Divine Mercy, as a present, visible antagonist, and the only possible
antagonist, to sight and sense. Conscience, reason, good feeling, the
instincts of our moral nature, the traditions of Faith, the conclusions
and deductions of philosophical Religion, are no match at all for the
stubborn facts (for they _are_ facts, though there are other facts besides
them), for the facts, which are the foundation of physical, and in
particular of medical, science. Gentlemen, if you feel, as you must feel,
the whisper of a law of moral truth within you, and the impulse to
believe, be sure there is nothing whatever on earth which can be the
sufficient champion of these sovereign authorities of your soul, which can
vindicate and preserve them to you, and make you loyal to them, but the
Catholic Church. You fear they will go, you see with dismay that they are
going, under the continual impression created on your mind by the details
of the material science to which you have devoted your lives. It is so—I
do not deny it; except under rare and happy circumstances, go they will,
unless you have Catholicism to back you up in keeping faithful to them.
The world is a rough antagonist of spiritual truth: sometimes with mailed
hand, sometimes with pertinacious logic, sometimes with a storm of
irresistible facts, it presses on against you. What it says is true
perhaps as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth, or the most
important truth. These more important truths, which the natural heart
admits in their substance, though it cannot maintain,—the being of a God,
the certainty of future retribution, the claims of the moral law, the
reality of sin, the hope of supernatural help,—of these the Church is in
matter of fact the undaunted and the only defender.
Even those who do not look on her as divine must grant as much as this. I
do not ask you for more here than to contemplate and recognize her as a
fact,—as other things are facts. She has been eighteen hundred years in
the world, and all that time she has been doing battle in the boldest,
most obstinate way in the cause of the human race, in maintenance of the
undeniable but comparatively obscure truths of Religion. She is always
alive, always on the alert, when any enemy whatever attacks them. She has
brought them through a thousand perils. Sometimes preaching, sometimes
pleading, sometimes arguing,—sometimes exposing her ministers to death,
and sometimes, though rarely, inflicting blows herself,—by peremptory
deeds, by patient concessions,—she has fought on and fulfilled her trust.
No wonder so many speak against her, for she deserves it; she has earned
the hatred and obloquy of her opponents by her success in opposing them.
Those even who speak against her in this day, own that she was of use in a
former day. The historians in fashion with us just now, much as they may
disown her in their own country, where she is an actual, present,
unpleasant, inconvenient monitor, acknowledge that, in the middle ages
which are gone, in her were lodged, by her were saved, the fortunes and
the hopes of the human race. The very characteristics of her discipline,
the very maxims of her policy, which they reprobate now, they perceive to
have been of service then. They understand, and candidly avow, that once
she was the patron of the arts, the home and sanctuary of letters, the
basis of law, the principle of order and government, and the saviour of
Christianity itself. They judge clearly enough in the case of others,
though they are slow to see the fact in their own age and country; and,
while they do not like to be regulated by her, and kept in order by her,
themselves, they are very well satisfied that the populations of those
former centuries should have been so ruled, and tamed, and taught by her
resolute and wise teaching. And be sure of this, that as the generation
now alive admits these benefits to have arisen from her presence in a
state of society now gone by, so in turn, when the interests and passions
of this day are passed away, will future generations ascribe to her a like
special beneficial action upon this nineteenth century in which we live.
For she is ever the same,—ever young and vigorous, and ever overcoming new
errors with the old weapons.
5.
And now I have explained, Gentlemen, why it has been so highly expedient
and desirable in a country like this to bring the Faculty of Medicine
under the shadow of the Catholic Church. I say “in a country like this;”
for, if there be any country which deserves that Science should not run
wild, like a planet broken loose from its celestial system, it is a
country which can boast of such hereditary faith, of such a persevering
confessorship, of such an accumulation of good works, of such a glorious
name, as Ireland. Far be it from this country, far be it from the counsels
of Divine Mercy, that it should grow in knowledge and not grow in
religion! and Catholicism is the strength of Religion, as Science and
System are the strength of Knowledge.
Aspirations such as these are met, Gentlemen, I am well aware, by a
responsive feeling in your own hearts; but by my putting them into words,
thoughts which already exist within you are brought into livelier
exercise, and sentiments which exist in many breasts hold intercommunion
with each other. Gentlemen, it will be your high office to be the links in
your generation between Religion and Science. Return thanks to the Author
of all good that He has chosen you for this work. Trust the Church of God
implicitly, even when your natural judgment would take a different course
from hers, and would induce you to question her prudence or her
correctness. Recollect what a hard task she has; how she is sure to be
criticized and spoken against, whatever she does;—recollect how much she
needs your loyal and tender devotion. Recollect, too, how long is the
experience gained in eighteen hundred years, and what a right she has to
claim your assent to principles which have had so extended and so
triumphant a trial. Thank her that she has kept the faith safe for so many
generations, and do your part in helping her to transmit it to generations
after you.
