As sweet as the gold-harp of David the king,
As sweet as the honeycomb fresh from Mount Bodor,
As sweet as the face veiled by Gabriel's wing:
The silver-lined sky o'er the garden of Flora,
The rainbow that gilds the dark clouds within view,
The star that shines brightest, the dawning Aurora--
More chaste than the moon, and more beautiful too.
The glass without stain, and the radiance immortal,
The ever-sealed fount in the city of God,
The garden enclosed, on whose sanctified portal
None e'er but the King of the angels hath trod:
The sign that appeared in mid-Heaven--a maiden
With the moon 'neath her feet, and twelve stars on her head,
Sun-clothed, going up from the desert to Eden;
Such Mary, the Queen of the living and dead.
{416}
Oh! such are the words of the saints now in glory,
Whose voices are heard o'er the dark waste of time,
Like sentinels set through the centuries hoary,
Proclaiming her free from original crime;
Of the prophets and pontiffs, and doctors and sages,
Who once in this dark vale of misery trod,
Like lamps hanging out on the mist-covered ages
To light up the ways of the city of God.
We see by their light with a swelling emotion
The bark of the church, as it onward doth ride,
Through tempest and gloom, where the Star of the Ocean
Doth brightly illumine its path o'er the tide;
Where clouds become thicker and hurricanes fleeter,
And threaten to shut out its radiance from view,
We see through the darkness the figure of Peter
As he points it out still b the sailors and crew.
We hear the loud ring of the multitude's paean
By the nations in triumph exultantly sung,
From the cliffs of the north to the distant AEgean,
As Celestine silenced Nestorius' tongue:
In Ephesus' temple--the temple of Mary--
The fathers hold council by Peter's command,
In Ephesus' streets, long expectant and weary,
The crowds stand with joybells and torches in hand.
We see the grand figure of Cyril before us,
Where John, her adopted, before him had trod,
As pontiffs and people swell loud the glad chorus,
That Mary our Mother is Mother of God.
And oh! that we've witnessed the last shining lustre,
That Star of the Stars, in her diadem set,
The first in existence, last placed in the cluster.
To shine through a long line of centuries yet;
There were journeys by land, there were ships on the ocean,
That bore Judah's princes to Sion's bright walls;
The people have heard with a thrilling emotion
The voice of the high priest, as on them it calls.
Oh! bless them, dear Mother, we pray with emotion.
And bless this green island, that looks up to thee;
For this, dearest Mother, is gem of the ocean,
And thou art immaculate Star of the Sea.
December 8,1864.
------
{417}
ORIGINAL.
WOMAN. [Footnote 143]
[Footnote 143: Essays on Woman's Work, by Bessie R. Parkes. The
higher Education of Woman, by Emily Davis. Woman's Work in the
Church, by J. M. Ludlow. London and New York: Alex. Strahan.]
Among the social topics of the day, that of the present position and
future prospects of woman holds a prominent place. This is the less to
be wondered at, in that the course of civilization, the force of
public opinion, together with the effect of the progress of machinery
upon labor, have materially altered the duties which were once
esteemed peculiarly her own.
We have three small books before plus, all from England, and all
bearing on this one topic. The first ("Essays on Woman's Work")
delineates very forcibly the fact, that the actual work of women,
independently of that performed within the domestic circle, is
(relatively to the employment of numbers) immense. Our authoress calls
it "the great revolution which has been so little noticed amidst the
noise of politics and the clash of war--the withdrawal of women from
the life of the household, and the suction of them by the hundreds of
thousands within the vortex of industrial life." Page 20 she says: "I
was told in Manchester, by one of the most eminent and thoughtful
women in England, that the outpouring of a mill in full work at the
hour of dinner was such a torrent of living humanity that a lady could
not walk against the stream. I was told the same thing at Bradford by
a female friend." (Page 22)--"It is clear then, since modern society
will have it so, women must work." But not women only; "young female
children are winding silk for twelve clear hours a day beneath a hot
African sun, in a charitably economical institution," (27) and
"mothers have left the hearth and the cradle, and the young girls and
the _little_ children themselves have run to offer their feeble arms;
whole villages are silent, while huge brick buildings swallow up
thousands of living humanity from dawn of day until twilight shades."
(33)--"There are to be seen the obvious results of the absence of
married women from their homes, in discomfort, etc., and in the
_utter_ want of domestic teaching and training during the most
important years of youth; besides the sure deterioration of health
consequent on long confinement." Well may Miss Parkes consider it "a
purely economical and selfish tendency, acting by competition alone
and casting aside unprofitable material. Women are more and more left
to provide for themselves, and society takes hardly any trouble to
enable them to do so, either by education or by opening the doors to
salaried employment. The great overplus of the female sex in England,
caused chiefly by the wholesale emigration of men to the colonies,
increases the difficulty tenfold." "In fact, the general freedom and
_laisser aller_ of English political and social life, while it serves
many admirable purposes in the general economy of the nation, allows
the weaker classes, those who are in any way unfitted for the race, to
go to the wall, while the others pass by. I believe the very _poor_ to
suffer far more in England than elsewhere; and I am sure there is no
country on earth where so many women are allowed to drift helplessly
about, picking up the scanty bread of insufficient earnings." "We are
at present in an extraordinary state of social disorganization." (Pp
37, 38.)
This is but a dismal result of progress, of civilization; modern
society with all its boasting seems to have {418} achieved little for
happiness. After this witness for the uneducated class, Miss Parkes
proceeds to show the difficulties that encompass the educated strivers
after bread, and here difficulties seem to increase, from the danger
incurred by exposing young women to intercourse with a corrupted
social state; "it is better," says Miss Parkes, "to be starved in body
than made worse in the moral and spiritual life," and in this we can
but agree with her, as also in the conclusion that this fact renders
many an occupation ineligible which would otherwise be good in itself.
The lady's remarks on the changes of eighty years are interesting, as
her accounts of "educated destitution" are graphic and painful in
their truth. Her remarks are sensible, and her plans proposed are so
modest and unassuming they seem rather suggestions, "helps to
thought," than projects, and as such we cordially recommend them; for
though American society is not yet in the state depicted of the
superabundant populations of Europe, we cannot fail to recognize that
if the _same principles_ are exercised on this side of the Atlantic as
have been exercised on that, the same results will follow when
population becomes denser; it behooves us, then, to be wise in time,
and acknowledge some higher law than that provided by an inexorable
system of political economy, if we would be happy. Men and women are
not necessarily blind agents of capitalists, mere creators of a wealth
which they do not share in due proportion to their intelligence and
their industry. They are moral beings, if they would but know it, if
they would but exercise and cultivate their moral powers; beings
capable of controlling themselves, and, by enlightened industrial
arrangements, of providing for themselves and for their neighbors. The
tendencies of Miss Parkes are evidently to the formation of
joint-stock societies, making the laborer at once a worker and a
capitalist. This _might_ be so contrived as to form another style of
"guild" of auld lang syne, when Catholic workmen protected each other
from want. Christian love, and earnest thought, endeavoring, to form
associations for mutual interchange of kind offices, and for
encouraging each other in practices of piety and good will to men, are
essentially Catholic; it is only when based on a purely selfish
motive, and with purely earthly aims, that they lose their charm and
best security. We confess that for ourselves we do not expect to see
any great improvement in the condition of the worker, whether male or
female, in Europe or elsewhere, by combination or otherwise, while the
effort for improvement is unsustained by a recurrence to first
principles, and unbased on _positive_ religious forms and dogmas. As
long as the _world_ is unchristian it must remain _selfish_, and the
weakest will go to the wall, in every form of of civilization, whether
named co-operative or competitive. But once recognize that man's most
essential life resides in his _soul_, and that he is bound to provide
for the wants of that soul as his first object, "guilds" take form and
shape, and the _laborer_, rising in dignity, performing his labor as
an ordinance of God, "loving his neighbor as himself," establishes, or
may establish, associations, in which the weaker shall be protected,
and the poor recognized as the representatives of Christ. This we
shall see exemplified on another page in speaking of the "_Rosines_"
instituted by Rosa Governo, who had been a servant.
Miss Davis's book on the Higher Education of Woman, is addressed more
especially to the middle classes, for whom she requires education has
a means of obtaining a livelihood. The discrepancies between the
education accorded to English girls and boys are greater than those
existing between American boys and girls; still there is much room for
improvement. Girls are too apt to be superficial, "to read too much,
and think too little;" and even here in free America, some may be
found who think they should lose {419} caste being useful, thorough,
and energetic. To such as these we particularly recommend Miss Davis's
book, for it sifts all such fallacies, and regards the question of
woman's place in the social order, primarily considering them as
"children of God, members of Christ, and heirs of the kingdom of
heaven; and, secondarily, as wives, mothers daughters, sisters" (p.
36). Miss Davis writes modestly, suggestively, not dogmatically;
feeling her way as it were at every step. Her descriptions are of
course English, but much that she says of the _necessity_ of suitable
employment for woman, not only for a maintenance but for _healthy
existence_ as a moral and intellectual being, is applicable to every
nation, and will afford useful hints to any one who has pondered
seriously on woman's present position and future prospects.
We regret that we cannot speak so favorably of the tone of Mr.
Ludlow's book, valuable as is the information it affords as to what
the collective energy of women can effect when strong religious motive
is the prompter of their actions. The author gives a consecutive
account of the work of women in the church from the time all the
apostles to the present era, tracing their usefulness, their power of
varying their action according to the exigencies of the day in which
they lived; the devotedness of the ancient deaconesses the learning of
the nuns, when the world was the prey of the Goths and Vandals and
their successors; the intellectual activity that characterized the
communities while the outer world was sunk in barbarism; the books
they spent their lives in copying, and the works they themselves
composed. Then he gives an account of the active orders, or, perhaps,
rather associations, as of the Béguines--
"who, without renouncing the society of men or the business of life,
or vowing poverty, perpetual chastity; or absolute obedience, yet
lead, either at their own homes or in common dwellings, a life of
prayer, meditation, and labor. Matthew Paris mentions it as one of
the wonders of the age for the year 1250, that 'in Germany there
rose up an innumerable multitude of those continent women who wish
to be called Béguines, to that extent that Cologne was inhabited by
more than 1,000 of them.' Indeed, by the latter half of this
century, there seems to have been scarcely a town of any importance
without them in France, Belgium, Northern Germany, and Switzerland."
(P. 118.)
"The first of these fellowships was composed of weavers of either
sex; and so diligent were they with their work, that their industry
had to be restricted, lest they should deprive the weavrers' guilds
of their bread. Wholly self-maintained at first, they rendered
moreover essential service in the performance of works of charity.
As soon as a Béguinage became at all firmly established, there were
almost invariably added to it hospitals or asylums for the
reception, maintenance, or relief of the aged, the poor, the sick.
