mark both these volumes; the tales are told with vigor, and the
interest sustained to the end.
The _Improvisatore_, who is born and passes most of his years in
Italy, tells his own story, and claims, as do most of the characters
introduced, to belong to the Catholic Church; but we think a true
Catholic would detect the fact that the kind-hearted, genial man
who wrote the tale had not the happiness of being in the faith:
though there is nothing harsh or unkind, or perhaps no intentional
injustice, toward the church, yet there is here and there the slight
touch of sarcasm concerning what the writer supposes to be a dogma of
the faith, or a hit at some local Catholic custom, which would not
have come from the pen of a loyal son of our holy Mother.
The scene of _The Two Baronesses_ is laid in Denmark, and though not
so captivating as the _Improvisatore_, the tale is well told, and
hangs on the lovely motto "that there is an invisible thread in every
person's life which shows that it belongs to God."
The binding of these volumes is in excellent taste, and the print
clear, doing credit to the Riverside press.
* * * * *
THE STORIES AND PARABLES OF PERE BONAVENTURE. New York: P. O'Shea.
1869.
These stories and parables commend themselves to the reader by their
quaintness and brevity. The excellent moral which forms the essential
part of many of them could hardly be presented in a more pleasing
manner. The explanations given by the author are, in general,
satisfactory. This book should be in in every Catholic household in
the country.
* * * * *
THROUGH NIGHT TO LIGHT: A Novel. By Friedrich Spielhagen. New
York: Leypoldt & Holt.
Were one of our first American novelists to put forth such a story
as the above, it would be hissed by the voice of public opinion; but
it seems we may receive from the German, and call poetic, ideal, and
_spirituelle_, what would be considered coarse and immoral even in a
penny journal.
We will give a specimen of the author's philosophy. Speaking of a
married woman who had been in more cases than one unfaithful to her
marriage relations, the author says,
"Have you not paid the penalty of the wrong, if wrong it was to
follow the impulse of a free heart? Is it reasonable to sacrifice
the wife to a rigorous moral law which the husband does not
consider binding? Who has made that unwise law? Not I, not you."
(He might have added _only_ Almighty God.) "Why, then, should you
obey it? I tell you the day of freedom which is now dawning will
blow all such self-imposed laws to the winds, and with them all
the ordinances devised by a dark, monkish disposition to fetter
nature and torment hearts."
To the corrupting influence of this style of literature we owe such
scenes as the one which recently in this city shocked the public
mind. The title of this book is a misnomer. It should be, not
_Through Night to Light_, but _Through Light to Night_.
* * * * *
THE TWO COTTAGES. Showing how many more families may be
comfortable and happy than are so. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co.
1870.
Of this simple story of humble life we cannot speak too highly. It is
as valuable for its suggestions as it is truthful in its delineations.
* * * * *
MARY AND MI-KA: A TALE OF THE HOLY CHILDHOOD. With an account of
the Institution. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1870.
This little volume, dedicated to the members of the Holy Childhood
in the United States, will, no doubt, give increased publicity to
that most admirable institution, and hence increase materially its
sphere of usefulness. Full details of its aim, origin, and progress
are given in the appendix, to which we would particularly direct
attention.
* * * * *
THE LOST ROSARY; OR, OUR IRISH GIRLS: THEIR TRIALS, TEMPTATIONS,
AND TRIUMPHS. By Con O'Leary. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1870.
The title of this volume is somewhat suggestive of its contents.
In it the author graphically describes the various dangers and
temptations to which the recently-arrived female emigrant is exposed,
and also pays a well-merited tribute to the many virtues that
distinguish the vast majority of Irish girls in America; virtues
to which, in the face of many troubles and vexations, they have so
heroically adhered.
* * * * *
THE LIFE OF BLESSED MARGARET MARY, (Alacoque.) With some Account
of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart. By the Rev. George Tickell,
S.J. London: Burns & Co. (For sale by the Catholic Publication
Society.)
This life of a remarkable person, the chief instrument of
establishing that devotion to the Sacred Heart so dear to all devout
Catholics, which was one of the most efficacious weapons against
the odious heresy of Jansenism, is much superior to any heretofore
published. We are glad to see certain extravagant statements
concerning the treatment of the saint in the convents of her order,
which were discreditable to them and likely to give scandal, entirely
discredited by the author of the present life. He is not only a
copious and devout biographer; but what is equally important and less
frequent, a judicious one. The book is published in elegant style,
and we cordially recommend it to all our readers.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. X., No. 59.--FEBRUARY, 1870.
THE FUTURE OF PROTESTANTISM AND CATHOLICITY.[144]
SECOND ARTICLE.
The Abbé Martin divides his treatise into nine books, each of which
he subdivides into several chapters. In the first book he labors to
prove that Protestantism is imperishable; in the second, he discusses
the Protestant revival and its effects; in the third, he treats of
the Protestant propaganda, or Protestant missions and their results;
in the fourth, of the wealth and well-being of Protestant as compared
with Catholic nations; in the fifth, of Catholic and Protestant
tolerance and intolerance; in the sixth, of liberty and its influence
on the future of Protestantism; in the seventh, of religious liberty
in its relations with Protestantism; in the eighth, of the decline
of Catholic nations and governments, and the progressive march of
Protestant nations and governments; and in the ninth and last, of
the union or alliance of Protestantism with the revolution, or the
revolutionary spirit so active in nearly all modern society.
In our former article we reviewed the subjects treated in the first,
second, and part of the third books, and reserved for our present
article two of the three causes the author assigns for the partial
success of Protestant missions in old Catholic nations, namely, the
_prestige_ which Protestant nations enjoy of surpassing Catholic
nations in wealth and well-being, and of having founded and sustained
civil and religious liberty. But these two causes, though treated
by the author in his third book, really embrace the subject of the
remaining six books. We cannot say that the author has so digested
and arranged his ample materials as to avoid repetitions, or so as to
bring all that belongs to the same topic under one head; but treats
it partly under one head and partly under another. A glance at the
titles of the last six books will satisfy the reader as well as the
reviewer, that the subjects treated fall under two general heads.
First, civil and religious liberty; second, the comparative wealth
and well-being of Catholic and Protestant nations; and under these
two heads we shall arrange our summary of the views of the author,
and our own comments. We begin with the last.
I. The author assigns, as we have seen, as one of the causes of
the success of Protestant missions in old Catholic nations, the
_prestige_ which Protestant nations enjoy of surpassing Catholic
nations in material wealth and well-being. That this _prestige_
attaches to Protestant nations is a fact not to be disputed; but
is it well founded? The author seems to concede that it is, and
maintains that "there is in Protestant nations and Protestant
individuals a superior aptitude and a greater eagerness and tenacity
in the pursuit and acquisition of the goods of this world" than there
is in Catholic nations and individuals.
"Place," he says, "Catholics and Protestants side by side on the
same territory, in conditions perfectly equal, and leave each
to act under the influence of their respective principles, and
not a half-century will elapse before the Protestants will have
taken in the material order a marked superiority. The Protestants
will have the finest vineyards, the best cultivated fields, the
greenest meadows, the most elegant mansions, and the freshest
shade. They will have almost the monopoly of industry, commerce,
large capital, the bourse, the bank, money at interest, and own
all the mills and factories, if any there are. If you doubt it,
consult Alsace and Strasburg, Nimes, Montpellier, the environs of
Bourdeaux, the mixed Swiss cantons, and the conquests the American
Union has made of the Spaniards of Mexico.... Wherever Protestants
plant themselves, they are able to attain a preponderating
influence in all civil affairs. With only a fourth of the
population they will hold three fourths of the public offices,
have the majority in the municipal council, the mayor of the
commune, if not the adjunct, the highest grades in the national
guard, the member of the conseil-général, the deputy, sometimes
the senator, and the most widely circulating journal of the
district, daily filled with eulogiums on their merit.
"It is the same on a large scale among nations. Who knows not that
there are more wealth, more well-being, more comfort, eleganter
houses, softer couches, more sugar and coffee, in England,
Scotland, Holland, Prussia, at Zurich, Berne, Geneva, New York,
than in Spain, Portugal, Austria, at Rome or Rio Janeiro?
"It would seem that there is a sort of _preëstablished harmony_
between Protestantism and the earth, that they know and attract
each other. Where the earth is most smiling and wears the richest
decorations, it naturally becomes Protestant. In Switzerland, the
richest and most fertile districts are Protestant, the rugged and
barren are Catholic. The former, with their facile enjoyments,
seem to invite to very forgetfulness of heaven; the latter only
to raise and fix the affections above the earth, and can be made
or become Protestant possessions only by force or violence." (Pp.
186-188.)
We are not prepared to make quite so large concessions. Protestants
do not monopolize all the pleasant, rich, and fertile spots of the
earth. The fact may be true of Switzerland, but it is not true of
the Italian peninsula nor of the Iberian, in which are the richest
and most fertile districts of Europe; nor, in point of climate,
soil, and productions, does Protestant Germany surpass Catholic
Germany. The _preëstablished harmony_ alleged has no foundation in
fact, and we have heard the contrary more than once maintained by
well-informed Catholic prelates. Nor are we prepared to concede
that, if you speak of the whole population, there is more comfort
and well-being in Protestant than in Catholic nations. The peasantry
of Italy, before the late political changes, had as much comfort and
well-being as the peasantry of Denmark, Sweden, or Norway, or even
Great Britain and Holland, and the peasantry of Austria proper are
in the same respects better off than those of Prussia or Hanover.
In no countries in the world is there to be found such squalid
wretchedness as in those under the British crown, and governed by
the head of the Protestant church. There may be more wealth in
Great Britain than in France, but there is also more and far deeper
poverty. France, by a war with all Europe, was prostrated in 1815;
her capital was held by foreign invaders, and she was forced to pay
millions by way of indemnification to the invaders, and to support
an allied army cantoned on her territory to compel her to keep the
peace; and yet she met her extraordinary expenses, greatly reduced
her national debt, reasserted her freedom of action and her position
as a great European power, and extended her territory by the conquest
of Algiers, in less than fifteen years, under the restoration and
under a Catholic government. No nation under a Protestant government
can be named that has ever carried so heavy a burden so easily, or
done so much in so short a time to lighten it. We have seen nothing
like it in England, the model Protestant nation. Since 1830, France
has ceased to be a Catholic nation, under a Catholic government, and
has to a great extent adopted the British industrial and commercial
system. She has shown nothing since of that marvellous recuperative
energy she showed under the Bourbons. She is burdened now with
a constantly increasing national debt, her people are taxed for
national and municipal expenses to the last cent they can bear, and
there can be no doubt that she is relatively poorer and weaker to-day
than she was during the last years of the Restoration.
