Robert past several days with the kind father, where he gained

strength and courage; and one morning at sunrise, with a small bundle

of his shoulder and a stick in his hand, set out, accompanied by the

good curé, who had wished to render less painful by his presence the

first steps of this sad journey. He had sent a letter to his friend

the curé in Paris, in which he enclosed the fifty pounds, not thinking

it prudent that Robert should carry it with him. A half league from

the village, on the route to Claremont, the excellent man embraced the

child, pointed to heaven, and bade him farewell!

CHAPTER III.

"We may know by a child's actions

If his motives are pure and right."

Proverbs.

As long as it was possible, Robert followed, with burning eyes, the

charitable man who had comforted him in his severe affliction. Several

times he turned to see if the mountain had yet disappeared, on which

he had passed so many happy days. At last the charm was broken, it was

no longer visible, and tears chased each other down his checks, but he

walked on quickly, saying, "My mother wishes it." His mind was so

occupied that he walked on without looking at the road which ran ahead

of his thoughts and his regrets, until, involuntarily raising his eyes

to the scene before him, he stops in the extremity of his surprise;

his eyes refuse to believe their evidence; they wander from object to

object without knowing why, without being able to explain the mystery

which plunges him into a sort of stupor, and he believes himself under

the dominion of a feverish and fantastic dream. He raises his hand to

see if he is asleep, but he is wide awake, and laughs at his

simplicity. It is easy for us to understand this. He recognizes no

longer men, things, or even nature. All that he left behind him was

different from what was before and around him. He was in a new world,

on strange ground, and everything which was presented to his sight

caused him an undefinable sensation. Was there not enough to surprise

him? These large fields, these plains of vendure, these yellow

harvests, were to him a new spectacle, strange, singular, sometimes

even monotonous to the eye of a little mountaineer, habituated to the

fantastic forms of the rock and the sombre and imposing verdure of the

woods which covered the sides of his native mountain. Where are the

great heaps of volcanic rocks among which he had been reared and which

were so familiar to his eyes? All had {648} disappeared, and it seemed

to him that, without transition he had passed from severe and grand

nature to simple and gay, rich with flowers and fruits and corn white

and golden. It was the contrast which frightened him, and made him

think he had been transported by some invisible hand a thousand

leagues from his home. Like a bird slightly wounded which flies to the

parent nest and seeks shelter under the warm wings of its mother, so

Robert, restless and inquiet, longs for the maternal arms in which he

can hide his fears. He feels his loneliness; the road seems longer at

every step, and he cannot see the end of it. He invokes through his

mother the blessing of God, and his fears are dissipated, and strength

and hope are given him to hasten on. With the versatility which is the

happy accompaniment of childhood, he put a sweet security in place of

the most foolish fears. And now he was brave again. This transition of

sentiment, this quick changing of the most lively sorrow into a kind

of gayety, is natural to youth. They have extremes of joy and sorrow,

and, without being prepared for either, we see them pass suddenly from

one to the other. Happy, happy childhood! Robert was now full of a new

sentiment, and the birds fluttered round him and sang their merriest

songs; the long, low murmur of the insects was delightful to his ears.

Why should he be sad when all nature was so joyous? A universal hymn

of gratitude and love is being sung by all that exist, by everything

that breathes, in honor of our divine Creator; and, no matter how many

the sorrows and desolations of man, calmness comes to his heart, in

the sweet perfume of joy, the suave harmony and gracious gayety that

fill all nature under the life-giving influence of a beautiful summer

morning. As we are all, sooner or later, initiated into the sufferings

of life, we must feel for others and pour what balm we can into every

wounded heart. Robert walked on until he came to an inn where he asked

to pass the night. His fresh, open face, his gentleness, and the title

of Orphan, gained for him the heart and good graces of his hostess.

She asked him whither he was going and if he wished to go. He told

her, and that it was his mother's wish, and, of course, if hers, his,

that he should go to Paris. The next morning he started off,

overwhelmed with the caresses of this woman, for she was a mother, and

felt a tear moisten her cheek, as she saw this little boy take up his

bundle and resolutely pursue his way, and she prayed God to take care

of him. Robert felt his mother's loss hourly when fatigue weakened his

limbs and hunger made him cry, but he saw her with the eyes of faith

in heaven. Yes; believe me, dear little children who have lost your

mothers! turn to heaven, and there you will see them looking at you

with eyes of love, and saying to you: "Be good, my darlings, and when

you are asleep I will visit you, and kiss your pure and innocent

foreheads." Yes; look to heaven, and I promise you you will see your

mothers there, if you are good. It was this which recalled to Robert's

heart each day the remembrance of his mother and filled his eyes with

tears. It carried also to his heart a secret encouragement and gave

him strength.

As he walked on he left behind him Clermont, Rion, Aigueperse, and

Grannot. Some leagues before this he had bid good-by to the beautiful

district of Limagne, which had charmed him by its sea of verdure, it's

deep golden foliage, and its rich and fertile plains. This was the

first canton of France which was considered worthy of a particular

description, and it was of this part of l'Auvergne that Apollo Lidoine

said: "It is so beautiful that strangers who go there cannot leave it,

and there have even then instances of persons forgetting their own

country when there." It was of this country, so favored by heaven,

that King Childebert said, "that before dying he desired but one {649}

thing, and that was to see beautiful Limagne d'Auvergne, which is the

masterpiece of nature, and a scene of enchantment." We cannot say that

Robert shared in their opinion, but it is certain that he passed it

with regret, although he was drawn by so strange of feeling toward

Paris, the object of his hope and his ambition. He walked to St.

Pourçain, Moulins, and all the small places, and rested a day when

overfatigued. Great was his delight when he reached Fontainebleau,

which royal residence had witnessed the first abdication of the

emperor. All was still in motion at this place, and more than one old

soldier twisted his mustache, and with a fierce and martial air walked

on the edge of this great forest, weeping for the liberty of his

emperor, his god, his idol. It was with delight that our young hero,

the child of the woods and solitude, sought the fresh shades, which

recalled to him, by a striking similarity, his cherished mountain

home; and the immense piles of irregular rocks attested that this

place, too, had been the theatre of some great convulsion of nature.

At mid-day, when the sun sheds his fiercest rays, when the tired

flowers lean on their stems, when the birds hide under the leaves,

when all nature seeks repose, the better to enjoy the freshness of the

evening, Robert, too, followed the example, and lay down and slept at

the foot of a huge chestnut-tree many centuries old; the vast shade of

which form and impenetrable cover from the heat of the sun. He awoke

refreshed, rose, and ventured into one of the long alleys or walks to

which a sign conducted him. For several hours he wandered about lost

in this tangled maze and looking in vain for an opening. But he was a

patient child, and obstacles did not stop him, neither was he

discouraged by his unfruitful efforts; on the contrary, he redoubled

his ardor, and finally reached a clear space, in the center of which

was a fountain ordered by rose-beds. Four paths diverged from it, and

of such great length were they that it fatigued the eye to look at

them. In exploring in turn each of these paths, Robert found in one of

them a sign pointing out to strangers the various labyrinths of the

forest. He had nothing else for a guide, but thought if he could only

find his way to the palace again, there must be some one there who

could tell him how to go; so he followed the path which he thought

might be right, and it was, and led him into the avenue which wound

round by the palace. When he got right in front of the principal and

only truly royal edifice of France, or rather of Napoleon, he stopped

and wondered at the vast aspect of this assemblage of buildings,

producing an effect at once imposing and majestic. Nothing like this

had ever entered his imagination, and the most lively astonishment

shone on his face, and his eyes burned with the fire of intelligence

and pleasure. A few steps from him was an old soldier who was entirely

absorbed in contemplating the building, and who looked worn and sad.

He, too, was in a sort of ecstasy, but he gazed in silence and seemed

lost to all around him. His expression was of one in anguish, and his

eyes rested with a strange fixedness upon the steps of honor. He waits

and watches as if hoping to see some one whom he ardently loves

appear; but his hope is deceived, and two tears trickle slowly down

his dark cheeks, scarred and burned by the fires of a hundred battles.

At this moment when marks of supreme sorrow told so eloquently of his

sufferings, Robert turned, and seeing his tears he was deeply moved at

this testimony of profound sorrow, and, eagerly approaching the

soldier, said to him in a touching voice: "Why do you cry, sir? Have

yon also lost your mother? I fear you have." Robert had never wept but

for one sorrow, and that we all know, and in happy ignorance of the

other misfortunes of life he thought all wept {650} for the same

thing; and in his great loss he looked to older persons to console

him, which proved how tender, delicate, and generous are the

sentiments that live in the hearts of children. Their young souls are

mirrors have to which we should only give pure, chaste, and pious

images to reflect and show them good examples, that without effort

vice might be crushed out, and the world left an Eden of purity.

Hearing so touchingly compassionate a voice, the old soldier turned

and looked at the child, while tears glistened in his eyes. "No," said

he in a coarse tone, "it is not for my mother that I weep, it is for

my emperor." "And who is it that is your emperor?" "Alas! I have no

father, and have just lost my mother," he said sighing. "Was your

emperor good, and did you love him so much that you weep or him? I

shall never forget my mother, she was so sweet and good to her little

son. But tell me, sir, tell me of your emperor. My mother said I

should always love those who were good, and I want to love him too."

The old fellow twisted his mustache, and growled some words between

his teeth, looking alternately at the palace and the child, who smiled

at him with an expression so gentle that it moved the soldier's heart.

You could see he was the victim of an emotion he vainly sought to

conceal. "Wonderful!" cried he, vanquished by the magical eyes of

Robert. "You are a good child, and speak to my heart when you tell me

that you love my emperor. But who does not love him, except those

cowards! those scoundrels! those traitors! But stop, I have said

enough." He saw that Robert was a little frightened, for his ears had

only been accustomed to the caressing voice of his mother. "Do you see

that staircase? My emperor descended by it to embrace the eagles of

his flag, the victorious eagles which have made him immortal, and

which led his way to glory. Yes, the embraced them, and wept because

he could not embrace all his old soldiers had not betrayed him and

would have followed him to the end of the world. And some of his old

guard still live. Oh! if they had only sent me with him into the loan

island of his misfortunes, if I could be with him there, I should be

content. But since I cannot, I must go to Paris and see what is doing

there. See, my child, you are going there too, and I believe you said

you had neither father nor mother. Have you any relatives?" "No," said

Robert. "Why, then, are you going to Paris if you have no friends

there?" "My mother said I must go, and I'm going." "I don't wish to be

too curious, but tell me from whence you come?" "From the village of

Mount Dore, eight leagues from Clermont." "Pretty walk for such little

legs, I think; but as we are both going to Paris, and you have no

father or mother to protect you, and I and a poor old soldier, I will

take care of you, for you have moved my heart by your gentle words,

and we will travel together, so that the walk will be shorter for

both." "Oh! how delightful," said Robert; "and then you can tell me

about your emperor. I know I can walk fast enough in hearing you talk

about one whom you love so much." "Yes, my boy," he replied, "I could

speak forever of my emperor; but it must be when we are alone, for his

glorious name, which once made kings and conscripts alike tremble, is

now called usurper, and is forbidden to be pronounced. A thousand

thunders! the thought enrages me; and if I had his traitorous subjects

I would strangle them, or my name is not Cyprien Hardy." This

conversation was held with furious gestures on the one side and great

astonishment on the other, until they came to the modest inn where

Robert had left his bundle. The child in his new friend, the old

soldier, who justified the name, made a frugal repast, and continue

{651} their journey. On the way Robert related the history of the

twelve years he had passed on his cherished mountain with his beloved

mother, which simple recital gained him the lasting friendship of his

companion, whom Robert looked upon as a friend provided for him by

that kind Providence who watches over orphans. He bore the fatigue of

the journey well, and was in perfect health when they reached that

magnificent chaos called Paris. The old soldier is, then, the second

friend that God has given our little hero. And how strange it was that

these two were isolated beings should meet in such a place, before the

grand palace of kings--the one a man of resolute energy, who carried

on his bold forehead great scars of glory, but who shed tears of

despair at the fall of his well-beloved chief, in whom he had found

parents, country, family; the other a charming youth, representing

brilliant promises for the future, young, beautiful, and full of

ambition. Cyprien Hardy was one of those true French hearts to whom

the name of patriot was not a vain word. He was moved like many others

when dangers threatened the republic and the when powerful allies

audaciously invaded its territory. He was one of the first to take up

arms, having entered the army as a volunteer at twenty-one. Some years

later he served in the first regiment of the soldiers of the guard,

after having made the memorable campaigns of Italy, Egypt, and

Germany, always following the "Little Corporal," always the first in

battle, and always respected. Dangers made him smile; his courage was

inexhaustible. One thing alone could move him, and that was the voice

of his chief. This electrified him, and made him forget all but noble

actions. He had always loved Napoleon, and this affection increased

with the fortunes of the great man whose word or look transformed

soldiers into heroes. It was in the forts of Moscow that his emperor

had given him the "Cross of Honor," for a wound which he received from

a cannon ball while waving his flag. In this disastrous retreat the

brave soldier, dying with cold, fatigue, and hunger, preserved his

heroic exaltation and his confidence in and love for his emperor; and

if he ever grumbled, it was only because he could not kill every

Cossack that he laid his eyes upon. His courage and energy never

diminished, and he believed so implicitly in his emperor that he

thought good fortune must return. But it had gone forever. His heart

revolted at the thought; and he swore that the author of this infamous

treason should repent, and this was why he was going to Paris to see

if he could find any of his old companions.