To this purpose were devoted the greater part of the revenues of the
sisterhood, however acquired, another portion going to the
maintenance of the common chapel. The sisters moreover received
young girls to educate; went out to nurse and console the sick, to
attend death-beds, to wash and lay out the dead; were called in to
pacify family disputes." (P. 118.).
"The Béguines had no community of goods, no common purse for
ordinary needs. Nevertheless, those among them who were wholly
destitute, or broken down with infirmities, were maintained at the
public expense, or out of the poor fund; mendicancy was never
allowed, unless in the extremely rare case of the establishment not
being able to relieve its poorest members." (P. 120.)
This is refreshing testimony to woman's powers, and were a similar
_devoted principle_ now at work, many of the problems troubling
earnest, thoughtful female minds might be solved. "The striking
feature of her self-maintenance by labor" is a very valuable evidence,
for now that machinery is called in to _help_ the race, we cannot
believe that under its rightful application, Christian women could
effect _less_ at the present time than they did in ancient days. A
similar devotedness, a similar idea of the duty of living for God, a
similar appreciation of the divine institution of industry as a means
of sanctification, would produce equal or even superior effects, since
intelligence is more diffused now than formerly, and mechanical
assistance more within the reach of the many. {420} That which is
needed is simply the spirit of _godliness_, and to him that _asketh_
this is _promised_. Shall we then longer look calmly on the evils that
beset the sex, when the means are at hand to remedy them, whenever we
sincerely wish for them?
Mr. Ludlow proceeds to trace the educational fellowships, the
Ursulines, Angustinians, and others. He says that in the sixteenth
century female orders generally devoted themselves to education, even
when founded on the old Franciscan basis of manual labor. Then comes
the enumeration of the charitable sisterhoods, in all their varied
modes of assuaging human misery or diminishing temptation to sin; in
all their efforts for succoring the poor, the sick, the infirm, and
for recalling the lost sheep to the fold. The information contained in
the volume renders the book valuable in spite of Mr. Ludlow's
prejudices, broadly and oftentimes coarsely expressed. We dare not
repeat his blasphemies relative to the adoration of the blessed
eucharist, to the vow of chastity, or to other dogmas; they are
introduced, as he acknowledges, to free the author from the imputation
of Romanizing tendencies, to which the involuntary testimony he bears
to the _right action_ of the church has subjected him. We pity him,
that he did not see the force of his own evidence, that he was not led
to the truth, rather than to the vilifying it. We give but _one_
instance of the manner he has adopted in order to prove himself no
Romanist; it will suffice to show the want of candor which reigns
throughout the book when the _Romish_ Church is touched upon. Having
described, _con amore_, the institution of the Béguines as "being
exempt from almost all the inconveniences of a _convent life_" (to
which he appears to entertain an insuperable objection), he attributes
at first their fall to the jealousy of the regular congregations. Yet
after a while, the innate force of truth compels him to confess that
the institution fell by its own fault. The free fellowships departed
from the _spirit_ of their foundation. "In place of the
self-supporting industry and active charity which at first
characterized them, there crept in the opposites of these--reliance
upon others' alms and indifference to good works! So complete was the
change that the very term Béghard, _prayer_, surviving in our
'beggar,' has come to designate clamorous pauperism" (pp. 136, 137) He
continues on another page:
"But the Béguine sisterhoods of the north were too numerous, too
useful, too much in harmony with the spirit of their age and
country, too deeply rooted in the affections of the people, to
perish before the canons of the council or a papal bull. Nor,
indeed, it was soon seen, did Rome's safety require that they should
perish. The existence of free _brotherhoods_ was, indeed,
inconsistent with that of Romanism itself; for every community of
men, not bound by rule or vows, not subject to a clerical head, must
be of necessity an asylum of free thought, such as a monastic church
with an infallible head could not, without the greatest danger,
allow. Sisterhoods, on the other hand, although equally unbound by
vow or rule, might safely be tolerated; since, through the priestly
director or confessor, generally an essential part of the
organization of any Béguinage, they could be kept in dependence,
tempted on into monachism. And thus, parallel with the current of
censure against Béghardism and Béguinism as a system, there begins
to flow another current of toleration, and even, as the danger
diminishes, approval, for those 'faithful women who, having vowed
continence, or even without having vowed it, choose honestly to do
penance in their hospitals, and serve the Lord of virtues in spirit
of humility.'"
The Béguines were finally absolved from censure by the Council of
Constance, 1414 (pp. 139, 140). The mind which does not see in this
account that one set of Béguines were suppressed on account of
disorder and that the others were retained from the desire of
promoting virtue, is singularly blinded by prejudice, notwithstanding
that he walks, as he says himself (p. 139), "in the brightness of
Luther's most blessed name."
The Béguines, according to our author, were eventually merged into
{421} Tertiaries, or more regularly organized religious bodies, of
whom he gives so interesting an account that we can but wonder and
admire the more that the account comes, from such a source. There is,
however, in the author's mind, a notable ignorance of the "purity of
intention" enforced by the church as necessary to the sanctification
of good works, and this accounts for much misconception on his part.
He says that when Madame de Miramon, a young widow, began her
religious life in works of active charity, "her director exhorted her
to make a 'retreat' for a year, in order to devote herself to her own
perfection, without exercising her charity toward her neighbor." This
Mr. Ludlow styles "a trait characteristically Romish," in which we
must presume he is right, for if he represents the anti-Romish party,
we must say, judging by his book, there is little apprehension shown
by that party that "good good works," to be acceptable, to be
sanctifying to the agent, must be wrought in God, and therefore that a
year spent in the repression of self-seeking, in acts of humiliation
and self-abasement, might be and probably was necessary to insure that
the future acts of the pious lady should be performed in that "pure
intention" which would draw down upon them the fructifying blessing of
divine grace. We are fain to confess that this is, as "the gentleman
says, characteristically Romish;" and much we rejoice at so beautiful
a characteristic of our faith.
We cannot follow Mr. Ludlow through all his accounts, which we regret
the more as he gives important evidence to the fact, that in every age
of the church pious women have been found to comprehend the needs of
the age in which they live, and to associate with the special purpose
of providing the assistance necessary. In a barbarous age, when
vandalism overturned human learning, "nunneries, like monasteries for
men, became schools or store houses of learning, sometimes even
centres of intellectual activity. At the beginning of the sixth
century, the nunnery founded by St. Cesarius at Arles contained two
hundred nuns, mostly employed in copying books. Their rule bound them
to learn 'human letters' for two hours a day, and to work in common,
either in transcribing or in female labor" (p. 106). The convents of
Tours, founded in the sixth century by Queen Radegund, and the Swabian
nunnery of Gaudesheim, in the latter half of the tenth century, the
glory of female monachism, were specially centres of intellectual
activity. In the latter dwelt the poetess Hrotsvitha, herself not the
first authoress of her convent, whose Latin plays seem to have
especial attraction for Mr. Ludlow, for his panegyric is couched in
these words, "Hrotsvitha, at least, was no hooded Pharisee" (pp. 119,
111).
During the Crusades and European wars, the communities of the
Tertiarian hospitaller nuns, under various names, excite his
admiration, though he thinks "the worship of these nuns may not be the
highest and best, but it is surely genuine" (p. 142). Thanks even for
that admission, Mr. Ludlow. The Béguines, of whom we have already
spoken, and the educational nuns spring up at the hour of need, and
for the present day "the institute of 'Rosines' of Turin presents an
interesting feature." These latter have no vows, no seclusion. They
are a genuine working association of women, only with a strong
religious element infused in their work. They were founded by Rosa
Governo, who had been a servant. There Mrs. Jameson found (see
Communion of Labor) "nearly four hundred women, from fifteen years of
age upwards, gathered together in an assemblage of buildings, where
they carry on tailoring, embroidery, especially of military
accoutrements for the army, weaving, spinning, shirt-making,
lace-making, every trade, in short, in which female ingenuity is
available. They have a well-kept garden, a school for the poor
children of the neighborhood, an infirmary, including a ward for the
aged, a capital dispensary, with a small medical library. {422} They
are ruled by a superior, elected from among themselves; the work-rooms
are divided into classes and groups, each under a monitress. The rules
of admission and the interior regulations are strict; any inmate may
leave at once, but cannot be readmitted. Finally, they are entirely
self-supporting, and have a yearly income of between 70,000f. to
80,000f., that is, about from £2,800 to £3,200. No female organization
is more pregnant with hope than this" (p. 181). With this we conclude
our notice of Mr. Ludlow's book, although he has also accounts of some
few Protestant associations, imitated and modified from the foregoing.
We cannot but rejoice at so much welcome testimony, from an outsider,
to the benefits flowing from the female religious institutions of the
church of Christ, and feel encouraged to believe that whatever may be
the necessities of the times, bands of holy women will rise up to
administer thereunto.
It is refreshing, too, as an evidence that the gratitude which woman
owes to the church, she is willing to repay in self-devotedness to the
_wants_ of the members of that church. No woman who has ever reflected
for one brief hour on the emancipation from slavery that has been
wrought for her by the ministry of the church, can fail to recognize
that in the Church alone is her _real_ protection, her true safety.
The pagan woman--what was she? You may see her type in the Eastern
harem, the Hindoo suttee, the Indian burden-bearer. The few women of
antiquity who broke their chains did so at a fearful cost. The
Aspasias, the Diotemes, the Semiramises, the Zenobias, the
Cleopatras--alas! a cloud obscures their greatness; and even
heathenism condemns while it admires them. Respectable women were
_slaves_; if not nominally so, yet slaves in intellect, slaves by
inferior position, slaves through _ignorance_; slaves because their
_souls_ could find no scope for exertion. And now what are the
tendencies of the age? I fear we must confess that they are purely
materialistic, that they point rather to the reign of physical power
than that of moral force; and if so, what must woman expect save a
return in some shape, modified by existing machinery, to the old idea
of enslavement under another name? The laws of the church are already
annulled by society in respect of marriage. The power of easy divorce
exists in the Eastern states, and polygamy flourishes in Utah. These
are matters calculated to make Catholic women reflect ere they march
too readily with the tendencies of the age. The church, and the church
only, raised the standard of woman, and that incidentally, by
proclaiming that she had a _soul_ to save, and that the powers of the
soul were will, memory, and understanding. Christian men were obliged
to concede to her the exercise of these powers, by the same authority
through which they claimed the right to exercise them for themselves.
But now, the world is for the most part not Christian, and we must
look well to the principles that it puts forth; its associations or
co-operations, if founded on a merely selfish principle, must end in
disorder. It requires the strong religious element spoken of by Mrs.
