Never was the spirit of sectarianism more active than in the

twelfth century. The disguised partisans of Gnosticism,

Manicheism, or Arianism, these habitual forms of

antichristianism, were spread all over civilized Europe under the

most diverse names: _Cathares, Pauliciens, Petrobrusiens,

Tanchelmites, Henriciens, Bogomiles, Apostoliques, Endistes,

Arnoldistes, Circonsis, Passagieres, Publicains, Vaudois Bons

Hommes_, etc., etc. These names appear strange, but they are

not more so than their actual partisans: socialists,

free-thinkers, solid men, Fourierists, Saint Simoniens, etc.

And do not suppose that these sects, or these schools, as they

are called nowadays, confined themselves to the innocent

publication of their programme, and simply distributed a few

partisans through anonymous societies, among the councils of

administration, or in the senates of empires.

The Ambrosien church was during a certain time directed by the

Nicolite priests of Milan, and supported violently by the emperor

and by the government. Our compatriot, Dankelm, a deist a little

sore, who preached against the corruptions of the monks, their

artifices, the tithes and mortmain, was head of an organized

church at Bruges, and also at Anvers. If the Vaudois had, like

Luther, obtained the support of the corrupted and sensual

bishops, and the ambitious princes so powerful and rapacious,

their church would have taken root in a great part of Europe

during the twelfth century; it has endured longer than will any

Protestant church; for it still existed in the last century, and

I believe there are still some communities in Holland and Suabia.

{382}

All these sects agreed on one point, their hatred of the Church

of Rome. M. Renan, in his last book, _Questions

Contemporains_, writing with a haughty moderation almost

disdainful, feared for the Catholic Church of the nineteenth

century a grand schism resulting in the simultaneous election of

two popes. Such an apprehension denotes in this writer a defect

of memory or a strange want of perspicacity; for in the church,

anti-popes were counted by dozens, and in the twelfth century,

this kind of schism appeared several times. The competitors or

anti-popes of Calixtus II., (1119-1124,) of Innocent II.,

(1130-1143,) and of Alexander III., (1159-1181,) were sustained

by emperors whose material power had but little weight in the

then known world. Under Innocent II., the schism lasted only

eight years. Sixty years later, Innocent III. governed Europe.

Heresies and schisms are always accompanied by social

revolutions. However, the irreligious antagonism of capital and

labor, which is one of the causes of modern socialism, did not

exist in the twelfth century under the learned and redoubtable

form of our day. The reason is a simple one, and we should be

proud of our age: labor, of which Christianity has made a duty,

had not then in political society the great and legitimate

importance it has now. The problem of pauperism had never been

solved politically except in densely populated countries, and in

the twelfth century the population of Europe was relatively less

considerable. Hatred of capital only manifested itself among the

idle, among certain sects, (the Cathares, the Frerots, the

Apostoliques, the Begghards, the Lollards, etc.,) and

particularly in "the wars of the castle and the hut;" violent

wars which were not only carried on by poor devils hardened by

passions, but by the _châtelains_, (governors or keepers,)

thieves only distinguishable from the others by new titles given

them through euphemism. This category of men was then more

numerous than in our time. We respect a mill, but we steal a

province. Then they took the province and the mill also.

Great luxury existed in all the towns of Italy. Money was a

courted power. The bankers' families became the source of

dynasties.

A portion of the secular clergy lived in the relaxation of

discipline, and even morals. Neither the energy of the great

Hildebrand, nor the activity of the admirable Alexander III., the

friend of the Lombard communities, had been powerful enough to

completely reform the regular clergy. Neither in the fifteenth

nor in the eighteenth century were more scandals seen than those

which disheartened the great St. Bernard. "Oh! for the power to

see again, before my death," wrote he to the pope, Eugene III.,

"those happy days of the church when the apostles cast their nets

for souls, and not for gold." This Pope Eugene was not permitted

to die at Rome. The Eternal City was in the hands of the

Garibaldians of the time, the Mazzini of whom was named Arnold, a

clerk of Brescia, of austere manners and quick-witted oratory.

After having studied philosophy in Paris under the cold and

licentious Abelard, Arnold commenced to traverse the Lombard

cities. Imposing upon himself a mission altogether political, he

pretended not to wish to injure the Catholic faith.

{383}

"Detractor of clergymen and bishops, persecutor of monks, he

reserved," said a chronicler of the time, "all his flattery for

the laity. He sustained the theory of no salvation for clergymen

possessing lands, for bishops disposing of regal rights, or monks

owning valuables; that all these things belonged to the state,

and it alone should dispose of them in favor of the laity. It is

said also that he did not reason sanely on the eucharist and the

baptism of infants." His partisans, called _politicians_,

called him to Rome, where he had resolved to establish a new

government. Forced to fly from this city after the second council

of Lateran, he wandered for several years in France, in Germany,

and in Switzerland, promulgating everywhere the doctrines which

he applied to his Italian friends. During an insurrection, the

pope, Lucius II., was killed by a blow from a stone, (to-day they

only kill ministers,) and his successor, Eugene III., took refuge

in Viterbo, and afterward in France. Arnold was in Switzerland

with 2000 soldiers collected there; the multitude having granted

him the dictatorship, he proclaimed the fall of the temporal

power of the popes, and the re-establishment of the Roman

republic; then, carried away by the logic of his ideas rather

than by his situation, he called to Rome the emperor, the monarch

of Italy, in order that he would deign to restore to the empire

the lustre it had under Justinian. Demagogues naturally advocate

Caesarism.

The emperors rushed to Rome. Arnold and his government were

thrown into the Tiber. Then recommenced, under a new form, the

quarrel between the priesthood and the empire, existing still in

Europe. Never had the pride of the depositaries of the civil

power, the absolutism of the god state, and the tyranny of the

supreme authority, representatives more complete, and in certain

respects more sympathetic, than the emperors of the house of

Hohenstaufen. How many laws vaunted by certain schools of our day

of progress have been dressed in the signature of these fierce

Sonabes, then abrogated as despotic and contrary to the liberty

and dignity of citizens.

The Staufen were fanatics in law when it was a question of their

authority. Frederic I. had for his witnesses the four famous

doctors of Bologna, who, with Irnerius, their professor, were

masters of the study of modern law. It was these four doctors

who, by the aid of texts and juridical interpretations, were

ready to impose on the Lombard cities represented at the diet of

Roncaglia the chains which the entire material power of the

German emperors had never been able to forge. It was the

chancellor of Frederic II., Pierre Des Vignes, who is the author

of the _Recueil des Lois de Sidle_, the first code of

despotism of modern times.

In few words, then, we have here the state of Europe, in its most

civilized centre, in the second half of the twelfth century. The

truth was at once attacked in church and state, with the view of

corrupting both; in the church, with an aim at her authority; in

the state, to banish liberty.

II.

It is the glory of the epoch which begins with the Lombard League

and the pontificate of the English Mendicant, Adrian IV., to have

re-established a moral equilibrium in Christian society, and to

have saved Europe from a lethargy similar to that in which a

Caesaro-papacy has plunged the East.

{384}

That which distinguished the civilizing genius of this epoch was

a moral vigor, a consequence of the intimate union existing

between the citizen and the Christian, between the scholar and

the theologian; I say union, not confusion. In the _Cid_ of

Guillaume de Castro, from which P. Corneille has borrowed

largely, there is a scene in which the hero seated at table

exhorts his companions to render homage to the patron of Spain,

"a chevalier himself, and with a large rosary suspended to his

sword." A leper enters and asks charity. The warriors take

flight. Alone the Cid remains, and forces him to sit on his cloak

and eat with him from his own plate. The repast finished, the

mendicant blessed the Cid, and betrays himself as Lazarus, who

has come to reveal his future destiny. The sword, which for the

chevalier is the sign of the citizen, serves to sustain the

rosary, the emblem of the Christian.

In the _Traité de l'Office du Podestà_, extract of Book III.

of the _Tresor_ of Brunetto Latini, the master of Dante, we

find in old French the exposition of the public law as understood

by the communicants of that time. The podesta of our time could

learn from it much that is useful and necessary to know. This,

for example, is the beginning of the chapter where the author

treats of things "that gentlemen should know and teach to those

over whom they are placed":

"_Remember then, thou who governest a city, from whence comes

the power to possess thy seignory. Remember thou the law and

the commandments, and never forget God and his saints, but

often_ approach the altar and pray God for thee and thy

subjects; for David and the prophets say, 'God guardeth the

city and every thing that laboreth within it.' Honor the pastor

of pastors of the holy Church; for God says, 'He who receiveth

thee receiveth me.' Be religious, and evidence the true faith;

for nothing is more beautiful to the prince of the earth than

true faith and right belief: for it is written, 'When the just

king is on his throne, no harm can befall him.' Guard the

churches, the houses of God, take care of widowed women and

orphans; for it is written, 'Be defenders of orphans and

widows.' Defend the poor against the wickedness of power; for

thou hast in thy care the great, the small, and the mean.

_Such things become thee from the beginning, etc._"

Have you observed the character of the figures seen on the tombs

of this period? The dead are lying on their backs, with hands

clasped; they do not bear the impress of death; they seem to

sleep and await the resurrection. Their attitude is simple,

naturally humble, but at the same time naturally proud. They are

armed; it is understood that they have fought the battle of life,

and in passing to the other shore have vanquished the enemy of

the human race with the arms of prayer. The citizen and the

Christian are so blended that it is impossible to distinguish

them; and this harmonious whole presents an appearance at once

humble and martial, tender and manly, which fills one with

respect without imposing fear.

Such is the character of the epoch I would depict while

portraying the causes of its grandeur. Let it be remarked,

however, I do not seek to make an apology for the thirteenth

century or the middle ages. My ideal is in the future, not in the

past. But the past being the mirror of the future, I love to

regard in the thirteenth century the memorable examples of what

could be done by the citizen under the influence of Christian

faith and reason in the midst of a society agitated and upset by

heresy, schism, socialism, the power of demagogues, and

Caesarism.

{385}

I suppose that the son of a rich merchant of Anvers, transported

by that enthusiasm for good which is the fruit of a grace divine,

renounces suddenly the luxury of a paternal home, and a

dissipated and idle life, which is too often the consequence of a

bad education, pampered by fortune. After having trained his soul

by fasting and prayer, and the contemplation of the divine

attributes toward the supernatural regions of life, he robes

himself voluntarily as a poor man and traverses the industrial

centres of the country, communicating to his equals the ardent

faith which escapes from his mouth in luminous characters. At

Gand, at Charleroi, at Liege, some young men become his

followers, and between them form an association for the service

of the humble, the weak, the poor, the miserable. Their mission

is to go about in the dress of workmen, living as they do, and

preaching from the steps of buildings, at the cross-roads, and in

the fields. To the rich, the obligation of working for and

befriending the poor; to the poor, the duties of sufferance and

respect; to all the world, the love of God and the church which

he has made the depositary of his graces. What might not be

accomplished by such missionaries of love, labor, science, and

peace? What would not be their influence and their authority?

Again, let me suppose the son of a rich English lord renouncing

the ostentation, the privileges and errors of his family and

religion, and, seized with an irresistible love for his neighbor

and humanity, seeking his old friends of Eton and Oxford,

communicating to them the flame of his convictions, and then

proposing to them to travel through England, Europe, the world,

and propagate Christianity; arguing everywhere with the

adversaries of the church; in the universities, in the

public-houses, before the door of the palace, or in the

junk-shops and the huts; preaching justice to the English, to the

Irish respect for the laws, to all the world peace, science,

liberty; opening here a school, there a hospital, and drawing

after him his contemporaries, by the authority of faith, the

power of science, the contagion of devotion. If you can imagine

the results obtained by the O'Connells, the Fathers Mathews, and

the Newmans, you will form a feeble idea of a revolution that

could produce a phalanx of men of such vigorous temperament.

This son of the wealthy merchant, and this child of an

illustrious house, existed in the beginning of the thirteenth

century. "The one," said Dante, "was surrounded by all the

_éclat_ of the seraphim, and the other walked in wisdom and

sanctity in the splendor of the cherubim."