TO BE CONTINUED.

----------

ONE MOMENT.

A trooping forth of buried griefs like ghosts,--

Temptations gathering swift in serried hosts,--

Of angel guardians a glittering band,--

God watching all--shall we desert or stand?

--------

{652}

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE. [Footnote 178]

[Footnote 178: erratum: In the last number, p. 524, 2d col. 12th

line, for "created in sanctity and justice," read "constituted."]

(CONCLUDED)

XII.

THE MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION.

The next article of the creed, in order, is that which expresses the

Mystery of Redemption: "Crucifixus etiam pro nobis, sub Pontio Pilato,

passus, et sepultus est." "Who was also crucified for us under Pontius

Pilate, who suffered, and was buried." The redemption implies the

incarnation, and is based on it. The incarnation having been already

treated of, in immediate connection with the Trinity, we have only to

proceed with the exposition of the doctrine of satisfaction for sin

and restoration to grace through the sufferings and death of the

Divine Redeemer.

It is no part of the Catholic doctrine that it was necessary for the

second person of the Trinity to take upon himself human nature and

suffer an infinite penalty, in order that God might be able to pardon

sin without violating his justice. All Catholic theologians, from St.

Augustine down, teach that God is free to show mercy and to pardon,

according to his own good pleasure. The reason and end of the

incarnation has been shown already to be something far above this

order of ideas. The incarnation does not of itself, however, imply

suffering or death. We have to inquire, then, why it was that in point

of fact the incarnate Word was manifested as a suffering Redeemer; and

why his death on the cross was constituted the meritorious cause of

the remission of sin and restoration of grace.

The church has never made any formal definition of her doctrine on

this point, and it is well known various have been the theories

regarding it maintained at different times. We shall endeavor to

present a view which appears to us adequate and intelligible; without,

however, claiming for it any certainty beyond that of the reasons on

which it is based.

The original gift of grace not having been due to Adam, or to any one

of his ordinary descendents, injustice, the restoration of that gift,

when lost, was not due. Aside from the incarnation, there was no

imperative reason why Adam and his race should not have been left in

the state to which they were reduced by the original transgression.

God, having determined to accomplish the incarnation in the human

race, owed it to himself to complete this determination, in spite of

all the sins which he foresaw would be committed by men. The foreseen

merits of Christ furnished an adequate motive for conferring any

degree of grace upon any or all men, he might seek to be fitting and

necessary for the fulfillment of his eternal purposes. It was not

necessary, however, that the Son of God should suffer or die in order

to merit grace for mankind. By the define decree, indeed, the shedding

of his blood and his death was made the special meritorious act in

view of which remission of sins and grace are conferred. But all the

acts of his life had the same intrinsic worth and excellence, which

was simply infinite on account of the divine principle of imputability

to which they must be referred. There must have been some reasons,

therefore, of fitness, on account of which it was determined that

Jesus Christ should suffer death for the human race.

{653}

We may find one of these reasons in the law of suffering and death

which God had imposed, out of a motive of pure love, on the whole

human race. This law was, indeed, promulgated under the form of a

penalty, but in its substance it was a real blessing. The way to

heaven through the path of penance and by the gate of death is a sure

and safer way then the one in which Adam was first placed; it is one,

also, affording higher and more extensive scope for virtue, heroism,

and merit. It was, therefore, fitting that the chief and prince of the

human race should go before his brethren in this way of sufferings.

"For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all

things, who brought many sons to glory, to perfect, by suffering, the

author of their salvation." [Footnote 179] As a particular consequence

of this general law, heroes, patriots, reformers, prophets, and

saints, have always been especially exposed to suffering and to

violent modes of death. They have been obliged to sacrifice themselves

to their own fidelity to conscience and to that sacred cause to which

they have been devoted. And this sacrifice of life has consecrated

their memories in the hearts of their fellow-men more than any other

acts of intellectual or moral virtue, however brilliant. It was

fitting, therefore, that the Saint of saints, the Saviour of the

world, should not exempt himself from the peril of death, to which the

very character of his mission exposed him.

[Footnote 179: Heb, II. 10.]

Another reason for the suffering of the Divine Mediator, is found in

the manifestation thereby made of the love of God in Christ to the

human race. There is no need of dwelling on this, or of noticing other

reasons of a similar kind which have been so frequently and so fully

developed by others.

We pass on, therefore, to the consideration of the final and highest

reason for the death of Jesus Christ, the expiation of sin.

The true and only possible notion of expiation or satisfaction is that

which apprehends it as a compensation for the failure to perform some

obligatory act, by performing another act of at least equal value in

the place of it. Every noble soul, when conscious of having been

delinquent, desires to repair the injury which has been done, as well

as to redeem its own honor, by some act which shall, if possible, far

exceed the one which it failed to perform. The same principle impels

those who have a high sense of honor to make reparation tor the

delinquencies of others with whom they are closely related in the same

family, the same society, or the same nation. Now, the human race has

been delinquent in making a proper return to God for the infinite boon

of grace. The fall of man and the innumerable sins of the individuals

of the human race have deprived Almighty God of a tribute of glory

which was due to him, and have brought ignominy upon mankind as a

race. Although, therefore, Almighty God might provide for the

glorification of the elect who are to share with the Incarnate Word in

his divine privileges, by an act of pure mercy; it is far more

glorious both to God and man that a superabundant satisfaction should

be made for the injury which has been done to the Creator by the

marring of his creation, and a superabundant expiation accomplished of

the disgrace which man has incurred. It was, therefore, an act of

divine wisdom and love in God to determine that this satisfaction and

expiation should be made by the second person of the Trinity in his

human nature. The Incarnate Word, being truly man, identified with the

human race, and its chief, necessarily made its honor and its disgrace

his own. Although he could redeem his brethren without any cost to

himself, his solicitude for their honor and glory would not permit him

to do it. He desired that they should enter heaven on the most

honorable terms, without any of the humiliation of the delinquency of

the race attaching to them, but, on the contrary with the {654}

exulting consciousness that every stain of dishonor had been effaced.

Therefore, as their king and chief, he fulfilled the most sublime work

of obedience to the divine love which was possible; he made the most

perfect possible oblation to God, as an equivalent for his boon of

grace which had been abused by sin. In lieu of that glory which God

would have received from the perfect obedience of Adam and all his

posterity, and that glory which would have been also reflected upon

the human race, he substituted the infinitely greater glory of his own

obedience unto death, even the death of the cross. By this obedience

Jesus Christ merited for the human race the concession of a new grant

of grace, more perfect than the first, by virtue of which not only the

original sin which is common to all men was made remissible to each

individual, but all actual sins were made also pardonable on certain

conditions.

That this statement completely exhausts the true idea of the

satisfaction of Christ, we will not pretend to affirm. It appears to

us, however, sufficient to give a clear and definite meaning to the

language of Scripture and the fathers, and to include all that

Catholic faith requires a Christian to believe.

Jesus Christ having merited by his death the right of conferring grace

without stint or limit upon mankind, and all the grace given after the

fall and before the redemption having been bestowed in the foresight

of his death, every spiritual blessing enjoyed by men is referred to

the death of Jesus Christ as its cause and source. Strictly speaking,

it is only the meritorious cause. By giving himself up to die, he

merited the right to communicate the grace contained in the

incarnation to men, notwithstanding the failure of the father and head

of the race to fulfil the probation on which the transmission of the

grace to his descendants depended. He merited also the right to renew

this grace in those individuals who should lose it after having once

received it, as often as these, without regard to the number or

grievousness of their sins, or the frequency of their lapses. It is,

however, the Holy Spirit; dwelling in the Incarnate Word in the

plenitude of his being, and communicating to his human nature the

fulness grace, not for itself alone, but for all men; which is the

ultimate and efficient cause of all spiritual life. It is the grace of

the Holy Spirit which actually removes all guilt and stain of sin from

the soul, and constitutes it in the state of justice and sanctity. The

Holy Spirit is, therefore, the efficient cause of justification. The

formal cause is the personal sanctity of each individual. That is,

this personal sanctity is that which makes each one worthy of the

complacency of God, of fellowship with him, and of everlasting life.

The work of the incarnation and redemption must, therefore, produce

its results and attain its consummation through the Holy Spirit as the

sanctifier of the human race. Consequently, the creed, after finishing

it's expression of the Catholic faith so far as the person of Christ

is concerned, proceeds to enunciate it as regards the person and

operation of the Holy Spirit, is sent by Christ to complete his work.

The articles containing this enunciation complete the creed, and bring

man to his final destination.

XII.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AS THE INSTRUMENT OF

THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE HUMAN RACE.

The next articles of the creed are: "Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum

et Vivificantem, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit, qui cum Patre et

Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur, qui locutus est per

prophetas; et in unam sanctam, Catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam;

confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum." "And in the Holy

Ghost, the Lord and Lifegiver, who proceedeth from the Father and the

Son, {655} who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and

glorified, who spake by the prophets; I confess one baptism for the

remission of sins."

The relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son in the

Trinity has been already considered. The temporal mission of the Holy

Spirit as the consummation of the divine work _ad extra_ is exercised

through the Catholic Church; and, therefore, the article concerning

the church follows immediately in the creed the one concerning the

Holy Spirit. [Footnote 180]

[Footnote 180: Vid. Archbishop Manning's Mission of the Holy Ghost.]

The organic unity of the Catholic Church follows necessarily from the

principles laid down in the foregoing essays. It is an immediate

consequence of the unity of the race, and of the incarnation, which

are two distinct facts, but which have one principle. The order of

regeneration must follow the order of generation. Mankind exist

essentially as a race; as a race they received the original gift of

supernatural grace; as a race they lost it. All human life and

development is generic. The redemption of mankind must, therefore,

re-establish the generic relations which were disturbed by the fall.

Jesus Christ, the second Adam, must become the head of a redeemed and

regenerated race of men, organized in a supernatural society.

Continuity and perpetuity of life are, therefore, the essential notes

of the divine society, or human race regenerated, in which true

spiritual life is communicated to the individual. The sole possession

of these notes demonstrates the divine authority of the Catholic

Church. [Footnote 181] The continuity of life, embracing integrity of

doctrine and law and the faculty of conferring grace, descended from

the patriarchal church through the Jewish, with the increment added by

the immediate intervention of the divine Lord of the world in person,

to the Catholic Church.

[Footnote 181: Vid. Leo, Univ. Hist., vol. I. Lacordaire's

Conferences, and the Works of Dr. Brownson, passim.]

The Catholic Church is, therefore, the human race, in the highest

sense. In early times, one nation after another broke away from the

unity of the race, carrying a fragment of the integral, ideal humanity

with it. Integrity, continuity, and perpetuity of life were,

therefore, rendered for them impossible. The same phenomena are

exhibited at the present time in all nations and societies outside of

the Catholic Church. Partial and temporary developments only can be

made of that integral, universal, perpetual life, whose seat is in the

bosom of the church, and which is sufficient to vivify the whole human

race, if the impediments were removed. The proof, _à posteriori_, or

by induction, of the Catholic Church, must be sought for in those

works which treat professedly of the subject. Our object is merely to

show the conformity of the idea of the Catholic Church with the idea

of reason, by deduction from primary, ontological principles. The

attributes of the church follow so immediately from its primary note,

as the human race restored to unity in the fellowship of God in

Christ, that they require no special elucidation; especially as this

particular branch of theology has been so repeatedly and so amply

treated by authors.