For me, if it has been given me to have any share in so great a work, I
shall rejoice with a joy, not such indeed as I should feel were I myself a
native of this generous land, but with a joy of my own, not the less pure,
because I have exerted myself for that which concerns others more nearly
than myself. I have had no other motive, as far as I know myself, than to
attempt, according to my strength, some service to the cause of Religion,
and to be the servant of those to whom as a nation the whole of
Christendom is so deeply indebted; and though this University, and the
Faculty of Medicine which belongs to it, are as yet only in the
commencement of their long career of usefulness, yet while I live, and (I
trust) after life, it will ever be a theme of thankfulness for my heart
and my lips, that I have been allowed to do even a little, and to witness
so much, of the arduous, pleasant, and hopeful toil which has attended on
their establishment.
NOTE ON PAGE 478.
I think it worthwhile, in illustration of what I have said above at the
page specified, to append the following passage from Grandorgæus’s
catalogue of Muratori’s works.
“Sanctissimus D.N. Benedictus xiv. Pont. Max. Epistolam sapientiæ ac
roboris plenam dederat … ad Episcopum Terulensem Hispaniæ Inquisitionis
Majorem Inquisitorem, quâ illum hortabatur, ut ‘Historiam Pelagianam et
dissertationem, etc.,’ editas à claræ memoriæ Henrico Cardinali Norisio,
in Indicem Expurgatorium Hispanum nuper ingestas, perinde ac si aliquid
Baianismi aut Jansenismi redolerent, prout auctor ‘Bibliothecæ
Jansenisticæ’ immerito autumavit, quamprimum expungendas curaret. Eoque
nomine Sapientissimus Pontifex plura in medium attulit prudentis œconomiæ
exempla, qua semper usum, supremum S. R. Congr. Indicis Tribunal, à
proscribendis virorum doctissimorum operibus aliquando temperavit.
“Quum autem summus Pontifex, ea inter nomina illustria Tillemontii,
Bollandistarum, Bosoueti Ep. Meld., et illud recensuerit L. A. Muratorii,
his ad Auctorem nostrum delatis, quam maximè indoluit, veritus ne in tantâ
operum copiâ ab se editorum, aliquid Fidei aut Religioni minùs consonum
sibi excidisset.…
“Verùm clementissimus Pontifex ne animum desponderet doctus et humilis
filius, pernumaniter ad ipsum rescripsit … eumque paternè consolatus,
inter alia hæc habet: ‘Quanto si era detto nella nostra Lettera all’
Inquisitore di Spagna in ordine alle di Lei Opere, non aveva che fare con
la materia delle Feste, nè con verun dogma o disciplina. Il contenuto
delle Opere chi qui non è piaciuto (nè che Ella poteva mai lusingarsi che
fosse per piacere), riguarda la Giurisdizione Temporale del Romano
Pontifice nè suoi stati,’ ” etc. (pp. lx., lxi).
INDEX.