Jameson as existing among the Rosines, and the "pure intention" which
induced Madame de Miramon to obey her director and make the year's
retreat he prescribed, in order that her future acts might be begun,
continued, and ended in God, to insure that a community life or
association shall produce good. That joint-stock companies may for a
while flourish and contribute to the wealth of the shareholders is
doubtless true; but if the wealth thus obtained is made merely to
contribute to material enjoyment, it will rather injure than profit
the possessor, whether that possessor be man or woman. Strong moral
power is produced by exercise, by endurance, renunciation, rather than
by gratification. {423} Strong intellectual power is produced by deep
thought, head study, unremitting exertion, as strong physical power is
produced by labor, continuous activity, hard fare, and unluxurious
habits. We must not lose sight of these facts when we seek to improve
the condition of either man or woman; and desirable as are
associations for mutual benefit, we must not forget that if they are
to be permanent, they most aim at something higher than improving in
temporalities. The union of the natural law with the supernatural law
should form the especial study of every thinking member of the church;
and to women's associations it seems a study peculiarly desirable, as
woman owes her present improved condition entirely to the effects
produced by that supernatural action on her previous condition. If we
might be allowed to suggest a subject of thought to such Catholic
women as see the evils depicted by Misses Parkes and Davis, and wish
to assist in their removal, it would be that they should meditate and
study the practical bearing of the ancient associations of the church
to mitigate the then existing evils, and having caught the spirit of
devotedness from the many examples therein presented, should proceed
to consider what form of devotedness is demanded by the present
needs--and in the spirit of the church assemble to promote the needful
work.
That there is much to be done, all must confess; but in what way it is
to be done is not altogether so evident. Only tracing from all history
"that woman's work in the church" is to see the difficulties of the
times, to enter with warm sympathy into its distresses, and having
purified the human tenderness with which she is gifted by casting it
into the furnace of divine love, to direct that tenderness,
enlightened by intellectual culture and strengthened by acetic
practice, into the channels needing assistance. We can but feel
confident that Catholic women will now as heretofore ponder over the
position of their sex with regard to labor and intellectual culture,
and that to meet its requirements such institutions will be formed as
will push forward "progress" in the most approved system compatible
with the solemn duties of _Catholicity_: that is, uniting the human
privilege to the far higher and loftier privilege involved in being a
member of the church of Christ.
------
ORIGINAL.
MY TWO MITES.
"This poor widow hath cast in more than they all."
Widowed of the world, that once did me betroth.
Unto the treasury of God brought I,
In after days,
A heart and mind--my all--two mites in worth,
And cast them in. What wealth, if they should buy
Such priceless praise!
------
{424}
MISCELLANY.
_A most Important Discovery in Photography_.--That photographic
productions cannot be relied upon as permanent appears a fact only too
well established. The public have been convinced of it by seeing
folios of choice productions and scores of treasured portraits pass
gradually into "the sere and yellow leaf" of their age, and finally
disappear. A few years, more or less, generally works the change.
Photographers, too, have lost all faith in the absolute permanence of
their productions, and have long been looking for this desirable
quality in some ideal process for which their experimentalists were
industriously striving and working, and for which they were most
anxiously looking, rather than to any modification of the old silver
process, which they have now wrought up to such a pitch of perfection.
This fading has been pretty clearly shown to be, at least mainly, due
to the action of the hyposulphites. The print lasts a longer or
shorter time in proportion to the degrees in which the fixing
agent--hyposulphite of soda--has been removed from the paper; but the
slightest trace of it will assuredly bring about the destruction of
the photograph. The only chance of absolute permanence appears to be
in its complete elimination, although even then there are other
elements of evil which may be suspiciously regarded. We have hitherto
relied for this purpose upon the mechanical action of water, and some
able men have run counter to the general experience by affirming that
absolute permanence could be obtained by proper and sufficient
washing. Mr. Carey Lea, for instance, asserted, about a year since,
that he had tested properly-washed prints with a very delicate and
certain test for the hyposulphites without discovering their trace,
and in prints which he considered had been properly washed. This test
was that of placing a few drops of an alcoholic solution of iodine in
several ounces of water, and applying the same with a camel's-hair
brush to photographs on starch-sized paper. The presence of the
starch, if freed from the hyposulphite by sufficient washing, was
indicated by a violet or purple stain where the solution was applied;
but in prints not thus washed the presence of hyposulphite was
indicated by the absence of such stain, which could be at once removed
from the well-washed print by plunging it into a solution of
hyposulphite. On the other and, Mr. Dawson, of King's College, in a
recent number of The British Journal of Photography denies the power
of more washing to give permanence, "unless the prints have been
soaked for some time in hot water so as to remove _all_ the size--even
then, supposing the paper non-albumenized, the elimination of the
whole of the hyposulphite is problematical." He adds--"Some
photographers, we are aware, do treat their prints with a final wash
in hot water; but this, of course, although unquestionably conducive
to the permanence of the proof, does not remove the whole of the size
in which the hyposulphite is locked up; and if it did, the paper would
be as little cohesive as blotting-paper, and prints would lose much in
vigor and brilliancy. In the case of prints on albumen, or albumenized
paper, hot water, we may reasonably suppose, has no more powerful
effect in removing hyposulphite from albumen than cold water, if,
indeed it has so much; and it can only be by acting on the texture of
the paper itself, and removing the size therefrom, that it can
exercise a beneficial influence at all." To demonstrate the
truthfulness of his ideas on this subject, some prints which had been
washed in cold running water, and with the utmost care and attention,
for over twenty hours--and the final drippings from which, when
subjected to the tincture of iodine test, displayed no trace of the
hyposulphite--were experimented with, and still gave up to boiling
water, in which they were steeped, at least one-fortieth part of a
grain of the destructive element to the half sheet of paper, clearly
showing that the cold water had not really removed it all, although it
had eliminated all that it could reach or had influence over. Now
whether Mr. Dawson and his supporters or Mr. Lea and his supporters be
right, {425} whether photographs fade so universally because they are
rarely or never sufficiently washed after the process of fixing, or
because it is impossible to remove all trace of the hyposulphites from
the paper by washing, it is certain that they do fade, and few
dispute the final cause of such a fading. Therefore, a discovery which
destroys these mischievous agents altogether cannot but be regarded as
most important, and such a discovery is our pleasing duty to announce
as having been recently published by Dr. Angus Smith, F.R.S., in the
pages of The British Journal of Photography, from which we quote:
"Considering that the cause of the destruction of photographs,
apparently by the action of time only, was in reality caused by the
amount of hyposulphite remaining in the paper, D. Reissig, of
Darmstadt, contrived a mode of washing it out by centrifugal force.
For indicating the presence of sulphur assets, he used a small
galvanic arrangement with one cell, and decomposing the acid, had the
sulphur thrown on a piece of polished silver, which became readily
blackened in the solution. Dr. Theodore Reissig, my assistant,
examined several faded photographs for me by his brother's method,
which, however, appeared unnecessarily delicate, as it was found the
amount of sulphur was very large, and roughly, we thought, in
proportion to the amount of decay. I did not determine how much was
hyposulphite and how much sulphate. As I had been interesting myself
in bringing into use some of the remarkable properties of peroxide of
hydrogen in oxidizing metals and organic bodies in fluids, it seemed
to me that we might readily use it for oxidizing the hyposulphites. I
am supposing that the sulphate alone will not be injurious." Dr. Smith
then shows how this powerful, oxidizing agent may be used to convert
the mischievous hyposulphites into the innocuous sulphate, and Mr.
Dawson, in the same number of the journal, gives the following
experimental illustration: "Dissolve in a wineglass any quantity of
sulphate of soda, and add to the solution a few drops of tincture of
iodine. The solution will remain permanently discolored, showing that
sulphate of soda does not dissolve iodine. In another wine-glass, half
filled with plain water, drop sufficient tincture of iodine to strike
a permanent dark sherry color throughout the liquid; then add, drop by
drop, a weak solution of hyposulphite of soda till the color is
discharged, taking care to add as little excess of hyposulphite as
possible. So far this experiment shows that iodine is soluble in
hyposulphite of soda. Now, fill up the glass with an aqueous solution
of peroxide of hydrogen, and observe the effects. After a few minutes
the iodine is no longer held in solution, and the liquid will resume
the dark sherry color it had before adding the hyposulphite of soda."
Every chemist will readily explain this. To apply this new chemical
agent to this new use, take the print, after fixing and washing, and
soak it for a short time in a solution of the peroxide of hydrogen of
the strength of say one ounce of a ten-volume solution in forty ounces
of water.--_Popular Science Review_.
----
ORIGINAL.
NEW PUBLICATIONS
PASTORAL LETTER OF THE SECOND PLENARY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE. The
Archbishops and Bishops of the United States, in Plenary Council
Assembled, to the Clergy and Laity of their charge. Baltimore: John
Murphy & Co. 8vo pamphlet. For sale by L. Kehoe, New York.
This is the first official utterance of the Archbishops and Bishops of
the United States in Plenary Council assembled, to the clergy and
laity of their charge. As such it will be listened to with an
attention due to the importance of the subjects on which it speaks,
and to the character and motives of the august assembly from which it
proceeds. It is the warning voice of the shepherds of the people,
raised after long and matured deliberation to remind the flock of its
duties, pointing out the dangers which threaten, the quarters from
which they spring, and the means by which they are to be avoided. It
is the herald of that full legislation which in a few months will be
promulgated for the Catholics of the United States. The outlines of
that {426} legislation are traced with rapid pen in this document; the
details, which have been already filled in, will, after having
received the approval of Rome, be presented to the public stamped with
the seal of the Fisherman. The great object of this Pastoral Address
is to impress upon the minds and hearts of Catholics those cardinal
principles and duties of cheerful obedience to the divinely
constituted authority of the "bishops placed to rule the Church of
God;" in order that when the decrees of the Council are published,
all--bishops, priests, and the laity--may co-operate in heart and
hand in giving them practical effect. _All_ are members of the same
mystical body of Christ, the Church; and therefore _all_ should in
their respective positions and functions unite in harmonious action
for the well-being of the whole, according to the order established by
the divine head and founder. "For there are diversities of ministries,
but the same Lord; and diversities of operations, but the same God,
who worketh in all; and hath set the members every one of them in the
body as it hath pleased him" (Cor. xii. 1).
Such being the object of the Pastoral Letter, it very naturally
commences (Sec. I.) with the "Authority of Plenary Councils;" and
(Sec. II.) with "Ecclesiastical Authority" in its general relations,
and with the correlative obedience thereto binding on the Christian
conscience. As human policy and human action have, even in secular
matters, their religious as well as their civil aspects, the
principles are laid down which mark out the boundary line between the
civil and ecclesiastical powers (Sec III.); a boundary line which
notwithstanding the experience and lessons of past centuries, is often
obliterated or lost sight of. After having, in brief and emphatic
language, called attention to these general truths relating to
authority and consequent obedience founded on the natural and divine
laws, the episcopal legislators devote several sections to the more
prominent questions and wants which affect the Catholic Church in the
United States. Sec. IV. calls attention to the afflicted condition of
the Pope and to the obligation incumbent on his spiritual subjects,
for whom he daily prays and works, of relieving him. Sec. V. to the
"Sacrament of Matrimony," that great and sacred link by which society
is in its nearest and dearest associations held together, but which is
so much exposed to be severed, if not wholly destroyed, in our days.