Our experience in this country does not warrant the concessions
of the author. Placed side by side and in equal conditions with
Protestants, Catholics have shown themselves in no sense inferior
to Protestants in their aptitude to get on in the world. Their
progress here in wealth, in comfort, and ease has been relatively
greater than that of the older Protestant population; for they
started from an inferior worldly position, and with far inferior
means. To be convinced of it, we need but look at the schools and
colleges they have founded, at the costly and splendid churches they
have erected, and at the large sums they have contributed for the
support of Catholic charities and their friends in Ireland and other
countries, from which the majority of them have emigrated. With an
intense Protestant prejudice against them, they have, in a very few
years, risen in the social scale, gained a respectable standing in
the American community, carried away the first prizes in law and
medicine, and secured their full share of public offices both civil
and military.
The United States have proved themselves too powerful for the
Mexicans, we concede, and they well might do so, with vastly greater
resources and a population three times as large. The Mexicans
are only about one in nine of pure Spanish blood; the rest are
pure-blooded Indians, or a mixed race of whites and Indians, and
of Indians and negroes. Yet if our officers who served in the
Mexican war may be believed, braver, hardier, more enduring or
energetic soldiers than the Mexicans cannot easily be found. The
feebleness of Mexico is not due to her Catholicity, but to her lack
of it; to her mad attempts to establish and maintain a republican
form of government, for which her previous training, manners, and
habits wholly unfitted her. Had she, on gaining her independence
of Spain, established monarchical institutions, and not been
influenced by our example and intrigues, and the insane theories
of European revolutionists, she would not have fallen below her
non-Catholic neighbor. No Protestant people surpass in bravery,
boldness, enterprise, energy, national or individual, the Spaniards
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and they were far better
Catholics then than they or Spanish-Americans are now.
There is an important fact too often lost sight of in discussing the
alleged superior aptitude of Protestants in relation to this world.
We find nowhere braver soldiers, bolder sailors, more enterprising
merchants, or more ingenious workmen than were the Venetians, the
Genoese, the Florentines, and the Portuguese when in their best
estate. A Portuguese sailor opened the way by the Cape of Good Hope
to India; a Genoese discovered this western continent, which bears an
Italian name; an Italian, also, was the discoverer of this northern
half of the American continent; and it was a Catholic sovereign who
aided the Anglo-American colonies to assert their independence. Yet
Portugal, Venice, Genoa, Florence, when they were greatest, were
Catholic, and their decline in later times is not owing to their
Catholicity; for they were Catholic all the time that they were
rising from their feeble beginnings, and at the period of their
greatest power and splendor, more bigotedly so, as our liberals would
say, than they are now; and what did not hinder their rise and growth
could not be the cause of their decline. They have declined through
other causes, and causes well known to the student of the rise and
fall of nations.
It is, no doubt, true that in France, Belgium, and Italy, and
perhaps in other old Catholic states, Catholics, even where they
are the immense majority, permit the public offices to be filled,
and themselves to be ruled by Protestants, Jews, infidels, and such
secularized Catholics as hold the state should govern the church; and
we have often felt not a little indignant to find it so; but modern
society in all Catholic states recedes from the old aristocratic
constitution of Europe, and tends to democracy; and democracy, as
our American experience proves, elevates to power not the best men in
the community, but often the worst, the least scrupulous, the most
intriguing, selfish, and ambitious. The fact may also be explained
by the false political education which the Catholic populations
have received. Under Gallicanism they are not instructed to regard
Catholicity as _catholic_, and are taught to look upon politics as
exempted from the law of God as defined by the church. For them
religion and politics are wholly disconnected, have no necessary
relation one to the other, rest not on a common principle. Their
political education relegates religion to private and domestic life,
to the personal and domestic virtues, and has nothing to say in
public affairs. Why then should not Protestants, Jews, infidels,
or merely nominal Catholics, fill the public offices, and take the
management of public affairs?
The French, and other Catholics, who see and deplore this, having
received the same sort of education, make the evil worse by laboring
not to bring politics up to Catholicity, but to bring the church down
to the level of politics, thus lowering the one without elevating the
other. They assume an attitude toward the government of distrust,
if not of hostility, and exert their influence to Jacobinize the
church instead of destroying her, as the revolution would do if
it could. Practically, they are only Catholic instead of infidel
Jacobins; and whatever their personal hopes and intentions, simply
play into the hands of the revolution. It is not the church that
needs liberalizing, but the state that needs Catholicizing. The
evil, the political imbecility of Catholics in these old Catholic
nations, results from the divorce of politics from religion, or the
withdrawal of the political order from its proper subordination
and subserviency to the spiritual. It is the fruit of the so-called
"Gallican liberties," and the remedy is not in the alliance of the
church either with democracy or with monarchy, with Jacobinism or
with absolutism; but in bringing the faithful to understand that
the Catholic religion is _catholic_, and has the right from God to
govern them alike in their public relations and in their private and
personal relations; in their public and official life, and in their
private and domestic life.
In all these old nations the predominant religion is Christian, but
the politics are pagan; and Protestants take the lead in political
affairs because they have succeeded in paganizing their own religion,
and in eliminating all antagonism between it and their politics;
while the Catholics are politically inefficient because, owing to
the paganism of the state, they have not been able to Christianize
their politics and bring them into harmony with their religion.
They themselves sympathize politically with Protestants, but are
less efficient than they, because more or less restrained by their
religion. Eliminate, by Christianizing politics, all antagonism
between politics and religion, which now renders Catholics
politically indifferent or imbecile, and enable them to act with a
united instead of a divided mind, and they will show even a greater
aptitude for the affairs of this world than Protestants, because
they will act from a higher plane, from profounder and more luminous
principles, and with the energy and tenacity of an ever-present and
living faith, instead of interest or expediency. But how can they do
so when politics in every state in Europe are divorced from Catholic
principle, are pagan, and at war with Christianity, and to take part
in them they must sacrifice their religion and give up heaven for
earth?
It is not Catholicity that renders the Catholics of old Catholic
nations politically imbecile, and that permits a miserable minority
of Protestants, Jews, and infidels to control the state, but the lack
of it; not the fact that they are, but that they are not, thoroughly
Catholic. It is the paganism that rules in the state, and is the
basis of modern politics, that renders them timid and inefficient.
In all Protestant nations religion itself is paganized, and there
is as little conflict between religion and politics as there was in
old pagan Greece or Rome. They are torn, distracted, weakened by no
internal conflict between the two powers; for the first act of the
Reformation was to subject the spiritual order to the secular. Hence,
they can act politically with undivided mind and undivided strength
and energy. They have conformed their religion to their politics. But
in all Catholic nations the governments, and, therefore, politics are
pagan, and really, if not avowedly, at war with their religion that
remains Christian. Those nations are therefore distracted, divided,
weakened by the irrepressible antagonism between pagan politics
supported by the secular authorities, and the Christian religion
sustained only by the church, crippled by being denied her freedom.
It is easy now to understand why Protestant missions in old Catholic
nations should not be wholly barren of results. They are backed by
the whole weight of Protestant nations, governments and people; they
are aided by the real sympathies and tendencies of the so-called
Catholic governments and the pagan politics of Catholics themselves.
What is surprising is, that their successes are no greater. It is no
mean proof of the life and power of the church, and of her divine
assistance, that she is able to retain so strong a hold as she does
on so large a portion of the old Catholic populations, and to bear up
against so many and such powerful enemies, enemies within as well as
without the fortress.
The explanation offered by the author of the facts he concedes does
not wholly satisfy us. He attributes them to the influence of the
Catholic faith in inducing a renunciation of the world, producing
in the minds and hearts of the faithful indifference to it, and a
disposition to live only for piety and heaven.
That Catholicity has, and was designed to have this tendency, of
course, we ourselves maintain; but we have studied the Gospel and
Providence as manifested in human affairs to little effect if the
renunciation of the world for Christ's sake is not the very way
to secure it. They who give up all for Christ have even in this
world the promise of a hundred-fold, and in the world to come life
everlasting. "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and _all
these_ things shall be added unto you." The true principle, both of
political and domestic economy, is self-denial, renunciation. He who
seeks the world and lives for it, shall lose it, since in so doing he
violates the divine order, and takes as his end what at best is only
a means. Other things being equal, then, we should expect a truly
Catholic people to surpass in wealth and well-being, as in industry
and virtue, a heathen, an infidel, or a Protestant people. Certainly,
the inferiority of Catholic nations in material wealth and well-being
is no argument against Catholicity; but it is, in our judgment, a
proof that its government and people are not truly Catholic. We do
not admit, to the extent the author does, the alleged superiority
of Protestant nations, even as to the material goods of this life;
but as far as they can claim any superiority over Catholic nations
in this respect, we attribute it to what we have called paganism
in politics, or to the fact that in no Catholic nation since the
revival of pagan literature in the fifteenth century have politics
been elevated to the Catholic standard and made to harmonize with the
Christian religion.
The author concedes, also, that, during the last century and
the present, Catholic nations have been steadily declining, and
Protestant nations advancing. At the opening of the seventeenth
century, the Catholic were the great and leading nations of the
world. Italy, it is true, had begun to decline; Spain had attained
its zenith; but the German empire was still the first power in
Europe. France was succeeding to the rank of Spain, and Poland was
regarded as the barrier of Catholicity against the North and the
East, while England was weakened by revolution at home. Prussia was
only a principality, though soon to become a kingdom, and the United
States did not exist. At present, England is the undisputed mistress
of the ocean, is a great Asiatic and a great American power, weighing
heavily on continental Europe; Prussia is absorbing all Germany. The
United States have the mastership of the new world, and are exerting
a terrible pressure on the old; while, on the other hand, Portugal
has become virtually a colony of England; Spain has lost a world,
ceased to be a great power, and is worse than nothing to the Catholic
cause; Poland is divided among her neighbors, and annihilated;
Austria is expelled from Germany, and threatened with the fate of
Poland; Italy, at war with the pope, throws her weight on the side
of the Protestant nations. Russia and the new Greek empire that is
to be are not Protestant; but, as schismatic powers, will sustain
the Protestant policy as against Catholicity. France, if she has not
declined, has abandoned her mission as a great Catholic power, and is
as little to be counted on to resist Anglo-Saxon ascendency as Russia
or the revived Greek empire.
The excellent abbé, however, admonishes us that this decline on the
one side, and growth and preponderance on the other, is political,
not religious; and indicates no decline in Catholicity, or progress
of Protestantism. The Latin races, except in France, have declined;
but the church has gained more members than she has lost. Only
the Anglo-Saxon race, the bulwark of Protestantism, has advanced.