ABELARD, 96,
age of, 263
Accomplishments not education, 144
Addison, his _Vision of Mirza_, 279;
his care in writing, 284;
the child of the Revolution, 312, 329
Æschylus, 258
Alcuin, 17
Aldhelm, St., 17
Alexander the Great, his delight in Homer, 258;
conquests of, 264
Anaxagoras, 116
Andes, the, 136
Animuccia and St. Philip Neri, 237
Apollo Belvidere, the, 283
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 134, 263, 384
Arcesilas, 101
Architecture, 81
Arian argument against our Lord’s Divinity, 95
Ariosto, 316
Aristotelic philosophy, the, 52
Aristotle, xii., 6, 53;
quoted, 78, 101, 106, 109, 134, 222, 275;
his sketch of the magnanimous man, 280, 383, 431, 469
Athens, the fountain of secular knowledge, 264
Augustine, St., of Canterbury, mission of, 16
Augustine, St., of Hippo, quoted, 410
BACCI’S Life of St. Philip Neri, quoted, 236
Bacon, Friar, xiii., 220
Baconian philosophy, the, 109
Bacon, Lord, quoted, 77, 90, 117-119, 175, 221, 225, 263, 319, 437
Balaam, 66
Beethoven, 286, 313
Bentham’s _Preuves Judiciaires_, 96
Berkeley, Bishop, on Gothic Architecture, 81
Boccaccio, 316
Boniface, St., 220
Borromeo, St. Carlo, enjoins the use of some of the Latin classics, 261;
on preaching, 406, 412, 414, 421
Bossuet and Bishop Bull, 7
Brougham, Lord, his Discourse at Glasgow, quoted, 30, 34-35
Brutus, abandoned by philosophy, 116
Burke, Edmund, 176;
his valediction to the spirit of chivalry, 201
Burman, 140
Butler, Bishop, his Analogy, 61, 100, 158, 226
Byron, Lord, his versification, 326
CAIETAN, St., 235
Campbell, Thomas, 322, 326
Carneades, 106
Cato the elder, his opposition to the Greek philosophy, 106
Catullus, 325
Chinese civilization, 252
Christianity and Letters, 249
Chrysostom, St., on Judas, 86
Cicero, quoted, 77;
on the pursuit of knowledge, 104, 116, 260;
style of, 281, 282, 327;
quoted, 399;
his orations against Verres, 421
Civilization and Christianity, 255
Clarendon, Lord, 311
Colours, combination of, 100
“Condescension,” two senses of, 205
Copleston, Dr., Bishop of Llandaff, 157;
quoted, 167-169
Corinthian brass, 175
Cowper, quoted, 191, 467
Crabbe, his _Tales of the Hall_, 150;
his versification, 326
Craik, Dr. G. L., his _Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties_, quoted,
103, 104
DANTE, 316, 329
Davison, John, 158;
on Liberal Education, 169-177
Definiteness, the life of preaching, 426
Demosthenes, 259, 284
Descartes, 315
Dumesnil’s Synonymes, 368
Du Pin’s Ecclesiastical History, 140
EDGEWORTH, Mr., on Professional Education, 158, 170, 176
Edinburgh, 154
_Edinburgh Review_, the, 153, 157, 160, 301, 329
Edward II., King of England, vow at his flight from Bannockburn, 155
Elmsley, xiv.
Epicurus, 40
Euclid’s Elements, 274, 313, 501
Euripides, 258
FENELON, on the Gothic style of Architecture, 82
Fontaine, La, his immoral _Contes_, 315
Fouqué, Lamotte, his tale of the _Unknown Patient_, 119
Fra Angelico, 287
Franklin, 304
Frederick II., 383, 384
GALEN, 222
Gentleman, the true, defined, 208
Gerdil, Cardinal, quoted, xiii., on the Emperor Julian, 194;
on Malebranche, 477
Giannone, 316
Gibbon, on the darkness at the Passion, 95;
his hatred of Christianity, 195, 196;
his care in writing, 285;
influence of his style on the literature of the present day, 323;
his tribute to Hume and Robertson, 325
Goethe, 134
Gothic Architecture, 82
Grammar, 96, 334
Gregory the Great, St., 260
HARDOUIN, Father, on Latin literature, 310
Health, 164
Herodotus, 284, 325, 329
Hobbes, 311
Homer, his address to the Delian women, 257;
his best descriptions, according to Sterne, marred by translation, 271
Hooker, 311
Horace, quoted, 257, 258, 329
Horne Tooke, 96
Hume, 40, 58;
style of, 325
Humility, 206
Huss, 155
JACOB’S courtship, 232
Jeffrey, Lord, 157
Jerome, St., on idolizing the creature, 87
Jerusalem, the fountain-head of religious knowledge, 264
Ignatius, St., 235
Job, religious merry-makings of, 232;
Book of, 289
John, King, 383
John of Salisbury, 262
Johnson, Dr., his method of writing the Ramblers, xx.;