The history of the life and works of these two extraordinary men

contains most precious teachings, the deep import of which often

escapes us, because given to us in such a common way, without

explaining their actual life. This seraphim (Saint Francis) and

this cherubim (Saint Dominic) governed the entire thirteenth

century by the extraordinary movement they impressed on souls,

and by the moral conquests, political, scientific, literary, and

artistic, with which their disciples enriched humanity.

The Mendicant friars, as they were later called, were not only

cloistered religious, giving themselves solely to a contemplative

life, and only leaving their convents for the church; they were

citizens in every acceptation of the word, but vowed to no

ambitions, mingling with their contemporaries, living in the

forum, and mounting the tribune of the popular assemblies as well

as the pulpits of the universities. When this tribune or pulpit

was forbidden them, they improvised one of their own, and made

appeals to the people who wished to hear the well-known voices,

simple, disinterested, loving, and therefore eloquent.

{386}

Thus the Franciscans penetrated even into China, "on the horse of

St. Francis"--that is, on foot--and traversing, wonderful as it

may appear, the whole continent of Asia. They founded a Christian

colony at Pekin, where the ships of France and England could only

enter with noise of cannon--a result assuredly more imposing but

not half so certain. During the Renaissance, when the first

Holland vessels arrived at Greenland, they found there a convent

of Dominicans.

In the thirteenth century, there were, even in civilized Europe,

more Chinese and Laplanders than would be supposed. To convert

them, the Franciscans and Dominicans applied themselves

assiduously, vanquishing them by science, and convincing them by

charity.

I understand the word science in its old acceptation; a deep

rational research into the first principles of things and the

origin of our knowledge. At no epoch of history, I dare to say,

has this research been carried on by more passionate lovers, by

more powerful intelligences, by more magnanimous hearts, than the

Mendicant monks of the thirteenth century. To prove this, let me

only mention four names.

The first in date is the Count de Bollstaedt, first Bishop of

Ratisbon, then Dominican; a professor of Cologne, and a perfect

encyclopedia; his gigantic works replete with all the ideas of

his time, and the initiator of German learning.

This scientific knowledge was only surpassed by that of his pupil

and companion, the Count d'Aquin, descendant of Staufen on his

mother's side, and called by his comrades "the ox of Sicily," by

the learned world "the angel of the schools," and by the church

Saint Thomas. His principal theological work (_Summa Totius

Theologiae Tripartita_) remained unfinished with the grand

cathedrals of the middle ages; but what we know of this and the

other works of this prodigious man will suffice to place him in

the rank of the greatest geniuses that have appeared on the

earth.

However he himself emulated in science the genius of his friend,

the _seraphic doctor_, Jean de Fidanza, of Tuscany,

professor in the University of Paris, an admirable man, of whom

his master, the English Franciscan, Alexander Hales, said:

"_Verus Israelita in quo Adam non peccasse videtur_." When

they brought him the cardinal's hat, Saint Bonaventura was

occupied in placing the plates on the table of his convent. He

died at the general council at Lyons, (1274,) just at the moment

when he was endeavoring to reunite the Greek to the Roman Church.

The fourth of these great doctors, who truly indoctrinated

science, is the great English Franciscan, _the admirable

doctor_, Roger Bacon, philologist and naturalist, who

predicted steam navigation and railroads. He is also supposed to

have invented the telescope, and foreseen the discovery of

America. The Protestants of the sixteenth century, who pretended

to shed light on the world, unfortunately burnt the convent that

held the manuscripts of this precursor of natural science.

A French writer, who does himself honor in protecting the church

with his valiant pen as others have done with their swords, M. L.

Veuillot, and of whom it may be said, "brave as his pen," says

somewhere that the thirteenth century has produced such great

things in the moral order that Saint Thomas had been able to

build up the colossus styled _La Somme_; yet during this

epoch people went on foot, and time was not lost running over the

world on railroads.

{387}

I am persuaded the contemporaries of Roger Bacon would not have

approved of this apologetic argument; for if they had known the

great discoveries of our day, of what works would not such

vigorous and universal minds have been capable? If such men,

consumed by activity, by love of science and humanity, ran from

Naples to Oxford, from Bologna to Paris, professing, preaching,

writing, administering the sacraments, directing their

communities, or working with the pope and the bishops in the

government of the church; if such men have produced such great

things on foot, what would they not have undertaken with

railroads at their disposal? To-day there come from Italy but few

philosophers measurable with the Count d'Aquin and Jean de

Fidanza; but, to make amends, how easy to convoke an oecumenical

council and send zouaves to Rome!

The observation I have just made is not a digression, for it

tends to demonstrate the profoundly practical aim of science in

the thirteenth century. These professors of Paris, Cologne, and

Oxford did not content themselves with teaching their doctrines

from the privileged benches of a university to a few cultivated,

delicate, and critical minds. They did not style themselves

philosophers, as the wise men by profession, who in the last

century wished thus to distinguish Christians. They practised

their doctrines, and their teaching was democratic, (pardon the

so much abused expression,) not only on account of their

principles but in regard to the public whom they addressed. They

called all the world to the feet of their pulpits, and after

distributing the bread of faith and science, that of charity was

not wanting. "Thus," said Ozanam, "the poor knew and blessed

their names. And even to-day, after six hundred years, the

inhabitants of Paris bend the knee before the altars of "the

angel of the schools," and the workmen of Lyons are honored in

carrying once a year, on their robust shoulders, the triumphant

remains of the "seraphic doctor." [Footnote 133] Can we believe

that six centuries hence they will do the same for the ashes of

Kant, Fichte, or Hegel?

[Footnote 133: _Dante et la Philosophie Catholique_,

p. i. ch. ii. p. 88.]

This enthusiasm of holy people for science was not entirely the

fruit of the doctrines of St. Francis and St. Dominic, or of the

personal tendencies of their disciples. When the zeal for such

subjects weakened, the church tried to revive the flame. Let us

recall the bull of 1254, published by Innocent IV., for the

re-establishment of philosophical studies: "A deplorable rumor,

spread abroad and repeated from mouth to mouth, has reached our

ears, and deeply afflicts us. It is said that the many aspirants

for the priesthood, abandoning, repudiating even, philosophical

studies, and consequently the teachings of theology, have sought

the different schools to explain the civil laws. Sarah then is

the slave, and Hagar has become mistress. We have tried to find a

remedy for this unexpected disorder. We would bring back minds to

the study of theology, which is the science of salvation, or at

least to philosophical studies, in which it is true the tenderest

emotions of piety are not met with, but where the soul discovers

the first lights of eternal truth, and frees itself from the

miserable preoccupations of cupidity--the root of all evil, and a

species of idolatry.

{388}

Therefore we decide by these presents, that in future no

professor of jurisprudence, no lawyer, whatever may be his rank

or the renown he may enjoy in the practice of law, can pretend to

any prebend, honor, or ecclesiastical dignity, nor even to an

inferior benefice, if he has not given proofs of requisite

capacity in the faculty of arts, and if he is not recommended by

the innocence of his life and the purity of his manners."

Such admirable teaching could not remain barren in a Christian

society. In 1256, just as Pope Alexander IV. had declared all the

serfs emancipated who would abandon the cause of _Ezelin le

Féroce_, the authorities of Bologna proceeded to the general

enfranchisement of those of their territory. The city was not

contented to set free only its own serfs; it extended the benefit

to those belonging to private masters, indemnifying the

proprietors, as some modern states have done in the slavery of

the blacks: the middle age was distinguished always for its

respect for acquired rights. The state paid ten livres for every

serf over fourteen, eight livres for those below that age. The

freedmen were bound to pay to the state some moderate tax in

cereals. The suggester of this generous measure was Bonacursio de

Sorresina, _capitano del popolo_, elected podesta the

following year. He placed the names of all the enfranchised on a

register called the _Paradise of Joy_. "An all-powerful

God," said he in the introduction to this register, "created man

free; original sin poisoned him; from immortal he became mortal,

from incorruptible corruptible, from free the slave of hell. He

sent for man's redemption his only Son, begotten by him from all

eternity. It is then just and equitable that man saved and freed

by God should not stagnate in servitude, where human laws have

precipitated him; that he should be set free. By these

considerations, Bologna, which has always fought for public

liberty, which recalls the past and weighs the future, has for

the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed all the serfs of its

territory, and proclaimed, for the future, slavery will be no

more tolerated. A little leaven leavens the whole lump; the

presence of one degraded being dishonors society."

It is right to observe that this noble language is the

reproduction, often textual, of the well-known words of the holy

Pope Gregory I., the Great, against the slavery of the

Anglo-Saxons.

Ten years afterward Bela, king of Hungary, having rejected a

bishop because he was born a serf, the pope wrote him that "the

will of man could not prescribe against nature, that has given

liberty to the human race."

"It is a frequent error among men," said the Count d'Aquin, "to

believe themselves noble because they are the issue of noble

families. ... It is well not to have failed in examples of noble

ancestors; but it is far better to have adorned an humble birth

with great actions. ... I repeat, then, with Saint Jerome, that

nothing appears to me worth envying in this pretended hereditary

nobility, if the nobles themselves are not restrained in the

paths of virtue by the shame of derogating from it. The true

nobility is that of the soul, according to the words of the poet:

'Nobilitas sola est animum quae moribus ornat.'" [Footnote 134]

[Footnote 134: _De Eruditione Principum_.]

A disciple of this great master, the B. Egide Colonna, cardinal

archbishop of Bourges, wrote in his book, _De Regimine

Principum:_ "Society cannot attain to the supreme end assigned

it without a combination of three means--virtue, light, and

exterior well-being. A prince should, then, in his kingdom first

watch with wise solicitude over the culture of letters, in order

to multiply the number of the learned and skilful.

[Footnote 135 (no reference; probably

_De Regimine Principum_): Liv. iii. p. 2, c. viii.]

{389}

For where science flourishes, and the sources of study spring up,

sooner or later instruction is disseminated among the crowd. So,

to dissipate the shadows of ignorance which shamefully envelop

the face of royalty, the king should encourage letters by a

favorable attention. Still more, if he refuses the necessary

encouragement, and does not wish his subjects instructed, he

ceases to be a king--he becomes a tyrant."

To finish the picture of the ideas of this time, let us quote

again these words of a sermon of the gentle and seraphic

Bonaventura: "We find today great scandals in governments; for

while an inexperienced pilot would not be placed on a ship to

manage the rudder, we put at the head of nations those who ignore

the art of governing them. When the right of succession places

children on a throne, woe to empires!"

The doctrines of the thirteenth century on the formation of

public power, on the duties of supreme authority, on the rights

of people, on sedition, etc., are so rigorous that they appear

bold, even in our time, when the defect is not precisely an

excess of reserve and respect. Truth alone can free the human

mind from every prejudice, develop character, and inspire a

language at once so proud and so simple. What reflections it

provokes when one has listened to the magnificent platitudes of

so many men of our time, who believe they think freely because

they are not Christians.

When Innocent IV., Celestin IV., St. Thomas, the B. Egide

Colonna, and St. Bonaventura spoke thus, the Caesarism of the

middle ages was decidedly vanquished for several centuries. This

is one of the grandest facts of history since the incarnation of

the Word.

The emperors of the house of Swabia, assuming with greater power

and more science the despotic plans of the Saxon emperors, had

the monstrous pretension to realize to the letter these texts of

_The Digest_: "The will of the prince is law," (Ulp.;) "The

prince is above all laws," (Paul.) By virtue of these texts the

prince commanding would have been the absolute sovereign of the

world, the proprietor of the Christian universe, and not only of

the royalties of the earth, but also of private property.

Interpreters taught without blushing the Caesarian theory of the

_dominium mundi_. _Le Recueil des Lois_ of Sicily,

revised by Pierre de Vigne for Frederic II., and promulgated by

this autocrat in the kingdom of Naples, is a model of this

abominable legislation that progressists of our day sometimes

dream of restoring.

The Roman Church alone resisted these false principles, these

monstrous politics, and, thanks be to God, she triumphed.

The ruler of modern times has become what he was in the age of

pretorian law, corrupted by the Caesarian jurors of the empire,

of the middle ages, and particularly the Renaissance, that is to

say, _the_ people, who by a so-called "royal law" would have

relinquished their rights into the hands of the Roman emperors.