Denmark, Sweden, and Holland, considerable Protestant powers at
the opening of the seventeenth century, have lost their political
importance. Holland is half Catholic, and the Dutch Catholics are
not less devoted to the church, less tenacious of their rights, nor
less politically active and energetic than the Catholics of Ireland,
and even less distracted by questions of national relief or national
independence.
One third of the population of Prussia is Catholic, and a larger
proportion will be if she, as is likely, absorbs Southern Germany.
Not much reliance is to be placed on Prussia as a Protestant power.
The future belongs to the Anglo-Saxon race--England and the United
States--to be disputed only by schismatic Russia and the new
schismatic Greek empire in the process of formation. This relieves
the gloom of the picture a little.
But while we agree with the author that Britain and our own country
are the principal supports of Protestantism and of Protestant
politics, unless we except France, usually reckoned as a Catholic
power, we do not believe that even the United States and Britain,
acting in concert, are so formidable, in an anti-Catholic sense,
as he represents them. The British crown has more Catholic than
Protestant subjects, and its Catholic subjects are for the most
part enfranchised, and beginning to exert a powerful and constantly
increasing influence on the policy of the government. England is
obliged to count with Ireland, not only as to Irish interests in
Ireland, but, to some extent, as to Catholic interests throughout
the empire. The Catholic population in the United States is rapidly
growing in numbers, education, wealth, and influence, and is already
too large to be oppressed with impunity, and large enough, when not
misled by foreign passions and interests, to prevent the government
from adopting a decidedly anti-Catholic policy either at home or
abroad. Were the United States even to absorb the Catholic states
on this continent, it would be advantageous, not detrimental, to
Catholic interests. Mexican and Cuban, as well as Central and South
American Catholics would gain much by being annexed to the Union, and
brought under the direct action of the ecclesiastical authority, as
are the Catholics of the United States. We see nothing reassuring,
we own, to the so-called Latin races in the growth and preponderance
of the Anglo-Saxon nations, but not much that is promising to
Protestantism; for we cannot believe that Christianity has failed, or
that the future of society belongs to paganism.
The abbé does not attribute the decline of the Latin races to any
religious cause, but finds its explanation--1. In the law of growth
and decay, to which nations as individuals are subjected; 2. In
climate--the southern climate tends to soften and enervate, the
northern to harden and invigorate; 3. In geographical position; 4.
In difference of temperaments; 5. Political constitutions; and 6. In
accidental or providential causes, not to be foreseen and guarded
against--the presence or absence of a great man, the defeat of a
well-devised, or the success of a blundering policy, the gain of
a battle that should have been lost, or the loss of a battle that
should have been gained, etc. (Pp. 497-508.)
Most of these causes we examined and disposed of, some time ago, in
a review of Professor Draper's works. The first and second we do
not count. We do not believe that nations, like individuals, are
subject to the law of growth, maturity, old age, and death. There are
no facts or analogies from which such a law can be adduced, and a
Catholic nation, if truly Catholic, has in its religion a fountain of
perennial youth. Whatever disasters befall a Catholic nation, if not
absorbed by another, it has always in itself a recuperative power.
We believe just as little in the influence of climate as one of the
causes of the decline of the Latin nations. The climate under which
they have declined is the same under which they grew up and became
the preponderating races. The extreme heat within the tropics is
less unfavorable to mind or body than the extreme cold of the Arctic
regions. The Latin races have lived both in their growth and in their
decline under the finest, mildest, and healthiest climate within the
temperate zone. The ablest men, as scholars, artists, statesmen,
and generals, of France have belonged to her southern departments;
and we found in our recent civil war that the men from the extreme
Southern States, in their physical qualities, bravery, activity and
vigor of body, and power of endurance, were not at all inferior to
the men of the more Northern States. In fact, they could bear more
fatigue, and suffer more privations, with less demoralization than
the Northern man. We make just as little account of difference of
temperament. The southern nations, with the same temperament, were
once the preponderating nations of Europe, and the French are in no
respect inferior to the English, and in many things superior. Spain
in the sixteenth century not only surpassed what England then was,
but even what she now is; and there was a time when it was said of
Portugal, the sun never sets on her empire. We do not believe much in
differences of race; for God hath made all nations of one blood.
Geographical position counts for something. The nations that have
ports only on the Mediterranean, or access to the ocean only through
that sea, have been unfavorably affected by the discovery of the
passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, and of this western
continent in the fifteenth century. These maritime discoveries, which
have changed the routes of commerce as well as the character of
commerce itself, have given the advantage to the nations that open on
the Atlantic, and sufficiently account for the decline of the Italian
republics. The canal across the Isthmus of Suez, just opened, will do
something, no doubt, to revive the commerce of the Mediterranean, but
cannot restore it, because the Indian trade is not now of the same
relative importance that it was formerly. The American trade comes in
for its share, rivals and even exceeds it, and this trade, whether
a ship-canal be or be not opened across the Isthmus of Darien, will
be chiefly in the hands of the United States and the western nations
of Europe, for their geographical position enables them to command
it. The insular position of Great Britain has also given her some
advantages.
Political constitutions also count for something; but in the
beginning of the seventeenth century, the political constitutions of
the several European states, except the Italian republics, the Swiss
Cantons, and the United Netherlands, were essentially the same, that
is, Roman monarchy engrafted on feudalism. Monarchy was as absolute
in England under the Tudors and the Stuarts as it ever was in France
or Spain, and the other estates counted for no more in her than in
them. The Protestant states of Germany were not more popular in
their constitution than the Catholic states, and Austria has never
been so despotic as Prussia. We cannot, however, attribute much to
this cause; for why have the Latin states been less successful in
developing and ameliorating their political constitution than the
Anglo-Saxon, if we assume that they have not been?
The accidental or providential causes, in the author's sense, being
measurable by no rule and subject to no known law, cannot be very
well discussed, and we are not inclined to attach much importance to
them. A nation is already declining, or passed its zenith, if the
loss of a single battle can ruin it; and on its ascending course, if
the winning of one can secure it a permanent ascendency. Napoleon won
many important battles, and yet he died a prisoner on the barren rock
of St. Helena. A victory by Pompey at Pharsalia, or by Brutus and
Cassius at Philippi, could not have restored the patrician republic
or changed the fate of Rome. The republic was lost before Cæsar
crossed the Rubicon. Great men play an important part, no doubt; but
a nation that can be saved by the presence of a great man is in no
serious danger, or that could be lost by his absence cannot be saved
by his presence. Individuals count for less than hero-worshippers
commonly imagine. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the
strong.
Except in the loss of the commercial supremacy of the Italian
republics by the maritime discoveries of the fifteenth century, we
regard, though not in the sense of Protestants, the chief causes of
the decline of the Latin nations as religious, and the ascendency of
Protestant nations as, in the main, the counterpart of the decline
of Catholic nations. The Catholic nations have declined, not because
they have been Catholic, but because they and their governments have
not been truly Catholic. Something, indeed, is due to the fact that
England completed her revolution a hundred years before that of the
Latin nations began. She had passed through her principal internal
struggles, established the basis of her constitution, settled her
dynasty, and was in a position when the Latin revolutions broke out
to turn them to her own advantage. She used the madness of French
Jacobinism, and the o'er-vaulting ambition of the first Napoleon.
Being earlier too, the English revolution was less democratic than
that of the Latin nations, and did not so essentially weaken the
nation by eliminating the aristocratic element. England is only
just now entering upon the fearful struggle between aristocracy and
democracy, and it is very possible that she will lose her ascendency
before she gets through it. Still we find the principal cause of the
deterioration of Catholic nations connected, at least, with religion.
Both the nations that became Protestant and those that remained
Catholic were affected by the revival of Greek and Roman paganism in
the fifteenth century. The northern nations, adopting it in politics,
speedily conformed their religion to it, subjected the spiritual
to the secular, abandoned the church, made themselves Protestant,
and harmonized their interior national life. The southern nations
adhered to the church, for there were in them too many enlightened,
earnest-minded, and devout Catholics to permit them to break wholly
with the successor of Peter; but their governments, statesmen,
and scholars, artists and upper classes, adopted pagan politics,
literature, art, and manners, and thus created an antagonism between
their religion and their whole secular life, which greatly impaired
the influence of the church, and led to a fearful corruption of
politics, manners, and morals. The cause of the deterioration of
these nations is precisely in this antagonism, intensified by the
so-called _Renaissance_, and which has continued, down to the present
time, and will, most likely, continue yet longer.
The Council of Trent did something to check the evil, but could not
eradicate it; for its cause was not in the church, nor in the abuses
of ecclesiastical discipline or administration, but in the secular
order, in which the secular powers would suffer no radical reforms
either in facts or principles. They were willing the church should
reform her own administration, but would not conform their own to
the principles of which she was the appointed guardian. They would
protect her against heretical powers; but only on their own terms,
and only so far as she would consent to be made or they could use
her as an instrument of their ambition. Charles V. would protect her
only so far as he could without losing in his military projects the
support of the Protestant princes of the empire; and when he wished
to force the pope to his terms, he let loose his fanatical troops
under the Constable Bourbon against Rome, who imprisoned him and
spoiled and sacked the city for nine months; Philip II. would also
serve the church and make a war of extermination on heretics in the
Low Countries, but only in the hope of using her as an instrument in
attaining to the universal monarchy at which he aimed. Louis XIV.,
and after him Napoleon I., attempted the same. They all thought they
could use her to further their own ambition; but they failed--and
failed miserably, shamefully. He to whom it belongs to give victory
or defeat, who demands disinterested services, and who will not
suffer his church to be used as an instrument of earthly ambition,
touched them with his finger, and their strength failed, they
withered as grass, and all their plans miscarried. It was better that
her avowed enemies should triumph for a season than that she should
be enslaved by her protectors, or smothered in the embraces of her
friends. God is a jealous God, and his glory he will not give to
another.
Here we see the cause. Paganism in the state corrupted the
sovereigns, their courts, and the ruling classes in morals and
manners, enfeebled character, debased society, in the Catholic
states. The failure, through divine Providence, of the ambitious and
selfish schemes of such professedly Catholic sovereigns as Philip
II., Louis XIV., and Napoleon I., reduced the Latin races to the
low estate in which we now find them, and gave, in the political,
commercial, and industrial order, the ascendency to Protestant
nations, as a chastisement to both, and a lesson to Catholics from
which it is to be hoped they will profit. If the Catholic nations
had been truly Catholic, if the educated and ruling classes had
recognized and defended the church steadily from the first on
Catholic principles, and unflinchingly maintained her freedom and
independence as the kingdom of God on earth, representing him who is
King of kings and Lord of lords, these nations would have retained
their preponderance, the church would have reformed the morals and
manners of society, and the Protestant nations would never have
existed, or would have speedily returned to the fold.