In regard to special dogmas of the church, most of those which present

any great difficulty to the understanding have already been discussed

in the former part of this essay; and the remainder find an easy

explication from the same principles.

The doctrine of the sacraments is explicated from the principle that

the church is the instrument of sanctification. The sacraments are the

particular acts by which the church communicates the spiritual

vitality which resides in her to individuals. They have an outward,

sensible form, because the nature of man is corporeal, and all human

acts are composed of a synthesis of the sensible and the spiritual.

They contain an inward, spiritual grace, because the nature of {656}

man is spiritual, and receives life only from a spiritual principle.

The only one of the sacraments which presents any special difficulty

to the understanding is the holy eucharist; on account of the mystery

of transubstantiation which is included in it's essence. The ground of

this difficulty, which lies in crude, philosophical notions, and is,

therefore, purely a spectre of the imagination, has been already

removed by the doctrine we Have laid down respecting the nature of

substance and the proper conception of space and extension. The senses

transmit to the soul nothing more than the impressions of the

phenomena, which the soul, by an intellectual judgment, refers to a

real, intelligible substance, or active force, as their productive

cause. The substance itself is not sensible, but intelligible; is not

seen as an essence by the eye, but concluded by a judgment of the

mind. By divine revelation it is disclosed to us, that the substance

of bread and wine is the eucharist is succeeded by the substance of

the body and blood of Jesus Christ; the phenomena or sensible effects

of the former substance still continuing to be produced in an

extraordinary manner. There is a mystery here it is true; but it is

only the mystery which belongs to the inscrutable nature of the

essence of matter as active force, and the mode in which this active

force produces various sensible phenomena. The definitions of the

church do not furnish a complete explanation of the Catholic dogma,

which is left to theologians; and even theologians do not precisely

coincide in their conceptions or expressions. All we can do then,

after stating the Catholic dogma, is to give the explanation which

appears to be the most probable, according to the judgment of the best

authors and the most weighty intrinsic reasons. This is enough,

however, for our purpose; for all that is required is to furnish a

conception which is, on the one band, theologically tenable, and, on

the other, rationally intelligible.

We may separate the synthetic judgment pronounced by the church, in

the definition of the dogma, into four analytic judgments. First, the

absence of the substance of bread and wine after the consecration.

Second, the presence of the substance of the body of Christ. Third,

the absence of the natural phenomenon of the body of Christ. Fourth,

the presence of the natural phenomenon of bread and wine. In order to

reconstruct these elements of the church's dogmatic judgment into a

more perfect synthesis, it it is necessary to analyze further these

separate propositions. There are three principle, distinct conceptions

contained in them: the conception of substance; the conception of

presence, or relation in space; and the conception of phenomena, or,

to use the precise term employed by the schoolmen, of _accidents_.

There is, also, the conception of the mode in which the phenomena of

bread and wine subsists out of relation to their proper productive

substances, or, the conception of the immediate, efficient cause to

which they must be referred. These first three conceptions have been

sufficiently analyzed in a former part of this treatise. The absence

of the substance of bread and wine after consecration may be

explained, in accordance with the conception of substance, by

annihilation, removal, or identification with the substance of the

body of Christ. The senses cannot take cognizance of its presence

before consecration, it being there office merely to report phenomena;

they cannot, consequently, take cognizance of its absence. They are

not, therefore, deceived in reporting the phenomena as unchanged after

the consecration, since they really remain unchanged; nor is the mind

qualified to pronounce on the report of the senses, that the substance

is unchanged, by an intellectual judgment; since the judgment which

would otherwise be validly made is superseded by a divine judgment,

made known through revelation, that in this instance the substance has

been {657} changed for another by the creative power of God. The

simplest mode of conceiving the effect of consecration on the

substances of the bread and wine is to suppose their annihilation. St.

Thomas, however, denies that they are annihilated, because the

terminus of annihilation is nothing, whereas the terminus of the act

of transubstantiation is the body of Christ. In plain words, the

argument is: if the substances were annihilated, the effect of

consecration would be properly expressed by saying that they are

reduced to nothing, whereas the language of the church is, that they

are converted into the body and blood of Christ. The same argument

applies to the notion of their removal elsewhere. Nevertheless, since

they are not supposed to be annihilated or removed simply for the sake

of getting rid of them, and their destruction or removal is not the

end or final term of the act of divine power, but only its proximate

term, in order to the substitution of the body of Christ, this

argument is not decisive. It is proper to say that the substance of

bread is changed into the body of Christ, if the body of Christ is

substituted for it; The natural phenomena which formerly indicated the

presence of the one substance remaining the same, and indicating the

presence of the other substance instead of that of the former

substance.

Another explanation is based on the notion of one generic substance

individualized in all distinct, material existences. According to this

explanation, the bread and wine, being deprived of their individual

existence, are not thereby destroyed; but, as it were, withdrawn into

the generic substance, which is identical with the substance

individualized in the body of Christ; and therefore properly said to

be converted into the substance of his body. We are unable to

understand how the notion on which this explanation is based, which

appears to require us to accept the realism of William de Champeaux

and the schoolmen, can be made intelligible; and, therefore, prefer

the former, which, we believe, is the one more commonly adopted.

The presence of the body of Christ, without its natural phenomena, and

under the phenomena of bread and wine; which presents usually much the

greatest difficulty to the understanding, is really capable of a much

more easy and certain explanation. It is present not by its extension,

but by its pure substance, or _vis activa_, that is, as Perrone says,

_per modum spiritâs_, after the manner of spirit. Spirit, as all

Catholic philosophers teach, is related to objects in space, by the

application of its intrinsic force to them. The presence of the body

of Christ in the eucharist is, therefore, the application of its _vis

activa_; which is, indeed, finite, but, by virtue of its supreme

excellence in the created order, through the hypostatic union,

commensurate with the whole created universe and all its particular

parts. The body of Christ, therefore, while it is circumscribed as to

its extension; and, according to the ordinary sense of the word, is

present only in one place; is, in a different but real sense, present

everywhere where the species of the eucharist are present. These

species or phenomena of bread and wine in the eucharist, are the signs

indicating its presence by its substantial force or _vis activa_. They

may be produced, as every one will admit they can be, by the immediate

act of God; or, by the _vis activa_ of the body of Christ; which, as a

perfect body containing eminently all the perfection of inferior

material substances, can produce their proper effects. The body and

blood of Christ contain substantially and essentially the virtue of

bread and wine, and, being in hypostatic union with the divine nature,

may be capable of producing the phenomena and effects proceeding

naturally from this virtue in many places at once. It appears to us

more in accordance with the language of Scripture and the church to

make this latter supposition. We sum up, there fore, the explanation

of the mystery {658} which appears to us the most probable and

rational, in this short formula. By the effect of the divine power,

exercised through the act of consecrating the eucharist; the sensible

phenomena, indicating before the act the presence of the _vis activa_,

of bread and wine, cease to indicate it; and indicate instead of it,

the presence of the _vis activa_ of the body and blood of Christ, The

language of the definition pronounced by the church is thus exactly

verified. There is a change of substance, without any change of

phenomena. There is a transition of the substance of the bread and

wine; which ceases either altogether as a distinct existence, or, at

least, as the cause of the phenomena; in order to give way to the

substance of the body of Christ; which is properly called a

transubstantiation.

The mystery still remains, and must remain, incomprehensible by the

human understanding, however clear the explanation of the difficulties

which beset it may be made. Neither the senses nor the intellect can

perceive the presence of Jesus Christ in the eucharist. It is believed

by an act of faith in the word of Jesus Christ. The mode of this

substantial presence and of its action on the soul is, moreover, but

dimly apprehended; because substance itself, as a _vis activa_, and

the mode of its activity, are impenetrable to reason. The rational

argument respecting the dogma of faith, therefore, merely proves that

it is not contrary to reason; and that it is partially intelligible by

analogy with other known truths and facts. We thus understand that the

presence f Jesus Christ in the species of the eucharist is _possible_.

And, the revelation of its reality once made, we see also its fitness.

It is most fitting and congruous that Jesus Christ should unite

himself in the most perfect manner which is consistent with the

condition of man in this life, with his human brethren; and that this

union should be manifested to the senses. This is accomplished in the

eucharist in such a way that the intellect, the imagination, or the

heart of man, cannot conceive or desire anything more perfect and

admirable. [Footnote 182]

[Footnote 182: _Vide_ F. Dalgairn's on the Holy Communion for a

more complete elucidation of the philosophy of substance and accidents.]

We shall simply note with the greatest brevity the remaining doctrines

whose consideration falls under the present head.

The absolute necessity of grace for works worthy of eternal life, and

the inability of man to perform them by his natural strength, is

explained by the supernatural principle of which we have already given

exposition.

The merit of good works is explained by the doctrine of probation; and

the distinction between this kind of merit and the merits of Christ,

as well as their natural relation and harmony, is obvious from the

exposition which has been made of the latter.

The Catholic doctrine respecting the Blessed Virgin and the Saints is

explained by the doctrine already laid down of the glorification and

deification of human nature through the incarnation.

The whole exterior and visible _cultus_ of Catholic worship is

explained by the doctrine, of sensible things as signs and

representations of the invisible, and of the essentially corporeal

constitution of man. These, and all other particulars of Catholic

doctrine, are contained in the universal or Catholic idea, which

shines by its own light, and proves itself by its sublimity,

integrity, symmetry, and correspondence with all the analogies of the

natural world.

XIV.

THE FINAL DESTINATION OF ANGELS AND MEN;

CONDITION OF THE UNREGENERATE IN THE FUTURE LIFE;

ETERNITY OF THE PENALTY OF SIN;

STATE OF FINAL THE BEATITUDE.

The closing articles of the creed are: "Expecto resurrectionem

mortuorun et vitam venturi saeculi, Amen." "I look for the

resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world of come, Amen."

{659}

Thus, the creation, which proceeds from God as first cause, is shown

to have returned to him as final cause. This is especially

accomplished in the beatification of the elect; and consequently it is

the glory and blessedness of heaven which is immediately and

explicitly affirmed in the creed. The entire creed, however, implies,

what the Catholic church in her exposition of the creed teaches

dogmatically, that only a portion of the angelic hierarchy and the

human race attain heaven. The doctrine of hell, or the place and state

of those who are excluded from heaven, is, therefore, the necessary

correlate of the doctrine of heaven. So far as the human race is

concerned, we have to consider, first, what is the condition in

eternity of those who are subject to the consequences of original sin

only.

It follows from the doctrine already laid down, namely, that the state

to which man is reduced by original sin, is entitively the same with

that in which consists the state of pure nature; that the condition of

this class of human beings in eternity is the same that it would be if

they had never been constituted in the order of the supernatural. They

are destitute of supernatural beatitude, but attain to all the

felicity of which they are capable in the natural order. They are

elevated in the due course of nature to that integrity and perfection

of soul and body which, in the case of Adam, was anticipated by a

gratuitous gift. Their felicity consists in a perfect exemption from

an liability to sin, in the complete evolution of their natural

capacities, and in the possession of the proper object of their

intelligence and will, that is, in the knowledge and fruition of the

works of God, and of God himself by abstractive contemplation. This

last expression needs some explanation in order to show its conformity

with the doctrine we have laid down at the beginning of these essays

respecting the primitive intuition of reason. We have there affirmed

that the original intuition of reason is the intuition of that idea

which is afterward demonstrated by reflection to be identical with the

being of God. Some, rejecting this doctrine of the idea, object to it

that it leads to a confusion of the act of intelligence constitutive

of rational nature with the act proper only to beatified nature, that

is, the intuitive vision of God. Others, who accept it, endeavor to

rebut this objection, and to show the distinction between the

knowledge of God derived from rational intuition and that which is

communicated by the light of glory. But in doing this they make the

first to be only the inchoation of the second, and the second the

completion or full evolution of the first. It would follow, then, that

a rational creature cannot attain to the proper object of his

intelligence and will, consequently cannot attain perfect felicity,

without the beatific vision. We cannot admit either that the objection

is a valid one or that the explanation which is made in order to do

away with it is sufficient. We venture, therefore, to suggest another.