But if the sovereign people could not but be a majority purely

numerical, arrogating in its turn the pretended laws of Caesar,

the struggles of the middle age between the clergy and the empire

would certainly be renewed.

This indissoluble alliance between Christian truth and civil

liberty is one of the most striking facts to those who study

history without prejudice; one of the best apologetic arguments I

know.

{390}

In the east, Caesarism has only been able to succeed through the

corruption of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and through schism;

and we know only too well what has become of the countries where

Homer sang, where Plato wrote, and where Saint Gregory of

Nazianzen and St. Basil preached. Europe has had to suffer

frequently from an excess of power in individuals in the church;

but they must not be confounded with the church itself, which has

introduced into the world the distinction of two powers: this

salutary distinction was not known of old, and is only menaced in

our day by rationalism in the state.

The people have understood this august _rôle_ of the church,

and do not cease to invoke with the poet: "Hail, mighty parent."

In the midst of ruin accumulated by the ambition of princes, the

corruption of governments, human passions, or time that has no

respect for truth, there remains today nothing but the good old

pope, and young nations ask the benediction of the aged man. In

modern democracies there will soon exist but one historical

institution, the papacy. The old religions of paganism have left

us but cold and gigantic pyramids of stone inclosing the ashes of

their priests. Christianity, on the contrary, has transmitted us

the living stone of the church, which will outlive the dust of

ages.

In all these struggles against heresies, schism, materialism,

Caesarism, the Roman Church had from the tenth to the thirteenth

century its allies, the communes, who were the masses of those

days. Civil liberty was, so to say, the fruit of the preachings

of the church. It was from this epoch we date _the Mass against

tyrants_, which can be found in the old missals. It was at the

end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries,

under the pontificates of Alexander III. and Innocent III., two

of the noblest successors of St. Peter, that this alliance, so

natural, so necessary, between the church that represents the

human conscience, and the communes who represent the liberty and

independence of the citizen, produced the most happy and

considerable results. In 1183 was signed _the peace of

Constance_, which assured definitively the liberty of the

Lombard people. In the final clause of the petition of the

citizens of Plaisance, the preliminary of this celebrated peace,

the deputies of the Lombard League had expressly stipulated "that

it would be permitted to the cities of the society to remain

always in unity with the church." The great charter of the

liberties of England dates from 1215. At the head of the

signatures of this memorable act for the English people is found,

for the church and for liberty, a disciple of the pope, the

learned Cardinal Stephen Langton, whose statue has recently been

introduced into Westminster Palace, where it will be a

significant witness of the past, and of the salutary breath which

is passing to-day over old England. And not only in England, but

in Spain and Hungary, had the church surrounded the cradle of

modern representative rule with its maternal cares, by its

celebrated "Golden Bull" establishing the law of peoples and

communities on the basis which to-day it enjoys in this

_apostolical kingdom_.

But in the Italian cities particularly is best observed the

fecundity of this salutary alliance between the sentiments of the

citizen and those of the Christian.

{391}

I have spoken of the scientific and religious _rôle_ of the

Mendicant friars; it would be better to call them citizen-monks.

At Bologna, it was one of them who fulfilled the function of

_inspector-general_ to the people. _Ezelin le Féroce_,

tyrant of the marshes of Verona, and the terror of the Lombard

cities, was only afraid of the Franciscans, especially Saint

Antony of Padua.

After ten years of penitence, Saint Francis, having prayed and

watched for forty nights, ordered Brother Leonard to take a pen

and write what he should dictate; and this angelic man, entranced

by the ravishments of divine love, improvised the following

beautiful canticle:

"Most high, most powerful and gracious

Lord, to thee belong praise, glory, and

every blessing. All is due to thee; and

thy creatures are not worthy so much as to

call thy name.

"Praised be God my Lord for all creatures,

and for our brother the sun, who gives

us the day and the light. Beautiful and

radiating in all his splendor, he does homage

to thee, O my God!

"And praised be thou, my Lord, for our

sister the moon, and for the stars. Thou

hast formed them in the heavens, clear and

beautiful.

"Praised be thou, my God, for my brother

the wind, for the air and the clouds, and for

good and bad weather, whatever it may be!

for by these thou sustainest thy creatures.

"Praised be my Lord for our sister the

water, which is so useful, humble, precious,

and chaste.

"Praised be thou, my God, for our brother

the fire! By him, thou illuminest the night;

beautiful and pleasant to see, untamable

and strong.

"Praised be my God for our mother the

earth, which sustains us, nourishes us, and

produces every sort of fruit, of various flowers,

and herbs!"

A few days after this admirable scene, there occurred between the

Bishop of Assisi and the magistrates of the people one of those

quarrels so frequent in the Italian cities of the thirteenth

century. Saint Francis, distressed at such discord, added to his

canticle the following verse:

"Praised be thou, my Lord, for those who

forgive for the love of thee, and who patiently

bear infirmity and tribulation. Happy

those who persevere in peace; for it is the

Most High who will crown them at last."

Then he ordered the minor brothers to hasten to the magistrates

and go with them to the bishop, before whom they were to chant

the new verse of the canticle of the sun. The adversaries present

could not resist the chanting of the _mineurs_, and they

were reconciled.

Since I have mentioned the canticle of the sun, one of the models

of Franciscan poetry of this age, I cannot forego the pleasure of

relating the end of it. After the pacification of Assisi, Saint

Francis, who suffered terribly from his stigmata, had gone, to

recruit his health, to Foligno, where it was revealed to him he

would die in two years. He then composed the last verse:

"Be praised, my God, for our sister, corporal

death, from which no man living may

escape! Woe to him who dies in mortal

sin! Happy he who at the hour of death

is found conformable to thy most holy will!

for death cannot injure him.

"Praise and bless my God, render him

thanks, and serve him with great humility."

The spirit of party had become truly a moral malady in the

Italian cities of the thirteenth century. If among my readers

there are those who abuse their own time because the spirit of

party condemns them to the struggle, I will tell them that in

Italy, in the time of Saint Francis and Saint Louis, they saluted

each other "in Ghibelline style" and cut their bread "à la

Guelph," and for a trifle parties attacked each other in the

cross-streets and in the public places. We have certainly

progressed since then.

{392}

In 1233, the nobles and the people of Plaisance were in open

warfare; the Franciscan Leon, selected as arbiter, published a

law, and divided equally all the employments of state between the

two inimical factions; he exacted, besides, a confirmation of the

sentence through the kiss of peace. In the same year the brother

Gerard, of the same order, reconciled the parties at Modena. At

Parma, he reformed the statutes of the people and recalled the

proscriptions. In 1257, the Dominican Eberhard caused to be set

at liberty the Guelphs imprisoned at Brescia. One of his

companions had the same success at Parma. But the most

interesting example of the powerful influence of religion on

civil life was the mission of the brother John of Vicenza, in the

Lombard towns.

Inspired by an apostolic zeal, the aged Pope Gregory IX. charged

the Dominican, John of Vicenza, (_Fra Giovanni Chio_,) to go

preach peace to the inimical factions, and re-establish

everywhere among the people union and concord. Brother John,

endowed with winning eloquence, commenced his mission at Bologna.

He obtained immense and unhoped-for success in the city where

Saint Francis and Saint Anthony had already achieved

extraordinary triumphs; nobles and people, professors and

students, all laid down their enmities at the feet of the brother

preacher; the magistrates handed him the statutes of the people,

in order that he might correct all that could give rise to new

discussions. The Paduans, informed that he was coming to them,

went to meet him, preceded by their magistrates and the

_carroccio_, to Monselice, four or five miles from the city;

Brother John, seated on the patriotic car, made a triumphal entry

among the people; the success in Padua surpassed that of Bologna;

the people assembled at the Place de la Valle, applauded him with

joy, and begged him to reform the statutes. The same triumphs at

Trevise, Feltre, Belluna, and Vicenza. At Verona, Ezelin and the

Montecchi promised him under oath to do everything the pope might

order. The eloquent monk again visited such places as Camino,

Conegliano, Saint Boniface, Mantua, Brescia, preaching everywhere

universal peace, reconciling factions, and setting prisoners at

liberty. At last, he appointed the 28th of August, the feast of

Saint Augustine, for a general assembly to be held on the plain

of Pacquara, on the borders of the Adige, about three miles from

Verona. On the day determined, the entire populations of Verona,

Mantua, Brescia, Padua, Vicenza, with their magistrates and

_carroccio_, arrived at the appointed place; a multitude of

people from Trevise, Feltre, Venice, Ferrara, Modena, Reggio,

Parma, Bologna, and most of them barefooted in sign of penitence;

the bishops of Verona, Brescia, Mantua, Bologna, Modena, Reggio,

Trevise, Vicenza, and Padua; the patriarch of Aquila; the

margrave of Este, Ezelin and Alberic de Romano, the Signers de

Camino, and all of Venetia. Parisio de Cereta, a contemporary

author, in his Veronese chronicle, enumerates his auditory at

four hundred thousand persons. The Dominican took for his text:

"My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you." Never had

Christians witnessed a more august spectacle. The enthusiasm was

carried even to excess. It was a delirium of peace and union.

Brother John ordained, in the name of God and the church, a

general pacification, and devoted those who infringed upon it to

excommunication and eternal malediction. He proposed the marriage

of Renaud, son of the margrave of Este, with Adelaide, daughter

of Alberic of Romano, and obtained also from the brothers Romano

the promise they would sell to the town of Padua for fifteen

hundred livres the possessions they had in the territory of this

city. The act embraced divers clauses, and contained promises of

pacification.

{393}

Sixty years after the assassination of Pope Lucius II. by the

Arnoldites, the spiritual power of the papacy was, so to say,

omnipotent in Italy, if not in the whole of Europe. And it is

precisely about this epoch that in proportion as the civil power

of the Roman Church determined, limited, and fortified itself, in

Italy the ecclesiastical principalities were extinguished; while

for centuries they have been maintained in other countries, less

submissive to the Holy See. This fact will not astonish us, if we

follow with attention the progression of ideas propagated by

Christianity, and taking such deep root in the thirteenth

century.

Thus the sap of Christianity mounts in all the branches of this

immense tree called humanity, and produces abundant fruit. The

Gothic art is displayed while developing the Roman; the ogive

comes out from the arch by a natural elevation toward the summit

or the roof. Elliptical forms, wiser and more perfect than

circular ones, (the circle is an ellipsis in which the focuses

are blended,) transform the architecture, and give to the

monuments an apparent flight to heaven, just as the study of the

ellipsis in analytical geometry conducts to the infinite. The

austere energy of St. Bernard had no time for art. He needed the

science of Roger Bacon and the poetry of St. Francis. The Roman

basilica gives place to the Gothic cathedral, and throws its

gracious shadows on the mansions of the neighboring town. The

whole of Europe is covered with a vegetation of admirable

monuments, epic poems of stone--as the church of Assisi, the

cathedral of Florence, the cathedral of Cologne--poetry of the

highest order, not for rich idlers, or delicate minds, but for

the people _en masse_. Art agrees with the epoch of which it

is the emanation--it is for the people themselves. "The more I

see of these Gothic monuments," wrote M. David, (d' Angers,) "the

more I experience the happiness of reading these beautiful

religious pages so piously sculptured on the secular walls of the

churches. They were the archives of an ignorant people; it was

therefore necessary the handwriting should be legible. The saints

sculptured in Gothic art have an expression of serenity and

calmness, full of confidence and faith. This evening, as I write,

the setting sun gilds the façade of the cathedral of Amiens: the

calm faces of the saints in stone diffuse a radiant light."

Mysterious power of truth! M. David was attracted to it by art;

M. Pugin was converted, it is said, by studying the cathedral of

York. In truth, there are few languages more perfect than that of

the symbolism, so deep and complete, of the thirteenth century.

"The men of the middle age," said one whose works and

remembrances are very dear to me--"the men of the middle age were

not satisfied to simply raise stone upon stone; these stones were

to speak, and speak a language of painting, equally understood by

rich and poor; heaven itself must be visible, and the angels and

saints remain present by their images, to console and preach to

the people. The vaults of the two basilicas of Assisi were

covered with a field of blue, strewn with stars of gold. On the

walls were displayed the mysteries of the two Testaments, and the

life of St. Francis formed the sequel to the book of divine

revelations.