Yet we do not despair of these Latin races; for, though their
governments have betrayed the faith, and the people have been
alienated from the church by attributing to her the political faults
of their rulers, from which she and they alike have suffered, they
still retain Catholic tradition, and have in them large numbers of
men and women, more than enough to have saved the cities of the
plain, who are true believers, and who know and practise in sincerity
and earnestness their faith. They have still a recuperative energy,
and may yet re-ascend the scale they have descended. The present
emperor of the French believed it possible, and his mission to
recover the Latin races. He attempted it, and his plan, to human
wisdom, seemed well devised and practicable. It was to break the
alliance between England and Russia; to create an independent,
confederated, or united Italy; to divide the Anglo-Saxon race in
the United States, and to raise up and consolidate a Latin power in
Mexico and Central America, while he extended the French power in
North Africa, defeated English and Russian diplomatic preponderance
in the East, opened a maritime canal across the Isthmus of Suez, and
recovered the commerce of India for the Mediterranean powers. By
these means he would give to France the protectorate of the Latin
races, and guard alike against Anglo-Saxon and Russian preponderance.
But his plan made no account, or a false account, of the moral and
religious causes of the decline of Latin races, and sought to elevate
them not as truly Catholic but as temporal powers, and to use the
church for a secular end, instead of using the secular power he
possessed for a spiritual and Catholic end. He committed over again
the error of his uncle, Louis XIV., and Philip II., and has failed,
as he might have foreseen if he had understood that the church must
be served, if at all, for herself, and that she serves the secular
only when the secular serves her for her own sake.
The result of Napoleon's policy has been not to elevate the Latin
races and to bring them to gravitate around France as the great
central Latin power, but to weaken the power of the church over them,
to strengthen the antagonism between their faith and their politics,
and to depress them still more in relation to the Teutonic and
Slavonic races. The emperor of the French, whether he had or had not
Catholic interests at heart, has done them great injury. He began by
subordinating the spiritual to the secular, when he should have begun
by subordinating the secular to the spiritual. He would then have
secured the divine protection and assistance, and been invincible.
He has, in reality, only defeated the end he aimed at, and left the
Latin races in a more deplorable condition than that in which he
found them. As a Catholic and as a Latin sovereign, he has not been
a success. The Protestant and schismatical powers have grown only
by the faults and blunders, the want of submission and fidelity of
the professedly Catholic powers; not by any means, as they suppose,
by the errors and abuses of the ecclesiastical administration, nor
by any positive virtue, even for this world, in their heresy and
schism. God, as we have just said, is a jealous God, and his glory
he will not give to another. The Latin races, so called, when in
power sought not his glory but their own, and failed. But they may
yet recover their former power and splendor, if not their commercial
preponderance, by rejecting the subtle paganism which has enervated
them, the infidel politics they have adopted; by restoring to the
church her full freedom and independence as the spiritual order, and
by subordinating the secular to the spiritual order; that is, by
making themselves really and truly Catholic.
In France there was, at an early day, an attempt made to reconcile
paganism in politics with Catholicity in religion, in what is
called Gallicanism, which, however, only served to systematize the
antagonism between church and state, and to render it all the more
destructive to both. We look upon Gallicanism, as expressed in the
four articles adopted at the dictation of the government by the
assembly of the French clergy in 1682, and which had shown itself all
along from Philip the Fair, the grandson of St. Louis, which broke
out in great violence with Louis XII., and his _petit_ council of
five cardinals at Pisa, acted on by the _politiques_ of Henry IV.,
and formulated by the great Bossuet under Louis XIV., as the most
formidable as well as the most subtle enemy the church has ever had
to contend with.
The essence, the real virus, so to speak, of Gallicanism is not, as
so many suppose, in the assertion that the dogmatic definitions of
the pope are not irreformible--though that is a grave error, in our
judgment--but in the assertion of the independence of the state in
face of the spiritual order. No doubt Bossuet's purpose in drawing
up the four articles was to prevent the French government from going
farther and carrying away the kingdom into open heresy and schism;
but the Subtle secularism to which he gave his sanction, especially
as sure to be practically understood and applied, is far harder to
deal with than either heresy or schism, and it seems to us far more
embarrassing to the church. It forbids the Catholic to be logical, to
draw from his Catholic principles their proper consequences, or to
give them their legitimate application; takes away from the defences
of faith its outposts, and reduces them to the bare citadel, and
proves an almost insurmountable obstacle to the church in her efforts
to reach and subdue the world to the law of God. It withdraws the
secular order from its rightful subjection to the spiritual order,
and denies that religion is the supreme law for nations as well as
for individuals, and for kings as well as for subjects.
The principal fault we find with the author, as may be gathered
from what we have said, is that he appears to see in the antagonism
between pagan politics and Christian, or in the original and
inextinguishable dualism asserted by Gallicanism, no cause of the
deterioration of Catholic nations, or of the partial success in old
Catholic populations of Protestant missions in unmaking Catholics,
if not in making Protestants. He seems to accept the one-sided
asceticism which places the goods of this life in antagonism with the
goods of the world to come, and, though he does not avow Gallicanism,
originated by paganism in the state, he does not disavow it, or
appear to be aware that it has any influence in detaching the people
from the church, by making them Catholics only on one side of their
minds, and leaving them pagan on the other.
The enemies of the church understand this matter far better, and they
look upon a Gallican as being as good as a Protestant. James I.,
the English Solomon, declared himself ready to accept the church, if
allowed to do it on Gallican principles. Protestants have very little
controversy with out-and-out Gallicanism. They feel instinctively
that the Catholics who assert the independence, which means
practically the supremacy, of the secular order, and bind the pope by
the canons which the church herself makes, are near enough to them;
and if they are not separated from the church, it is all the better,
because they can better serve the Protestant cause in her communion
than they could if out of it. It is the Papal, not the Gallican
church they hate.
We do not agree, if we may be permitted to say so, with the author
as to the superiority of Protestant nations, or that they are likely
to retain for any great length of time the superiority they appear
now to have, nor do we accept, as we have already intimated, the
one-sided asceticism which supposes any necessary antagonism between
this world and the next. The antagonism grows out of the error of
placing this world as the end or supreme good, when it is, in fact,
only a medium. We as Christians renounce it as the end we live for;
but if we so renounce it, and live only in Christ for God, who is
really our supreme good, we find this world in its true place with
all its goods; and a really Catholic nation that holds the spiritual
and eternal supreme, and subordinates the secular to it, will have
a hundred-fold more of the really good things of this life, than a
nation that subordinates the spiritual to the secular, and seeks only
material goods. We believe, and the author proves it, that there
is even now more real wealth and well-being in Catholic than in
Protestant nations; though we agree with the author, that if it were
not so, it would be no argument against the church.
The question of tolerance and intolerance, and of civil and religious
liberty, as related to Catholic and Protestant nations respectively,
will form the subject of a future article. In the mean time we
commend again to our readers the work we are reviewing.
FOOTNOTE:
[144] _De l'Avenir du Protestantisme et du Catholicisme._ Par M.
l'Abbé F. Martin. Paris: Tobra et Haton. 1869. 8vo, pp. 608.
UNTYING GORDIAN KNOTS.
I.
LADY SACKVIL'S JOURNAL.
_Venice, April 3d, 185-._ Arrived this afternoon, and was received
by Flora at the station in an embossed gondola with crimson awnings.
Ah me! the delicious glow of a new sensation. By what blessed
exception was Venice reserved to me for the thirty-first year of that
stagnation we call life, and for the second year of dowagerhood? As
we floated up to Beldoni Palace, the blood of nineteen flowed in
my veins. But in the marble court, perfumed with orange-blossoms
exhaling youth and hope, the twins rushed out upon me, crying,
"Auntie!" Bah! I was again myself, smothered in crape and bombazine,
with the heart of a jade-stone and the circulation of a crocodile.
As we stood beneath the fig-trees in the garden, Flora whispered,
"Look at the middle window of the third story." I looked, and beheld
a brown-haired woman, in a soft blue dress, pushing aside a mass of
passion-vine, and watching us. A pretty picture enough, made warm and
glowing in the last rays of sunset! "Who is it?" "Nicholas Vane's
wife. I wrote you of his marriage two years ago. They have taken an
apartment we do not use, and we are constantly together. You remember
that George owes his success in life to Mr. Vane, and he has always
been like an elder brother to Nicholas."
"She's rather pretty, is she not?"
"Not exactly pretty, but excessively nice. George respects her
immensely."
"George, George, George!" the point of every moral and adornment of
every tale. George does not respect _me_ immensely; but I am not sure
that I value his opinion less for that reason--heaven help me!
Well, if Nicholas Vane makes his wife half as wretched as he
made me ten years ago, I pity her. I have always wished for an
_éclaircissement_ with him on the subject of my marriage with
Sackvil. Perhaps it may come now.
* * * * *
_4th._--Created a revolution in the household to-day; persuaded Flora
to have the Erard "grand" moved into a great old barn of a room
seldom used, where one can write and practise without interruption.
She had intended to give up one of her prettiest rooms to me; but
I've taken a fancy to this one, which will be too desolate to tempt
any one to share my solitude.
George is charmed to have me establish myself at such a distance from
the rest of the family. He at once ordered in orange-trees and ivies
to adorn my dungeon--a delightful thought; but the dreary waste is
fast becoming a blossoming oasis. I am writing now by the jalousied
window, half listening to the dip of oars as the gondolas go lazily
by in the afternoon light.
A glorious piano-tuning this morning, much to Flora's disgust. "Let
me send to Lupi's for a tuner, dear," she entreated, as I produced
fork and key from the depths of a show work-basket. "It looks so
masculine."
"It should be _feminine_ to bring harmony out of discord," I
answered. "No piano of mine shall be intrusted to a hireling."
I talked and tuned, tuned and talked--not simultaneously but in
strata--and had possessed myself of the interior history of the Vane
family by the time the piano answered my searching ears harmoniously.
Mary Terence was the daughter of a clever author, of some pretensions
to literary fame, but better known in Boston as a brilliant talker.
She was left an orphan at nineteen, poor and unprotected. Vane, who
had been one of the _habitués_ of her father's house, admired her
sweet devotion to the crotchety old man. She was a Catholic, too;
and though Nicholas never cared much for his religion himself, he
was always fond of seeing other people practise it, as I remember
painfully. But, however it happened, through religion or love, or
caprice, or whatever, he married the young thing, and fancies there
was never seen her equal.
The piano tuned, I betook myself to practising _Variations
Sérieuses_, and Saran's variations in the same style, but founded
on a theme far nobler than the one Mendelssohn has taken. Saran is
capable of great things, but will probably fail to accomplish them,
as this period of our century especially discourages development. To
excite hopes and disappoint them appears to be the summit of youthful
ambition, at least in the musical world.