It is real and concrete being, not possible and abstract being, which

is the intelligible object of reason. Reason, however, does not, by an

intrinsic, perceptive power, actively elicit the intuition of its

intelligible object. In other words, it is not by its virtue as

intelligence that real being, or the intelligible, becomes

intelligible to it. The intelligible has the precedence and the

superiority in the act of intelligence. The presence of the object

makes the subject intelligent in the first act, and this first act is

one in which the creative spirit is the agent and the created spirit

the terminus of the act. The original, immediate contact of the

intellect with real, concrete being, that is, with God, is, therefore,

a contact in which the soul is passive, because this contact precedes

and is the cause of its activity. It is only by reflection, or bending

backward upon itself, that the intellect can have distinct

self-consciousness and elicit thought. When it does so, it takes

always the affirmation of real, necessary being, by which {660} God

created it rational, as the first and absolute elements of its

thoughts. But this affirmation, as soon as it enters into reflection,

and becomes an element of the spontaneous activity of the soul,

becomes _abstract_. It is not a pure abstraction, or an act which

terminates on the abstract or possible as its ultimate object, but an

abstraction formed from the concrete object as apprehended by the

passive intelligence, or an abstract conception of the concrete idea.

It would require too much time to develop this statement fully. But it

is plain at a single glance that it is justified by the facts of

consciousness. All our judgments respecting necessary and universal

truth are abstract. The judgment respecting necessary cause, that

respecting the infinite and the eternal, that respecting ideal space

and time, those which respect mathematical relations, and those which

form the data of logic, are all of this kind. There is no direct,

immediate intuition of God as the infinite, concrete, personal truth,

to be found in our consciousness; as we have previously proved in our

demonstration of the being of God. The necessity of using the term

_intuition_ in reference to our apprehension of the idea is,

therefore, an unfortunate one, and gives rise to a confusion of the

act in which we conclude the existence and attributes of God by a

rational, deductive judgment, with the act in which the soul

immediately beholds him by an intellectual vision. Intuition and

vision are, strictly speaking identical. Experience teaches us that

our first distinct vision is the vision of sensible objects, and that

we refer constantly to this as the standard of clear vision, since

there is nothing which appears to us equally clear and distinct. By

the aid of our perception of the sensible, we attain to the perception

of ourselves as existing, thinking spirit, and of other spirits like

our own. But we never attain a similar intuition of God by the mere

exercise of our intellective activity. It is of the essence of a

created spirit that its active intuition or intellective vision is

limited to finite objects as its immediate terminus, commensurate to

its finite visual power. It sees God only mediately, as his being and

attributes are reflected and imaged in finite things, and therefore

its highest contemplation of God is merely abstractive. The natural

felicity of created spirits is, therefore, at its maximum, when they

attain the most perfect exercise of their faculties in this mode of

action which is connatural to them. It is the fruition of God

mediately through his creation.

We now proceed to show that the Catholic doctrine permits us to

believe that this perfect felicity which is possible without

supernatural grace is actually conceded to those who die in original

sin only. It is reasonable to believe that any felicity which those

souls can attain, consistently with their position as liable to the

eternal consequences of original sin, will be actually attained by

them. For God has created them for good; and to what end as he made

them capable of this felicity, unless it be that they may possess and

enjoy it? We shall quote from a treatise written in the seventeenth

century by F. Maria Gabrielli, in defense of the doctrine of Cardinal

Sfondrati, a very thorough summary of the opinions of the theologians

on this point: [Footnote 183]

[Footnote 183: Dispunctio Notarum, 40 etc, Colon. 1699.]

"Joseph Maria de Requesens [Footnote 184] enumerates in his little

book on the state of infants many theologians of great name who

concede to these infants a certain kind of imperfect natural

beatitude.

[Footnote 184: de Statu Parvui. Rom. 1684.]

He says that Richard (of St. Victor) teaches that these children will

have more goods and greater joy in their possession than sinners have

who possess created goods in this life. Lyra says, that according to

the opinion of all doctors they will enjoy a happier life than would

be naturally possible in this present world. Almost in the same way

speak Origen, Marsilius, St. Buonaventure, Cajetan, and others {661}

cited by Cornelius à Lapide, who all teach that children dying without

baptism lead a happier life than those who are living on the earth.

Lessius writes, that although they may be said to be damned because

eternally deprived of the celestial glory for which they were created,

it is nevertheless credible that their state is far happier and more

joyful than that of any mortal man in this life. Salmeron says, these

children will rise again through Christ and above this natural order,

where they will daily advance in the knowledge of the works of God and

of separate substances, _will have angelic visits_, and will be like

our rustics living in the country, so that as they are in a medium

between glory and punishment, they will also occupy an intermediate

place. Suarez says, that children will remain in their natural good

and will be content with their lot; and, together with Marsilius as

quoted by Azor, he describes to them a _knowledge and love of God

above all things_, and the other natural virtues. Didacus Ruiz, a

theologian of extensive reading, lays down this conclusion: Great

mercy will be mingled with the punishment of infants dying in original

sin, although not a diminution of the punishment of loss, since that

is incapable of diminution; yet in the remission of death which was

the punishment directly do to original sin, and would naturally have

endured to eternity, so that in spite of this infants will be

resuscitated at the day of judgment nevermore to die, endowed with

supernatural incorruptibility and impassibility, and they will also

supernaturally receive accidental, infused sciences, and will be

liberated from all pain, sadness, sickness, temptations, and personal

sins, which are naturally wont to arise from original sin.

Consequently, they are liberated from the punishment of hell which

they might have incurred. Albert (the Great), Alexander (de Hales),

and St. Thomas agree with this doctrine. Suarez shows that these

children obtain some benefit, in a certain way, from the merits of

Christ; and says that it pertains to the glory of Christ that he

should be adored and acknowledged as prince and supreme judge on the

day of universal judgment even by infants who died without grace. He

also considers it more probable that they will understand that they

have done neither good nor evil, and therefore receive neither glory

nor pain of sense, and also that they are deprived of glory on account

of sin (that is, original). He adds the reason of this, to wit, that

they may understand the benefit which they received, first in Adam and

afterward in Christ, and on this account may worship and adore him.

Martinonus adds: when even the demons love God in a certain way even

more than themselves as the common good of all, according to St.

Thomas, why shall not these children love Christ as their benefactor

and the author of their resurrection, and of the benefits which they

receive with it through Christ, who is the destroyer of corporeal as

well as spiritual death? He cites also what Suarez says, that although

one who should speak of the bodies of infants in the same way as of

the other damned would say nothing improbable, since St. Thomas speaks

of all indifferently, nevertheless since those bodies will have a

greater perfection and some gifts or benefits which are not at all due

to nature, therefore, in regard to these gifts, Christ may be said to

be their model. The same Martinonus subjoins: although those words of

the apostle, "In Christ all shall be made alive," Suarez affirms, must

be properly and principally understood of the predestined,

nevertheless they can probably be applied to a certain extent to these

children, inasmuch as they will have in their risen bodies a certain

special conformity and relation to Christ, which will be much less and

more imperfect in the damned than in the predestined. Nicholas de Lyra

affirms that "infants dying without baptism do not endure any sensible

punishment, but have a more delightful {662} life than can be had in

this present life, _according to all the doctors_, [Footnote 185] who

speak concerning those who die in original sin alone."

[Footnote 185: This is true of the great majority, but not of all.]

Those who die in actual sin, and the fallen angels, although in the

same state of existence with those who die in original gin only, that

is, in the Infernum, or sphere below the supernatural sphere of the

elect angels and men, have to undergo a punishment corresponding to

their individual demerits. This truth, which is clearly revealed in

the Holy Scriptures and defined by the church, is confirmed by the

analogies of this present life. The transgressions of law is punished

in this world in accordance with the sense of justice which is

universal among men. There is no reason, therefore, for supposing that

the same principle of retribution is not continued in the future life.

Moreover, there is positive proof from reason that it must continue.

There has never been a more absurd doctrine broached than that of the

Universalists. To suppose that all men are saved on account of the

merits of Christ without regard to their moral state or personal

merits, is most unreasonable; and subversive of the moral order as

well as destructive of the idea of a state of probation. It is equally

absurd to imagine that the mere fact of death can make any change in

the state of the soul, or that separation from the body causes the

soul to make a mechanical rebound from a state of sin to a state of

holiness. The soul can be made happy only from its own intrinsic

principles, and not by a mere arbitrary appointment of God, or a

bestowal of extrinsic means of enjoyment. Sin brings its own

punishment, and the state of sin is in itself a state of misery. Plato

and other heathen sages taught the doctrine of future punishment, Mr.

Alger, who has written the most elaborate work on the subject of the

history of the doctrine of a future life which has appeared in recent

times, has fully proved the universality of the doctrine of future

punishment. Other rationalistic writers of ability have also of late

years seen the impossibility of removing this doctrine from the

teaching of Christianity and from universal tradition. We have already

fully proved that God does not deprive any of his rational creatures

of the felicity which is proper to their nature by his own act. It

follows from this that it is the creature himself who is the author of

his own misery. Existence is in itself a good, a boon conceded from

love by the Creator. So far as this good is turned into an evil, it is

by a voluntary perversion of the gift of a benevolent sovereign by the

subject himself. The punishment which he must undergo in eternity is,

therefore, the necessary consequence of his own acts, together with

such positive penalties as are required by the ends of justice and the

universal good. This doctrine, which is the doctrine of the Catholic

Church, based on the clear evidence of Scripture and ecclesiastical

tradition, [Footnote 186] is also the doctrine of calm, unbiased

reason, and of the common sense of mankind. The probation of the

Angels having been finished with their first trial, and the probation

of men ending for individuals at death, and for mankind generically at

the day of judgment, the epic of grace is closed for ever with the

completion of this present cycle of providence; and consequently the

state of all angels and men is fixed for eternity. Hell is, therefore,

an eternal state out of which there is no possibility of transition

into heaven.

[Footnote 186: It is now considered by the best authorities as fully

proved that Origen and St. Gregory Nyssen, who have been so often

cited by the advocates of the doctrine of universal salvation, did

not teach anything contrary to the Catholic doctrine of eternal

punishment.]

Heaven, or life everlasting, is the eternal state of supreme,

supernatural beatitude, to which the elect angels and men are elevated

by the grace of God, and in which they participate in the {663}

glorified and the deific state of the Incarnate Word, through and

ineffable fellowship with the three persons of the Blessed Trinity.

Man being integrally composed by the union of soul and body, and his

corporeal nature being hypostatically United with the divine nature in

the person of the Word, the resurrection of the body must necessarily

precede his complete glorification. The only difficulty which the

doctrine of the resurrection of the body presents to the understanding

relates to the principal of identity between the earthly and celestial

body. This principle of identity, or unity and continuity of life,

must be the same with that which constitutes the unity of the body in

all the stages of its natural growth; and through all the changes of

its material particles, from the instant of its conception to its

disintegration by death. It is the soul which is the form of the body,

its vivifying principle. The soul and body have an innate

correspondence with each other, not only in the generic sense, but in

the sense of an individual aptitude of each separate soul for its own

body, and each separate body for its own soul. The soul and body act

and react upon each other perpetually while the development of both is

going on, producing a specific type in each individual which is a

modification of the generic type of manhood. The determination of the

active force of the soul to the production of this type remains with

it after the separation from the body. At the resurrection, it forms

anew its own proper body in accordance with this type which is the

product of the conjoint action of the soul and body during the earthly

life. There is, therefore, the same continuity and identity between

the earthly body and the celestial body that there is between the body

of the embryo and that of the full-grown man. The celestial body is

the same that it would have been if there had been no death

intervening between the two corporeal states, but a transformation of

the earthly body into the celestial perfection and glorification of

its proper type. If this is not all which is included in the

definition of the church respecting the identity of the body in the

two states, we must believe, in addition to what has been stated

already, that there is a material monad which forms the nucleus of the

corporeal organization and is a physical principle of identity. This

physical principle must contain virtually the whole body, as the germ

does the plant; it must be preserved when the body is disintegrated;

and reunited to the soul at the resurrection, in order to become the

physical germ from which the celestial body is developed.