his vigour and resource of intellect, xxi.;
his definition of the word _University_, 20;
his _Rasselas_ quoted, 116-117;
style of, 283;
his Table-talk, 313;
his bias towards Catholicity, 319;
his definition of _Grammar_, 334
Joseph, history of, 271
Isaac, feast at his weaning, 232
Isocrates, 282
Julian the Apostate, 194
Justinian, 265
Juvenal, 325
KEBLE, John, 158;
his Latin Lectures, 369
Knowledge, its own end, 99;
viewed in relation to learning, 124;
to professional skill, 151;
to religion, 179
LALANNE, Abbé, 9
Leo, St., on the love of gain, 87
Literature, 268
Locke, on Education, 158-160, 163, 319
Logos, 276
Lohner, Father, his story of a court-preacher, 411
Longinus, his admiration of the Mosaic account of Creation, 271
Lutheran leaven, spread of the, 28
MACAULAY, Lord, his Essay on Bacon’s philosophy, 118, 221;
his _Essays_ quoted, 301, 435-438, 450
Machiavel, 316
Malebranche, 477
Maltby, Dr., bishop of Durham, his Address to the Deity, 33, 40
Michael Angelo, first attempts of, 283
Milman, Dean, his History of the Jews, 85
Milton, on Education, 169;
his _Samson Agonistes_ quoted, 323;
his allusions to himself, 329
Modesty, 206
Montaigne’s Essays, 315
More, Sir Thomas, 437
Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History, 140
Muratori, 478, 520
Music, 80
NERI, St. Philip, 234
Newton, Sir Isaac, xiii., 49, 53;
on the Apocalypse, 304;
his marvellous powers, 324
Newtonian philosophy, the, 49
Noah’s ark, 73
OLYMPIC games, the, 107
Optics, 46
PAINTING, 79
Palestrina, 237
Paley, 58, 449
Palladio, 57
Pascal, 315
Patrick, St., greatness of his work, 15
Periodical criticism, 333
Persian mode of letter-writing, 277
Pindar, 329
Pitt, William, his opinion of Butler’s Analogy, 100
Pius IV., Pope, death of, 237
Plato, on poets, 101;
on music, 110
Playfair, Professor, 157
Political Economy, 86
Pompey’s Pillar, 136
Pope, Alex., quoted, 118;
an indifferent Catholic, 318;
has tuned our versification, 323;
quoted, 375, 501
Porson, Richard, xiv., 304
Pride and self-respect, 207
Private Judgment, 97
Protestant argument against Transubstantiation, 95
Psalter, the, 289
Pulci, 316
Pythagoras, xiii
RABELIAS, 315
Raffaelle, first attempts of, 283; 287
_Rasselas_ quoted, 116
Recreations not Education, 144
Robertson, style of, 325
Rome, 265
Round Towers of Ireland, the, 95
SALES, St Francis de, on preaching, 406, 410, 411
Salmasius, 140
Savonarola, 235
Scott, Sir Walter, 313;
his _Old Mortality_, 359
Seneca, 110, 116, 327
Sermons of the seventeenth century, 140
Shaftesbury, Lord, his _Characteristics_, 196-201, 204
Shakespeare, quoted, 150;
his _Macbeth_ quoted, 280;
_Hamlet_ quoted, 281;
quoted, 284, 287;
morality of, 318;
quoted, 410, 513
Simon of Tournay, narrative of, 384
Smith, Sydney, 157
Sophocles, 258
Southey’s _Thalaba_, 323;
quoted, 324
Sterne’s Sermons, quoted, 270-272
Stuffing birds not education, 144
Sylvester II., Pope, accused of magic, 220
TARPEIA, 140
Taylor, Jeremy, his _Liberty of Prophesying_, 472
Terence and Menander, 259
Tertullian, 327
Thales, xiii.
Theology, a branch of knowledge, 19;
definition of, 60
Thucydides, 259, 325, 329
Titus, armies of, 265
VIRGIL, his obligations to Greek poets, 259;
wishes his Æneid burnt, 284;
fixes the character of the hexameter, 325, 329
Voltaire, 303, 315
UTILITY in Education, 161
WATSON, Bishop, on Mathematics, 101
Wiclif, 155
Wren, Sir Christopher, 57
XAVIER, St. Francis, 235
Xenophon quoted, 107, 258
FINIS.
FOOTNOTES
_ 1 Vid._ Huber’s English Universities, London, 1843, vol. ii., part 1,
pp. 321, etc.
2 Opere, t. iii., p. 353.
3 Vide M. L’Abbé Lalanne’s recent work.
4 Cressy.
5 In Roman law it means a Corporation. Vid. Keuffel, _de Scholis_.
6 Hist. vol. ii. p. 529. London, 1841.
7 Mr. Brougham’s Glasgow Discourse.
8 Arist. Ethic. Nicom., iii. 3.
9 Introd. Lecture on Pol. Econ. pp. 11, 12.
10 Advancement of Learning.
11 Intr. Lect., p. 16.
12 Vid. Abelard, for instance.
13 Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties. Introd.