{394}

But, as if it were impossible to approach with impunity the

miraculous tomb, the painters who ornamented in fresco seemed

inspired with a new spirit; they conceived an ideal more pure,

more animated, than the old Byzantine types which had had their

day, but which for eight hundred years had continued to

degenerate. The basilica of Assisi became the cradle of a

renaissance in art, and evidenced its progress. There Guido of

Sienna and Giunta of Pisa detached themselves more and more from

the Greek masters whose aridity they softened and whose

immobility they shattered. Then came Cimabue. He represented all

the sacred writings in a series of paintings which decorated the

principal part of the church, and which time has mutilated. But

six hundred years have not tarnished the splendor of the heads of

Christ, of the Virgin, and of St. John, painted at the top of the

vaults; nor the images of the four great doctors, where a

Byzantine majesty still carries with it an air of life and

immortal youth. At last Giotto appeared, and one of his works was

the triumph of St. Francis, painted in four compartments under

the vault which crowns the altar of the chapel. Nothing is more

celebrated than these beautiful frescoes; but I know nothing more

touching than one in which is figured the betrothal of the

servant of God to holy poverty. Poverty, under the appearance of

a lady perfectly beautiful, but the face attenuated, the clothing

torn; a dog barks at her, two children throw stones at her, and

put thorns in her way. She, however, calm and joyous, holds out

her hand to St. Francis; Christ himself unites the two spouses;

and in the midst of clouds appears the Eternal Father accompanied

by angels, as if too much of heaven and earth could not be given

to assist at the wedding of these two mendicants. Here, nothing

suggests the painting of the Grecian school; all is new, free,

and inspired. Progress did not cease with the disciples of Giotto

appointed to continue his work: Cavalini, Taddeo Gaddi, Puccio

Capana. In the midst of the variety of their compositions, we

recognize the unity of the faith shed so lustrously through their

works. When one pauses before these chaste representations of the

Virgin, the Annunciation, the Nativity, before the crucified

Christ, with the saddened angels weeping around the cross, or

collecting in cups the divine blood, it would require a very

hardened heart not to feel the tears flow, and not to bend the

humbled knee and strike the breast with the shepherds and poor

women who pray at the feet of such images."

And this is the art of the thirteenth century; it caused to weep

under the same vault, and caused to pray on the same slab with

poor peasants, one of the purest-minded intelligences, one of the

noblest hearts of our time, one that the thirteenth century would

have styled "the seraphic Ozanam."

And let us again remark this attraction, at once logical and

living with facts produced by the germination of Christian

thought in civil society. St. Francis and St. Dominic no longer

preach as the disciples of St. Benedict to the few members of a

military oligarchy, or to a flock of serfs; they address

themselves to a civilized society, living in the midst of the

benefits of Christianity, without having to give an account of

the origin of these benefits; in the midst of a society

aggrandized by the progress of Christian equality, and still

desirous of enlargement. There is no longer a fierce Licambre,

but haughty jurists.

{395}

No more cruel Anglo-Saxons, but emperors, elegant, educated,

poetical, seductive, who hide their despotic projects under

titles the most pompous and the most fallacious. No more pagan

kings martyrizing the Christian; but Catholic kings more or less

sincere, who, in the name of social and state interests, seek to

torture consciences. There are no more lords whose brutality

scandalizes the coarsest minds; but there are rich citizens,

softened and blinded by selfishness, who weary under the

Christian yoke, and who hide their sensualism under the interest

they profess for Caesar or the prince. It is, then, from the time

of St. Francis the chanter of poverty, from the time of St.

Dominic the descendant of the Guzman, of the race of Cid, that is

born in Italy, by the side of the citizens, a new class which

completes the political emancipation of the Christian people.

After having grown up, the people disappeared under the

Renaissance when Protestantism triumphed, not to appear again

until modern times, in our own age, when the sap of Christianity

forces the church to remount into the branches of the tree of

which I spoke. Art has resented this moral revolution of the

thirteenth century, and literature also. The grand writer whom I

have already quoted, I was going to say the poet who has founded

the society of St. Vincent de Paul, makes somewhere a reflection

which has struck me forcibly. Have you remarked, with him, that

the church has put poetry into the choir, while she has banished

reasoning into the pulpit--into the grand nave? I do not say

reason, for true poetry is the chant of reason. Poetry that I

call real and practical, that which elevates the soul toward its

end, which balances the sighs of humanity, and clothes itself in

spoken or written form, rhythmical or not, the sentiment which

attracts us toward the infinite, and which St. Francis designates

love, such poetry is simply prayer. A poet is naturally

sacerdotal. He is really the _vates_ of antiquity. David and

Solomon prayed with lyre in hand, and their prayers became the

hymns of Christianity. Isaiah chanted the coming of the Messiah.

So in the thirteenth century, poetry was everywhere, a

consequence of the Christian sentiment, spread in every direction

through the moral life. To Innocent III., who under the name of

the Count de Signa was considered one of the most learned men of

his time, is attributed the _Dies Ire_. He has composed

other spiritual songs. St. Thomas has left us the _Pange

Lingua_. St. Francis is the chief of the poetic Franciscan

school, in which shone St. Bonaventura, St. Antony, and the

blessed Jacopone de Todi, of whom every one knows the beautiful

stanzas _Stabat Mater Dolorosa_, etc. Then comes Dante, who

governs Christian ages as Homer did the olden time. And lastly in

the same age in Italy, at Vercelli, it is said, lived and died

the great unknown who has left us the most beautiful book from

the hand of man, _The Imitation_, the true poem of humanity

redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. The fall, the redemption,

the grand drama of the moral history of the world, the battle of

life, the art of vanquishing passion and matter, the effort of

man to reach his ideal on the wings of simplicity and purity

--where are those things better chanted than in _The

Imitation?_

The thirteenth century, then, merits to be cited among the

grandest epochs of history. However, it would be a false idea to

imagine society elevated to a high degree of perfection.

{396}

Many Christians of our day, charmed by the recital of the life

and works of these great saints, and by the sight of the

magnificent monuments of the first era of ogival style, become

almost melancholy, and have a disposition to blame everything new

in the world, and defy their contemporaries or future generations

even to imitate the virtues of the age of Innocent III. I think

this tendency all wrong, and Christians who permit themselves to

be so carried away, lack firmness and faith; for Christianity

cannot decay, and the more the saints of the past, the greater

the protectors of the church for the future. Besides, it is so

easy to regard only the virtues of the thirteenth century, and

ignore the vices. We must remember St. Anthony was the neighbor

and the contemporary of Ezelin the Ferocious, the type of the

tyrant of the modern world. Frederick II. lived in the same age

as St. Louis. _The Sicilian Code_ was revised fifty years

after the peace of Constance, at the same time as the _Magna

Charta_ of England. St. Thomas d'Aquin and Roger Bacon are

contemporaries of the Albigenses. You cannot point out in our age

an error or a calamity that has not its equal, or rather its

precursor, in the thirteenth century.

Caesarism, vanquished in politics, was protected by the literary

men and the jurists. Dante in his old days wrote the Caesarian

treatise, _De Monarchico_. It was in the beginning of the

fourteenth century, a hundred years after Innocent III., that the

popes, chased from Rome and Italy, set out for the exile of

Avignon, which lasted seventy-five years.

III.

A reasonable study of such grandeur and such fall, the review of

which must demonstrate human liberty, should make us better know

our own age, and love it the more.

We possess more elements of material prosperity and material

progress, and we jealously preserve the depository of all the

moral truths. We enjoy greater political security, and the

sentiment of right is more general in our day than in any other.

What we want, what has given an expansive power and grandeur and

beauty to the thirteenth century, is a moral unity in the general

direction of civil society. Our epoch feels its instinct, it

seeks it, it desires it. People submit to the heaviest

sacrifices, and agitate themselves to obtain what they call their

unity. It is a false, factious, exterior unity, I know, but after

all, it is unity.

But a true, living, and moral unity can only be found in efforts

such as I have tried to depict; and moral unity, which should be

the only legitimate aim of a people, is not established by force,

nor even by the splendor of industrial production, nor the

attractions of an economical well-being. It will only grow as the

people liberally accept the direction of the Christian law.

Expelled from political constitutions, I see this unity

reconstitute itself in the masses. The neighboring democracies

should be Christian. Recently we have met a battalion of

crusaders, going to Rome, and coming from North America, which

will soon add to the number of its bishops as many as presided at

the Council of Nice. To manifest with new _éclat_ the fact

of Christianity, and advance so salutary a movement, which will

perhaps produce moral splendors unknown to the thirteenth

century, we must arm ourselves, under the buckler of faith, with

the science and rights of the citizen, as did the great doctors

of the thirteenth century.

{397}

This struggle, I know, is to-day more difficult, but therefore

more meritorious, more glorious. Nowhere have we the support of

governments. I do not complain--I state a fact; and perhaps this

very support is a defect because it has been so much abused. The

purity of the moral struggle of the thirteenth century is

tarnished by the religious persecutions. I know the adversaries

of the church have exaggerated their intensity; but I know also

that never has the church, as a church, persecuted, nor given or

proclaimed the right to persecute. Besides, we must not lose

sight of the fact that the alliance of church and state was such

that a heresy was considered above everything a crime against the

state. For example, we are astonished to see a Saint Louis

condemn severely the blasphemers of God as state criminals; but

we do not consider it extraordinary nowadays to see the

blasphemers of a sovereign or minister condemned to prison,

exile, or transportation. It is necessary to remark that the

greater part of the sects of the middle ages proclaimed

principles the realization of which would have consequences of

great civil and political importance. I defy our contemporary

societies, so proud of their religious tolerance, to support the

worship of the Mormons, those pests of our age. Only Christian

societies are strong enough to resist such currents of

corruption, to preserve their integrity, to endure and develop by

the side of such sects. Christians alone can be tolerant with

impunity, because tolerance for them is not a social necessity,

but a virtue. Only they can repeat with Saint Augustine: "Let us

convert the heretics, but let them not be sacrificed." So when we

think of the universal blame of which St. Ambrose and St. Martin

made themselves interpreters, against the condemnation to death

of the Priscillians, those Mormons of the fourteenth century, we

are justly astonished at the rigors exercised in the thirteenth

century against the Albigenses and other sectarians. To-day,

thanks be to God, a religious persecution could not be possible

in countries where the Catholic religion predominates.

Persecutions are only prevalent among the Mussulmans of Asia

Minor or the schismatics of Poland; and if the Protestants of

Ireland or the liberal anti-Catholics of the Continent have such

tendencies, they devise some form which to them alone appears as

progress.

For the contest, then, we must act as citizens, and use the pen

and the word, and without truce or relaxation. When St. Francis

Xavier made in the Indies his great and admirable spiritual

conquests, destroyed by the Holland Protestants and the English,

he asked for reinforcements from the superior of his order.

"Especially," said he, "send me from Belgium those robust and

broad-shouldered men." With such, this great saint believed

himself able to encounter every difficulty. Their race is not

extinct, thank God; and it seems to me Europeans are easier

conquered than Asiatics.

----------

{398}

Brittany: Its People and its Poems.

Progress is the order of the day; the very watchword of the

nineteenth century. Our times are possessed by an ever-active,

restless spirit. Here and there only, in this surging sea,

sheltered havens are found, where the quiet waters can reflect

the fair forms and hues of heaven, floating above them in the

deep and far-off blue. Here and there, out of the beaten track of

the world's highways, lie rich and fertile retreats, among whose

hills and fountains, woods and mossy stones, the spirit of the

past, with music on her lips, poetry in her soul, and the cross

clear and bright on her brow, still loves to dwell.

In scarcely another corner of Europe is the influence of this

spirit so tenacious, so pervading, as in Brittany. Nor to those

among us who may be descended from, or linked with, the original

inhabitants of the British island, can Europe furnish many more

interesting studies than this granite promontory--the bulwark of

France against the wild Atlantic--and the Celtic tribes there,

who guard, even to-day, their old Armorica from invasion of the

novelties of Paris in manners and in thought.