I was feeling very happy at the piano; keys cool and smooth; nerves
impressionable but not impressed; my ivy-garnished dungeon excellent
in its acoustic effects; Flora, in a senseless sort of way, a
sympathetic listener. Now and then a servant came to her for orders,
but her voice is one that harmonizes with stillness. Flora is surely
the sweetest, calmest, most beautiful simpleton I have ever known.
Mendelssohn and Saran having tired me, Chopin came to the
rescue--mazurkas, preludes, nocturnes. Why did I play so well? Why
was that scherzo on the music-desk, and why do its leaves turn so
inconveniently? As I came within two bars of the close of the third
page, a hand turned it deftly. I knew the hand of old, and its rare
faculty for turning music well. With difficulty I repressed a start
of surprise, for I had thought myself alone with Flora. But the
agony of recollection quivered in my nerves, impressed now as well
as impressionable. I had not believed myself susceptible of such
emotion, or capable of such repression of feeling, if once aroused.
The scherzo ended, I paused, but for a moment could not summon
courage to break the silence that followed. At last I turned to leave
the piano. Vane was sitting behind me on the right. His lips parted
painfully in a smile as he greeted me. Strange! What was it to either
of us but a glance into a past we would both destroy if that were
possible; a furtive peep into a magic mirror we thought broken long
ago.
The brown-haired nymph of the passion-vine was half reclining on a
lounge with the happy, musing look of one who seldom muses. I had
meant to take the initiative with her, accepting her as Flora's
friend, and gradually admitting her to intimacy. To my surprise,
I found myself responding gratefully to her pleasant welcome, and
wishing in my hidden soul she might find something in me to like.
Where lies her power? As yet I cannot tell. Vane is very little
changed in ten years; lines deepened but not altered. There is
evidently a charming relation between him and his wife. She is the
stronger of the two in character, I fancy--a simple, genuine person,
what more I do not yet know.
II.
Nicholas Vane's library overlooked the garden of Palazzo Beldoni. The
dimensions of the room, the windows curtained with vines in the month
of April, the glowing sunlight that forced its way in between swaying
branches, all spoke of Italy; but New England comfort held a cozy
reign within doors; husband and wife were occupied together before
the great-study table covered with plans of fortifications; she in
making extracts from books of reference, he in working out the minor
details of a design.
"How odd that I should have forgotten!" Mary said suddenly, pausing
in her work with a look of surprise and recollection. "Flora charged
me to tell you that Lady Sackvil has written to say that she is
coming here. She will arrive this afternoon in all probability, and
I was to have told you of it yesterday. However," she added after a
pause, "you don't seem to take much interest in my great piece of
news, so the delay has done no harm."
"Amelia Grant is coming--Lady Sackvil, I mean!" Nicholas said slowly,
but without pausing in his work. "Very well, I hope you will like
her."
"It never occurred to me not to like her," Mary answered. "In the
first place, she is Flora's sister; in the second place, she is a
very fascinating woman; in the third place, she is a riddle I hope to
solve; in the fourth place--"
"In the fourth place," exclaimed Vane, throwing down his pencil with
one of those short laughs that quench enthusiasm and kindle wrath at
the same moment; "in the fourth place, my beloved Oedipus, she is
a sorceress who will read you at sight. Amelia Grant is the mirror
of the person she is with; when you fancy you are deciphering her,
you will be simply gazing at a reflection of yourself--no unpleasant
sight, I acknowledge," he added kindly, seeing that his rough answer
had brought the color to her cheeks; "but it will not solve you the
riddle. Look here, child. I am sorry Lady Sackvil is coming here. She
is a worldly, heartless woman; full of ability, full of attraction;
but let me tell you this: if eating your little innocent heart could
afford her an afternoon's entertainment, she would not hesitate to do
it."
He paused, rose and went to the window. Mary remained at the table,
making sketches upon the baize cover with her pen-handle.
"She must play for us, though," said Captain Vane, coming out of a
brown study and returning to his seat. "She was the cleverest amateur
I have ever heard; and they say Lord Sackvil indulged every whim
and carried her from Leipsic to Weimar, and from Weimar to Berlin,
as her fancy suggested. She went through a conservatory course at
Leipsic, and graduated most creditably. Yes, she is astonishingly
clever, beyond dispute, and capable of great self-devotion to her
art. Of all the persons I have known, men or women, she is the most
impressionable, mobile, sympathetic, dramatic." And again he merged
into a reverie, while Mary continued the ungrateful task of drawing
on the table-cover.
"Miss Grant had a great many lovers, I suppose," she said at length.
"I don't know--yes--probably--perhaps not. Just look at plan four,
and give me the length of line A-Q."
"One inch--three inches--six feet. If you don't answer my question, I
shall not answer yours," said Mary, laying her head down on the table.
Vane laughed, and looked out the reference himself.
"She was married at twenty, you goose; so it is not probable that she
had many declared lovers."
"What sort of man was Lord Sackvil?"
"Lift up your head and go to work and I will tell you--there. Lord
Sackvil was a clever, kindly man of about forty-five, rich but fond
of diplomatic life. He came to Washington on a special mission.
Amelia met him in society, mirrored his cleverness, and kindliness,
and diplomacy, and married him after an engagement of three weeks."
"Was the marriage a happy one?"
"I don't know--I never asked--I don't care. Stop asking questions;
I'm sick of the subject."
"I verily believe she has come. I hear voices in the garden," cried
Mary, springing from her seat and running to the window. "Yes; it
must be Lady Sackvil, talking with Flora under the trees. There, she
turned and looked at me. Oh! do come here; she is very lovely."
"Mary, come here," said Vane sharply. "Don't stand staring at what
does not concern you. There, I've upset the inkstand. Now you must
come and help me."
"If you had upset the universe, I should leave you to wipe it up
yourself. Why, my dear, I never expected to know a live countess. I
really must look at her."
"Mary, come to me," said Vane sternly, rising from his seat.
She came slowly toward him, and stood looking up in his face with an
expression half of fun, half of amazement.
"I had not supposed you capable of such babyish conduct," he said,
the blood rushing to his face.
"I have been very silly," Mary said. "O Nicholas! you don't know how
silly I have been. I will never, never behave so again--or think such
thoughts again," she added, looking at him with an expression of
absolute sincerity and trustfulness. "I will all my life trust you as
you trust me."
"Do no such thing," he answered hastily. "I am a man like half the
men in the world, and women like you are very rare. My darling," he
said tenderly, "I love you; and I revere you too--words which should
be very precious to a wife. Love may pass, but reverence never. You
are my preserver in this world; you are my strength, my patience, my
all, God help me! When I look into those sweet, truthful, innocent
eyes, they give me all the strength I need for life. Mary, never
distrust me--never, never distrust me, for I love and honor you."
"Thank God for that!" she answered softly. "But please don't place
your dependence on me. If I had strength to give you, you should
have it if my very life had to pay for the gift. But you cannot live
vicariously. You cannot receive strength through me. I do not regret
behaving so foolishly to-day merely because I have displeased you. If
I am silly, you had better know it. But I am afraid you will think
that confessing my faults does me so little good that you will be
less than ever inclined to confess your own."
"Make yourself quite easy on that point," said Captain Vane, smiling.
"I will not judge things good in themselves by your malpractices.
But let me speak to you very seriously, my dear child. I love you
tenderly, and I love no one else in the world; but if your suspicions
had been correct, you took the worst means in the world to mend
matters. Suspicions are excessively irritating to a man, and none
the less so, you may be sure, when they are well-grounded. And now
I freely forgive you all your sins toward me, real and imaginary,
and I think if Angelo were to come and wash away that pool of ink on
the _parquet_, all traces of this terrible passage of arms might be
effaced."
III.
LADY SACKVIL'S JOURNAL.
Flora came into the room to-day, while Josephine was dressing my
hair. My cap was lying on the dressing-table. She took it up and
examined it thoughtfully. "Milly," she said at last, "do me a favor.
Give up wearing caps. I cannot bear to have your lovely hair covered.
Besides, the usual time for wearing close mourning is passed; and I
am convinced that common rules of etiquette should be followed in
these matters. If you continue to wear black beyond the usual period,
you will lay it aside some day because your grief is diminished, and
that is not a pleasant idea."
Flora is a wise woman, within a very narrow range. And so the caps
are laid aside. I do it with a kind of regret. I remember fancying,
when I first adopted them, that I had assumed unworldliness with
them. I do not wish to make the smallest sacrifice to duty, but no
one enjoys _feeling_ good more than I do. My hair _is_ beautiful.
It looks so nicely in great smooth rolls fastened with an ivory
comb. I think I should go mad if I were ugly; if I were not sure of
attracting any one I care to attract--except George Holston. But
never mind his disapproval! It is pleasanter to be disliked than
disregarded, at least to an egotist like myself. To-night we had good
music. Only the Vanes were here, Flora, and I. It was interesting
to introduce them to certain Schumann songs they had not seen;
Franz songs of which they had never even heard; then Chopin, as
the moonlight streamed in at the great window by the piano, making
candles unnecessary. "More, more," said Mrs. Vane, when I paused.
"No more of that kind," said Nicholas, laughing. "I need rebuilding
at present." So we had glorious John Sebastian Bach, ending with an
organ prelude and fugue arranged by Liszt. Vane listened, looking
out of the window upon the canal. Mrs. Vane looked transfigured,
like one who had found a great calmness and strength. I envied her,
and yet what should I do with calmness and strength if I had them?
Throw them into the great pool of life and watch the bubbles rise
to the surface. Nothing can add to Flora's serenity. She rolled up
her crochet work, laid it away in a blue velvet sarcophagus, and
said, "Come into the other room and we will have chocolate." When we
were alone, she asked, "Did you ever notice how beautifully Nicholas
Vane's hair grows on his forehead? And he has the most expressive
eye-lids I ever saw. You must look at them some time." I promised to
do so.
I am arranging a Schumann quartette for the piano. I find that Mrs.
Vane knows very little of his music. How enchanting transcription is!
One finds in it, I am confident, some of the delights of creation.
It is only eleven; I can have two good hours of work before going to
bed.
IV.
"Nicholas, did you ever tell your wife of your engagement to Amelia
Grant?" asked George Holston, abusing the occasion of a visit from
his adopted brother by asking unpleasant questions.
Vane knocked the ashes off his cigar and answered curtly, "No."
"Why not?"
"Because it was a disagreeable subject; because the matter was dead
and buried years before I saw Mary; because I didn't choose to speak
of it."
"I think you made a mistake."
"I don't."
