and fervor on February 19, 1546,
when suddenly he said, quietly, “This and much more is to be said about
the Gospel; but I am too weak and will close here.” Four days later he
was dead.
Calvin suffered constant bodily pain, yet he was a man of incessant
activity and of supreme courage. At one time, not only the council but
the people of Geneva revolted against his authority; a riot was
imminent. Calvin at once set out alone for the council-chamber where he
was greeted with yells and threats of death. Advancing slowly into their
midst he bared his breast, saying: “If you will have blood, strike
here!” Not an arm moved and, turning his back on his enemies, he slowly
mounted the stairs to the tribune.
John Knox began his career as a Catholic priest and we have so little
knowledge of his early life that we are ignorant as to what occasioned
the startling change in his views. After his accession to the ranks of
Protestantism he had at first no idea of preaching but confined himself
to instructing his friends’ children. His friends, however, recognized
his capacity and on his refusing “to run where God had not called him,”
they planned a solemn appeal to Knox from the pulpit to accept “the
public office and charge of preaching.” At the close of this exhortation
Knox burst into tears and shut himself in his chamber, “in heaviness,
for many days.” The call had at last found a leader of men. Yet it was
an invitation to danger and to death. Shortly afterwards St. Andrews was
attacked by the French fleet and Knox was among the prisoners taken. He
was thrown into a galley and for nineteen months remained in irons and
subject to the lash. When he was finally released, he was a man almost
forty-five years old and completely broken in health, by reason of the
hardships and cruelty to which he had been subjected. Yet his career was
only just beginning. “To Knox more than to any other man Scotland owes
her religion and individuality.” He was of great political importance
and one of the most powerful enemies of Maria Stuart. As an historian he
occupies an important place. His “History of the Reformation in
Scotland” is a remarkable book. It was said of him “he neither flattered
nor feared any flesh.” He was an inspired preacher. Elizabeth’s very
critical ambassador wrote from Edinburgh that “this one man was able in
one hour to put more life in us than five hundred trumpets.”
Richard Baxter was diseased from head to foot; nevertheless, he became
celebrated as the most eminent of the English Protestant schoolmen. He
was also of political importance and instrumental in bringing about the
Restoration of Charles II.
XVII
THE SAINTS
“When we look into God’s Face we do not feel His Hand.”
Health is a form of capital, and like any other capital may be either
well or ill invested. Moreover, we can squander it foolishly or convert
it into the supreme oblation, and to most of us life itself is a less
difficult sacrifice. The tragedy of war is not so much the toll of the
dead as the lists of the disabled.
Few of us are given the chance of dying for others, but to all of us is
offered the privilege of spending ourselves for humanity, either
individually or collectively. Countless parents, fathers as well as
mothers, purchase with their own lives and health, life, vigor and
opportunity for their children. The instinct of sacrifice is to a
greater or less degree universal to parenthood, and although I do not
wish to belittle their offering, I think it even more admirable when
placed on a less obvious altar. Numberless people are daily overspending
their physical resources in the service of mankind, by the furtherance
of knowledge, the improvement of material conditions, by widening the
door of opportunity or carrying the message of the spirit into teeming
slum and arid desert. Others give themselves with equal prodigality in
the more limited and less glorious field of their personal contacts; not
merely to their homes, their dependents and friends but to all who come
even casually within the radius of their fellowship.
It seems to me difficult to live at the height of our possibilities more
especially if our activities are purely selfless, without being at times
tempted to overdraw our health account. The soldier is only one of a
great host whose bodies have been sacrificed in the performance of an
imperative duty. Health is often purchased at the price of ignominious
refusal.
It is therefore not surprising that a large proportion of the saints
were men and women with ruined bodies,—bodies that had been rapturously
spent in the service of God and man. I will mention only a few of the
most renowned.
St. Jerome, one of the greatest of the early Christian Fathers, lived an
unregenerate life until a severe illness induced a complete change in
him and he resolved to renounce everything that kept him back from God.