Sec VI. to the press, that giant engine for good or for evil, wielded,
alas! with such fatal efficacy against the faith and morals of the
"little ones and the weak ones" of the fold, and yet which, properly
directed might be made the instrument most powerful for truth and for
good. Sec. VII. deals with the "education" of youth, on which indeed
the future of society and religion depends. Sec. VIII. with the
subject of '"Catholic Protectories and Industrial Schools." Sec IX.
with the necessity of cultivating "vocations" in the ministry. Secs.
X. and XI. are addressed, respectively, to the "Laity" and the
"Clergy." Sec XII. points to the condition of the emancipated slaves,
and to the means to be used by the Church in ameliorating it. Sec
XIII. glances at those most favored spots in the bosom of the Church,
where the sun shines most brightly, and the fairest lilies spring to
be woven as a garland in her triumphant crown--to "Religious
Communities." The "conclusion" epitomizes the whole by saying:
"We have taken advantage of the opportunity of the assembling of so
large a number of bishops from every part of our vast country, to
enact such decrees as will tend to promote uniformity of discipline
and practice among us, and to do away with such imperfect observance
of the rites and approved ceremonies of the church as may have been
made necessary by the circumstances of past times, but which no
length of prescription can ever consecrate, and thus to give the
services of our religion that beauty and dignity which belong to
them, and for which we should all be so zealous.
"For the furtherance of these important objects, we have caused to
be drawn up a clear and compendious series of statements upon the
most essential points of faith and morals, with which we have
embodied the decrees of the seven Provincial Councils of Baltimore,
and of the first Plenary Council, together with the decrees enacted
by us in the present Council, which, when they have been examined
and approved of by the Holy See, will form a compendium of
ecclesiastical law for the guidance of our clergy in the exercise of
their holy ministry.
"The result of our labors, when thus returned to us, will be
promulgated more fully in our Provincial Councils and Diocesan
Synods and we will then take advantage of the opportunity to bring
more fully under the notice of the clergy, and the people committed
to our pastoral charge, the details of what we have done, and the
exact nature of the means {427} by which we hope to give increased
efficiency to the whole practical system of the church in this
country.
"We have also recommended to the Holy See the erection of several
additional episcopal sees and vicariates apostolic, which are made
necessary by our rapidly increasing Catholic population and the
great territorial extent of many of our present dioceses."
It does not become us to review, but only two direct attention to this
most remarkable and important document. Abstracting from the authority
of those from whom it emanates, and viewed merely as the pronouncement
of so many men distinguished for learning, experience, and piety, it
will be read with respectful consideration by the educated portion of
our community, whether Catholic or Protestant. On the former, however,
it has a higher and holier claim--as the legislative exponent of those
appointed to keep garrison on the watch-towers of Israel, to give
timely warning of danger, from whatever part of the horizon it
approaches, to lead and guide them in their journey through this
earthly desert to the promised land of heaven. In some of the plenary
councils (for instance, of Africa about the time of St. Cyprian or of
St. Augustine, or of Asia before that of St. John Chrysostom) a
greater number of bishops were assembled. In plenary councils, too,
weightier matters may have come under consideration; as, for example,
doctrinal questions at the Council of Orange, not, however, to be
finally settled without the after-sanction all the Infallible Church.
But never, we may venture to say, has any provincial council in other
parts of the church been called to legislate for so vast a territory,
more on questions of discipline and practice affecting the present and
future prospects of a population so widespread and so varied in its
origin, its habits, and its pursuits. Some of the bishops traveled by
sea and land over thousands of miles, and were heard to facetiously
say that "as they had come so far it were a little thing to step
across and see the Pope at Rome." They were all, as we said, picked
men, "chosen among hundreds" of learned and pious priests; actuated
solely by the motive of doing the best their collective prudence
suggested for their people. Hence their opinions on questions with
which they were all practically acquainted in their respective
dioceses, merit to be heard by all classes with the deepest respect.
Doctrinal matters were not discussed at Baltimore; these are reserved
for the supreme authority of general councils and of the Holy See. But
practical remedies are suggested for social and moral evils in a
quiet, calm, and steady tone, which sounds upon the ears of Catholics
like the voice of the Holy Spirit, and wakens in the hearts of the
well-minded children of the church an echo such as we may imagine the
gentle voice of the divine Master to have awakened in those who
listened to his sermon on the mount. The council does not confine
itself to the enunciation of general principles, but enters into
minute, practical details on each subject. Had we space we would wish
to quote much; but we confine ourselves to what it says on the section
on the press:
"We cheerfully acknowledge the services the Catholic press has
rendered to religion, as also the disinterestedness with which, in
most instances, it has been conducted, although yielding to
publishers and editors a very insufficient return for their labors.
We exhort the Catholic community to extend to these publications a
more liberal support, in order that they may be enabled to become
more worthy the great cause they advocate.
"We remind them that the power of the press is one of the most
striking features of modern society; and that it is our duty to
avail ourselves of this mode of making known the truths of our
religion, and removing the misapprehensions which so generally
prevail in regard to them.
"In connection with this matter we earnestly recommend to the
faithful of our charge the Catholic Publication Society, lately
established in the city of New York by a zealous and devoted
clergyman. Besides the issuing of short tracts, with which this
society has begun, and which may be so usefully employed to arrest
the attention of many whom neither inclination nor leisure will
allow to read larger works, this society contemplates the
publication of Catholic books, according as circumstances may permit
and the interests of religion appear to require. From the judgment
and good taste evinced in the composition and selection of such
tracts and books as have already been issued by this society, we are
encouraged to hope that it will be eminently effective in making
known the truths of our holy religion, and dispelling the prejudices
which are mainly owing to want of information on the part of so many
of our fellow-citizens. For this it is necessary that a generous
co-operation be given, both by clergy and laity, to the undertakings
which is second to none in importance among the {428} subsidiary
aids which the inventions of modern times supply to our ministry for
the diffusion of Catholic truth."
----
CURIOUS QUESTIONS. By Rev. Henry A. Brann, D.D. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 272.
Newark, N. J.: J. J. O'Connor & Co., 59 and 61 New street. 1866.
This attractive-looking, well-printed volume reflects great credit on
the enterprise and taste of the publishers, who, we hope, will be
rewarded and encouraged by an extensive sale. We may remark, by the
way, that some of our publishers would do well to imitate the Messrs.
O'Connor in their style of binding and lettering, which is neat and
tasteful but perfectly plain. The flashy style of late adopted in some
cases is in most wretched taste, especially when the book treats of
grave and serious topics; and it is especially displeasing to all
scholars. The only fault in the mechanical execution of the book
before us is, that the margin of the page is somewhat too large.
The book itself treats of much more weighty and important topics than
the title would suggest. It is an analysis and resume of some of the
principal topics treated of in our philosophical text-books. The
author has studied attentively and with understanding, and has
presented us with an abstract of his studies, expressed in a clear,
terse, and methodical style. There are, nevertheless, occasional
infelicities of diction, which could easily be corrected, and which
are pardonable in a young and unpractised author. The use of the word
"conscience" for consciousness appears to us decidedly objectionable,
and likely to mislead the English reader not familiar with the Latin
word "conscientia," of which it is too verbal a translation. Such an
expression as "secundum quid beings" is awkward and quite unnecessary.
The same word sometimes recurs too frequently for euphony, and some
sentences are carelessly constructed or unfinished. These faults are,
however, comparatively slight and infrequent, and do not enter into
the texture of the style and diction itself, which is of good and
serviceable fabric.
The author follows the school of Plato, St. Augustine, Gerdil,
Leibnitz, Gioberti, and the modern ontologists, taking the Abbé
Branchereau as his more immediate guide. The general principles and
drift of the system of philosophy contained in the prelections of the
last-named author we regard as sounds, and we are therefore well
pleased to see this system in part reproduced by one who has mastered
it, and has also illustrated it from his studies in other authors.
There is a certain confusion and incompleteness, however, in the
statements and explanations of M. Branchereau upon one or two
important points, and the same reappears in the work before us. One of
these points relates to the activity of the intellect in its intuition
of being. M. Branchereau does not speak distinctly upon the point, but
Dr. Brann expresses the opinion that the intellect is active, in
contradiction to Gioberti. If by this is meant that the intellect has
an active power to originate the intuition of infinite, eternal,
necessary being, we apprehend that consequences might be deduced from
this statement not in accordance with the Catholic doctrine. Another
point relates to the universals, or genera and species. On this point
the language both of M. Branchereau and of our author seems not to be
sufficiently precise and accurate to guard against the appearance of
maintaining the untenable proposition that genera and species are
contained in God.
There is one more point of very great importance, where our author has
either misapprehended the doctrine of the great writers of whose
system he is the expositor, or has intentionally deviated from it,
and, as we think, without due consideration. He maintains (p. 255)
that material substance is radically spiritual and intelligent.
Leibnitz, who is followed by a great number of the ablest philosophers
of our day, taught that the ultimate components of matter are simple
and indivisible, and so far similar in essence to spiritual
substances. Branchereau has very ably sustained this doctrine in his
philosophy, and we regard this portion of his treatise as one of the
most valuable of his contributions to science. He draws the line,
however, in common with all other Catholic writers with whom we are
acquainted, sharply and distinctly between material and spiritual
substances, as, we think, sound philosophy requires. The theory of our
author opens the way to the Darwinian theory of the evolution of all
the {429} entities of the universe from identical ultimate elements.
We think he would have shown more judgment by abstaining from the
expression of an immature speculation of his own on such an extremely
difficult and abstruse question. A little less of positive assertion,
and a little more diffidence of manner, and deference toward others,
throughout the whole volume, would be more graceful in an author just
at the outset of his career; especially as he is treating of those
profound and momentous questions which task and often baffle the
mightiest and most veteran leaders in the intellectual warfare.
Having finished the ungracious part of our critical task, we take
pleasure in giving our judgment, that the design of the author in the
work before us is one that is praiseworthy, and the manner of its
execution such as to make it really valuable to the class of readers
he has in view. It is worthy of their attentive perusal, and could not
fail to benefit them if they would read and consider it with care. It
is an exposition of principles and doctrines in philosophy far deeper,
sounder, and more satisfactory to the intellect than is usually found
in the English language; and makes accessible to those who are
unacquainted with our best Catholic authors a portion of that treasure
of thought which is locked up in them out of the reach of the majority
of even educated men. We should like to have this book read by our
students and literary men generally, and even by our professors of
metaphysics in the colleges of the United States. It presents the
outlines of a system far superior to that jejune psychologism of the
Scottish school which is usually talked, and ought to be welcome to
those who are in search of something more solid. It will also be
valuable to students of philosophy in our own colleges as a companion
to their text-books, as well as to English readers generally who have
taste and capacity for relishing on philosophical subjects. We wish it
success and a large circulation, and we trust the author will continue
his contributions to literature and science.