Brittany preserves the same characteristic relations with regard

to France as Wales, Ireland, and the Highlands of Scotland

preserve toward England. Its geographical position, its

mountains, and the sea, have continued to protect it in a great

degree from foreign influences. Indeed, this isolation is

observable throughout its history. Almost from the first, the

Breton Celts were the sole occupants of their own corner of the

earth. The Gauls, the original inhabitants of the country, were

outnumbered and absorbed by the influx of British emigrants; who,

of the same original stock with themselves, speedily became the

dominant sept, and possessors of the country.

The first extensive emigration of the insular Britons from what

is now Great Britain into Armorica, took place about the year

383, by order of the tyrant Maximin. It was not, however,

undertaken by compulsion, but was a willing adventure. The second

took place when they fled in great numbers from the Saxon

domination, after A.D. 450, when Ambrose and the great Arthur had

fought so bravely and so long, in vain. This time they were

_driven_ from their land, and as they crossed the sea to

find a home with their brethren in Armorica, they sorrowfully

chanted the psalm which their Christian bards had translated into

their native tongue, "_Thou hast given us, O Lord, as sheep for

the slaughter; and thou hast scattered us among the nations._"

A terrible pestilence with which, about this time, various parts

of Britain were visited, is said to have done more than anything

else toward confirming the sway of the Saxons in England, and

diminishing the old Britons to a mere remnant in the island. They

themselves regarded it as a sign that the kingdom was taken from

them, and given by God to their enemies. The emigrations

thenceforward became so frequent and so numerous that the British

isle was almost depopulated of its ancient inhabitants; and King

Ina, of Wessex, who was also Bretwalda, coming to the throne in

A.D. 689, grieved to lose so many of his subjects, sent to

entreat the emigrants to return.

{399}

At that period, they more than equalled the indigenous population

of Armorica, upon whom they had imposed their own laws and form

of government. Thus, in the fifth century, Armorica was, like

Cambria, divided into small independent states: those of Vannes;

Kerne, or Cornouaille; Leon; and Tréguier--all Celtic in

language, customs, and laws, and each division having its own

bishop and its own chief. Among the chiefs, one often obtained a

predominating power over the rest, with the title of

_konan_, or crowned chief. Hence, all the earlier kings of

Armorica of whom we hear in history, Meriadek, Gradlon, Budik,

Houel, and others, were Britons from the Island. Their bards, who

formed an essential part of every noble family among the

Cambrians, accompanied them into their adopted country. Of this

number was Taliessin, "the prince of the bards, the prophets, and

the Druids of the West." He took up his abode in the land of the

Venetes, (Vannes,) near to his friend and brother bard, Gildas,

who had emigrated thither, and who is said to have converted

Taliessin to the Christian faith. Three other celebrated bards of

the same period were Saint Sulio, Hyvarnion, and Kian Gwench'lan.

Tradition gives the following account of the manner in which St.

Sulio received his vocation. When very young, he was one day

playing with his brothers near the castle of their father, the

lord of Powys, when a procession of monks passed by, led by their

abbot, and chanting, to the sound of his harp, the praise of God.

The sweetness of their hymns so delighted the child, that,

bidding his brothers return to their sports, he followed the

monks, "in order to learn of them how he might compose beautiful

songs." His brothers hastened to tell their father of his flight,

who sent thirty armed men, with a charge to kill the abbot and to

bring back Sulio. He had, however, been sent at once to a

monastery in Armorica, of which in due time he became prior. The

Welsh, who call him Saint Y Sulio, possess a collection of his

poems.

The Christian faith won its way more slowly in Armorica than it

had done in Britain. They who had inherited the harp of the

ancient Druids, with the mysteries of their religion and the

secrets of their knowledge, were often reluctant to submit to the

belief which despoiled them of their priesthood. "If Taliessin,"

says M. de la Villemarqué, "consecrated to Christ the fruits of a

mysterious science, perfected under the shadow of proscribed

altars; if the monks, taking the harp in hand, attracted to the

cloister the children of the chiefs; if the Christian mother

taught her little one in the cradle to sing of him who died upon

the cross, .... there were, at the same time, in the depth of the

woods, dispersed members of the Druidic colleges, wandering from

hut to hut, like the fugitive Druids of the Isle of Britain, who

continued to give to the children of Armorica lessons on the

divinity, as their fathers had been taught; and they did so with

sufficient success to alarm the Christian teachers, and oblige

them to combat them skilfully with their own weapons."

Even after paganism had fallen before the cross, we find curious

traces of the Druidic element scattered here and there in the

early poems of Brittany. Her bishops of that period are spoken of

as "Christian Druids, who grafted the faith of Christ on the

Druid oak;" and of her poets it is said, "They did not

_break_ the harp of the ancient bards; they only changed

some of its chords."

{400}

The most ancient poems preserved in Brittany which bear evidences

of being the scientific compositions of the bards, are: _The

Series, or the Druid and the Child; The Prediction of Gwench'lan;

The Submersion of the City of Ys; The Changeling; The Wine of the

Gauls; The March of Arthur;_ and _Alain the Fox_. These

are the last breathings of the _learned_ poetry of the

Bretons of Armorica.

But, besides the scientific poems of the descendants of the

Druids, there grew up, at the same time, a large amount of

popular poetry, both in Wales and in Armorica. As early as the

sixth century, this divided itself into three distinct kinds:

theological, heroic, and historical poems; domestic poems and

love-songs; and poems on religious subjects, including the

versified histories of saints. This whole class of poetry sprang

from the people; it was the expression of their heart, the echo

of their thoughts, the depository of their history and of their

belief.

Upon this poetry of the people, both in the British island and in

Brittany, the bards made war. And when, among the Bretons, the

popular minstrels overcame the bards, the Welsh triads put the

Armoricans in the number of "the three peoples which have

corrupted the primitive bardism by mixing with it heterogeneous

principles."

"It is only the _kler_, (scholar-poets,) the vagabonds, and

the beggars," says Taliessin, "who give themselves no trouble."

"Bark not against instruction in the art of verse. Silence!

miserable pretenders, who usurp the name of bards! You know not

how to judge between truth and fables! ... As for me, I am

diviner and general-in-chief of the bards of the west!"

Gildas is equally energetic in protesting against all "who take

pleasure in listening to the vociferations" of the popular poets

of his time.

Reality and good faith are the two principal qualities inherent

in popular poetry in its primitive state. The poet's aim is

always to paint faithfully something which actually occurred, or

which he _believed_ did occur.

Chronicler and novelist, legendary and sacred psalmodist, the

poet of Brittany is all this to the mass of the Breton

population--to twelve hundred thousand uneducated persons,

without any other learning than that which they gain from the

oral instruction of their clergy. A thoughtful and imaginative

people, full of poetic instinct, and of the desire of knowledge;

and to whom every event, possessing a moderate share of interest,

furnishes subject-matter for a song.

We will now attempt translations of a portion of the

_bardic_ poems which remain to us. We omit the first,

entitled _Ar Rannoce_, or _The Series:_ a dialogue

between a Druid and a child who is one of his disciples. Its

length would unduly prolong the present article; but, inasmuch as

it conveys an interesting sketch of the cosmogony and theology of

the bardic system, we may find for it a place in some future

page.

To come, then, to the second poem on our list, _The Prophecy of

Gwench'lan_. The bard Kian, surnamed Gwench'lan, or "_Pure

Race_" was born in Armorica at the beginning of the fifth

century, and was never won to the Christian faith. His enmity to

it, indeed, was embittered by the treatment he received at the

hands of a foreign prince, calling himself a Christian; who threw

the bard into a dungeon, and, after depriving him of sight, left

him there to die.

{401}

During his hard captivity he composed the following poem, called

_Diougan Gwench'lan_, or _The Prophecy of Gwench'lan_,

in which he predicts the fate of his captor, who was shortly

afterward slain in battle fighting against the Bretons.

The composition of this poem is exactly after the pattern of the

ancient Welsh bards. Like Taliessin, Gwench'lan believes in the

_three cycles of being_ of the Druidic theology, and in the

doctrine of metempsychosis. "I have been born three times," says

Taliessin. ... "I have been dead; I have been alive; I am that

which I was. ... I have been a wild goat upon the mountains; I

have been a spotted cock; I have been a fallow-deer; now I am

Taliessin."

Like Lywarc'h-Hen, he mourns over his old age and decrepitude. He

is melancholy, and a fatalist.

Like Aneurin, who had been made prisoner after the battle of

Kattracz, and in his captivity composed _The Song of

Gododin_, Gwench'lan sings in his chains and in the darkness

of his dungeon.

It was not unusual among the bards to compare the leader of the

enemy to the wild boar of the woods, and the champion who

withstood him to the war-horse, or the white horse of the sea.

Gwench'lan is said to have composed many songs in praise of the

warriors of his country--those who marched to battle invoking the

Sun-god, and, on returning victorious, danced in his honor to the

"_Sword, King of Battle_." A collection of his poems and

prophecies was preserved until the French revolution, in the

abbey of Landevenec; but the ferocious joy with which, in some

fragments that remain, he contemplates the slaughter of the

Christians in the Menez Bré, and the extermination of their

faith, makes their destruction small matter of regret to any but

the antiquary.

Gwench'lan, however, continues to be famous throughout Brittany,

where the remnants of his compositions still are sung; especially

_The Prophecy_, of which a part has been translated by M. de

Villemarqué from _Barzaz Breiz_, (_Breton Ballads_.)

Diougan Gwench'lan.

Prophecy Of Gwench'lan.

I.

When the sun is setting,

When the sea is swelling,

I sit upon the threshold of my door.

I sang when I was young,

And still, grown old, I sing,

By night, by day, though with sad heart and sore.

If my head is bent low,

If my trouble presses;

It is not causeless care that weighs me down.

It is not that I fear;

I fear not to be slain:

For long enough my life has lingered on.

When they seek not Gwench'lan,

Gwench'lan, they will find him:

But find they shall not, when they seek for me.

Yet, whatsoe'er betide,

To me it matters not

That alone which _ought_ to be, will _be_.

Thrice all must die, ere rest at last they see.

II.

Wild boar, I behold him,

From the wood forth comes he;

Much he drinks; he hath a wounded foot:

His hair is white with age;

Round him his hungry young

Are howling. Bloodstained is his gaping throat.

White horse of the sea, lo!

Comes to the encounter.

The shore for terror trembles 'neath his tread.

Bright and dazzling he,

Bright as the sparkling snow;

And silver horns are gleaming on his head.

Foams the water 'neath him,

At the thunder-fire

Of those fierce nostrils. Sea-horses around

Press, thick and close as grass

Upon a lakelet's bank.

Horse of the sea! strike well! Strike--strike him to the ground!

......

III.

As I was sweetly sleeping, in my cold, cold tomb.

I heard the eagle calling, at midnight calling, "Come!

Rise on your wings, O eaglets! and all ye birds of heaven.

To you, nor flesh of dogs, nor sheep, but _Christians_, shall be given!"

"Old raven of the sea,

What hold'st thou?--say to me."

"The chieftain's head I bear away:

His two red eyes shall be my prey,

For taking thy two eyes away."

"And thou too, what hast thou, O Reynard sly?"

"His heart, which was as false as mine, have I;

It sought thy death, and long hath made thee die."

"What dost thou by the corner of his mouth, O toad?"

"I wait to seize his soul upon her road,

Long as I live must I be her abode."

Thus he meeteth his reward

For his crime against the bard

Who dwells no more between Roch-allaz and Porz-Gwen'n.

{402}

The _Submersion of the City of Ys_, or Is, presents to us

one of those legends which has its counterpart in so many other

branches of the Celtic race. Its historical basis is as follows:

"In the year 440, there reigned in Armorica King Gradlon-veur,

or the Great. His capital was the city of Is, since destroyed;

and he occasionally consulted a holy man named Gwenolé, founder

and abbot of the first monastery erected in Armorica.