"I do; and I will tell you why, though you don't wish to hear. A man
can't put too many barriers between himself and temptation. You are
now brought unexpectedly into daily intercourse with Amelia. Long
after actual love dies out, personal influence continues dangerous.
If you had told your wife of your former connection, it would have
acted as a useful check upon you, unconsciously, of course."
"I need no check," answered Vane in a tone of annoyance, "beyond my
love for Mary, and my distrust of Lady Sackvil. Mary knows I had an
old love affair, but does not know with whom. You need not disturb
yourself. I know Amelia Grant of old."
"I doubt it. You exaggerate her faults. She is by no means deficient
in good qualities, if she chose to use them. She is a woman ruined
by bad training; educated systematically to selfishness, vanity,
self-will. She is the most worldly woman of her years I have ever
known; but her most dangerous trait, as accompanying so many faults,
is the yearning for better things that makes her interesting. She
thinks I dislike her. On the contrary, I find her very attractive,
though I am determined to do nothing to induce her to prolong her
stay with us."
"I don't know any thing about her capacities for good," Vane remarked
dryly. "I know that we had not been engaged twenty-four hours before
she was receiving Lord Sackvil's attentions freely. At the end of
three days of befooling, I put an end to the farce and left the coast
clear for his lordship. Flora knows all about this, of course?"
"Evidently not. They were never together during their girlhood.
Besides, Amelia never reveals any thing discreditable to herself,
you may be sure. Keep out of her way, Vane; she has gifts which are
especially attractive to you. But, by Jupiter! it is rather an insult
to fancy that any one can fascinate you after your wife, who is
nearer perfection than any woman I ever saw."
"Upon my word!" said Vane, glad of a diversion, "these are agreeable
sentiments. I think if any body has ground for jealousy, it is poor
me. I have not the slightest doubt that Mary will eventually be
canonized, but I'll thank you to defer all sentiments of veneration
until then."
At this moment a servant announced that Mrs. Holston and Lady Sackvil
were in the gondola waiting for Captain Vane.
Nicholas took his hat and rose. "Keep your eyes and your wisdom
to yourself, George," he said, in answer to Holston's glance
of amusement. "It is a bad thing to be wiser than your day and
generation."
"So Cassandra found," replied Holston; "but she was right, for all
that."
V.
"Lay her down by me, Debby," said Mrs. Vane to the
comfortable-looking old body who was serving as nurse to a second
generation. "Lay her beside her own little mamma. Was she very good?
Did Padre Giulio think her lovely? Didn't she cry the least bit while
he was pouring the water?"
"Just enough, mum, to let the old Adam out," answered Debby, tucking
up mother and child energetically. "As for the Paddry, he thought
she was a perfect pink; and he'd had the chill took off the water,
thanks be to praise! It seems only yesterday," continued Debby
contemplatively, "I was a holdin' Mr. Nicholas to be christened. He
roared loud enough for two generations, I recollect, and now he's a
cap'n in the army. Well, we're all agin'. Now, mum, I'll trust her
with you a little while till I can get that gruel made. That Jovanny
puts sorrel into it the minute my back's turned. Now you can take
just as good care of baby, Miss Vane, as if I was here, and don't you
go a tirin' yourself. Mr. Nicholas lays all the blame on me if your
cheeks burn."
As the door closed behind the nurse, Mary nestled the baby close, and
gave herself up to the ecstasy of her new joy. We will follow her
thoughts as if they had been spoken. Happiness like hers seldom finds
vent in words.
"I need no book of meditation with you beside me, baby. I gave you to
God before your birth; I brought you into the world to be a saint,
and, so help me heaven, I will never stand between you and Him, no
matter what the struggle may cost me. O holy little head! glorified
by the waters of baptism, with this kiss I offer you to God, that
he may fill you with pure thoughts always tending to heaven. Sweet
little mouth, speak comfort to every living creature. Sweetest eyes,
look heavenward; and when you turn to earth, may you see it strewn
with roses as it has been to me. Tender, pure feet, may you never
be stained with the world's clay; walk firmly, bravely, steadfastly,
where the Infant Jesus trod before you--yes, sweet, though it
should be on thorns, my tender, precious one. And O little lovely
hands! work for God, work for his poor and suffering ones, work for
neglected altars. O God! O God! it is too sweet, too sublime, the
possession of this soul which I am to train for thee. Make me as
unflinching as Queen Blanche, steadfast as St. Monica, wise as St.
Paula. May my child and I revere each other, remembering the Child
Jesus and his Mother! When I stand at thy judgment-seat, dear Lord,
may this plead for me, that never by example or omission have I
caused my child to desist from following thee."
Turning her head upon the pillow, Mary saw her husband standing by
the bedside, looking at her and the child. His eyes were full of
tears as he stooped and kissed her.
"This is the happiest day of my life," she said as he sat down by
her; "the day of our baby's christening. And do you know that I chose
for it the anniversary of the day when I found out that you loved me."
"Tell me about that day."
"Won't nurse be here in a minute?"
"No; I have come in her stead, as bearer of apologies. Giovanni has
done or left undone something with regard to your dinner, I believe.
And now for the day when you made that wonderful discovery. Come, I
should think the time for blushing about it was over."
"It was the day before I was to leave Boston," Mary explained.
"Almost every thing in the house had been sold at auction. Oh! it
was so dismal! Only my room and the library were comparatively
untouched. I was sitting on my trunk, counting the money that was
left after poor papa's debts were paid."
"How much was there?"
"Just ten dollars. Enough to pay my fare to Drewsville and leave me
within a few dollars of absolute dependence. I hated the idea of
going to live with my Aunt Jane. But that was not what I was thinking
of, nor my poverty, even while I counted my money."
"What were you thinking of, dear?"
Her cheek flushed brightly. "I had never loved any one before, you
know, Nicholas," she said apologetically. "I did not know what it
was, or perhaps I could have helped it. I knew there was a reason
why it was agony for me to leave Boston, and I did not dare to try
to find out what the reason was. I knew there was a pain within me
harder to bear than the grief for my father's death, but that I must
not even think of it. But oh! when they told me that you were in the
library waiting to see me, then I knew what the pain was, then I knew
what the agony was. Do you wonder that I chose the anniversary of
that day? That day when we stood together in the old house beside the
empty fireplace, and you asked me to leave solitude and dependence
and homesickness, and be your wife."
"Has it been all you thought it would be?"
"All, and more than all," she answered simply. And in his heart he
protested that she should never be less happy in her love. As he left
her with the nurse, his heart was full of wonder that so pure and
true a creature had been intrusted to his keeping. Outside the door a
note was handed to him, one of Mrs. Holston's perfumed, rose-colored
billets, and he stepped back into his wife's room to read it.
"What is the matter?" she asked, seeing a look of annoyance or
perplexity on his face. He handed her the note, and she read:
"DEAR NICHOLAS: We are going to Torcello to-morrow, and must
have you with us to expound the mysteries of the old church, the
arabesques, etc. We leave at ten, and shall be gone all day. Don't
say no to yours very faithfully,
F. R. H.
"P.S.--My sister says, 'Oh! yes. We must have him; he is so
_gemüthlich_.'"
The reason for a refusal was simple enough. His going would leave his
wife for a whole day to Debby's tender but garrulous mercies; but
this was not for her to see or say. An undefined distrust of Lady
Sackvil, which she believed to be quite groundless made her urge his
acceptance of the invitation. He went to Torcello, and all day long,
in and out of measure with the oars, these words rung in his ears:
"All too good
For human nature's daily food."
It is a bad sign when one feels out of harmony with one's best
influences.
Mrs. Holston required her husband's attendance, and Captain Vane must
do the honors of the island to her sister. He was a man of artistic
perceptions and of accurate knowledge; and Lady Sackvil's capacities
were of precisely the kind to draw these out. Here was the great
danger. Mary, though intelligent and sympathetic, could never be any
thing more than a good listener; Amelia aroused every faculty within
him to full life. The day at Torcello did more harm than many months
could undo.
TO BE CONTINUED.
IN MEMORIAM OF THE REV. FRANCIS A. BAKER.
WRITTEN ON ALL SAINTS' DAY, 1869.
All Saints' to-day! To-morrow is All Souls':
To-morrow, blessed soul, I pray for thee.
To-day, O sainted spirit! pray for me.
One day--what years one day of life controls,
My round eternity on that day rolls--
Retired, we prayed together; my bent knee
Before thee; thy hand raised to make me free,
While, as through Moses, mercy wrath withholds.
And well I mind me of succeeding joy,
How thanks more rapt for God's dear love arose.
When my full heart did thy blest words employ:
And after, though unmarked the bashful boy,
How sweet thy chance inquiry thrilled me, heaven knows!
How close the bond there formed, heaven will disclose.
CHURCH MUSIC.
II.
"I do not believe in giving the best music to the devil," said a
friend while holding with us an amicable discussion on the subject
which forms the heading of this paper.
"You quote John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist sect," we
replied. "Nevertheless, we agree both with him and you. We do not
believe in giving any music whatever to the devil."
"I would say," returned our friend, "that the best music ought to be
given to God."
"Most assuredly," said we; "and the poorest too. Why not?"
"I mean," our friend explained, "that in the public worship of God
the best music should be used that can be obtained."
"You reëcho our own sentiments," we rejoined. "But will you please to
define what you call _the best_?"
"Oh! nothing simpler," replied our friend. "That music is the best
which is the most agreeable."
We murmured something about "_de gustibus_," when our friend
prudently added, "to the occasion."
"And the occasion is--" we suggested.
"Is divine worship," continued our friend. "Where the soul is
instructed by the divine truths the holy offices of the Church
impart, and inspired with sentiments now of prayer, now of praise,
now of holy joy, now of penitence, now of lamentation, and so forth."
"Well said!" we exclaimed. "You have again spoken our own mind. But
have you ever heard such music?"
"I have heard some very charming music in my time," answered our
friend cautiously.
"Exactly answering to your definition?"
"Well, no. I cannot say _exactly_ answering to my definition."
"We have been more fortunate than you," said we. "It has been our lot
to hear very charming music, exactly answering to your definition."
"Where?" demanded our friend earnestly.
"In many churches and monasteries of Europe," we replied.
"What was its style and character?" inquired our friend.
"The Gregorian Chant, pure and undefiled."
Our friend honorably closed the discussion by reiterating his
definition and regretting his lack of experience.
* * * * *
In a former article we endeavored to bring before our readers such
proofs of the statement we made, that the use of modern music in
the ritual service of the Church was both improper and illegal, as
we thought a very slight examination of the subject would suggest.