His greatest temptation was the study of the literature of Greece and
pagan Rome, and he determined from thenceforth to devote all his vast
scholarship to the Holy Scriptures and to Christianity. To him we owe
the first translation of the Bible into Latin, commonly known as the
“Vulgate.”
Very few men have ever wielded greater power over the minds of men than
St. Augustine. He is to-day a living force, yet he struggled all his
life against consumption. He lived, however, to be seventy-six.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the most famous monk and preacher of the
Middle Ages, was a martyr to so many physical infirmities that at first
sight he appeared “like one near unto death.” All this suffering,
however, never quelled his ardent spirit or his overmastering zeal for
purging the world of sin. It was St. Bernard who said, “Nothing can work
me damage but myself; the harm I sustain I carry about with me, and I am
never a real sufferer but by my own fault.”
St. Francis of Assisi was a gay, dissipated youth when a severe illness
put a stop to his pleasures, and gave him time to reflect, so that he
became dissatisfied with his mode of life. On his recovery he set out on
a military expedition, but at the end of the first day’s march he fell
ill and had to return to Assisi. This disappointment brought on another
spiritual crisis and shortly afterwards he went on a pilgrimage to Rome.
Before everything he was an ascetic and a mystic,—an ascetic who though
gentle to others wore out his body in self-denial, so much so that when
he came to die, he begged pardon of “brother Ass, the body,” for having
unduly ill-treated it.
St. Catherine of Siena was not only a very great saint, but one of the
greatest women that ever lived. The daughter of a poor dyer who learned
to read when she was twenty and to write when she was twenty-seven or
eight, she dictated books and letters celebrated not only for their
spiritual fragrance and literary value, but also for their great
historical importance. No empress ever wielded greater power than this
extraordinary woman. Towards the end of her life her court consisted of
pilgrims who flocked daily by the thousands to visit her. The miracle of
her personality had its effect on all who approached her. A young
libertine, belonging to one of the most aristocratic families of Siena,
after one interview with this dyer’s daughter, abandoned his former life
and became her humble follower until the day of her death. She converted
a notorious robber, who for years terrorized the vicinity of Siena and
had almost paralyzed its commerce. As a proof of the sincerity of his
repentance he gave her his stronghold, together with all the spoils he
had accumulated. The abandonment of Avignon as the seat of the Papal
court undoubtedly changed not only the map, but also the history of
Europe, and it was solely owing to St. Catherine’s passionate insistence
that Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome, despite his own reluctance and
the opposition of his cardinals. During her short life she was
continually ill and during the period of her greatest activity she was
dying.
St. Ignatius Loyola, one of the most remarkable and influential
personages in the history of the Catholic Church, led the adventurous
life of a courtier and a soldier until he received a wound at the siege
of Pamplona. According to an old chronicler this “was the occasion of
his conversion to God.” A cannon-ball hit his legs, shattering one.
Serious illness followed the most painful operation, and for weeks his
life was despaired of. It was on the bed of torment which he eventually
left, lame for life and constitutionally enfeebled, that grace came to
him. The saint himself said, when he returned from the Valley of the
Shadow: “I have seen God face to face and my soul has been saved.” From
that time onward he devoted himself to a spiritual life, wandering far
and accomplishing much. Chief among his achievements was the founding of
the Order of Jesuits. I must mention here a very remarkable fact that
has, however, nothing to do with my thesis. In his will he bequeathed to
the order he founded this legacy: “that all men should speak ill of it.”
It is also curious that he who had benefited by illness should have
said: “A sound mind in a sound body is the most useful instrument with
which to serve God.”
St. Theresa of Jesus, the great Spanish saint, whose personality and
writings have never lost their influence, was always extremely delicate,
and during the period of her greatest accomplishments not only ill but
old.
With St. Theresa closes my list of those gallant souls who, apparently
unfit for the battle of life, have nevertheless left their mark on
history and civilization. And I wish to remind you again that I have
mentioned no one whose height of achievement has not been coincident
with ill-health, or reached after the suffering of some serious physical
disability. Neither have I thought it proper to cite any of the numerous
instances of handicapped genius among our living contemporaries.