----
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE By Nathaniel Holmes. 1
vol. 12mo, pp. 601. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.
Mr. Holmes attempts, in this finely printed volume from the Riverside
Press, to prove that the works of Shakespeare are not Shakespeare's,
but Francis Bacon's. His argument is: Shakespeare did not write them
because he could not; Francis Bacon, my lord Verulam, did write them
because he could. To which it may be replied: Shakespeare could write
them, because he did; Bacon did not, because he could not. That Bacon
could not, is evident from the character of the man and what we know
of his acknowledged writings; that Shakespeare did is the uniform
tradition from their first appearance down to the present, and must be
presumed until the contrary appears.
Mr. Holmes has proved, what all competent judges have always held,
that the author of the works received as Shakespeare's must have had
more learning and greater scientific and linguistic attainments than
his biographers supposed Shakespeare to have had, but has not proved
that he must have had more than Shakespeare might have had. Few
persons capable of appreciating the wonderful productions attributed
to Shakespeare can doubt that he was up to the scientific lore of his
age; knew enough of Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and perhaps
Spanish, to read and understand works written in those languages; had
some general knowledge of medicine; was familiar with many of the
technicalities of English law; was a profound philosopher, with more
than an ordinary knowledge of Christian theology and morals. But who
can say that Shakespeare might not have had all the learning and
science here supposed?
We in reality know next to nothing of the facts of Shakespeare's life.
We know the place and date of his birth and death, the age at which he
was withdrawn from the grammar-school, and of his marriage; we know
that he was in London about the age of thirty, where he chiefly
resided till within two or three years of his death, as an actor,
play-wright, manager, and a large stockholder in a London theatre.
These, and some few business transactions and his retirement, after
having accumulated a handsome property, to his native place, where his
family appear to have resided, constitute nearly all that we know of
William Shakespeare outside of his works; and in these facts there is
nothing that proves it impossible or even difficult, {430} with the
genius, ability, and quickness the author of Shakespeare's works must
have had, for him to acquire all the learning and science those works
indicate in their author.
Ben Jonson says Shakespeare had "little Latin and less Greek," but
Jonson was a pedant, and his assertion meant simply no more than that
he was not profoundly or critically learned either as a Greek or Latin
scholar; and there is no necessity of supposing that he was. Latin and
Greek were taught in the grammar-schools of his time, and as it is
said he was fourteen when called home from school, it is no violent
supposition to suppose that he learned enough while at school to read
and understand Latin and Greek books, at least sufficiently for his
purposes as a poet. We know not how or where he spent the sixteen
years between leaving school, or the twelve years between his marriage
and his appearance in London, but he might, for aught we know, have
easily acquired during those years all the learning and knowledge of
modern languages indicated by his earliest plays. It could not take a
man of his genius and ability many weeks' study to master as much of
law and medicine as his works indicate; and as to his theology and
metaphysics, we must remember that he lived before Bacon, Hobbes, and
Locke had enfeebled theology and philosophy in the English mind, and
obliterated from the memory of Englishmen all traces of Catholic
tradition. Shakespeare, if not a Catholic himself, had been trained to
a greater or less extent in Catholic principles, and he rarely, if
ever, deviates in his philosophy, his theology, or theoretic morals
from Catholic tradition, still in his time retained to a great extent
in spite of Protestantism by the main body of the English people.
Bearing in mind that Shakespeare wrote his plays for the stage, to be
acted, and that he used without scruple any materials from whatever
quarter gathered that he could lay his hands on, there is nothing
wonderful in their production, except the unrivalled genius of their
author. There are many self-educated men, even in our own country, who
in the learning and science acquired from the study of books equal
Shakespeare, but in that which comes from within no one self-educated
or university-educated has ever equalled him; and not unlikely the
fact that his genius had never been cramped by the pedantic rules of
the university, nor his time frittered away in learning minutiae that
never come into play in practical life, and which the student forgets
as soon as he goes forth into the world, was in his case are great
advantage--at least no disadvantage.
But we cannot forgive the author for his sacrilegious attempt to
transfer of the glory of Shakespeare to Francis Bacon, a different and
altogether an inferior man. Shakespeare was infinitely superior to
Bacon. Even if Bacon had been great enough to write Shakespeare's
plays--of which there is no evidence--he was not philosopher enough
to do it. Shakespeare is always in accord with the best philosophical
tradition which comes down from the ancients through the fathers and
doctors of the church, as well as with the dictates of experience and
common sense; Bacon begins a rupture with tradition, and places
philosophy on the declivity to sensism and materialism, whose logical
terminus is universal nullity. Shakespeare's philosophy is Catholic,
Bacon's is Protestant, and has produced the same anarchy in science
that Protestantism has in religion and morals. There is nothing like
in the spirit and tone of the two men. Their _morale_ is quite
different; neither may have been blameless in life, but Shakespeare,
if he sinned, did so from high spirits, joviality, heedlessness; while
Bacon sinned, we we know, from sordidness, and left his name stamped
with the infamy that belongs to a judge that takes bribes. Bacon,
intentionally or not, has favored modern doubt and unbelief, while
Shakespeare crushes the incipient doubt of his age in Hamlet and in
several other of his place, and he could never have said with Bacon,
atheism is better, socially and politically, than superstition. But
enough. Mr. Holmes deserves no thanks for what he has done, and we do
not think that he has proved his theory is not a "crazy theory."
----
FAMILIAR LECTURES ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS.
By Sir John Herschel. London and New York: Alexander Strahan.
This volume contains, among others, essays on the Sun, Earthquakes and
Volcanoes, Comets, Celestial Measurement, Light, Force, and Atoms. The
author, although upward of seventy years of {431} age, still writes
with the enthusiasm, vigor and sprightliness of a young votary of
science, and of course with the profundity, range of thought, weight
of judgment, and vastness of learning belonging only to one who has
grown gray scientific studies. The topics he discusses are among the
most important and interesting in science. To their absorbing
intrinsic interest is added the charm of Sir John Herschel's method
and style of exposition. In literary merit and beauty of style this
series of lectures exceeds any of the productions of the professors of
physical science with which we are acquainted, and is equal to our
best English classics. There is a pleasant playfulness also about the
ancient astronomer, which must have made his lectures, as he delivered
them, most delightful to listen to. The religious and moral tone of
the lectures is elevated and wholesome. Without any set and formal
attempts at moralizing or preaching, the illustrious author naturally
and forcibly presents, on fitting occasions, the irresistible evidence
afforded by the stupendous order of the universe of the infinite
wisdom and goodness of God. Some few disparaging remarks about
Catholic superstition occur in his pages; but not so many as we
frequently meet with in similar works by English Protestants, who seem
to be incapable of abstaining for a very long time from their favorite
amusement--one which has as much popularity with the English public as
the national game of "Aunt Sally."
Notwithstanding these little specimens of religious squibbery, which
can do no harm to any intelligent Catholic, whether child or adult, we
recommend this book most cordially to all our readers. It is a great
advantage and pleasure to those intelligent and educated readers who
have not had time or opportunity to study scientific text-books, to
have the grand results of science placed before them in an
intelligible and readable form. We cannot think of anything more
desirable for the interests of general education, than a complete
series of lectures, like those of the volume before us, on all the
principal topics of the several grand divisions of physical science.
The field of knowledge is now so vast, and includes so many distinct,
richly cultivated enclosures, that even students must confine
themselves to the thorough study of a few specialties. Yet, education
ought to include a general survey of the universal domain of
knowledge. Therefore, it becomes important to have generalizations,
compendiums, the condensed cream of science, prepared by the hands of
masters in the several branches of knowledge. We are grateful to Sir
John Herschel for devoting his old age to the task of making the
sublime discoveries of astronomical science intelligible to ordinary
readers. His charming volume should be in every library, and read by
every one who takes pleasure in solid knowledge communicated in the
clearest and most agreeable manner.
------
THE RISE AND THE FALL; OR, THE ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL.
In three parts. Part I. The Suggestion of Reason. II. The Disclosure
of Revelation. III. The Confirmation of Theology. New York: Hurd &
Houghton. 1866.
A very thoughtful, sensible, calmly written book, pervaded by a high
tone of moral and religious sentiment. The modest, anonymous author
may be called an orthodox Protestant semi-rationalist. He takes
Scripture as furnishing certain revealed data on which the individual
reason must construct a rational theorem of religion. Revelation, as
apprehended by the individual reason, being a variable quantity, of
course dogmas are reduced to mere hypothesis more or less probable,
according to the force of the argument which sustains them. We have,
accordingly, about as ingenious and plausible an hypothesis of
original sin as any one can well make who does not begin with the true
conception as given him by the Catholic dogma. The author's hypothesis
is, that Adam, having been created in the intellectual, but not in the
moral order, was elevated to the moral order through his own act,
thereby contracting a liability to sin as incidental to moral liberty,
which he transmitted together with the moral nature to his posterity.
In this way sin entered into the world through Adam, not by an
imputation or infusion of his sin into his descendants, but as an
incidental consequence of the transfer of human nature into the sphere
of moral obligation. The transgression of Adam and Eve the author
considers not to have been a sin at all, but an act {432} without any
moral character, like that of a young child climbing to the roof of a
house; a bold experiment which the inexperience of infant man led him
to hazard without regard to the unknown consequences.
We consider the effort to determine the questions discussed by the
author, from the data admitted by him, to be as impossible a task as
to calculate the distance of a fixed star which makes no parallax. The
oscillation of the ground, of the building, and of the instrument used
by the astronomer, and the apparent or proper motions of the stars,
may deceive him by an apparent parallax, from which he will make a
plausible but illusory calculation. The application suggests itself.
We have already discussed the same questions, from the data furnished
by revealed Catholic dogmas, and are now engaged in discussing them in
the series of articles entitled "Problems of the Age;" and it is,
therefore, superfluous to enter here into a new discussion of the same
topics.
We are glad to see these questions discussed, and always read with
interest what is written by a candid, earnest, well-informed, and able
writer like the author of this book. With many of his views we
cordially agree, and recognize the justice, force, and beauty of many
of his observations. We like him particularly for his clear views of
the goodness and justice of God, the freedom of man, the negative
character of evil, the worth and excellence of moral virtue; and for
his denial of physical depravity, of a dark, inevitable doom preceding
all personal existence or accountability, and similar fatalistic
doctrines of the old Protestant theological systems. While, however,
the moderate rationalism of the author avails so far as to refute
certain systems or doctrines which are contrary to reason, and to
furnish certain fragmentary portions of a better system, it is not
sufficient to make a complete synthesis between reason and revelation.
Catholic philosophy alone is competent to achieve this mighty and,
indeed, superhuman task.