The natural beatitude of the glorified angels and saints, which is

only a more exalted grade of that felicity which is accorded to the

inferior intelligent creation, need not be specially noticed. It is

the essential and supreme beatitude consisting in the clear, intuitive

vision of God, which is the principal subject of the divine revelation

proposed by the creed as the object of faith.

The possibility of this divine vision will not be called in question

by any who are properly speaking theists and rationalists, and with

others we have nothing to do at present. Much less will it be

questioned by any class of believers in the divine inspiration of the

Scriptures. We have not, then, the task of laboring to show the

intrinsic reasonableness and credibility of the doctrine, but merely

of setting forth that which can be made intelligible respecting the

_relation between our present state in which we are unable to see God,

and the future state in which we may be enabled to see him_. The

examination of this relation includes that of the means and method by

which the soul is elevated to an immediate intuition of that which

constitutes the divine essence and personality. It requires a

statement which shall show what is the nexus between the act which

constitutes the soul in the power to exercise {664} intelligence, and

that which constitutes it in the power to behold God immediately. It

may be said, that the essence of the soul is transformed or enlarged

in such a way that it becomes able, _per se_, to see God as it now

perceives the creation. But this would be equivalent to the creation

of a new essence with a new personality; which would destroy the

identity of the subject who is supposed to be elevated to this new

grade of existence. Moreover, according to the doctrine we have laid

down, that supernatural grace elevates the soul _super omnem naturam

creatam atque creabilem_, the supposition is impossible. We cannot go

over again the principles already discussed, but merely endeavored to

state such a theory of the mode of the beatific vision as shall be in

harmony with these principles. We, therefore, dismiss this first

supposition without further discussion. Another supposition may be

made, that the complete evolution of the idea of God which the soul

possesses in the present state in an obvolute manner bring it to that

relation _vis-à-vis_ two God as its intelligible object, which

corresponds to the relation of the visual faculty to the visible,

material object. We cannot accept this supposition any more than the

other. It contradicts the principles we have previously laid down, and

the generally accepted maxims of Catholic theology respecting the

supernatural quality of the power conceded by God to the creature of

beholding his intimate essence, just as palpably as the first one. We

do not deny that the reason of man is to a great degree in a obvolute

condition in this life, and that it is capable of evolution in another

and higher life. In this higher life the soul may be capable of

perceiving immediately the essence of things, and spiritual

substances, after the mode of intelligence which is proper to the

angels. But the angels themselves, according to Catholic theology,

though created at the summit of the intelligent order, with the

complete exercise of intelligence in the highest possible grade, have

no natural power to see God immediately; and their natural knowledge

of him, though very perfect, is merely abstractive contemplation like

that of men. The power of seeing spiritual substances, and the perfect

evolution of the idea of God in the soul, therefore, do not give the

intuition of the essence of God which constitutes the beatific vision.

The beatific vision is supernatural, by means of immediate light

communicated by God to the intelligence, called by theologians _lumen

gloriae_, the light of glory. By means of this light the intelligence

perceives God by an active intuition, or a clear, distinct act of

reflective consciousness, as immediately present to it in the creative

act, the cause of its existence, the source of its active power, the

light of its reason, in whom it lives in moves and as it's being. God

presents himself to the intelligence immediately in his concrete

being, as the visible world is presented to the eye by the light of

the sun. This is not accomplished by the creation of any new essential

faculty in the soul or the addition of anything to its substance. The

very same intelligent, thinking principle, or subject, which in this

present state of existence of firms to itself the existence of God by

and intellectual judgment, behold him in the beatific state by an

intuitive vision. It must be, then, by a concurrence of God with the

same faculties of the mind by which we think and reason and perceive,

and our self-conscious, in our natural mode of rational activity, that

the intelligence is raised to this higher power of supernatural

intuition. That act which constitutes it rational in the natural

order, must be the basis and substratum of its supernatural tuition of

the divine essence. It has already been proved that a created spirit

cannot be constituted rational in the first instance by the beatific

vision of God; that is, cannot have an essence whose intrinsic,

necessary act is a clear intuition of the divine essence, like that

{665} act in which God has the eternal, necessary intelligence of

himself. The created spirit must first be constituted a rational,

intelligent subject, before it can be capable of a supernatural

illumination. It must be extrinsicated from God, made a distinct,

thinking substance, and constituted in its own finite, rational

activity; before there can be any subject, or really existing, active

force, with which God can concur; with which he can unite himself, and

to which he can communicate the power of looking back upon himself by

a distinct intuition. The created spirit must be, therefore, in a

certain sense, self-subsisting, or containing in itself its own

rational principle. It must have its own separate self-consciousness

as a thinking substance, containing within itself all the necessary

principles of thought. The necessary, the universal, the eternal, or,

in a word, the idea, cannot be contained in a created spirit in its

concrete being, but only in an abstract form, any image, or a created

word. This is identical with the intelligence itself; it is what

constitutes its intellective force and principle of activity. In man,

as we have already seen, this intellective activity needs the

concurrence of exterior, sensible objects, acting on it through the

senses and occasioning perceptions and reflections, before it can

attain distinct reflective consciousness of itself, and evolve its own

ideal formula. This reflective consciousness cannot go back of the

soul itself, where it finds the abstractive idea passively received

from concrete being. The contact of being, or of God who is alone

being, gives the apprehension of being to the soul by creating it. The

creative act, and the being who produces the creative act, are

unperceived by the soul, and lie back of its existence, which is the

terminus of the creative act. The soul's separate activity begins at

the terminus of God's activity, and is projected forward to its own

proper terminus. Its natural activity would never bring it face to

face with its creator, God, or enable it to contemplate him in any

other way than it is now able to do so, by the vividly apprehended

demonstration of his being from its own first principles and exterior

works of his hand. In order that the soul, in its reflexive acts, may

see God continually and clearly, it is necessary that he should unite

himself in a new and ineffable manner to its substance and its

faculties, and concur with them in such a way that they can look

beyond their natural limit of vision into the infinitude of the being

of God which surrounds the creation like an ocean on every side. The

soul, which is, so to speak, projected from God by creation, must

receive a movement of return, which does not arrest itself at the mere

fact of self-consciousness, but brings the soul to a consciousness of

God as immediately and personally producing its self-consciousness.

This act is most perfect in the human soul of Jesus Christ, the

Incarnate Word. The personality of the human and divine natures in him

being one, there is but one Ego. The human soul, therefore, terminates

its act of self-consciousness, not upon itself, as its own

_subsistentia_, but upon the divine Ego or person. It is conscious of

itself as a distinct substance, but not a substance completed and

brought to distinct subsistence in itself. Its consciousness

terminates in the divine person, and is referred to it, so that Jesus

Christ, in every human act, affirms himself by self-consciousness as

both God and man in one person. The union of glorified spirits to God

is similar to this hypostatic union, though not so perfect, and not

implying personal identity. The nature and mode of this union of the

created spirit with God, by which it is glorified, beatified, and even

deified--as the doctors of the church fear not to affirm, in

accordance with the declaration of the Holy Scripture--is impenetrable

to the human understanding. The Indian philosophers, having retained a

confused idea of it from the primitive revelation, have expressed this

idea in their sublime mysticism with all the superb imagery of their

luxuriant imaginations. With {666} them, it is an absorption of all

individual souls in the infinite fount of being. Nearly all their

language may, however, be adopted, in a good sense, as expressing the

Christian dogma, if clear, philosophical conceptions are substituted

for their obscure and unscientific notions of the creative act.

Without these clear conceptions and definitions, it is impossible to

escape money into pantheism. The language of Christian mystic writers,

even, is liable to misapprehension as expressing the pantheistic

notion of the identity of God and the creatures, unless their terms

are properly explained. In point of fact, Eckhart did give expression

to some propositions which implied pantheism and were condemned by the

Holy See. The mystic writers continually affirm that the soul is made

_una res cum Deo_, and becomes God by participation. By this, however,

they do not mean that the soul loses its distinct substance or becomes

identified with the divine nature. They intend to signify and

ineffable union between the soul and God, in which, each remaining

distinct in its own proper essence, God communicates his own

knowledge, sanctity, glory, and beatitude to the soul; and admits it

into the Fellowship of the Blessed Trinity. This is the vanishing

point of all theology, and of all sciences, beyond which even the most

illuminated eye cannot penetrate. The return of all things which

proceed from God as first cause to God as final cause, consummated in

this beatific union, solves all the problems of time; there remains

only the problem of eternity, which eternity alone can solve.

--------

ORIGINAL.

MY AUNT'S WORK-BOX.

Sure, such a mess was never seen

Of white and brown and black and green!

Not Noah's Ark, Pandora's box,

Such dire confusion e'er displayed

Here's wool, shorn from the fleecy flocks

That o'er Circassian Meadows strayed,

With spools of cotton, every number;

Buttons and studs, and other lumber;

Needles of every size and kind,

The blunts and sharps, the coarse and fine;

White linen, recent wounds to bind;

And rows of pins in order to shine.

Lo! Thimbles, for each finger fit,

And yarn too darn with or to knitt.

Here's sewing-silk of every hue

From brilliant red to modest blue;

And floss, with which the maiden traces,

With all the painter's art and skill,

Flowers, landscapes, birds, and human faces,

The verdant field or purling rill.

Here every sort of thread is seen,

The jolly ball and languid skein;

And here's the ivory thing that shapes

Small eyelet-holes in caps and capes.

{667}

Look at that pair of rusty tweezers!

They must blame their many years.

Dear! what a tiny pair of scissors!

Sure, they're the twins of those huge shears.

Here's lots of crewel, which I mean

To use, someday, to work the screen.

Here are pin-cushions and emery bags,

Small shreds of lace and other rags,

Linen, calico, and crape,

And hanks of twine and bits of tape.

In short, here's every earthly thing

That thrifty wife could wish, I ween;

But I've not time to say or sing

The treasures of this magazine.

--------

Original.

HOW MY AUNT PILCHER FOUND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Perhaps you don't know my aunt, Patients Pilcher? Very likely not. i

know her very well, and am going to tell you something about her. She

is my mother's sister, and was born in the town of Squankum, Vermont,

where she lived until she was over thirty years old--she says,

twenty-five, but that don't matter--when she came to New York to see

Uncle George. Well, Aunt Pilcher was mightily pleased and surprised

when she saw New York; and as she knew every house, barn, and fence,

and every lane and field in Squankum, and to whom they belonged, she

thought she must find out as much about New York. She had no sooner

taken off her bonnet and shawl when she got to our house--I say _our_,

because I live with Uncle George since mother died--than she wanted

to put them on again and go out "and see the places, and find out

where people lived, and git introduced," as she said, adding that she

would "hev to begin directly, or she would never git through."

My Aunt Pilcher is a very tall, thin woman, with a very cold face, as

I found out on the first day she came to our house, when she bent over

and kissed me. She thought I wiped off her kiss, and said "Oh, fie!"

but it wasn't that, it was the cold. As I was saying, she wanted to

see all of New York, and I believe she has, too, by this time; but she

soon got disgusted with what she called "the offishness of the

Yorkers." "You don't know anybody," said she, "and nobody 'pears to

want to know you." She never tired, however, of seeing the many

beautiful buildings in the city, and among them all the churches seem

to her to be the most attractive and the most worthy of her close

investigation.

"I'm gittin 'most ashamed of our wooden meetin'-house to Squankum,"

said she, one day, after returning from a visit to Trinity Church; "we

used to be kinder proud of it, though, when some of the folks down to

Rattlebog came over to spend Sabbath with us; 'cause ye know what a

mis'able little country skule-house of a place they've got over there.

Then, ye've got sich a lot o' churches, my! I'm 'most afeered never

see them all, or I'll forgit abeout the first ones afore I git

through."

"What sort of churches have you seen, aunty?" I asked.

{668}

"Oh! I've seen white-marbled ones and brown-stun ones, and a sort o'

speckled mixed ones like Washin'ton cake, ye know, a streak o' jelly

and a streak o' cake. Then agin, I've seen all kinds o' styles;

Grecian, Beshantem, Gothys, high-steepled style, low-steepled style,

and no-steepled style. But I haint seeing a green winder-shutter one

like ours to Squankum yit. I s'pose the taste in architectur here in

York don't run that 'a way."