14 Cicer. Offic. init.
15 Τέχνη τύχην ἔστερχε καὶ τύχη τέχνην. Vid. Arist. Nic. Ethic. vi.
16 Aristot. Rhet. i. 5.
17 It will be seen that on the whole I agree with Lord Macaulay in his
Essay on Bacon’s Philosophy. I do not know whether he would agree
with me.
18 De Augment. iv. 2, vid. Macaulay’s Essay; vid. also “In principio
operis ad Deum Patrem, Deum Verbum, Deum Spiritum, preces fundimus
humillimas et ardentissimas, ut humani generis ærumnarum memores, et
peregrinationis istius vitæ, in quâ dies paucos et malos terimus,
_novis suis eleemosynis, per manus nostras_, familiam humanam dotare
digneatur. Atque illud insuper supplices rogamus, ne _humana divinis
officiant_; neve _ex reseratione viarum sensûs_, et accensione
majore luminis naturalis, _aliquid incredulitatis_ et noctis, animis
nostris erga divina mysteria oboriatur,” etc. _Præf._ Instaur. Magn.
19 Fouque’s Unknown Patient.
20 The pages which follow are taken almost _verbatim_ from the author’s
14th (Oxford) University Sermon, which, at the time of writing this
Discourse, he did not expect ever to reprint.
21 Crabbe’s Tales of the Hall. This Poem, let me say, I read on its
first publication, above thirty years ago, with extreme delight, and
have never lost my love of it; and on taking it up lately, found I
was even more touched by it than heretofore. A work which can please
in youth and age, seems to fulfil (in logical language) the
_accidental definition_ of a Classic. [A further course of twenty
years has past, and I bear the same witness in favour of this Poem.]
22 Mr. Keble, Vicar of Hursley, late Fellow of Oriel, and Professor of
Poetry in the University of Oxford.
23 Vid. Milton on Education.
24 I do not consider I have said above any thing inconsistent with the
following passage from Cardinal Gerdil, though I have enlarged on
the favourable side of Julian’s character. “Du génie, des
connaissances, de l’habilité dans le métier de la guerre, du courage
et du désintéressement dans le commandement des armées, des actions
plutôt que des qualités estimables, mais le plus souvent gâtées par
la vanité qui en était le principe, la superstition jointe à
l’hypocrisie; un esprit fécond en ressources éclairé, mais
susceptible de petitesse; des fautes essentielles dans le
gouvernement; des innocens sacrifiés à la vengeance; une haine
envenimée contre le Christianisme, qu’il avait abandonné; un
attachement passionné aux folies de la Théurgie; tels étaient les
traits sous lesquels on nous preignait Julien.” Op. t. x. p. 54.
25 Gibbon, Hist., ch. 24.
26 Vid. Hallam’s Literature of Europe, Macaulay’s Essay, and the
Author’s Oxford University Sermons, IX.
27 In Augment., 5.
28 De Augm., § 28.
_ 29 Vid._ the Author’s Parochial Sermons, vol. i. 25.
30 Bacci, vol. i., p. 192, ii., p. 98.
31 Now LORD EMLY.
_ 32 Vid._ Huber.
_ 33 Vid._ the treatises of P. Daniel and Mgr. Landriot, referred to in
Historical Sketches, vol. ii., p. 460, note.
34 Sterne, Sermon xlii.
35 “Position of Catholics in England,” pp. 101, 2.
36 August, 1854.
37 Macaulay’s Essays.
38 Hallam.
39 Misc. Works, p. 55.
40 This was written in June, 1854, before the siege began.
41 Bombarding.
42 The Black Sea.
43 Here again Mr. Brown prophesies. He wrote in June, 1854.
_ 44 Vid._ University Sermons, vii., 14.
_ 45 Vid._ Article I.
46 Macaulay’s Essays.
47 I use the word, not in the sense of “Naturalis Theologia,” but, in
the sense in which Paley uses it in the work which he has so
entitled.
48 Cardinal Gerdil speaks of his “Metaphysique,” as “brillante à la
verité, mais non moins solide” (p. 9.), and that “la liaison qui
enchaine toutes les parties du système philosophique du Père
Malebranche,… pourra servir d’apologie à la noble assurance, avec
laquelle il propose ses sentiments.” (p. 12, Œuvres, t. iv.)
49 Muratori’s work was not directly theological. _Vid._ note at the end
of the Volume.
50 University Gazette, No. 42, p. 420.
_ 51 Vid._ supr. p. 231.