----
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED,
comprising some remarks on Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy and on
Mr. J. S. Mill's Examination of that Philosophy. By H. L. Mansel,
B.D., Waynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy in the
University of Oxford. London and New-York: Alexander Strahan. 1886
The philosophy of Sir William Hamilton has been the subject of an
animated controversy for some time in England and Scotland. It has
been attacked from two opposite sides--some of the principal critics
upon it having been themselves pupils of the distinguished Scottish
baronet, whose system they have undertaken to combat. On the one side,
Mr. Calderwood has assailed it, as deficient in affirming the
principle of certitude respecting ideal truth, and on the other, Mr.
Mill, as affirming too dogmatically the same principle. These assaults
have called out other champions in defense of their great master,
among whom Mr. Mansel is one of the most conspicuous. Those who desire
to know what can be said in favor of the Hamilton system will find
this volume worthy of their perusal. The author brings learning, no
mean ability, and very good temper to his task. We are no admirers of
the system he undertakes to defendant, but still less of that of his
antagonist. The first we regard as inadequate to the need which exists
of a true Christian philosophy, the second as subverting the very
basis of all philosophy and all religion. In this controversy our
sympathy and respect are given to the Oxford professor, as one who is
striving to uphold the belief in God and the Christian revelation,
albeit with insufficient weapons. We find, also, very much that is
admirable in particular portions of his essay.
It is needless to say anything in praise of Mr. Strahan's
publications, so far as the beauty of their mechanical execution is
concerned. The volume before us is a perfect specimen of British
typographical art, just such a book as delights the eye of the
literary amateur.
----
BOOKS RECEIVED.
From the Author: "The Life of Simon Bolivar, Liberator of Colombia and
Peru, Father and Founder of Bolivia: carefully written from authentic
and unpublished documents." By Doctor Felipe Larrazabal. Vol. 1, 8vo.,
pp. 410.
Anniversary Address and Poem, delivered before the society of the
Alumni of the Detroit High School, August 30th. 1886. Address by H. E.
Bust; Poem by Miss M. F. Buchanan.
From the American News Company: "Utterly Wrecked." A Novel, by Henry
Morford; paper.
----------
{433}
THE CATHOLIC WORLD
VOL. IV, NO. 22.--JANUARY, 1867.
ORIGINAL.
A CHRISTMAS SONG.
A carol of joy, a carol of joy,
For the glorious Christmas time;
While the heavens rejoice and the earth is glad.
Let the merry bells sweetly chime.
Let us seek the crib where our Saviour lies--
See, the shepherds are kneeling there;
Let us offer, with Mary and Joseph,
Our worship of love and prayer.
A carol of praise, a carol of praise,
With the angels let us sing;
Let us welcome with notes of rapturous joy
Our Saviour, our God and King.
Oh! would we could offer him worthy gifts,
Oh! would that our hearts could love,
With some equal return, the Holy Child,
Who for us left his throne above!
A carol of joy, a carol of joy,
Let the whole earth gladly shout;
She has waited long for this promised day.
Let the glorious song flow out.
A carol of praise, a carol of joy.
Let us sing for the Christmas time.
While the heavens rejoice and the earth is glad,
And the merry bells sweetly chime.
----
{434}
ORIGINAL.
CHARITY AND PHILANTHROPY.
There is no denying that our age, in its dormant tendency, places
philanthropy above charity, and holds it higher praise to call a man
philanthropic than to call him charitable. In its eyes charity is to
philanthropy as a part to the whole, and consists, chiefly, in giving
the beggar a penny or sending him to the poor-house, and in treating
error and sin with even more consideration than truth and virtue.
Could anything better indicate the distance it has fallen below the
Christian thought, or its failure to grasp the principle of Christian
morals?
Philanthropy, according to the etymology of the word, is simply the
love of man; charity, according to Christian theology, is the love of
God, and of man in God. Philanthropy is simply a natural human
sentiment; charity is a virtue, a supernatural virtue, not possible
without the assistance of grace--the highest virtue, the sum and
perfection of all the virtues, the fulfilment of the whole law, the
bond of perfectness which likens and unites us to God; for God is
charity, _Deus est caritas_. It does not exclude but includes the love
of man, our neighbor or our brother; "for if any man say, I love God
and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For if he loveth not his
brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not?"
Whoever loves God must necessarily love his brother, for his brother
is included in God, as the effect in the cause, and he who loveth not
his brother proves clearly thereby that he doth not love God. But
charity, though it includes philanthropy, is as much superior to it as
God is to man.
The natural sentiments are all good in their origin and design, as
much so since as before the fall; and man would be worthless without
them; would be a monster, not a man. But in themselves they are blind.
Each one tends, when left to itself, to become exclusive and
excessive, and hence comes that internal disorder, anarchy, or war of
conflicting sentiments of which we are all more or less conscious, and
in which originate all life's tragedies. Even when developed,
restrained, and directed by the understanding, as they all need to be,
they are not even then moral virtues, meriting praise. Moral virtue is
a rational act, an act of free will, done for the sake of the end
prescribed by the law of God; but in the sentiments there is no free
will, except in restraining and directing them, and man acts in them
only as the sun shines, the rain falls, the winds blow, or the
lightnings flash. There may the beauty and goodness in them, as in the
objects of nature, but there is no virtue, because the spring of all
sentimental action is the indulgence or gratification of the sentiment
itself, not the will to do our duty, or to obey the law by which we
are morally bound.
Indeed, what most offends this age--perhaps all ages--and for which
it has the greatest horror, is duty or obedience; for duty implies
that we are not our own, and, therefore, are not free to dispose of
ourselves as we please; and obedience implies a superior, a lord and
master, who has the right to order us. It, therefore, sets its wits to
work and racks its brains to invent a morality that excludes duty, and
exacts no such hateful same as obedience. It has found all that it is
far nobler to act from love than from duty, and to do a thing because
we are prompted to do it by our hearts, then because God, in his law,
commands it. {435} In other words, it is nobler, more moral, to act to
please ourselves, than it is to act to please God. This passes for
excellent philosophy, and you may hear it in conversation of many
young misses just from boarding-school, read it in most popular novels
and magazines, and be edified by it from the pulpit of more than one
professedly Christian denomination.
This philosophy sets the so-called heart above the head, that is, it
distinguishes the heart from the understanding and will, and places
it, as so distinguished, above them. Hence we find the tendency is to
treat faith, considered as an intellectual act, and consequently the
Christian dogmas, with great indifference; and to say, if the heart is
right, it is no matter what one believes, and, it may be added, no
matter what one does. What one does is of little consequence, if one
only has fine sentiments, warm and gushing feelings. Jack Scapegrace
is hard drinking a gambler, a liar, a rake, and seldom goes near a
church; but for all that he is a right down good fellow--has a warm
heart. He gives liberally to the missionary society, and makes large
purchases at charity fairs. Hence a good heart, which at best means
only quick sensibilities, and which is perfectly compatible with the
grossest self-indulgence, and the most degrading and ruinous vices,
constitutes the sum and substance of religion and morality, atones for
the violation of every precept of the Decalogue, and supplies the
absence of faith and Christian virtue.
All errors are half truths. Certainly, love is the fulfilling of the
law, and the heart is all that God requires. "My son, give me thy
heart." But the "heart" in the scriptural sense is reason, the
intellect, and the will; and the love that fulfils the law is not a
sentiment, but a free act of the rational soul, and, therefore, a love
which it is within our power to give or withhold. It is a free,
voluntary love, yielded by intelligence and will. In this sense, love
cannot be contrasted with duty; for it is duty, or its fulfilment, and
indistinguishable from it; the heart cannot be contrasted with the
head, in the scriptural or Christian sense of the word; for in that
sense it includes the head, and stands for the whole rational
soul--the mistress of her own acts. To act from the promptings of
one's own heart, in this sense, is all right, for it is to act from a
sense of duty, from reason and will, or intelligence and free
volition. In souls well constituted and trained, or long exercised in
the practice of virtue, no long process of reasoning or deliberation
ever takes place, and the decision and execution are simultaneous, and
apparently instantaneous, but the act is none the less an act of
deliberate reason or free will.
Plato speaks of a love which is not an affection of the sensibility,
and which is one of the wings of the soul on which she soars to the
Empyreum; but I can understand no love that contrasts with duty,
except it be an affection of the sensitive nature, what the Scriptures
call "the flesh," which is averted by the fall from God, and, as the
Council of Trent defines, "inclines to sin"--"the carnal mind," which,
St. Paul tells us, is at enmity with God, is not subject to the law of
God, nor indeed can be. Christianity recognizes an antagonism between
the flesh and the spirit, between the law in our members and the Law
of the mind, but none between the love she approves and the duty she
enjoins, or between the heart which God demands and the head or the
understanding. Love by the Christian law is demanded as a duty, as
that which is due from us to God. We are required to love God with our
whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves.
This is our duty, and therefore the love must be an act of free
will--a love which we are free to yield or to withhold, for our duty
can never exceed our liberty. The Christian loves duty, loves
self-denial and sacrifice, loves the law, and delights in it after
{436} the inner man; but in loving the law he acts freely from his own
reason and will, and he obeys it not for the sake of the delight he
takes in it, but because it is God's law; otherwise he would act to
please himself, not to please God, and his act would be simply an act
of self-indulgence.
The age, in its efforts to construct a morality which excludes duty
and obedience, tends to resolve the love which Christianity demands
into an affection of the sensibility, and thence very logically
opposes love to duty, and holds it nobler to act from inclination than
from duty, to follow the law in our members than the law of the mind.
It may then substitute, with perfect consistency, the
transcendentalist maxim, Obey thyself, for the Christian maxim. Deny
thyself!
But this is not all. The age, or what is usually called the age, not
only resolves virtue, which old-fashioned ethics held to be an act of
free will done in obedience to the Divine law, into a sentiment, or
interior affection, of the sensibility, but it goes further and
resolves God into man, and maintains that the real sense of the
mystery of the Incarnation, of the Word made flesh, is that man is the
only actual and living God, and that beyond humanity there is only
infinite possibility, which humanity in its infinite progress and
evolution and absorption of individual life is continually
actualizing, or filling up. So virtually teaches Hegel,
inconsiderately followed by Cousin, in teaching that _das reine Seyn_,
or simply possible being, arrives at self-consciousness first in man.
So teach the Saint Simonians, Enfantin, Bazard, Carnot, and Pierre
Leroux; and so hold the school or sect of the Positivists, followers
of Auguste Comte, who have actually instituted _un culte_ or service
in honor of humanity. The Positivists are too modest to claim to be
themselves each individually God, but they make no bones of calling
humanity, or the great collective man, God, and offering him, as such,
a suitable worship. This is taught and done in France, the most
lettered nation in Europe; and the principle that justifies it
pervades not a little of the popular literature of Great Britain,
Germany, and the United States.
If man or humanity is God, of course the highest virtue is and must be
philanthropy, the love of all men in general, and of no one in
particular. Resolve now God into man, and philanthropy or the love of
man into an affection of the sensibility or sensitive nature, and you
have in a nutshell the theology, religion, and morality to which the
age tens, which the bulk of our popular literature favors, which our
sons and daughters inhale with the very atmosphere they breathe, and
which explains the effeminacy and sentimentalism of modern society. It
is but a logical sequence that the age, since women are ordinarily
narily more sentimental than men, places woman at the head of the
race, and holds woman--if young, beautiful amiable, sentimental, and
rich--to be the most perfect and adorable embodiment of the divinity.