"This is all which contemporary and authentic history tell us

of this city, this prince, and this monk; but popular

tradition, always more rich than history, furnishes us with

additional particulars. According to this, the city of Is was

protected from the invasions of the sea by an immense basin or

reservoir, which at high tide received the waters of the ocean,

as formerly the Lake Moeris those of the Nile. This basin had a

secret door, of which the king alone had the key, and which he

opened or closed himself when needed. One night, while he

slept, the Princess Dahut, wishing to crown the follies of a

banquet given to a suitor, stole the key; she, or, according to

another variation of the story, her suitor, who was in truth

the author of evil under an assumed form, opened the door, and,

as had been foretold by Saint Gwenolé, submerged the city.

"This tradition, adds M. de Villemarqué, ascends to the very

cradle of the Celtic race, and is common to its three great

branches, the Bretons, Welsh, and Irish.

"The _Is_ of Armorica is the _Gwaeleod_ of Wales, and

the _Neaz_ of Ireland; the name in each instance

signifying _low_ or _hollow_. According to all three,

the daughter of the king is the cause of the catastrophe, and

is punished by being changed into a siren, after a death by

drowning. The Welsh version of this ballad, which is apparently

of the date of the fifth century, and composed by the bard

Gwezno, contains two strophes which are almost literally

repeated in the Armorican. It begins in a way very like the

conclusion of the latter. Some one comes to awaken the king,

whom the bard calls Seizenin:

"'Seizenin! arise, and look! The land of warriors, the country

of Gwezno, is overwhelmed by the ocean.'

"The Welsh sailors in Cardigan Bay, which, they assure us, now

occupies the submerged territory, declare that they can see

beneath the waters the ruins of ancient edifices. The same is

said of the Bay of Douarnenez in Basse-Bretagne.

"Also, the Irish fishermen, at a much earlier epoch, (according

to Giraldus Cambrensis,) the middle of the second century,

believed that they could see glimmering under the waters of the

lake which covers their city of Neaz the round towers of

ancient days.

"With regard to the horse of Gradlon, Marie de France assures

us that, in struggling through the flood, the force of the

water bore his master off his back; that the life of Gradlon

was saved by a beneficent fay, but the horse, on reaching the

land without the king, became wild with grief.

"The original tradition says that Gradlon, fleeing for his

life, bore his daughter behind him, when a terrible voice cried

three times, 'Push off the demon that sits behind thee.' The

unhappy king obeyed, and forthwith the waters were restrained."

Submersion Of The City Of Is.

I.

Oh! hast thou heard--oh! hast thou heard

Of Gwenolé the rede,

Which unto Gradlon, king of Is,

He spake, but gat small heed?

"To earthly love, ah! yield thee not,

With evil cease to toy;

For after pleasure cometh woe,

And sorrow follows joy.

"Who bites the flesh of fishes, soon

The fishes him shall bite;

And he who swallows, shall himself

Be swallowed up some night.

"And he who drinks both beer and wine,

Shall water drink amain:

To him who cannot scan my speech

It soon shall be made plain."

II.

One eve spake Gradlon, king of Is,

King Gradlon thus spake he

"My merry friends, by your fair leave,

A little sleep would we."

{403}

"To-morrow 'twill be time enough--

With us this evening stay;

But if it be thy mind to sleep,

We would not say thee nay."

And thereupon her lover spake,

Full softly whispered he,

To Gradlon's daughter, "Sweet princess,

Sweet Dahut--_and the key!_"

"Hush! I will bear the key away

That locks the floodgates fast,

And Is shall be within thy power

Ere little time be past."

III.

Now, whosoe'er had seen the king,

As on his couch he lay,

With admiration had been filled

At sight of his array.

The aged king, in purple robed,

With long and snow-white hair,

Which o'er his shoulders flowed upon

His golden collar fair.

And whosoe'er had lain in wait

Had spied the princess white,

Unsandalled, steal into that room,

In silence of the night.

She to the king her father crept,

Sank softly on her knee,

Loosed from his neck the golden chain,

And bore away the key.

IV.

He sleepeth on--he sleepeth on,

Till, from the plains, a cry--

"The deep is o'er us! Is overwhelmed

Beneath the waters high!

"My lord the king, arise, arise!

To horse! and swiftly flee.

The dykes are burst--the land o'erflowed

By the triumphant sea."

Accursed be the treacherous maid

Who opened thus the gate

After the feast--who drowned the land,

And made it desolate!

V.

"Oh! tell me now, brave forester,

The wild-horse hast thou seen

Of Gradlon? Hast thou seen it pass

Along this valley green?"

"The horse of Gradlon saw I not

At any time pass by;

But in deep night '_trip trap_' I hear,

With lightning swiftness fly."

"Say, hast thou seen, O fisherman!

The daughter of the sea,

Combing her golden hair at noon,

Where sparkling breakers be?"

"Yes, I have seen the mermaid white:

She sings among the waves.

Her songs are plaintive as the sound

Of deeps o'er dead men's graves."

We come now to _The Changeling_; and here again we trace not

so much a resemblance as an all but literal reproduction of an

Irish legend, known to all readers of _The Fairy Legends of the

South of Ireland_ under the title, _The Brewery of

Egg-shells_. It must be confessed, however, that the

non-Catholic medium through which the Irish version reaches us,

has deprived it of the religious turn it may possibly have had in

the original. Our Lady does not appear in it, as here in the

Breton ballad.

The Changeling.

Grieved to the heart is la belle Marie.

Where may her Laoik, her little one, be?

Carried away by the Korrigan he.

"Forth to the fount as I went on a day,

Safe in his cradle my little one lay;

Home when I came he had vanished away.

"This wretched monster I found in his place.

Rough, like a toad, with a horrible face,

Dumb, greedy, fierce, like the rest of his race.

"Mary most pure, on your snow-gleaming throne,

In your maternal arms holding your Son,

You are in joy, while in sorrow I moan.

"Your Holy Child evermore you are keeping,

Mine I have lost, whom I thought safely sleeping;

Mother of Pity, ah! pity my weeping!"

"Daughter, my daughter, oh! sorrow no more.

Lost is he not whom you thus would deplore,

Laoik, your darling, short time shall restore.

"Who in an egg-shell shall feign to prepare

All that ten laborers need for their fare,

Forces the dwarf into speech, then and there.

"When he has spoken, then whip--whip again!

Whip, till he cry out with anger and pain!

He will be heard: and be borne off amain."

"Prithee, my mother, what do you?" he cries,

"What make you, mother?" he asks in surprise.

Dwarfling can scarcely believe his own eyes.

"What am I doing, my son, would you ken?

Dinner I make, in this egg-shell, for ten,

Ten of the farm-servants, laboring men."

"Ten! in an eggshell! The egg I have seen

Fresh, of the oldest white hen that has been:

Acorn, whose oak is far-spreading and green.

"Oaks have I seen, widening out from their core,

Old oaks of Brézal wood, rugged and hoar;

Nothing like this have I e'er seen before."

"Too many things hast thou seen," she replies:

Flip, flap! flip, flap!--thus upon him she flies.

"Little old man, now I have thee!" she cries.

{404}

"Whip not, nor strike, but restore him to me;

Harm hath been none to thy boy, belle Marie;

King over all in our country is he!"

When to her home returned Marie that day,

Safe in his cradle her own baby lay,

Sweetly asleep, as if wearied with play.

While she stands gazing, entranced at the sight,

Bending to kiss the fair cheeks with delight,

Laoik, her lost one, his eyes opens bright.

Half rising up, and with wondering eyes,

Soft arms outstretched in a dreamy surprise,

"Mother! how long I've been sleeping!" he cries.

We will conclude our present instalment from these interesting

relics of Celtic antiquity by a spirit-stirring fragment; for the

reader will perceive that it is incomplete. This is _Arthur's

March_, (_Bale Arzur,_) written, like the last, in the

_Ies Kerne_, or dialect of Cornouaille--_Cornu

Galliae_--a district of Brittany. There is a complete change

of metre between the parts marked I. and II.; the former being so

arranged, that the poetical foot composing the lines is of three

short syllables following a long one, and produces a spirited and

martial effect, somewhat like the beat of a modern drum.

M. de Villemarqué, from whose _Barzaz Briez_, or _Breton

Ballads_, we have drawn so largely in these pages, speaks thus

of the ballad before us:

"The popularity which the name of Arthur enjoys in Brittany is

one of the most curious phenomena in the history of Breton

fidelity. Neither defeat nor exile could make the Bretons

forgetful of Arthur. His magic renown, crossing the sea with

them, received new life in Armorica; he became there, as he was

in the Isle of Britain, an armed symbol of national liberty;

and the people, at all periods from the sixth century to our

own time, repeated, with adaptation to circumstances, the

traditions and the sayings or prophecies of which he was the

subject. Thus, whenever war is impending, they see, as a

warning sign, the army of Arthur defiling at break of day over

the summit of the Black Mountains; and the poem here given has

for twelve centuries been in the mouth of Bretons armed to

defend their hearths and altars. I learnt it from an aged

mountaineer named Mikel Floc'h, of Leuhan, who told me that he

had often sung it when marching against the enemy in the last

wars of the west."

The last strophe, which is of later date than the preceding ones,

may in some measure have contributed to save from oblivion the

_March of Arthur_. It is always sung three times over, and

with the greatest enthusiasm.

Some of the strophes, breathing the savage vengeance of pagan

times, have been omitted in the English translation. They retain

in the original so much of the Cambrian dialect and idiom as to

be scarcely in the least understood by the Bretons who sing them.

The March Of Arthur.

I.

Haste, haste to the combat! Come kinsman, come brother,

Come father, come son, to the battle speed forth!

The brave and the dauntless, come, speed one another!

Come all! there is work for the warriors of worth.

II.

Said to his father, at day-dawn, the son of the warrior,

"Horsemen I see, on the far mountain summits, who gather.

"Horsemen all mounted on war-steeds of gray, like the mist-wreaths;

Coursers that snort with the cold on the heights of the mountains.

"Close ranks of six by six: three by three: thousands of lances

Flash in the beams of the sun, to our vale yet unrisen.

"Double ranks follow the banners that wave in the death-wind,

Measuring nine casts of a sling from the van to the rearward."

"Pendragon's army! I know it! Great Arthur Pendragon

Leading his warriors, marches 'mid clouds of the mountain.

"If it be Arthur, then quick to our bows and swift arrows!

Forward, and follow him. Set the keen death-winged dart flying!"

{405}

E'en as he spake rang the fierce cry of war through the mountains:

"Heart for eye: head for arm; death for wound!" through hill and valley.

If in such manner we die as befits Breton Christians,

Too soon we cannot sink down on the field of our conflict!

If our readers are not yet wearied with details of the ancient

poetry of this exceptional part of France, we hope to present

them in our next number with further specimens; including the

death of Lord Nann from the spells of a malignant Korrigan, or

Breton fairy, and the argument by which a Breton maiden persisted

in choosing the cloister against all the persuasions of a suitor

to her hand. Both these poems date at least from the sixth

century of Christianity.

----------

Indian Summer.

Upon the hills the autumn sun

His radiance pours like golden wine;

And low, sweet music seems to run

Among the tassels of the pine;

Around us rings the wild bird's scream;

Above, an arch of dark-blue sky;

While, like a maiden's summer dream,

The mists upon the meadows lie.

O peerless Indian Summer hours,

With bracing morn and slumbrous noon!

How pale are June's bright, flaunting flowers

Amid thy wealth of gorgeous bloom.

The river ripples softly on,

With purple hills upon its breast;

And soft cloud-shadows, floating down,

Have found a scene of perfect rest.

The evening darkens; from the hills

The glory fades, so proudly worn;

And in the west serenely fills

The fair young moon her silver horn;

While from the deep'ning blue above

The stars steal slowly, singly forth;

And night-winds, like the breath of love,

Come floating o'er the silent earth.

Veronica.

Cornwall Landing.

----------

{406}

Creative Genius of Catholicity. [Footnote 136]

[Footnote 136: We take pleasure in presenting in our pages

the following able article, from the pen of the late lamented

Colonel James Monroe. Few writers have left behind a

testimony more striking of their devotion to our holy faith,

or of their confidence in its elevating social power. It

meets living questions of the day with a rare aptitude, and

presents views and applies principles in a manner worthy of

attentive and thoughtful consideration.--ED. C. W.]