But I was not thinking of the outside of the churches when I asked her

the question, but of their inside. The truth was that Uncle George and

I had been two or three times to see Mass and Vespers in the Catholic

Church, and I was so full of all I had seen and heard there that I was

nearly dying to talk with some one about it. But Uncle George had told

me that he thought Aunt Jane--that is, Uncle George's sister who keeps

house for him and me--might possibly disapprove of our going again if

I happened to mention it, and so I took care to say nothing about it.

I was very anxious to find out if Aunt Pilcher had seeing a Catholic

Church, so I asked her if she happened to see any boys in the churches

she had been to.

"Boys!" said she. "Why boys? Of course boys. Shouldn't boys go to

meetin' as well as girls?"

"But boys dressed up," said I.

"Dressed up! Laws yes, in their best Sunday-go-to-meetin', as they ort

to be."

"In long red coats, perhaps, down to their heels," I suggested, in

spite of Uncle George's frown; "with nice white lace jackets over that

again, and carrying torch-lights and censers, and going up and down

and all around?" I added, eager to describe all I had seen.

"Why! what's come to the boy?" exclaimed Aunt Pilcher, raising up her

hands in astonishment. "He ain't right," meaning in my head."'

"Oh! yes, he is!" said Uncle George, "that's the way the Catholics go

on in their churches, and I suppose that Fred must have seen it

somewhere."

"Catholics!" ejaculated Aunt Pilcher, in a tone of horror, and half

looking over her shoulder as if some ghost of one might come in at the

sound of the word. "Ye don't mean them papists and other Jesuits that

call themselves Catholics! It's enough to make a body hate the name."

"That won't do, you know, sister Pilcher," said Uncle George, "because

it is in the Apostles' Creed."

"I know it," returned Aunt Pilcher, "but I'd like to know what the

Holy Catholic Church in the Apostles' Creed has got to do with them

ignorant idolaters, the Catholics, the Roman papists, I mean?"

"It's the same name, that's all," said Uncle George, with a sly

twinkle in his eye; "and they say it's the same thing."

"Which in course is nonsense!" ejaculated my aunt.

"Oh! of course it is," rejoined Uncle George. "We are the real and

true Catholic Church, and if some one wanted to come to our true and

real Holy Catholic Church we would just tell him to ask for the

Catholic church and anybody would show him."

"Well, they ort to, that's all I got to say," said Aunt Pilcher

doubtfully.

"Certainly," continued Uncle George, "and I've no doubt now, sister

Pilcher, that if you were to go out and ask people in the street here

to point you to a Catholic church that they would show you our

Protestant churches directly."

Aunt Pilcher looked very hard at Uncle George, as if she feared he

might be making game of her; but he looked so solemn and sedate that

she didn't suspect, but I did, and I got a crick in the back of my

neck trying to keep from laughing. She seemed to think that she was

bantered by my uncle, and said:

"Well, I never sot eout to do a thing yit that I didn't do it, and I'm

going to do _that_."

"Hurrah! Aunt Pilcher," I shouted, "I would too, if I were you." And

that confirmed her in her engagement, {669} for the very next morning

she put on her bonnet and shawl, and hung her reticule on her arm,

without which she never went out of doors, and off she started. She

was gone all day and did not return until tea-time, appearing

completely fagged out and exhausted. She was not in the best of humors

either, to judge of the way she pulled off her out-door additions to

her ordinary dress, and bade me "carry them things up-stairs, for

people dead a'most and starved can't always be expected to wait on

theirselves." But not a word did she say about the object of her long

day's journey. I was all curiosity to know where, she had been and

what she had seen; and when we had nearly got through tea, that is,

Uncle George, Aunt Jane, Aunt Pilcher, I, and Bub Thompson, who had

come to play with me in the afternoon, and said he smelt short-cake,

and wondered whether Aunt Jane could make it nice, and so got invited

to try them--then I could stand it no longer, and said I, "See

anything nice to-day, Aunt Pilcher?"

"I didn't particularly _see_ anything, my dear, but I heered something

I shan't forgit, I can tell you, if hearin' a thing a hundred and

ninety-nine times over is enough to' make a body remember it."

"What did you hear, aunt?" asked everybody at once.

"Hear!" exclaimed she. "These Yorkers never knows anything if a body

asks them a perlite question abeout who lives in any house, or which

is the way to somewhere; but to-day I do think they was all possessed,

for everybody 'peared to know only one church, when, dear knows, they

ort to know their own churches, I should think, and not be a'

directin' everybody everlastin'ly to St. Peter's."

"How was that, aunt?" asked every one again.

"Well," said she, "I told you what I was goin' eout for, and I went.

Neow I always do things in order: commence at the beginnin', I say,

and then ye'll know when ye git to the eend. So I went clean deown to

the battery, and then I turns reound and comes up. Not wishin' to ask

questions of people _too_ fur off (for these Yorkers don't know where

anythin' is ef it ain't right deown under their nose), I walked on

till I got pretty near Trinity Church, belongin' to the Episcopals,

and says I to a knowledgable lookin' man, says I, 'Couldn't ye pint me

eout, neow, a Catholic church?' 'I can't precisely pint ye to it,'

says he, which I thort was queer, with a Christian church right afore

his eyes, 'but I can tell you where one is: in Barclay street, right

up Broadway, ma'am, Saint Peter's church,' and off he went like a

shot. These Yorkers air in _sich_ a hurry, they won't stop to hear a

body eout. Well, on I walks, and I saw another church, Saint Paul's in

Broadway, similarly belongin' to the Episcopals; and this time I got

straight in front of it. The folks 'peared to be in sich an orful

hurry jist here that I thort somebody must be dead; or somebody's

house had ketch't afire, and I couldn't git eout the first word afore

the person I spoke to was a whole block off, and I got kind o'

bewildered like. At last, I tried a lady--for I give the men folks

up--and says I to her:

"'Is this a meetin'-house of the Holy Catholic Church, ma'am?'

"'No, ma'am,' says she rather short, 'ef you want to go there, you had

better go deown Barclay street, next street above, St. Peter's on the

left,' and off she went. Well; I goes deown Barclay street, jist to

see this St. Peter's, and do you believe, I found eout it was one of

them papist churches.'

"That was rather strange," interrupted Uncle George.

"I thort it was a leetle so myself," said Aunt Pilcher, "and I began

to conceit people took me for a papist or a Jesuit, so I made up my

mind to say so to once; and on I walks agin till I come to Broome

street, deown which I went till I found a nice look-in' church, and

says I to a minister-lookin' gentleman, says I:

{670}

"'I'm not a Jesuit, sir.'

"'Glad to hear it, ma'am,' says he, 'there are concealed Jesuits all

over.'

"'I'm a Protestant,' says I, 'pre-haps you can show me a meetin'-house

that believes in the Holy Catholic Church; is that one there?'

"I am grieved,' says he, 'that anybody should wish to know anythin'

abeout the Catholic Church, and I hope you have no intention of goin'

to sich a place of abomination.'

"He didn't 'pear to know my mean-in', so says I, 'I mean the _real_

Catholic Church.'

"'Ma'am,' says he, 'real or unreal, it is always the same thing;

always was and always will be. That is a Baptist church, ma'am, before

you, and not a Catholic mass house. There is one of them, called St.

Peter's, in Barclay street, I believe,' and off he walked without

sayin' another word. 'Patience,' says I to myself, 'be true to your

name,' for, to tell the truth, I was gettin' a leetle bit flustrated.

I walks on, turnin' corners and reound and reound, and at last I got

into a street called Bedford street. There I saw a meetin'-house with

a sign over the door tellin' it was a Methodist. Says I to a man that

was jist then sweepin reound the door--thinkin' to begin right this

time--says 'I:

"'My Christian friend, the apostles believed in the Holy Catholic

Church.'

'"Not a bit of it,' says he.

"'Oh! yes,' says I, 'they did; it is in the Apostles' Creed.'

"'Is it?' says he.

"'Yes, it is, and what's more, you ort to know it,' says I, gettin'

bothered with sich ignorance.

"'None o' yer impudence,' says he.

"'Why, good lands!' says I, almost swearin', 'they believe in the Holy

Catholic Church in this meetin'-house, don't they?'

"'No, they don't, and don't want to,' says he, and slammed the door in

my face. Then I wanders reound and seen lots of churches, but I didn't

see anybody, to speak to till I got ever so fur off in the Fifth

avenue, where I saw a handsome brick church with a tall steeple, and

there I saw some people goin' in. I asked what was goin' on, and they

said it was a prayer--meetin". I should liked to have jined in a York

prayer-meetin', but I wasn't in a fit state jist then--in sich a

twitter as I was--so I ups and speaks to a young lady who looked like

a Sabbath school teacher, and says I:

"'The real Catholic Church in the Apostles' Creed is where the gospil

is preached.' She kinder opened her eyes at me, and says she:

"'The gospil is preached here, ma'am; but this is not a Catholic

church; this is a Presbyterian church.'

"'But,' says I agin,' where the gospil is preached is the true

Catholic Church.'

"'I guess not,' says she, 'the gospil is not preached in the Catholic

Church.'

"'Well, ma'am,' says I, feelin' considerably riled, 'I guess I larnt

my catechism, not afore you was born, but abeout the same time, I

should say; and I'm jist lookin' for somebody else that knows it, and

if anybody in York knows what and where the Holy Catholic Church is;'

and do you believe she actually turned 'reound to another gal and said

I was crazy, and had run away from a 'sylum. I went away disgusted and

tried agin, one plase and another. I even tried the Washin'ton cake

church in the Fourth avenue, but not a soul would own up to what they

ort to believe. You wouldn't get papists sendin' you to their St.

Peter's, I'll be bound, if you asked them for a Protestant church."

"Of course not," said Uncle George, "and what conclusion have you come

to, sister Pilcher?"

"I've come to the conclusion," said Aunt Pilcher, "that these Yorkers

don't know the Apostles' Creed."

"I should say," said Bub Thompson, "that those folks you 'saw didn't

believe it."

{671}

"Boy!" exclaimed Aunt Pilcher, with an awful expression of

countenance, "speak when you air spoken to."

"How is it when you're spoken about?" asked Bub; "'cause I'm a

Catholic, a papist as you say, and you've been speaking about my

church."

"My! I never!" ejaculated Aunt Pilcher, looking first at one and then

at another for explanation.

"Sister Pilcher," said Uncle George, "the truth is, it is no use for

us Protestants to call ourselves Catholics, for we are not. You see

how everybody denied it. Of course you could never get a Protestant to

own to the name of 'Catholic,' either here in New York or anywhere

else, any more than you could persuade any one to give us the name;

and it seems to me that where the name is, and always has been, the

reality is likely to be. As for your experiment to-day, it is just

what would have happened thirteen hundred years ago; for I read in a

book that Bub Thompson's father lent me, that St. Augustine said,

speaking about the sects that tried to call themselves 'Catholics' in

his time: 'The very name of _Catholic_ detains me in the Catholic

Church, which that church has alone, and not without cause, obtained

among so many heretics, in such a way as that while all heretics wish

to be called Catholics, nevertheless not one of them will dare to

point out his basilica or house to a stranger inquiring for a place of

Catholic worship." [Footnote 187]

[Footnote 187: Epist. contra Manich. I. 5, 6.]

"Well! sakes alive! live and larn," exclaimed Aunt Pilcher, "but it's

enough to make a body think they never knowed anythin' when they find

oat some things!"

----------

Translated from Le Contemporain.

A PORTRAIT OF FRA ANGELICO.

BY EDMOND LAFONDE.

At dawn of a summer's day in the year of grace 1453, a Dominican monk

set out from his convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, at Rome. He was

an old man, but the brightness of youth still shown in his aged

countenance, attributable, perhaps, to the shadowless sanctity of his

life, and the purity of a soul which had never known wrinkles. He

walked slowly in his dress of white woolen covered with a black

scapular, his shaven head bared to the sun, his eyes cast down, and

his hands employed in rolling the beads of the Rosary of St. Dominic.