These proofs were, however, not requisite, since it is a patent fact
that such music is an innovation on the universal traditionary use
of the Gregorian chant; an innovation, to judge from the countries
where it has crept in and supplanted the old ritual song, that is the
result of a religious taste vitiated by the influences of a spirit
which, if not precisely Protestant, is, to say the least, worldly,
anti-Christian, and therefore anti-Catholic. If there be any, then,
who prefer music of this character to the authorized chant, it is
necessary for them to show good reasons _for the liberty they take in
using it_, or why an immediate return should not be made to what is,
at any rate, lawful and ordained, if it be nothing more. In England,
where the ancient Catholic spirit is again reviving, and a marked
return to the old paths is observable both in and out of the Church,
the subject of church music has received an attention and awakened an
amount of investigation second only to that devoted to the dogmas of
faith. And we may here remark that this recent study of the church
chant is in no sense conducted in the spirit of simple antiquarian
research--as it were, to bring to light buried fragments of a
beautiful or useful institute characteristic of a former age, for the
admiration of the curious--but in the express intent of reinstating
the ancient church song to its rightful place in the holy sanctuaries
of sacrifice and prayer.
That the Church has no notion of giving up the Gregorian chant, but,
on the contrary, that she earnestly desires its complete restoration
in those countries where it has fallen into disuse, we hold to be
entirely beyond question. Whatever concessions to the poverty of
resources, or to peculiar local circumstances, for the occasional
use of modern music, the hierarchy may think it prudent to make, is
a subject for the consideration of those who believe themselves to
be in such a position as to need these concessions. What is certain
is, that the Church by the mouth of her pastors has directed the
universal use of the Gregorian chant, and as universally condemned
the use of our modern music.
Knowing, however, that the healing of every sore takes time as
well as medicine, we admit that in many places this much-needed
reformation cannot be instantaneously made. With us in the United
States, the clergy, as a body, have but a slight acquaintance, either
theoretically or practically, with the church chant; and knowing, as
we do from experience, what false and barbaric executions of it they
have been condemned to suffer in the course of their ecclesiastical
education, and from which they have been naturally led to form
their judgments concerning it, we do not wonder at the wide-spread
prejudice that exists against its use, and the opposition to its
introduction that is met with, even at their hands. That our laity
have never given expression to their own sentiments in its regard is
simply due to their complete ignorance and total inexperience of the
whole subject. All fears, therefore, of offending the people or of
alienating them from the solemn offices of the Church, on account of
the banishment of florid music and the introduction of plain chant,
are, as yet, groundless.
Esteeming it as a matter of great moment, and urged by oft-repeated
solicitations on the part of their hierarchy, the clergy in England
and Ireland have, for several years past, been devoting their
energies to carry out the wishes of their superiors, and devise some
means to ameliorate the condition of church music, acknowledged
to have, with them as with us, gradually degenerated since the
Reformation of the sixteenth century.
As far back as 1849, an effort was made, with this end in view, to
supply proper singers in the churches, at the head of which was the
Cardinal, then Bishop Wiseman. The vicars-apostolic in synod had
decreed, "Foemineæ voces ne audiantur in choro," hoping to gradually
induce a return to the established discipline of the Church. The
present Archbishop of Westminster, referring to this in a letter,
says,
"Unfortunately, this decree has not been carried out. I can only
suppose that the causes which brought in this deviation have
prevailed to obtain its toleration until such time as we shall be
able to do better. A sudden order to remove women singers, while
as yet we have no boys trained to take their places, would be
inconvenient and inconsiderate. I have not thought it right to
issue any such order. But all that I can effect by the strongest
expression of desire and persuasion I shall endeavor to effect."
In a circular letter to his clergy, dated May 8th, 1869, the
archbishop prohibits the employment of women singers in all choirs to
be newly formed.
We can well understand the end had in view by this order for the
exclusion of female voices _from the choir_. To us it is, in effect,
an order for the exclusion of all figured music, and the restoration
of plain chant. The archbishop, however, seems to allow the
possibility of the composition of "masses which, while they admit the
full compass and perfection of modern musical science, exclude all
that is secular or theatrical, by retaining the gravity and majesty
of our ecclesiastical and sacred tradition." This is, however, only
a concession; for he had just before written, "When once tried by
experience, the grave, sweet, majestic, intellectual _music of the
Church_ will win all who are now in favor of a less ecclesiastical
style."
The hope expressed by Archbishop Manning, that masses would be
composed for male voices only, and of sufficiently grave character to
suit the services of the Church, was suggested, doubtless, by some
quite respectable essays of this kind made on the Continent, and
offered to the Congress of Malines at its late sessions, as well by
the labors in this direction of the Rev. Canon Oakeley, to whom his
letter on this subject was addressed. This reverend gentleman has
been the rector of a London parish for eighteen years, and has never
admitted a female into his choir, although the perfection of the
musical department in his church has received many high encomiums.
He supplies the soprano parts by boys' voices, to the cultivation of
which he has devoted a great deal of energy. The character of his
church music is as follows: At High Mass, whatever is _de rigueur_
for the Sunday or festival is sung strictly according to the Roman
Gradual, save those parts which may be ranged under the title of
Ordinarium Missæ, namely, the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and
Agnus Dei. These portions are not as a rule chosen from the Gregorian
chant, but are _morceaux_ of selected modern music. His Vesper and
Compline service is wholly Gregorian, as given in the Vesperale
Romanum. We believe that, encouraged by his success in this partial
reformation, many priests in Great Britain have followed his example.
We shall have occasion to speak of this matter and give in another
paper some extracts of the canon's opinion of the feasibility and
effectiveness of boy singers.
Taking the hint thrown out by his grace the Archbishop of
Westminster, several skilled musicians have already published
a number of masses, revised and corrected to suit the late
"Instructions" given by the cardinal vicar to Roman composers and
singers, with a view to restrain the attempts made even there
to introduce modern music. We do not pretend to criticise these
simplified masses in this place. All we desire to do is to call
attention to the significance of the movement toward musical
reformation. Whether second-rate musical compositions are better than
the authorized chant, we think is questionable.
The original masses, composed in the same intent, which competed for
the handsome prizes offered by the late Catholic Congress of Malines,
possess much artistic merit; perhaps a little too much, if intended
for popular use.
Wholly converted, as we are, in heart and mind, to the exclusive use
of plain chant, we nevertheless commend these well-meant efforts.
They are efforts in the right direction, and similar ones, we doubt
not, must be made with us before the ancient discipline of the Church
concerning her chant will prevail.
Something, at least, can be done, and without delay. We cannot see
what possible excuse we have any longer to offer for not singing
the Introit, the Gradual, Offertory, and Communion at High Mass.
These parts of the Mass are quite as essential, in the mind of the
Church, as the Kyrie, the Credo, the Sanctus, or the Agnus Dei. If
we are able to procure the execution of most difficult compositions
for these latter portions, we are surely quite as well able to
procure the chanting of the former. It may be said that, if these now
neglected parts be sung as they should be, and can only effectively
be, in Gregorian chant, it is possible one of these different
styles of music would suffer much by contrast with the other. To
this we agree; but which one will be the sufferer, our objector and
ourself might think differently. Such a mixture has, however, been
considered, on the whole, preferable by some in England who have
adopted it. Says a writer in _The Dublin Review_, "We may remark that
if it be true that a constant recurrence of the same unison masses,
Sunday after Sunday, would tax the patience of our people, so, on
the other hand, that limited round of figured masses to which it has
been the fashion to confine the choirs of almost all our churches,
is found by experience to be, if any thing, more tiring still." The
writer adds, "We ought to _enlarge_ our stock of mass music." We
think it were better to render passably the stock we already possess.
He continues, "We consider that where success has attended the
efforts of clergy and choirs, to render the services of the Church
noble, edifying, and attractive, it has been by the combination we
have described; and to take one instance--it is to this, and to the
ecclesiastical feature of a choir of boys and men chanting Vespers,
etc., in their proper place in church, that we attribute the fact
that the church over which Canon Oakeley presides has become the
centre of so much interest. And when we mention that solemn Vespers
and Benediction are sung in this Church, on all days of devotion,
with as much correctness and beauty as on Sundays, and that a
considerable number of the faithful always assist on such occasions,
we shall have given a specimen of the results which may be expected
to follow elsewhere, if a like arrangement be adopted."
We know that there is always difficulty in changing one's customs,
but it is the mark of Catholic zeal never to shrink before any cost
or sacrifice where plain duty, the glory of God, and the honor of
the Holy Church are in question. All must admit that the custom of
omitting any ceremony or rite essential to the due celebration of
High Mass, or any other function, is a bad custom--a custom to be
discontinued the moment it is in our power to do so. The bishops
assembled in the late Plenary Council of Baltimore made a special
decree concerning the due performance of the Vesper service. What
difficulty is there here in obeying this decree both in its letter
and spirit? There are enough books already published to supply the
singers with the proper music for the entire service. Harmonized
versions of the psalms, antiphons, and anthems have been made for
the use of those singers and organists who are, as yet, ignorant
of plain chant, and accustomed only to modern musical notation.
If any thing be wanting in these, the demand for better and more
convenient books would soon be met with the supply. Apart from their
openly profane character, we do not see what possible plea can be
put in for singing what is called "Musical Vespers"--for the most
part, musical performances in which it would be wholly impossible to
recognize the Vesper office, as strictly ordained and enjoined by the
Church. The office of Vespers, according to the Roman rite, is what
we are supposed to sing. We do not hesitate to say that no "Musical
Vespers" ever sung in this country were in conformity to that rite.
Were we to announce that fact to our music-loving Protestant friends,
who frequent our churches at Vesper time, to enjoy the beautiful
"Vesper service," it might possibly prove a little startling; and if
they were at the pains to inquire of what character the service was
which they saw and heard, what answer could we honestly make, but
that it was a musical performance of garbled portions of the Vesper
office, gotten up to answer for the same, with a view of pleasing the
audience? Not only in High Mass, then, but also in Vespers, there is
some amelioration possible to all, the results of which will not only
bring our Church services more into conformity with the spirit of the
Universal Church, and the decrees concerning the due celebration of
divine worship issued by our hierarchy, but we are fully assured will
prove most acceptable to the faithful, and contribute no little to
their edification.
We have indulged in the foregoing somewhat desultory remarks before
entering upon the special purpose of this paper, in hopes to direct
the attention of our readers to the gravity of the subject in
question, and to show that we are very far from being singular in its
discussion. Whatever may be the merits of our modern music, and they
certainly are of a very high order, when considered from the point of
artistic combination, and the expression of certain sentiments of the
soul, we hold, nevertheless, that the Gregorian chant is the _true
song of the Catholic Church_. That it deserves this title on the
score of authority, which has distinctly and universally sanctioned
it, we think we have sufficiently proved; and as well that other
music has been as distinctly condemned and rejected. We desire now
to examine the character of the church chant, in its more intimate
relations with the ritual, and its unrivalled religious expression,
that its intrinsic merits may be more clearly understood and more
heartily appreciated.