If the creative genius of Catholicity were to be stated from an

_a priori_ point of view, it would reduce itself to the form

of an axiom; for Catholicity being the body of revealed truth,

confirming and agreeing with truth in every order, truth being

essentially "that which is," (to employ the words of Bossuet,)

Catholicity must be pre-eminently endowed with the germinative

and fruitful spirit of origination. But inasmuch as truth has in

this world a clouded scene for her activity, as effects arise

constantly, and almost invariably, from an intermixture of causes

of a diverse and contending character, and as the divine, the

human, and the material elements are incessantly conjoined in

action, it becomes necessary to trace the chain of events and to

elucidate the influence of principles. This process does not,

with the mind which is gifted with faith, arrive at the dignity

of the highest proof; it rather serves to record examples and to

collect illustrations.

In executing such a process, the difficulty is, not to find

instances, but to decide which of them to choose amidst the

boundless variety. I think it germane to the subject to compare

Catholic genius with that of the most polished nation of the

Gentile world, as the two have been displayed under the sensuous

relation of form. The Greeks, beyond all other people, possessed

a native capability in art, and there remains of the productions

of the Greek mind enough for a just estimate of its rich

capabilities. The models of Greek genius have won the

enthusiastic admiration of mankind, and they dominate with a

strong mastery over all cultivated minds which lack the Catholic

faith. "Even from their urns, they rule them still."

Whatever difficulties language, poetry, philosophy, may labor

under from the lapse of time, that which is tactual and visual

needs but to be present to be appreciated. If art be the

emanation of a creative spirit; if it be not, in its highest

sphere, a copy or an imitation, then must it be admitted that the

evolution of the Greek orders of architecture, combining majestic

strength, radiant grace, and flowery beauty, embodied in pure and

enduring material, is the loftiest expression of impassioned

heathen genius. It is higher than their types of the human form,

because it was wrought without a model and shaped directly from

the mind's ideal. The conception is one so strong and great that

it has never had a rival outside of Catholicity--and indeed

hardly a respectable imitator. The coarser capability of the

Roman mind not only originated nothing and added nothing to Greek

invention, but it marred and misapplied that which it undertook

to adopt. Later copyists have aimed no higher than a restoration

of what their masters had created.

{407}

All that addresses the eye, and through it the mind, under form

alone, may be objectively resolved into lines and surfaces, which

may be again subdivided into yet simpler elements. The

combinations of these elements--their union, tangencies, and

contrasts--may be classified, and may furnish certain deductions

which are incontrovertible general conclusions. Indeed, the

deduction may become so far generalized as to pass beyond the

boundary of the art which suggested it--as "the perfection of

form is said to annihilate form;" it then arrives at abstract

truth, which seeks its illustration in matter, without deriving

its validity therefrom. This is so far true that the science

whose highest deductions fall short of such generalization is yet

in a rudimentary condition. [Footnote 137]

[Footnote 137: As an example, we may take the principle of

beauty as shown in the simplest and least beautiful of the

regular curves, the circular. In the circle variation in

direction is combined with identity in the distance from a

fixed point. There is, then, unity in diversity--a general

principle, of which the circle is but an example. Nature,

ever affluent in resources, varies the tameness of the circle

by presenting it to the eye as a right line, an ellipse,

etc., according to the point of view. Thus again illustrating

the law of unity in diversity; for the knowledge that the

figure is still a circle is _one_, while the gradations

in its appearance are many.]

In adjusting the elements of form under harmonious combinations,

and in expanding them into imposing dimensions, the Greek mind

was so subtle and appreciative that it missed nothing, and

exhausted everything within the reach of its science, "unwinding

all the links of grace, without a blunder or an oversight." If

the Gothic architecture had borrowed from the Greek, or had

simply carried forward into further development the same

formative idea, it might be said that the case was that of the

dwarf upon the giant's shoulders, who sees further than the giant

himself. But the fact is entirely otherwise. The projectors and

moulders of the Gothic church architecture found the field of

invention limited--as must ever be the case--by preceding

invention. The genius, therefore, must have been the greater

which not only discovered new combinations of excellence, but

anticipated and antedated yet surpassed all predecessors.

Among tribes of men whom the Greek styled "barbarous" emanates a

life in art which transcends his highest conception. We encounter

fabrics loftier, broader, deeper; the arch which _he_ did

not employ is lifted from its circular character into a higher

curvature, and its key-stone boldly stricken out. We find pillars

massed, scalloped, and filleted; mouldings of a more graceful

contour, every way flexure of contrast and gradation; a mazy web

of tracery combining lightness, symmetry, permanence, and

equilibrium; in mid air, a shapely dome, poised by the daring

hand of science, where the cloud might visit it and the rainbow

circle it. All this prodigality of invention and unequalled

execution, springing forth as from an exhaustless fountain, is

not confined to some favored peninsula, but is common to Italy,

Germany, France, and England. The common cause of an effect so

uniform and remarkable was the inspiring and elevating influence

of the One Catholic faith.

I will quote here a Protestant writer's view of the difference in

design between the Greek and Gothic building:

"The essential, germinal principle of difference between the

temple and the cathedral is, that the former is built for

exterior effect, the latter for interior. On occasions of

worship, the multitude surrounded one edifice, but filled the

other. The temple has, as regards architectural impression,

really no interior at all; for the small _cella_ or

_naos_ which hid the _penetralia_ entered not at all

into the effect of the structure. From this difference in

character and design, the whole diversity between the

characters of Greek and Gothic forms and decorations may be

derived. To the former, viewed from without, an aspect of

elevated repose must belong; and all the decorations must be

superficial. The elaboration of an impressive and inspiring

interior led necessarily to soaring height and a general

upwardness of all the courses; to long-drawn vistas, side by

side; to grand portals to give entrance, and a multitude of

windows to give light; and to a general style of decoration,

concave, receding, and perspective."

{408}

The same writer says:

"If England's cathedrals are inferior to those of France, they

are more beautiful than anything else in the world. Durham and

Ely, and Winchester and Salisbury, what needs the soul of man

more impressive, glorious, transcendent, than these?"

Another competent authority--also a Protestant--says:

"There is infinitely more scientific skill displayed in a

Gothic cathedral than in all the buildings of Greece and Rome;

nor could these latter have resisted the shock of time so long,

had they not been almost solid masses of stone, with no more

cavity than was indispensably necessary."

Let us examine the principle of delineation in the human

form--that which has ever captivated the efforts of the greatest

artists. In the classic execution of the highest human types

there is an evident straining after the expression of something

above the actual. Sir Charles Bell has shown that this effect is

attained by a refined species of exaggeration. It consists in

exaggerating whatever distinguishes man from the animals in

enlarging, for example, the facial angle. It is a further remove

from the animals than man is, but _in the same direction_.

The Hercules, for instance, is an embodiment of the central form

of strength--it is an exaggeration of muscular development. The

highest expression is the embodiment of human passion. In this

way the Greeks attained the delineation of the _superhuman_.

Under the tutorage of Catholicity the human lineaments achieved

the expression of the supernatural. One was the idealization of

nature; the other the supernaturalization of humanity. Of this

latter classic art had no conception; while therefore it may

equal or surpass Catholic art in execution, it must fall far

below in its ideal. [Footnote 138]

[Footnote 138: In this connection let us record a few remarks

from the ablest writers upon the subject.

Solger has said: "Philosophy can create nothing: it can only

_understand_. It can create neither the religious

inspiration nor the artistic genius: but it can detect and

bring to light all that is contained therein."

Hegel, in stating the relation of art, religion, and

philosophy, says:

"Art fulfils its highest mission when it has established

itself with religion and philosophy in the one circle common

to all, and is merely a method of revealing the godlike to

man, of giving utterance to the deepest interests, the most

comprehensive truths pertaining to mankind. Nations have

deposited the most holy, rich, and intense of their ideas in

works of art, and art is the key to the philosophy and

religion of a nation."

Schilling, with his peculiar theory, says: "That artist is to

be accounted happy to whom the gods have granted the

_creative spirit_. When the artist _recognizes_ the

aspect and being of the _indwelling creative idea_, and

produces it, he makes the individual a _world in

itself_, a _species_, an _eternal type_."

Not one of these three statements is beyond the reach of

cavil or of just exception; but, for the purpose in hand, we

see that the first says that "philosophy can create nothing;"

the second, that "art is a method of revealing the godlike to

man, and of giving utterance to his most holy and intense

ideas;" and the third, that it involves a gift or endowment

of the "creative spirit."]

Finally, all art is expression. Given a knowledge and mastery of

the instruments of expression, and the thought will determine its

character; the nature of the thought expressed depends upon the

conceiving mind; the highest conception of the mind is the

offspring of religious affection, the Catholic is the true

religion; therefore the expression of Catholic genius is the

summit of art. It is by no means a necessity that the soul shall

express itself under sensuous forms; but to all outward

manifestation a power over the instrument is a condition--in

which sense the body is itself an instrumentality. What the soul

expresses must be thought--either its own, or another's--it must

either imitate or originate; imitation is merely repetition, and

is in the power of a mirror. So that what in every art cannot be

taught is expression.

{409}

The highest effort of the soul is spontaneous and original.

Herein we find the superiority--visible at a glance--of Catholic

architecture over the Greek orders, of Catholic delineations of

the human countenance over the finest models of antiquity.

We have sufficiently considered the originative character of

Catholicity under the aspect of constructed form. We have

contemplated her moulding and shaping matter in her flexible

fingers, and evolving that wilderness of artistic grace and

loveliness which, in the ruins of a Tintern or Melrose Abbey,

compels the admiration, but defies the rivalry, of the apostate

sons of Catholic sires. We shall now consider her influence in

the building up of states and the organization of societies.

Christianity took its rise under a universal military despotism.

It sustained for three hundred years the superincumbent pressure

of a hostile heathen empire. It exhausted the malice and the

power of a pagan and brutalized temporal order; and when the

Roman empire shook the world with its fall, Christianity survived

the death-throes of that mighty organization.

When she rose from the catacombs, she did not sweep away the

temples of the heathen gods; she drove from those fanes the

unclean spirits which so long had dwelt within them; she rescued

them from their demon desecration, monuments of her triumph,

trophies of her victorious agonies; she made them the basilicas

of her majestic worship.

When the fierce tribes from the north poured over Southern

Europe, the church preserved what was sound in the Roman

civilization, instructed the barbarians in agriculture by the

example of her laborious monks, and taught them all the arts of

life; instituted laws and polity; tempered and restrained

tyranny; planted and nourished the seeds of liberty; developed

civilization and refinement, and built up the whole grand fabric

of Christendom.

In this formation of new states out of new populations, they did

not become perfect exemplars of Christian ethics and morals, nor

exact exponents of the formative power of Catholicity. The church

encountered in those ages, as she does in this, incessant

obstacles, difficulties, and resistance. Whatever was good and

admirable in those constitutions came to them from the Catholic

religion and was derived from the papal see.

The canon law had, under the emperors, tempered and modified the

civil code; and among the new states it operated a beneficial

change in the feudal principles. Both these systems prescribed

for the mass of men an unchristian servitude. Enlightened equity

and justice, and equality before the law, originated in the

jurisprudence of the church, and not in barbarous feudalities,

nor in the capricious and tyrannical decrees of Roman emperors.

There are men in this age and country who profess great love for

the people and great regard for the rights of labor, but who are

stanch partisans of the tyrants of the middle age in the

contentions which arose between them and the papal see. Inherited

ill-will blinds them to the fact that the only power in those

days which could hold tyranny to an accountability or check

kingly license was that of the pope. The exercise of the papal

protectorate not only tended to prevent causeless wars, but it

controlled the corrupting influence of royal vices by stamping

them with reprobation and, where needful, with degradation. It

was the bulwark of the feebler states, the barrier against

princely ambition, and everywhere the advocate, the friend, and

the defender of the toiling multitude.