He traversed the square of the Pantheon, and was going to cross the

bridge of St. Angelo, when, in passing the prison of the Tor di Nona,

he saw coming out of it a funeral cortége; a condemned person, led to

death in the usual place of execution, the piazza della Bocca Verità.

A man nearly forty years of age, of noble and proud figure, but

seemingly worn out by vice or grief; his costume curious, and wholly

oriental; clothed in red silk, with a turban ornamented with gold and

ermine. A Franciscan accompanied him, but endeavored in vain to direct

his thoughts to heaven, and make him kiss the crucifix, from which he

turned away his lips in discussed. The crowd that followed, becoming

infuriated, exhorted him to penitence, crying out, "Amico, pensa a

salvar l'anima." "My friend, think of saving thy soul."

{672}

As soon as the Franciscans saw a brother priest, he called to him,

saying: "Ah! Fra Giovanni, in the name of the holy friendship which

united our two glorious patriarchs, St. Dominic and St. Francis, come

to my aid. You see this unhappy man. He is one of the Greeks just come

from Italy, since the taking of Constantinople. His name is

Argyropoulos. He has murdered a Roman woman; is doomed to die, and

will not reconcile himself with God. He is not merely schismatical,

but pagan. Try if you can be more successful than I." At a sign from

the chief of the guard the _cortége_ stopped--for in Rome, since the

earliest age, pontifical justice does not wish to kill the soul, and

makes every effort to save it while sacrificing the guilty body. Fra

Giovanni tried to speak to the Greek, but was met with repulse and

blasphemy. With tears rolling down his cheeks he whispered a few words

to the Franciscan, who, elevating his voice, thus addressed the chief

of the guard: "This son of St. Dominic," he said, "is Fra Giovanni of

Fiesole, the favorite painter of his holiness. He is going to the

Vatican, and will ask the Holy Father a delay of one day, in order to

try once more to induce the sinner to repent." The people applauded,

and the captain of the guard declared himself willing to assume the

responsibility of suspending the execution while awaiting a new order

from the sovereign pontiff. The condemned man, who remained apparently

immovable during this debate, was re-conducted into the prison of Tor

di Nona, where still later were to be enclosed the guilty family of

Cenci, and the Franciscan entered with him. The crowd remained a long

time before the door, losing none of its interest or curiosity. Fra

Giovanni again pursued his way to the Vatican, his soul, so calm

ordinarily, deeply agitated and troubled by the unfortunate event.

Arrived at the square of St. Peter, he kneeled by the obelisk which

contains a piece of the true cross; then passing the guards, who were

daily accustomed to see him, entered without difficulty into the

pontifical palace. He repaired immediately to the new chapel, which

Pope Nicholas V. had just finished, and charged him to decorate; for

it is time to say that Fra Giovanni was the painter-monk of Fiesole,

whose purity of genius and sanctity of life had surnamed him Beato

(blessed) or Fra Angelico (the angelical brother), under which latter

name he is most generally known, and which is equally appropriate to

his beauty of soul and to his works. The great Pope Nicholas V., who

had known him at Florence, and watched the budding of these marvellous

products of his pencil in the convent of St. Mark, had just called him

to Rome, where Eugene IV. had already bid him come, to enthrone in his

own person Christian art in the Vatican. Nicholas V. had built in his

palace a small chapel, in which he desired the painter-monk to retrace

for him the story of St. Lawrence and St. Stephen, reuniting them in

the same poetical commemoration; as had been the custom of the

faithful to invoke them, since their bones had lain united outside the

walls in the ancient basilica of St. Lawrence. This chapel being very

small is lighted by a single arched window; happily it has been

preserved, and is one of the sanctuaries where the friends of

Christian art love to make a pilgrimage. Below the window is now

placed the altar which formerly faced it. On the three other sides Fra

Angelico has painted two series of compositions, one above the other;

in the arches of the upper part is represented, in six compartments,

the history of St. Stephen, and in the lower that of St. Lawrence. On

entering the chapel Fra Angelico fell on his knees to pray God to

guide his pencil, then commenced to paint the scene where St. Stephen

was led to martyrdom. He there represented an enraged Jew, who

conducts the saint outside of Jerusalem, while others pushed and

pursued him with stones in their hands. While painting the violence of

the Jews Fra Angelico {673} thought deeply of the Greek whose

execution he had arrested, and awaited with pious impatience the

arrival of the Pope, who never failed daily to visit the works of his

favorite painter. The Dominican interrupted his work now and then to

rest, reposing his mind with prayer and singing occasionally a stanza

of Dante, who was then for mystical painters an unfailing source of

religious inspiration. He recited the exquisite passage where Dante

paints the glorious martyrdom of St. Stephen:

"Poi vidi genti accese in fuoco d'ira

Con pietre un giovinetto ancider, forte

Gridando a se pur; Martira, martira, ect."

"Then I saw an excited and angry crowd, stoning and forcing onward a

young man, with loud cries of 'Kill him, kill him!' And him I saw bent

to the earth by the weight of death, but with eyes uplifted and turned

to heaven; in the midst of the terrible struggle praying the sovereign

God to forgive his enemies, with an expression so beautiful as to

command pity and respect."

At last the door of the chapel opened and the Pope entered. Nicholas

V. was old, but more bent by sorrow than age. In his youth he was

called the poor student of Sarzana, and had passed his life in the

society of saints and literary men. Become sovereign pontiff, he

encouraged piety, science, art, and letters; laid the foundation of

St. Peter's, embellished Rome, and merited truly to give his name to

the fifteenth century as Leo X., gave his to the sixteenth. During the

Council of Florence he had known Fra Angelico, and soon perceived that

the soul of the Dominican artist was worth far more than his pencil.

Pope Eugene IV. had thus judged him when he wished to name this holy

religious Archbishop of Florence. Fra Angelico, seized with fear on

learning the intentions of the pontiff, besought to be spared so great

a weight. His vocation, he said, was not to govern, but stated at the

same time he could recommend a brother of his order far more worthy

than he of such a dignity. Eugene IV. listened to his suggestion and

named for archbishop the monk who was afterward to be St. Antonine.

When Nicholas V. entered the chapel he appeared so unhappy that Fra

Angelico, in kneeling to implore his blessing, could not forbear

asking the cause of his sadness; if some recent misfortune had not

befallen him. "O my son," replied the Pope, "the misfortune which has

happened me is the catastrophe long since foretold, but not the less

bitter to all Christian hearts, the taking of Constantinople by the

Turks! My dreams, even, are troubled, for since I have been Pope the

principal aim of my pontificate has been the pacification of

Christianity, so as to unite and direct all our forces in a crusade

against the Turks. But the unfortunate Greeks have upset all my

projects in their hatred of the papacy, preferring the turban to the

tiara. They have broken the peace of Florence, ill received the

assistance of the Latins, and now their capital is no longer for Jesus

Christ, but Mahomet. Ah! Fra Giovanni, can any one in the world be

more wretched than I? Were it not that I fear a failure of duty, I

would renounce the pontifical dignity, to become again Master Thomas

of Sarzana. Then, one day gave me more true happiness than I have

since enjoyed in a whole year." The Pope shed tears abundantly.

[Footnote 188]

[Footnote 188: See this scene in Muratori, volume 25th, page 286.

The taking of Constantinople was a mortal blow to Nicholas V. From

that day he was never seen to smile.]

Fra Giovanni deeply commiserated him, and replied in a voice choked

with emotion: "Most Holy Father, let us resign ourselves to the will

of God. Bear your cross as did he of whom you are the vicar; I wish I

were the good Cyrenean to aid you. Let us contemplate the images of

the two martyrs I am to paint on the walls of the chapel, and, like

them, let us learn to suffer." "You are right, Fra Giovanni. Your soul

and talent are truly consolatory, and I love to come here and open my

heart, charged as it is with incurable anguish." {674} Just then

twelve o'clock struck. The Pope knelt down to recite the Angelus, and

dried the tears which since St. Peter so often had reddened the eyes

of the sovereign pontiffs. At this moment a prelate came to announce

that the dinner of his holiness was ready. "My son," said the Pope,

"do not leave me in this hour of affliction. I beg you to dine at my

table." "Holy Father," replied the humble monk, "without the

permission of the prior I dare not do so. I must dine with my

community." "But, my son, I can dispense with this obligation. Come,

come!" The Dominican dined, therefore, _tete-à-tete_ with the Pope,

but in silence, and with eyes cast down, as if he had been in his own

refectory. It was not a day of abstinence, and meat was served on the

Pope's table, but the monk refused to partake of it, "Fra Giovanni,"

said Nicholas, "you exhaust yourself with this painting, and I perhaps

urge you too closely to finish it. You have worked hard to day, and

should strengthen yourself anew by eating some meat." "Holy Father, I

can not without the permission of the prior." The Pope smiled, but

could not help admiring the innocent scruples of the pious monk. "My

son," said he, "do you not think the authority of the sovereign

pontiff greater than the permission of your prior? For to-day I

dispense with the rule of St. Dominic, and order you to eat all that

is offered you." [Footnote 189]

[Footnote 189: This scene, which so well portrays the virtue of Fra

Angelico, is related by Vasari and Fra Leandro Alberti; De Viris

Illustribus Ordinis Predicatorum, libri sex.]

The Dominican obeyed in silence, but his mind seemed preoccupied. He

thought unceasingly of the poor guilty Greek whose execution he had

suspended, but he dared not speak of him to the Pope. Nicholas V.

perceived his distraction and asked him of what he was thinking. Then

Fra Angelico related to him the story of Argyropoulos, and added:

"Holy Father, with justice your government has condemned this unhappy

man to be executed, but I know your holiness desires not the death of

his soul, and I have hoped your mercy would grant him the delay of a

day that he may still have time to repent." "My son, I thank you for

having acted thus. I accord you not only one day, but several if

necessary." Nicholas V. then wrote an order suspending the execution,

and gave it to Beato, who full of joy, asked permission to retire

without finishing his repast. He obtained it, and in haste quitted the

Vatican. After passing the bridge of St. Angelo, he was strongly

tempted to stop at the prison of Tor di Nona; but he considered his

duty to his convent, where doubtless his absence from dinner had

occasioned surprise. When he entered the cloister of Santa Maria sopra

Minerva, the brothers had left the refectory, so the prior exacted of

the dilatory monk a penance, which consisted of eating his dinner in a

kneeling posture. The Beato, without saying a word to excuse himself,

knelt down and simply made a sign he would rather not eat. The prior

then ordered him to explain his absence. "My Father," said he, "I am

guilty; mea culpa. His Holiness wished me to dine with him, and

obliged me to eat meat without your permission." The prior admired the

simplicity and obedience of the blessed one, but said nothing to

disturb his humility. The habit of obedience was so natural to him

that all orders for his art were received through his spiritual

superior; and when any work was requested of him, his friends were

referred to the prior, as nothing could be done without his consent.

He refused to stipulate a price for his works, and distributed all

they bought him to the poor and unfortunate. "He loved the poor during

his life," said Vasari, "As tenderly as his soul now loves the heaven

where he enjoys the glory of the blessed." If he loved the poor, Fra

Angelico better loved souls; he obtained from the prior permission to

go immediately to the prison. He ran thither with the wings of

charity, and showed the order from the Pope which delayed the

execution. He gained {675} admittance to what is now called the

prisoner's cell, now that so many of our ancient abbeys are

transformed into houses of detention. Argyropoulos presented himself,

grave and sad, clothed always in his red dress and white turban, which

gave him an air of majesty quite oriental. He was seated on a straw

bed, but his attitude was King Solomon enthroned. The Dominican, with

his white robe and angelical figure, resembled one of the beautiful

lilies he so often painted in the hands of the angel of the

annunciation; one of the lilies of the field, of which the Saviour

himself has said, "Not Solomon in all his glory could be arrayed like

one of these." Fra Angelico, without saying anything at first, stopped

at the entrance, and, kneeling, prayed God to cure this ulcerated

soul. A ray of light, which shone obliquely through the only window,

illuminated his bared and shaven head, and gave him the anticipated

crown of glory of the blessed. The Greek contemplated with

astonishment this luminous apparition, and thought he dreamed again

the dream of the patriarch Jacob, who saw angels ascend and descend a

mysterious ladder. Having strengthened himself by prayer, Fra Angelico

approached the prisoner, and said in a voice truly angelical: "My

brother!" But the charm to which Argyropoulos had given himself up at

the vision of the blessed one was broken by the sound of his voice; he

saw in him only a Catholic monk, and thus a being he detested. "I am

not thy brother, we have nothing in common, and I hate the religion of

the Azymites." [Footnote 190]

[Footnote 190: A name that the Greeks gave the Catholics on account

of the discussion on the _unleavened_ bread as material of the

eucharist.]