I am certain that many other names might be presented to your
consideration, if it were not for my own ignorance as well as the
extreme difficulty of getting any reliable data on the subject.
XVIII
PAIN, THE GREAT TEACHER
“What does he know,” said a sage, “who has not suffered?”
That we may be benefited by physical suffering is no new idea,—it is not
even a forgotten idea. From the time when civilization first expressed
itself in terms of Christianity until the Reformation, the spiritual
value of pain has been an undisputed axiom. The Catholic Church has
never ceased to preach the mortification of the flesh, and all religious
communities, heathen as well as Christian, consider a certain degree of
asceticism necessary for the perfect manifestation of a spiritual life.
As to the merits of voluntary suffering inflicted for the purpose of
subjugating the appetites of the body, Christendom differs
fundamentally, but until recently, it has been united in regarding
illness as one of the means by which Providence purifies as well as
punishes its children.
The discovery of the germ, even more than the preaching of Mrs. Eddy,
dealt a terrific blow to this ancient belief, with the result that the
masses no longer regard physical suffering as a remedial agency but as
something not only unprofitable but purely destructive. For more than
thirty years the final abolition of pain has been the Mecca towards
which doctors and Christian Scientists have passionately journeyed;
moreover, their ranks have been swelled by numerous sects, schools or
religious bodies that have been called into existence by the rallying
cry of this New Hope. They pointed to the declining death rate as an
irrefutable testimony of battles already won, and as disease after
disease disappeared before the advance of sanitation, of serums or of
Right Thought; as surgery developed unheard-of possibilities, the most
limitless expectations seemed not unjustified. The natural infirmities
of age must eventually yield before the onslaught of knowledge. Bolder
spirits even dreamed of conquest over death.
And then the World War came.
Their boasted death-rate mounted to unheard-of heights. The maimed and
blind overflowed from the hospitals unto the farthest corners of the
earth. Still the havoc was not complete. Infantile paralysis came from
the north, killing and crippling our children by thousands. Finally,
influenza mowed down old and young in such numbers that even here in
America it was impossible to care for all the victims.
One would have expected these facts to be a staggering blow to our
theorists. Could they not have realized—if only dimly—that they were
battling against some fundamental law? Evidently not, for according to
them war is to be abolished. Not only that, but Dr. Voronoff now offers
an infallible cure for old age!
Now, as I said before, I neither believe that physical suffering will
ever be abolished nor do I even hope it. For pain is one of the great
human and humanizing experiences and, since the beginning of time, each
generation has learned in its school the same fundamental lessons.
“When a man is laboring under the pain of any distemper it is then that
he recollects there is a God and that he is but a man. No mortal is then
the object of his envy, his admiration or his contempt; and, having no
malice to gratify, the tales of slander excite him not.” This is the
testimony of a heathen, Pliny, who was himself an invalid. Sixteen
centuries later an Anglican divine, Jeremy Taylor, voiced a similar
conviction. “In sickness the soul begins to dress herself for
immortality. At first she unties the strings of vanity that made her
upper garments cleave to the world and sit uneasy.”
Even during the materialistic nineteenth century we find Dr. Samuel
Smiles declaring: “Suffering is doubtless as divinely appointed as joy,
while it is much more influential as a discipline of character. It
chastens and sweetens the nature, teaches patience and resignation and
promotes the deepest as well as the most exalted thoughts.”
Latterly there have been indications that this time-honored conception
is again becoming more universally recognized. For instance, during the
darkest days of the war the Bishop of London writes that he had “come to
believe that a painless world is a world not regenerate but degenerate.”
Who shall say that the revival of religious feeling which is now taking
place is not due to the physical and mental suffering entailed by the
war?
I should like to linger on the spiritual value of suffering, yet I feel
I am on very delicate ground. For the spirit is so gloriously
independent of the flesh, that it can expand under any circumstances and
in any habitation. St. Hildegarde believed “God could not dwell in a
healthy body,” and St. Ignatius Loyola that “a healthy mind in a healthy
body is the best instrument with which to serve God.” Yet he himself had
a shattered body.