The highest form of philanthropy is the love of woman. I would say,
philogyny, only that might be taken to imply that the highest virtue
is the love of one's wife, or wifehood, which is to old-fashioned,
unless by wife is meant the wife of one's neighbor. But, my dear young
lady, be not too vain of the homage you receive; it will be withheld
with the first appearance of the first wrinkle or the first gray hair.
It is better to be honored as a true woman than to be worshipped as a
goddess or even as an angel.
The sentimental worship of humanity, or the reduction of the virtue of
charity to the sentiment of philanthropy, necessarily weaken and
debases the character; and whatever we may say under various aspects
and praise of our age, and however strong our confidence that God in
his providence will turn even its evil tendencies to good, we cannot
deny its moral weakness; and it is doubtful if {437} the debasement of
individual character was greater, even in the Lower Empire, or that
men were more dishonest or fraudulent, more sordid or venal. Other
ages have been marked, perhaps, by less refinement of manners, more
violent crimes, and great criminals, but few are found less capable
either of great virtues or great expiations. This need not surprise
us, for it is only the natural effect of substituting sentiment for
virtue, and sentimental for moral culture, which we are constantly
doing.
Many, perhaps, will be disposed to deny that we have substituted
sentimental for moral culture, and it must be concluded that the
didactic lessons given in our schools throughout Christendom, for the
most part, remain very much as they have been ever since there was a
Christendom, and in general accord with pure Christian ethics. There
are few, if any, schools for children and youth, in which the
sentimental and humanitarian morality, or rather immorality, is
formally taught. But we should remember that the didactic lessons of
the school-room do very little toward forming the character of our
youth, and that the culture that really forms it is given by the home
circle, associations, the spirit and tone of the community in which
they are brought up. There is a subtle influence, what the Germans
call _der Welt-Geist_, which pervades the whole community, and affects
the faith, the morals, and character of all who grow up in that
community without any formal instruction or conscious effort of any
one. So far as formal lessons and words go, the culture of our
children and youth is, for the most part, Christian; but these lessons
and words receive a practical interpretation by _der Welt-Geist_, what
I call s spirit of the age, and should, "the prince of this world,"
which deprives them of their Christian sense, takes from them all
meaning, or gives them an anti-Christian meaning. It is one of the
striking peculiarities of the age that it inculcates the baldest
infidelity, the grossest immorality in the language of Christian faith
and virtue. It is this fact which deceives so many, and that makes the
assertion of sentimental for moral culture appear to be a total
misstatement, or, at least, a gross exaggeration of the fact.
It will, no doubt, also be said that a decided reaction in our popular
literature against sentimentalism has already commenced. The realism
of Dickens and the Trollopes is opposed to it, Bulwer Lytton, in his
late novels at least, is decidedly hostile to it, and Thackeray
unmercifully ridicules it. These and other popular writers have
undoubtedly reacted against one form of sentimentalism, the dark and
suicidal form placed in vogue by Goethe in his Sorrows of Werter, and
now nearly forgotten; but they have not ridiculed or reacted against
the form of sentimentalism which substitutes the sentiment of
philanthropy for the virtue of charity. They encourage
humanitarianism, and make the love of man for woman or woman for man
the great agent in developing, enlarging, and strengthening the
intellect, the spring of the purest and sublimest morality. The hero
of popular literature is now rarely an avowed unbeliever or open
scoffer, and in all well-bred novels the heroine says her prayers
night and morning, and the author decidedly patronizes Christianity,
and says many beautiful and even true things in its favor; but, after
all, his religion is based on humanity, is only a charming
sentimentalism, embraced for its loveliness, not as duty or the law
which it would be sin to neglect; or it is introduced as a foreign and
incongruous element, never as the soul or informing spirit of the
novel.
The fact is undeniable, whether people are generally conscious of it
or not, and we see its malign influence not only on individual
character, but on domestic and social life. It has nearly broken up
and rendered impossible the Christian family in the easy and educated
classes. {438} Marriage is, it is said, where and only where there is
mutual love, and hence the marriage is in the mutual love, is lawful
between any parties who mutually love, unlawful between any who do
not. Love is an interior affection of the sensibility, a feeling, and
like all the feelings independent of reason and will. All popular
literature makes love fatal, something undergone, not given. We love
where we must; not where we would nor where we should, but where we
are fated to love. It needs not here to speak of infidelity to the
marriage vows, which this doctrine justifies to any extent, for those
vows are broken when broken from unreasoning passion or lust, not from
a theory which justifies it. I speak rather of the misery which it
carries into married life, the destruction of domestic peace and
happiness it causes. Trained in the sentimentalism of the age, and to
regard love as a feeling dependent on causes beyond our control, our
young people marry, expecting from marriage what it has not, and
cannot give. They expect the feeling which they call love, and which
gives a roseate hue to everything they look upon, will continue as
fresh, as vivid, and as charming after marriage as before it; but the
honeymoon is hardly over, and they begin to settle down in the regular
routine of life, before they discover their mistake, the roseate hue
has gone, their feelings have undergone a notable change, and they are
disappointed in each other, and feel that the happiness they counted
on is no longer to be expected. The stronger and more intense the
mutual feeling the greater the disappointment, and hence the common
saying: Love matches are seldom happy matches. Each party is
disappointed in the other, frets against the chain that binds them
together, and wishes it broken.
This is only what might have been expected. Nothing is more variable
or transitory than our feelings, and nothing that depends on them can
be unchanging or lasting. When the feelings of the married couple
change toward each other, the marriage bond becomes a galling chain,
and is felt to be a serious evil, and divorce is desired and resorted
to as a remedy. It is usually no remedy at all, or a remedy worse even
than the disease; but it is the only remedy practicable where feeling
is substituted for rational affection. Hence, in nearly all modern
states, the legislature, in direct conflict with the Christian law,
which makes marriage a sacrament and indissoluble, permits divorce,
and in some states for causes as frivolous as incompatibility of
temper. It is easy to censure the legislature but it must follow and
express the morals, manners, sentiments, and demands of the people,
and when these are repugnant to the divine law, it cannot in its
enactments conform to that law; and if did, it's enactments would be
resisted as tyrannical and oppressive, or remained on the statute book
a dead letter, as did so much wise and just legislation inspired by
the church in the middle ages. The evil lies further back, in the
humanitarianism of the age, which reverses the real order, puts the
flesh in the place of the spirit, philanthropy in the place of
charity, and man in the place of God, and which promotes an excessive
culture of the sentiments, at the expense of rational conviction and
affection. There is no remedy but in returning to the order we have
reversed, to the higher culture of reason and free will, not possible
without faith in God and the Christian mysteries.
But passing over the effects of sentimental morality on individual
character, the private virtues, and domestic happiness, we find it no
less hostile to social ameliorations and reforms in the state. The age
is philanthropic, and wages war with every form of vice, poverty, and
suffering, and is greatly shocked at the evils it finds past ages
tolerated without ever making an effort to remove them, hardly even to
mitigate them. {439} This is well as far as it goes; but in an age
when the sensitive nature is chiefly cultivated, when physical pain is
counted the chief evil, and sensible pleasures held to be the chief
good, practically, if not theoretically, many things will be regarded
as evils which, in a more robust and manly age, were unheeded, or not
counted as evils at all. Many things in our day need changing, simply
because other things having been changed, they have become anomalous
and are out of place. What in one state of society is simple poverty,
is really distress in another; and poverty, which in itself is no
evil, becomes a great evil in a community where wealth is regarded as
the supreme good, and the poor have wants, habits, and tastes which
only wealth an satisfy. The poorer classes of today in civilized
nations would suffer intensely if thrown back into the condition they
were in under the feudal régime, but it may be doubted if they do not
really suffer as much now as they did then. Perhaps such wants as they
then had were more readily met and supplied than are those which they
now have. In point of fact, Christian charity did infinitely more for
the poor and to solace suffering in all its forms, even in the feudal
ages, than philanthopy does now; and we find the greatest amount of
squalid wretchedness now precisely in those nations in which
philanthopy has been most successful in supplanting charity.
Philanthropy effects nothing except in so far as it copies or imitates
Christian Charity, and its attempted imitations are rarely successful.
It has for years been very active and hard at work in imitation of
charity; but what has it effected? what suffering has it solaced? what
crime has it diminished? what vice has it corrected? what social evil
has it removed? It has tried its hand against licentiousness, and
licentiousness is more rife and shameless than ever. It has made
repeated onslaughts on the ruinous vice of intemperance, and yet
drunkenness increases instead of diminishing, and has become the
disgrace of the country-. It has professed great regard for the poor,
but does more to remove them out of sight than to relieve them. It
treats poverty as a vice or a crime, looks on it as a disgrace, a
thing to be fled from with all speed possible, and makes the poor feel
that wealth is virtue, honor, nobility, the greatest good, and thus
destroys their self respect, aggravates their discontent, and
indirectly provokes the crimes against property become so general and
so appalling. What a moral New York reads us in the fact that she
makes her commissioners of "Public Charities" also commissioners of
"Public Corrections!" Philanthropy rarely fails to aggravate the evil
she attempts to cure, or to cure one evil by introducing another and a
greater evil. Her remedies are usually worse than the disease.
Owen, Fourier, Cabet, and other philanthropists have made serious
efforts to reorganize society so as to remove the inequalities or the
evils of the inequalities of wealth and social position; but have all
failed, because they needed, in order to succeed, the habits,
character, and virtues which, on their own theories, can be obtained
only from success. As a rule, philanthropy must succeed in order to be
able to succeed.
Philanthropy--humanitarianism--has been shocked at slavery, and in
our country as well as in some others it formed associations for its
abolition. In the West India Islands, belonging to Great Britain, it
succeeded in abolishing it, to the ruin of the planters and very
little benefit to the slave. In this country, if slavery is abolished,
it has not been done by philanthropy, which served only to set the
North and the South by the ears, but by the military authority as a
war measure, necessary, or judged to be necessary, to save the Union
and to guard against future attempts to dissolve it. Philanthropy is
hard at work to make abolition a blessing to the freedmen. It talks,
sputters, {440} clamors, legislates, but it can effect nothing; and
unless Christian charity takes the matter in hand, it is very evident
that, however much emancipation may benefit the white race, it can
prove of little benefit to the emancipated, who will be emancipated in
name, but not in reality.