{410}

The new organization of states was to be marked by a

characteristic which was also new. Human government is ordained

of God. Christianity was to recognize and to exemplify this

truth. She was to legitimate and ennoble human government in its

own separate order. To effect this in the fullest manner, there

must be an exemplification directly from the personality of the

hierarchy; for, sacrifice being the most exalted human action,

the priest, whose office it is to offer sacrifice, is by his

function first among men. The highest recognition must therefore

derive from the priesthood. But there would always be something

lacking of the _highest_, unless the head of the hierarchy

were a temporal ruler. The temporal power of the pope is the

consecration of human government. Unlike others, he receives no

dignity from the office, but confers grace upon it and upon its

order; and Christendom, created by the church, receives the

key-stone of its strength and its crowning symmetry when the

first of Christian priests becomes a ruler among the nations. And

consequently, religion suffers its direst outrage when, reversing

the order, the temporal power lays its unfaltering hand upon the

vessels of the sanctuary.

The church not only created the interior coherency of states by

introducing just principles into their constitution; she not only

bound them in links of fellowship whose _nexus_ was at Rome;

she also organized their exterior defence. In uniting Christendom

during the crusades to repel the Moslem invasion, the popes

caused the reconstruction of systematic and scientific strategy,

which had disappeared with the Roman legion, thus furnishing to

civilization a needful defence and a desirable superiority, while

at the same time the narrow spirit of the feudal method and its

local strifes were rendered obsolete.

For a thousand years the struggle begun by Mohammedan invasion

continued to rage on the confines of Europe. At its early period

it penetrated to Tours in France, where it was checked by Charles

Martel, in 732. But the triumph was not completed on that wing of

Christendom till the capture of Granada, and the annihilation of

the Moorish power in Spain in the year of the discovery of

America. On the other border, the Turks besieged and took

Belgrade, and suffered a final repulse at Vienna from John

Sobieski, King of Poland, in 1683.

But, so far as human causes indicate, the question whether the

faith of Europe should be Christian or Moslem was decided in the

Gulf of Lepanto, in 1571. These were all European battle-fields.

The struggle was against an invasion which struck at the

existence of Christianity. The master-spirit which created,

combined, informed, and directed the resistance dwelt in the

Vatican.

The modern age is distinguished for the intense application of

human intelligence to the laws and conditionalities of time,

space, and matter, in their triple relations; and Providence

seems to be permitting to man the reassertion of his dominion

over the earth. "Knowledge is power," but the right employment of

power is _virtue_; and unless the moral forces keep pace

with the conquests of mind in the realm of matter, there will

ensue antagonisms more destructive than before, as well as a more

profound desolation of the human race. The rectification of the

will is of an importance prior and superior to the activity of

the intelligence; and without a religious faith and sanction the

fruits of the understanding are but dust and ashes.

{411}

When we consider the spirit of invention and examine its results,

three great products assume an acknowledged superiority. These

are, the magnet, with its corollary, the extension of

geographical discovery; the printing-press in its action upon

intelligence; and gunpowder in its relation to physical forces in

war. The magnet can never again point the way to a discovery like

that which was achieved by Columbus; the art of printing cannot

be applied to a higher purpose than that of multiplying copies of

the Holy Scriptures; and gunpowder, which still controls the

practice of the art of war, was never employed upon an occasion

so critical to civilization and so momentous in the world's

affairs, as when the cannon of Don John of Austria won for

Christendom the great fleet-fight of Lepanto. These three

commanding discoveries, and these their greatest applications,

belong to Catholic nations and to Catholic individuals. The

Protestant religions have no part in these discoveries, because

there is an awkward metaphysical axiom which says that the cause

must exist before the effect, and these greatest of inventions

all preceded--some of them by centuries--the birth of

Protestantism.

Some writers have claimed that the inventive spirit began with

the dawn of the Reformation, at which time, according to Robert

Hall, the nations "awoke from the sleep of ages to run a career

of virtuous emulation." If this be so, why is it that later

discoveries have not equalled those which we have just specified?

According to this theory, the dawn eclipses the noon-day; and

Protestantism would seem to belong to that class of things of

which the _less_ you have of them the _better_.

The revival of letters is usually dated in the thirteenth

century, and that honor is universally accorded to Italy. The

first bank and the first newspaper are found at Venice. The Bible

had been published in numerous editions before Luther began to

dogmatize from a printed copy of it in Saxony. The system of

modern commerce took its rise under the papacy, and ran a

brilliant career in the Italian republics, and in the free cities

of Germany, long before the era of the Protestant religions.

Columbus had discovered the New World, and Vasco da Gama had

doubled the Cape of Good Hope and marked the pathway to India,

before the rise of England's commercial greatness. The "progress"

had been installed, and had achieved such works as these, before

the century in which Lord Bacon lived to write his _Inductive

System of Philosophy_.

It would be an incomplete view of the subject if we failed to

remark the _enduring_ character of the work which is of

Catholic creation. Not like the mutable religions which protest

against her; nor struck with incurable sterility, like the Greek

schismatic; nor frozen into lifeless forms, like those of the

Asiatic world; the living faith of the church incessantly and

indefinitely advances the nation and the individual who

faithfully correspond to it. That vitality, once infused into the

pulses of a people, goes forth from them only with its lifeblood.

There is an exemplification of this truth in the persecution

which the Irish people have sustained, and are sustaining, at the

hands of the English government. History presents no parallel to

this antagonism of physical power, on the one hand, and moral

determination on the other.

{412}

To sustain her wars of aggression, and to uphold her detestable

system of classes and privileged orders, England has taxed

everything, even the air and the light of heaven. This legalized

oppression has ground down the English laborer and operative, but

it has fallen with crushing cruelty upon the Irish peasant, whose

country, in addition to the evil of partial and jealous

legislation, has been compelled to pay tithes to a hostile and

hating creed.

This merciless system has depopulated the land, and in the

enforced emigration the Irish peasant has found no powerful

government to aid him in his going; he has paid, to the last

farthing, the exactions and robberies of English domination, and

then has made his own unassisted way, dogged by an inflicted

poverty but with his gallant spirit still unbroken. What has

England gained by this conflict of centuries with Ireland? She

has sapped her own strength and merited the condemnation of

mankind. Moral causes control the universe, and the moral heroism

of Ireland has vanquished every odds and every disaster. A

temporal power far greater than that of Rome when her eagles were

invincible has pursued for ages the determined purpose of forcing

the people of the sister-island to join in protest and hostility

against the Apostolic See. But the imperial monarchy, the riches,

the splendor, the craft of England have found their master in the

stern, unyielding, unconquerable fidelity with which the Irish

people have clung to the Catholic faith.

The existence of this hemisphere was made known by agencies

altogether Catholic. The first act of Columbus on his landing in

the New World, that of planting a cross upon its soil, the

meaning even of his baptismal name, was significant. In South

America, in those self-same years that nations were torn from her

communion by the abuse of learning and liberty derived from

herself, Catholicity was engaged in widening the domain of

Christendom and adding a continent to the faith.

I will briefly quote a New England Protestant writer in this

connection. In the second volume of his _Conquest of Peru_,

Prescott says:

"The effort to christianize the heathen is an honorable

characteristic of the Spanish conquests. The Puritan, with

equal religious zeal, did comparatively little for the

conversion of the Indian. But the Spanish missionary, from

first to last, has shown a keen interest in the spiritual

welfare of the natives. Under his auspices churches, on a

magnificent scale, have been erected, schools for elementary

instruction founded, and every rational means taken to spread

the knowledge of religious truth, while he has carried his

solitary mission into remote and almost inaccessible regions,

or gathered his Indian disciples into communities, like the

good Las Casas in Cumaná, or the Jesuits in California and

Paraguay. At all times the courageous ecclesiastic has been

ready to lift his voice against the cruelty of the conqueror,

and when his remonstrances have proved unavailing, he has still

followed to bind up the broken-hearted, to teach the poor

Indian resignation under his lot, and light up his dark

intellect with the revelation of a holier and happier

existence. The same nation which sent forth the hard-hearted

conqueror from its bosom sent forth the missionary to do the

work of beneficence, and spread the light of Christian

civilization over the farthest regions of the new world."

Elsewhere the same historian speaks thus of the Spanish conqueror

of Mexico:

"The conversion of the heathen was a predominant motive with

Cortes in his expedition. It was not a vain boast. He would

have sacrificed his life for it at any time; and more than

once, by his indiscreet zeal, he actually did place his life

and the success of his enterprise in jeopardy. It was his great

purpose to purify the land from the brutish abominations of the

Aztecs by substituting the religion of Jesus. This gave to his

expedition the character of a crusade. It furnished the best

apology for the conquest, and does more than all other

considerations toward enlisting our sympathies on the side of

the conquerors."

{413}

For the benefit of those who have a tender sympathy for the Incas

and Montezumas, and naught but execrations for the Spanish

invaders, it may be remarked that the religions of Mexico and

Peru were stained with human sacrifices, followed in the former

by cannibalism. The same unerring and irresponsible Being--ever

adjusting the retribution to the crime--who hurls the avalanche

from its mountain, gives its mission to the tempest, and scourges

the city with pestilence, likewise directs the fearful visitation

of the sword, whether in the hand of a Joshua, a Cyrus, an

Attila, or a Pizarro. On the southern continent Catholic

colonization preserved, christianized, and elevated the

aboriginal races; while in the north, Protestant colonization

swept away even their graves.

It is time to consider, and in a more special manner, the agency

of the Catholic religion in the formation of this majestic

Republic of the United States.

The fundamental principle upon which our ancestors based their

resistance to England was, that they were Englishmen, and had

lost none of the rights of British subjects by being transplanted

to these shores. They claimed the system of the common law as an

inheritance, and also all those guarantees which had grown up

into that frame-work called the English Constitution. Upon this

issue they went into the Revolution, and upon the same issue

Chatham, and Burke, and others defended the cause of the

colonists in the British parliament. The definite question, then,

is, What were those principles, and whence were they derived?

The first declaration of public rights in England is the document

called Magna Charta, delivered by King John, at Runnymede, in

1215. This instrument begins as follows:

"John, by the grace of God King of England, Lord of Ireland,

Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Earl of Anjou: To the

archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciaries of

the forests, sheriffs, governors, officers, and to all

bailiffs, and other his faithful subjects, Greeting: Know ye

that we, in the presence of God, and for the health of our

soul, and the souls of all our ancestors and heirs, and the

exaltation of his holy church, and amendment of our kingdom, by

advice of our venerable fathers, Stephen, Archbishop of

Canterbury, Primate of all England, and Cardinal of the Holy

Roman Church; Henry, Archbishop of Dublin; William, Bishop of

London, ... have, in the first place, granted to God, and by

this our present charter, confirmed for us and our heirs for

ever.

"ART. I. That the Church of England shall be free, and enjoy

her whole rights and privileges inviolable," etc.

Many of the articles are occupied with matters relating to feudal

tenures, which, of course, are without application to this

country. The twentieth article is as follows:

"ART. XX. A freeman [that is, a free-holder] shall not be

amerced for a small fault, only according to the degree of his

fault; and for a great crime, in proportion to the heinousness

of it, saving to him his contenement, [means of livelihood;]

and after the same manner a merchant, saving to him his

merchandise; and a villein shall be amerced after the same

manner, saving to him his wainage, [carts, etc.,] if he falls

under our mercy; and none of the aforesaid amerciaments shall

be assessed but by the oaths of honest men of the neighborhood.

"ART. XXX. No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other, shall

take horses or carts of any freeman for carriage, without the

consent of the said freeman.

"ART. XXXI. Neither shall we or our bailiffs take any man's

timber for our castles or other uses, unless by the consent of

the owner of the timber.

"ART. XXXIX. No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or

disseised, or outlawed, or banished, or any way destroyed; nor

will we condemn him, or commit him to prison, unless by the

legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.

{414}

"ART. XL. To none we will sell, to none will we deny, nor

delay, right or justice.

"ART. LI. And, as soon as peace is restored, we will send out

of the kingdom all foreign soldiers, cross-bowmen, and

stipendiaries, who are come with horses and arms, to the injury

of the kingdom.

"ART. LV. All unjust and illegal fines, and all amerciaments

imposed unjustly, and contrary to the law of the land, shall be

entirely forgiven," etc.

The sixty-third and last article is:

"ART. LXIII. Wherefore we will, and firmly enjoin, that the

Church of England be free, and that all men in our kingdom have

and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions

peaceably," etc.