"My brother, you and I are Christians, although fifteen years ago you

have separated the Greek and Latin churches, which the Council of

Florence so happily united."

"No! As our great Duke Notaras said, there is no peace between us. I

would rather see the turban of Mahomet at Constantinople than the

tiara of the Pope."

"O my brother, can you say so? If you are not Catholic, are you not

Christian?"

"No, I am so no longer. I do not believe in God; and besides, if there

is a God, I have committed crimes too great for him to pardon. I am

pagan and of the school of Plato; I prefer Jupiter to Jehovah, Plato

to the Scripture, and the gods of Homer to the Saints of

Christianity."

"Why, my brother, you have gone backward two thousand years, to

breathe what Dante calls the fetid air of paganism, 'Il puzzo del

paganes mo.'"

Fra Angelico tried in vain to move this heart, as hardened and

desperate as that of Judas; during three days he fasted, prayed, and

begged the prayers of his fraternity, offered himself to God as a

victim to save this soul, and employed against his own body the

instruments of penance. But God did not grant him the grace he sought.

Every morning, while painting at the Vatican, he rendered an account

to the Pope of his unsuccessful efforts, and recommended the Greek to

the pontifical prayers. The three days expired; again he solicited a

still longer delay of the execution. "Holy Father," said he, "a

residence in prison seems to exasperate this unhappy man; perhaps I

might obtain a better hearing if I could take him out and let him

breathe the fresh air." "I can refuse you nothing, Fra Giovanni. Bring

him to see this chapel, I am sure your painting will do his soul some

good." "I will bring him to-morrow, since your Holiness permits me,

and at the same time solicit your daily visit, as I am certain his

meeting the vicar of Jesus Christ will have more effect on him than my

pictures." Nicholas V. promised to do so, and wrote an order to place

the captive at liberty for one day, and at the responsibility of Fra

Giovanni. It was a touching spectacle to see the Pope and the monk so

generously united in their {676} efforts to convert this paganized

schismatic.

The next morning Fra Angelico ran to the prison, brought out the

Greek, and proposed to him to see his pictures, without mentioning the

Pope. Argyropoulos, who rather prided himself on his knowledge of art

as well as of literature, willingly accepted the invitation. The fresh

air and the glorious Roman sun softened his mood, hitherto so

ferocious, and gave him an air almost of serenity. Fra Angelico,

transported with joy, conducted his future neophyte to the Vatican,

and introduced him to the chapel, praying God to work in him the same

miracle which he had granted to St. Methodius, whose painting of the

Last Judgment, on the walls of a palace belonging to the King of

Bulgaria, had not only converted the king, but as many of his subjects

as looked upon it. The Greek was deeply affected by these admirable

pictures, and took upon himself to explain them lengthily. To show his

artistic knowledge, he criticised the executioners who stoned St.

Stephen, and thought their countenances lacked sufficient energy. The

painter monk humbly accepted the criticism, which was not wanting in

justice. A competent judge has said that the character of Fra Angelico

was so formed of a love amounting to ecstasy that he never could

familiarize himself with dramatic scenes where hateful and violent

passions had the ascendency. In the painting of the life of St.

Lawrence, the Beato begged the Greek to particularly observe the

prison window where the martyr was converting a man on his knees, who

afterward became St. Hippolytus. "In painting this scene of conversion

I thought of you, my brother," he said, in a voice so sweet and tender

it would have touched a heart of marble; but Argyropoulos turned away

his eyes, and pretended not to hear him. Fra Angelico's heart was

grieved, and he felt his only hope was in the sovereign pontiff. He

had not long to wait for him. Nicholas V. entered into the chapel,

with a dignity tempered by an ineffable tenderness. The Beato knelt

down--his forehead in the dust--to kiss the feet of His Holiness. The

sight of the Pope always caused him transports of joy, equal to those

of St. Joseph of Cupertino, who went into ecstasy whenever in the

presence of the vicar of Jesus Christ. But a contrary effect was

visible in the mind of the pagan of Constantinople. At the sight of

the pontiff he reassumed all his dignity. "On your knees, my brother,

on your knees!" in vain said Beato to him, while pulling his dress.

"Never," cried the Greek, "never will I bend the knee before the idol

of the Azymites--before a priest who wished our submission at the

Council of Florence." Angelico sighed in the dust at the obstinacy of

this pagan, but the Pope, calm and dignified, began to converse in

Greek with Argyropoulos, who, captivated instantaneously by this

graciousness, replied by a verse of Homer. "My son," said Nicholas V.,

"I also will cite you a passage from Homer. In the second book of the

Iliad, the prudent Ulysses cries out: 'All Greeks cannot reign, too

many chiefs would do harm; let us have but one sovereign, but a single

king, him to whom the prudent Saturn entrusted the sceptre and the

laws to govern us:

[Greek text]

Thus, my son, God wished in his church but one chief, one flock, and

one shepherd." At these words the Greek grew angry and replied in

harsh terms. "My son," said the Pope to him with tenderness, "I

forgive you, I pity your blindness, and I will continue to pray God to

enlighten you."

Nicholas V. withdrew.

Argyropoulos, mortified at his own conduct, returned to Fra Angelico,

and again commenced to eulogize the pictures. "My paintings are worth

nothing," cried the monk, bursting into tears, "since they have failed

to convert you. I am unworthy the name of preacher, since all my

teaching has not succeeded, {677} and I have brought you before the

holy father, only to hear you outrage the dignity of God's

representative on earth." The remembrance of this scene completely

overcame the tender and pious soul of Fra Angelico. He became pale and

weak, sank on his white robe like a lily on its stalk, and fell on the

pavement as one dead, according to Dante:

"E cadi, come corpo morte cade."

The Greek, seized with pity and astonishment, tried vainly to restore

him. He thought he had killed him, and this man, whose hands were

already bloodstained, imagined he had committed another murder. He

hated himself when he saw this angel extended at his feet. He knelt

before him, rubbed his hands in his own, and threw in his face the

water in the vase which was used in his painting. "Father, father,"

cried he, "come back to life, and I swear to do all you wish." The

Angelico opened his beautiful eyes, languishing and moist with tears.

"My brother," said he, "you restore me to life, but again you will

give me to death if you forget your promise. Now we must leave the

chapel; it is time, according to my duty, that I take you back to

prison." Notwithstanding his pallor and feebleness Fra Angelico

insisted on leaving the Vatican immediately, and returned home leaning

on the shoulder of Argyropoulos. He said nothing until they reached

the prison of Tor di Nona. But there again, alone with him, the

angelical monk knelt before the prisoner, and reproached him for his

conduct toward the Pope with that sweetness he never lost, and which

so greatly astonished his biographer Vasari. [Footnote 191]

[Footnote 191: "Never," said he, "could one surprise him in an angry

moment. This seemed to me incredible: Il che e grandissima cosa e mi

pare impossibile a credere."]

This touching kindness greatly affected the Greek, who had been

already so deeply moved by the fainting of Beato. He began to

comprehend the love with which this pious monk was inflamed for the

salvation of his soul. "My brother," said the Dominican to him, while

joining his hands, "you have restored me to life, but in promising to

do as I wish, and I only desire to save you. You must discharge your

conscience of its weight of sin--you must confess." "But I cannot

believe in the necessity of confession, or in its divine institution."

"O my brother, if you could contemplate your poor soul in its mirror

of truth, it would appear so shaded and sullied. Your soul is bound in

cords ruder than those that chained your body when they led you to

execution. But confession would deliver you from all." "Let me see

this with my eyes, or I can never believe it." A sudden inspiration

came to the mind of the angelical painter. "My brother, we will speak

again of this. I am hurried to finish a picture; would you be pleased

I should paint it with you by my side, that I might every morning

distract your thoughts and keep you company?" "Oh! yes, my father, I

should be most happy, for you are very good to the poor prisoner." The

Beato obtained permission from Nicholas V. to suspend for some days

his work at the Vatican, and from the next morning he installed

himself in the prison, accompanied by his pupil Benozzo Bozzoli, who

brought with him an easel, some brushes, and a box of colors. After a

fervent prayer, he placed on the easel a small panel of wood, upon

which he commenced to paint rapidly, and without retouching, according

to his custom; he never perfected his paintings, leaving them

according to his first impression, believing, as he said, so God

wished them. "His art," says M. de Moutalembert, "was so beautiful in

his eyes, and so sacred, that he respected its productions as the

fruits of an inspiration much higher than his own intention." He

commenced by painting, as a foundation for his picture, some trees,

which rose near a house of simple appearance, and a modest church,

decorated by a portico supported by four pillars in Florentine style.

In a court grown over with herbs and studded here and there with {678}

flowers, he grouped five personages. At the right our Saviour, clothed

in a blue robe and draped in a red mantle, is seen in profile; a large

nimbus of gold encircles his tender and majestic countenance, his

golden hair falls on his shoulders. The Saviour has an attitude of

command, and extends his arm and hand which holds a golden rod. He

accomplished one of the greatest acts of his mercy, he institutes the

sacrament of penance, he gives to his apostles the power to remit

sins: one can almost hear him repeat the words which he addresses to

Peter, that he may transmit them to the entire Christian priesthood:

"Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and

whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

[Footnote 192]

[Footnote 192: In the convent of St. Mark at Florence, the Beato has

painted the grand scene of Calvary, where he represents St. Benedict

holding in his hand the rod of penitence.]

The painter monk put into action these words of Christ. He painted a

priest in Florentine costume; a red cap encircled with ermine and a

blue dalmatic, which hung in graceful folds; his figure is youthful,

and expression benignant. This priest approaches a sinner in a red

dress, and turbaned with a cap of gold and ermine. The sinner is bound

with cords which are passed several times around his body. The priest

approaches him with ineffable compassion. With what care, what

delicacy, what respect, what love, he unties the cord with his white

and pure hands! With what grace and dignity he fills his office of

priest and confessor! The seven capital sins are figured by seven

demons chased from his body by absolution, and who are making every

effort to re-enter it. Rage and impatience are depicted on the faces

of these servants of Satan, and their attitudes are as various as

strange. One of them still threatens the sinner with his iron trident.

In the second part, Fra Angelico represents a person in a green robe

and turban, who expresses, by figure and gesture, his admiration at

the sight of this miracle of divine mercy, which is called the

institution of confession. Near this man, and right against the

Saviour, is a second personage, of whom the face only is seen. His

head is bared, and his angelical features seem to recall those of the

Beato, such as they are sculptured on his tombstone at Santa Maria

sopra Minerva. The Greek had followed with curiosity and profound

interest all the details of this picture, accomplished in three days

under his own inspection. He had admired the piety of the Angelico,

who, according to his custom, had not dared to paint the head of the

Saviour but on bended knees. Contrary to his usual manner, he had only

lightly sketched the face of the sinner bound with the cord. It was on

the third day that he suddenly finished it. But how express the

surprise and emotion of Argyropoulos, when he perceived that, under

the pencil of the painter-monk, this face became his own portrait! The

blessed one had painted his gray beard, his noble profile, and

expressed in his face at the same time the grief of being restrained

by sin and the hope of a speedy deliverance. Argyropoulos, in the

midst of the picture, had truly an expression of contrition in the

intensity of his regard. "It is I," cried the Greek, "it is I indeed!"

And he burst into tears. The divine touch of grace had vanquished him

at last. "My father, my father, untie me also, deliver me from the

bonds of many sins." The Angelico seized him in his arms, and in

transports of joy pressed him to his breast, then begged him to kneel

with him and render thanks to God. He passed several days in

explaining to him Catholic truths; then he received the acknowledgment

of his faults, baptized him conditionally at St. Jean de Latran, in

the baptistry of Constantine. [Footnote 193]

[Footnote 193: The author has here fallen into a mistake; the

sacraments of the Greek Church are never reiterated conditionally.

--Ed. CATHOLIC WORLD.]

{679}