The great difficulty with philanthropy is, that she acts from feeling
and not reason, and uses reason only as the slave or instrument of
feeling. Wherever she sees an evil she rushes headlong to its removal,
blind to the injury she may do to rights, principles, and institutions
essential to liberty and the very existence of society. Hence she
usually in going to her end tramples down more good by the way than
she can obtain in gaining it. She has no respect for vested rights,
regards no geographical lines, and laughs at the constitutions of
states, if they stand in her way. Liberty with us was more interested
in maintaining inviolate the constitution of the Union and the local
rights of the several states, than it was even in abolishing negro
slavery, and hence many wise and good men, who had no interest in
retaining slavery, and who detested it as an outrage upon humanity,
did not and could not act or sympathize with the abolitionists. They
yield in nothing to them in the earnest desire to abolish slavery, but
they would abolish it by legal and peaceful means--means that would
not weaken the hold of the constitution and civil law on conscience,
and destroy the safeguards of liberty. The abolitionists did not err
in being opposed to slavery, but in the principles on which they
sought its abolition. Adam did not sin in aspiring to be God; for
that, in a certain sense, he was destined, through the incarnation,
one day to become. His sin was in aspiring to be God without the
incarnation, in his own personal right and might, and in violation of
the divine command, or by other means than those prescribed by his
Creator and Lawgiver, the only possible means of attaining the end
sought.
Philanthropy commits the same error whatever the good work she
attempts, and especially in all her attempts at political reforms. She
finds herself "cabined, cribbed, confined" by old political
institutions, and cries out, Down with them. She demands for the
people a liberty which she sees they have not and cannot have under
the existing political order, and so proceeds at once to conspire
against it, to revolutionize the state, deluges the land in blood, and
gets anarchy, the Reign of Terror, or military despotism for its
pains. Never were there more sincere or earnest philanthropists than
the authors of the old French Revolution. The violent revolutions
attempted in modern Europe in the name of humanity, have done more
harm to society by unsettling the bases of society and effacing in
men's minds and hearts the traditional respect for law and order, than
any good they could have done by sweeping away the social and
political abuses they warred against. The French are not politically
or individually freer to-day than they were under Louis Quatorze.
There are, no doubt, times when an old political order, as in Rome
after Marius and Sulla, has become effete, and can no longer fulfil
the duties or discharge the offices of a government, in which a
revolution, like that effected under the lead of Julius an Augustus
Caesar, may be desirable and advantageous, for it establishes a
practicable and a real government in the place of a government that
can no longer discharge the functions of government, and is virtually
no government at all. The empire was a great advance on the republic,
which was incapable of being restored. But revolutions properly
so-called, undertaken for the subversion of an existing order and the
introduction of another held to be theoretically more perfect, have
never, so far as history records, been productive of good. No doubt
England is to-day in advance of what she was under the Stuarts, but
who dares say that she is in advance of {441} what she would have been
had she not expelled them, or that she has become greater under the
Whig nobility than she might have been under the Tory squirarchy?
There has been, I readily concede, a real progress in modern society,
at least dating from the fifth century of our era; but, as I read
history, the progress has been interrupted or retarded by modern
socialistic or political revolutions, and has in no case been
accelerated by philanthropy as distinguished from Christian charity.
Moreover, in no state of Christendom has charity ever been wholly
wanting. Nations have cast off the authority of the church, and have
greatly suffered in consequence; but in none has divine charity been
totally wanting, and the influence of Christianity on civilization,
even in heretical and schismatic nations, is not to be counted as
nothing. I am far from believing that the nations that broke away from
the church are not better than they would have been if they had not
had the benefit of the habits formed under her teaching and
discipline. I know that _extra ecclesiam nulla sit salus_; but I know
also that the church is as a city set on a hill, and that rays from
the light within her may and do extend beyond her walls, and relieve
in some degree the darkness of those who are outside of them. How much
the church continues to influence nations once within her communion,
but now severed from it, nobody is competent to determine, nor can any
one but God himself say how many, in all these nations, though not
formally united to the body of the church, are yet not wholly severed
from her soul. The Russian Church retains the Orthodox faith and the
sacraments, and is officially under no sentence of excommunication
from the body of Christ, and only those who are individually and
voluntarily schismatic, are guilty of the sin of schism; and in other
communions, though undoubtedly heretical, there may be large numbers
of baptized persons who do really act on Christian principles, and
from purely Christian motives. All I mean to deny is, that society or
humanity ever gains anything from violent or sentimental revolutions.
The impotence of philanthropy without charity, or pure humanism, is
demonstrable _à priori_, and should have been foreseen. It is opposed
to the nature of things, and implies the absurdity that nothing is
something, and that what is not can act. It is an attempt to found
religion, morals, society, and the state without God; when without God
there is and can be nothing, and consequently nothing for them to
stand on. It assumes that man is an independent being, and suffices
for himself; which, whether we mean by man the individual or humanity,
"the universal man," "the one man" of the Transcendentalists, or "the
grand collective Being" of the Positivists, we all feel and know to be
not the fact. Man in either sense is a creature, and depends
absolutely on the creative act of God for his existence; and let God
suspend that act, and he sinks into the nothing he was before he was
created. Therefore it is in God _mediante_ his creative act he lives
and moves and has his being. Hence it is, whether we know it or not,
that we assert the existence of God as our creator in every act we
perform, every thought we think, every resolution we take, every
sentiment we experience, and every breath we draw, for no human
operation--physical, intellectual, or moral--is possible without the
divine creative act and concurrence.
Philanthropy, or the love of man, separated from charity, or the love
of God and of man in God, is therefore simply nothing, a mere
negation, for it supposes man separated from God is something, and
separated from God he is nothing. Hence St. Paul, in his first epistle
to the Corinthians, says: "If I speak with the tongues of men and of
angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a
tinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries, and
have {442} all knowledge, and have all faith, so I could remove
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should
distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and should give my body to
be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." This is so
not by virtue of any arbitrary decree or appointment of the Almighty,
even if such decree or appointment is possible, but in the very,
nature of things, and God himself cannot make it otherwise. God is
free to create or not to create, and free to create such existences as
he pleases; but he cannot create an independent self-sufficing being,
for he cannot create anything between which and himself there should
not be the relation of creator and creature. The creature depends
wholly, in all respects whatever, on the creator, and without him is
and can be nothing. The creature depends absolutely on the creator in
relation to all his acts, thoughts, and affections, as well as for
mere existence itself. God could not, even if it were possible that he
would, dispense with charity and count the love of man as independent
of God, as something, because he is truth, and it is impossible for
him to lie, and lie he would were he to count such supposed love
something, for independent of him there is no man to love or to be
loved. Man can love or be loved only where he exists; and as he exists
in God, so only in God can we possibly love him, that is, we can love
our neighbor only in loving God. The humanitarian love or morality is,
therefore, a pure negation, simply nothing.
Man is, indeed, a free moral agent, and he would not be capable of
virtue or a _moral_ action, if he were not; but he can act,
notwithstanding his moral freedom, only according to the conditions of
his existence. He exists and can exist only by virtue of a
supernatural principle, medium, and end. He exists only by the direct,
immediate creative act of God, and God in himself and in his direct
immediate acts, always and everywhere, is supernatural, above nature,
because its creator, and, as its creator, its proprietor. The maker
has a sovereign right to the thing made. The creature can no more be
its own end than its own principle or cause. Man cannot take himself
self as his own end, because he is not his own, but is his creator's,
and because independent of God who he is nothing. So God is both his
principle and end. But the end is not possible without a medium that
places it in relation with the principle, as theologians demonstrate
in their dissertations on the mystery of the ever blessed Trinity, and
as common sense itself teaches. As the principle and end are
supernatural, so the medium must be supernatural, for the medium must
be on the plane of the principle and end between which is the medium.
The medium, in the moral or spiritual order, the gospel teaches us, is
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which infused by the Holy Ghost
into the soul elevates her to the plane of her supernatural destiny,
and strengthens her to gain or fulfil it. Hence, as says the apostle,
_Ex ipso, et per ipsum, et in ipso sunt omnia_--things are from him,
and by him, and to or in him. These are the essential conditions of
all life, alike in the natural or physical order, and in the moral or
spiritual. In all orders God is the principle, medium, and end of all
existence, of all action.
In the moral or spiritual order, not in the natural or physical order,
man is a free agent, and acts from free will, as Pope sings:
"God, binding nature fast in fate,
Leaves free the human will."
Grace assisting, man can conform to the essential conditions of his
existence--conditions determined and unalterably fixed by his
relation to God as his creator--by the free act of his own will; and
by doing so he lives morally, or has moral life. He can also, by
virtue of his liberty or freedom, refuse to conform, or in theological
language, to obey God, but he cannot so refuse and live in the moral
order. This refusal is not a living act, it is simply {443} the
negation of moral life, and therefore is moral death, as the
Scriptures call it. He does not necessarily cease to exist in the
natural or physical order, for in that order he cannot sever himself
from God, even if he would; he may kill his body, but not the physical
life of the soul, immortal, except by the will of its creator. But he
can extinguish his moral life, or refuse to live a moral life, which
is moral or spiritual death; and death is not a positive existence,
but the negation of existence, and therefore, nothing. Hence life and
death in the moral order are set before us, and we are free to choose
which we will. To choose, grace assisting, life, and freely of our own
will to conform to the conditions of life, to God as our principle,
medium, and and, is precisely what is meant by Christian charity, a
virtue that fulfils all the conditions imposed by our relation to God
as his creatures, the whole law of our existence, and unites our will
with the will of God, and by so doing makes us morally or spiritually
one with God. He who refuses charity, or has it not, voluntarily
renounces God, separates himself morally, and so far as his own will
goes even physically, from God; and as severed from God he exists not
at all; and therefore says the apostle, "Without charity I am
nothing." He only declares what is real, what is true in the nature of
things, and which God himself cannot alter.
Philanthropy is, therefore, necessarily impotent, for it tends to
death, not life; and as there is no action, physical or moral, that
does not tend to a real end, it is not action, but a negation of
action, and is therefore in itself nothing positive. All the
sentiments for this reason are negative, simple wants of the soul. The
soul may exert her powers to satisfy them, or to fill up the void in
her being, which they all indicate, but they are in themselves
nothing. They indicate not what the soul has, but what she wants or
needs to complete herself; and that can never the obtained from the
creature save in God, for the creature out of God, separated or turned
away from God, is nothing; it is something only in God. Any morality,
then, built on the sentiments is as unsubstantial as castles in the
air, and as unreal as "the baseless fabric of a vision." The
sentiments being wants, negative, with nothing positive in themselves,
are necessarily impotent. They are unsatisfied wants, and incapable of
attaining to anything that can satisfy them. They are a hungering and
thirsting of the soul for what it is not and has not. Here is the
explanation of the misery and wretchedness of a sentimental age, why
it is so ill-at-ease, so restless, so discontented in the midst of
material progress, and the accumulations of sensible goods. It
explains, too, why the damned, or those who fail in their destiny,
must suffer for ever. Death and hell are not positive existences or
positive creations of God, but are the want of spiritual life, are the
unsatisfied wants, the endless cravings of the soul for what can be
had only in God, and the lost have turned their backs on God.