In the first place, the Church never enjoins any thing without good
reason; and her reasons are grounded not only in the conclusions of
human science, but in the perceptions of a divine inspiration. We do
not hesitate to give the title of "divine" to her sacred Liturgy and
Office, because we believe they were compiled with the assistance
of the Holy Ghost. Is it unreasonable to suppose that her chant,
proceeding, as it does, from the same source, the work of the same
hands and hearts to whom she committed the labor of the composition
and compilation of the words, and together accepted by her, should
have had the same divine aid? The question is well put by one who
has devoted much time and thought to the subject of church music:
"Can we believe that the divine assistance can have failed her so
far that her work, a discordant jumble of notes, should not be
fit to be sung by us in our country and century? How different
were the feelings and the belief of the people during the ages of
faith! The monks and other holy men who wrote those sacred chants,
set themselves to work sometimes after months of holy meditation
and of watching, of fasting and of prayer; and then they composed
those melodies, so little appreciated now, because so little
known; but to the correct religious taste of our pious ancestors
in the faith, so full of heavenly harmony that they sometimes
thought, and not always without reason, the angels themselves had
dictated them."[145]
That the Gregorian chant is yet, as it was in former times, the true
musical expression of her Divine Office, and of those portions of the
liturgy of the Holy Mass, and various public functions, appointed
to be sung, is plain from the fact that, in despite of all the
development of the _musica ficta_ in the hands and with the influence
of its composers and lovers, the Church still obstinately adheres to
those ancient melodies. What can we say but that, as the Church is
the best judge of her own language of prayer and praise, so she must
equally as well be of the form of its expression?
But, as we said before, the Church never acts without reason. If
she accepts this form of chant in the first place, it is because
such a form of melody is appropriate, and well becoming her inspired
language of prayer. If she retains it through so many ages, and has
no thought of changing it now, it is because the same reason still
holds good.
One of the most remarkable points in the character of the Gregorian
chant is the fact that it has partaken, possibly by association,
of the "perennial freshness" which is so strongly marked in the
celebration of the rites and ceremonies of the Church. To every
people, of all ages and countries, these rites and ceremonies
possess a dramatic power of the highest order. Ancient yet ever new,
they never weary by repetition as fast and festival recur in the
ecclesiastical year. On this an English writer says,
"The very ruggedness of the Gregorian modes serves to impart to
them a character of durability. These simple melodies, as we well
know from the instance of the Vesper Psalms, to mention no other,
somehow never pall upon the ear, and have, in fact, a perennial
freshness which we can only account for by the circumstance of
their having a variety of scale which modern melodies do not
possess. This, too, is proved by the well-known fact that the most
beautiful chants of the modern school (and we ourselves are fain
to add also the most beautiful motets, Anthems, Glorias, Credos,
etc.) become unendurable by constant repetition; and for this
reason we find that even dissenters have been fain to adopt the
old chant in their services."
This is, to say the least, a very strong practical confirmation of
the wisdom of the Holy Church in preserving a treasure so precious
that even time does not waste it, or use tarnish its beauty.
A second reason assigned by the same writer, we give for what it is
worth. It possesses, indeed, no little _vraisemblance_:
"We may look upon it in its plaintive if not mournful character
in fact, as a kind of _pilgrim's song_, by which it would seem as
if the Church would have us remember, even in the midst of our
festal joys, that we are the '_Exules filii Hevæ, gementes et
flentes in hâc lacrymarum valle_.' It is, we may say, the grave,
sweet, pathetic note which the Church puts into the mouths of
her children, lamenting with the Psalmist that 'their sojourning
is prolonged;' the plaintive accent in which they confess that
they are strangers upon earth, and that they 'seek another, even
a heavenly city.' And so Father Faber sings in his well-known
hymn--itself a kind of wayfarer's song--
'While we toil on, and soothe ourselves with weeping,
Till life's long night shall break in endless love.'"
This is by no means a quaint conception of modern fancy. St.
Paschasius Radpert, a monk of the abbey of Old Corby, who lived about
the year 800, says,
"There is no song to be found without a tone of sadness in it;
even as here below there are no joys without a mixture of sorrow;
for songs of pure joy belong only to the heavenly Sion, but
lamentation is the property of our earthly pilgrimage."
To us, however, the Gregorian chant is the true song of the Church,
chiefly because it is essentially choral in character; by which
we mean that its melodies, so simple in construction, so massive
in form, and its grave and majestic rhythm, fit it eminently for
execution by large bodies of singers, called in church parlance the
_schola_, or choir.
In the discipline of the early church it was supposed that all the
congregation of the faithful present at the Holy Sacrifice responded
to the salutations and solemn invitations of the priest at the altar
to unite with him in prayer and acts of adoration. We have before us
a very old reproduction of an ancient manuscript, entitled, ~Hê
theia leitourgia tou hagiou apostolou Petrou~, _Missa Apostolica;
seu, Divinum Sacrificium S. Apostoli Petri_, which purports, and on
good authority, to be the Mass of St. Peter. At the close of the
Offertory, we read as follows; we quote the Latin version given side
by side with the Greek:
"_Deinde sacerdos voce clara dicit._
"Dominus vobiscum.
"_Populus._ Et cum spiritu tuo.
"_Sacerdos._ Oremus.
"_Populus._ Domine, miserere, _ter_.
"_Tum sacerdos alta voce._
"Præbe, Domine, servis tuis, dexteram coelestis auxilii, ut te
toto corde perquirant, et quæ dignè postulant consequantur. Per
Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, cum quo vivis et regnas Deus
noster in unitate Spiritus sancti, in sæcula.
"_Populus._ Amen. Sanctus Deus, sanctus fortis. _Et interea dum
populus dicit hymnum ter sanctum, precatur sacerdos._ (Various
prayers here follow, closing with the Lavabo.)
"_Mox sacerdos clara voce._
"Dominus vobiscum.
"_Populus._ Et cum spiritu tuo.
"_Sacerdos._ Ostia, ostia. (Alluding to the closing of the doors
and departure of the catechumens.)
"_Populus._ Credo in unum Deum, etc.
"_Sacerdos._ Stemus honeste; stemus cum reverentia, etc.
"_Populus._ Misericordiam; pacem.
"_Sacerdos, alta voce._ Hostiam tibi Domine destinatam in
oblationem sanctifica, et per eam nos clementer suscipe, per
Dominum, etc., per omnia sæcula sæculorum.
"_Populus._ Amen.
"_Sacerdos._ Sursum corda.
"_Populus._ Habemus ad Dominum.
"_Sacerdos._ Gratiarum actiones submittamus, Domino Deo nostro.
"_Populus._ Dignum et justum est."
The priest continues to chant the preface. At the close of it the
people sing the Sanctus, and answer _Amen_ when the priest has
pronounced the words of consecration. The entire _Pater noster_
is given to the people, and they respond to the usual salutations
made after the communion. A side rubrical note, referring to the
parts assigned to the populus or people, says, "_Populi vox est et
cantorum_."
This manner of celebrating High Mass will seem to many of our readers
as strange and obsolete; but such is precisely the manner in which
one can yet hear the Holy Sacrifice in many towns and villages on
the continent of Europe, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred
and sixty-nine; and we need hardly say with what sublime and
soul-stirring effect.
We do not think it at all probable that this old form of
congregational accompaniment of the Mass ever can be universally
revived. Yet it must be acknowledged that no more complete,
intelligent, or edifying expression of the Great Eucharistic Rite
could possibly be desired.
"Shall we ever see the day," asks a writer in the old _Dublin
Review_, "when, on entering a Catholic church during service
time, we shall be struck, not with the dampening spectacle of a
congregation partly composed of unbelievers in the act of enjoying
the pleasure of a Sunday concert, while the remainder, with
closed books in their lap, or by their side, wait patiently or
impatiently till the prolonged and a hundred times repeated _Amen_
of the Gloria or the Creed deigns to come to an end, but with the
refreshing sight of an unmixed body of true worshippers, learned
and ignorant, high and low, rich and poor, unostentatiously led by
a select choir, engaged in heartily singing the praises of Him in
whose house they are assembled? To so consoling and truly Catholic
a state of things should all our reforms tend; for it will only
be when it is established that we shall be able to taste the
sweetness, as well as delight in the beauty and feel the grandeur
of that congregational singing which so many desire, but which is
incompatible with an encouragement in churches of the music of
_Don Giovanni_, _Fidelio_, _Lodoiska_, _Il Barbière_, and _Faust_."
Were this revival of congregational singing in the mind of the
Church, there could be no question about the form of melody to be
applied. No one would think of looking elsewhere than to plain chant
as the only practical and fitting resource in that event.
But, as in past times there was always the select _schola_ or choir
to whom the choral selections of the divine offices were committed,
so at the present day it would seem to be that which the Church aims
mainly at preserving. Indeed, as Dr. Lootens well observes, the
very architectural dispositions of our churches, when constructed
according to the ritual, suppose such a body of singers, who, being
the coadjutors of the sacred ministers, are supposed to possess a
quasi-ecclesiastical character, and appear in the sanctuary properly
vested as _clerici_, or clerks, and whose demeanor, as well as
singing, is of that grave and decorous character which beseems the
house of God and the presence of the Holy Sacrament. The learned
prelate says:
"A Protestant meeting-house is built to preach in; the nearer the
minister is to the people, the better he is heard. _Our_ churches
are, first of all, places of worship. Nothing so affects the
visitor who enters one of our churches in the old country as the
mysterious depth of their sanctuaries. We allude here not merely
to the Gothic cathedrals, but to all kind of churches, no matter
to what particular order of architecture they belong. Architects,
in those ancient times, would as soon have thought of planning a
church without a chancel, (choir,) as of building one without a
roof."
We also might well say that when any Catholic from the Continent
visits Protestant England and enters one of those ancient cathedrals,
once the glory and pride of Catholic England, now fallen into the
hands of strangers who know not their meaning nor sacred uses; and
when he sees those mysteriously deep sanctuaries, whose stalls are
no longer filled, as of yore, with the devout white-robed clerics,
or it may be with cowled monks, chanting the divine hours of prayer,
or responding to the sacrificing priest, but with a few fashionably
dressed ladies and gentlemen looking at each other across the
once consecrated place, hallowed by the footsteps of saints, and
praying to be delivered "from all error, heresy, and schism," (save
the mark!) what an indescribable pain must wring his soul; how
involuntarily the plaintive words of the Psalmist must rise upon his
lips, "_Super flumina Babylonis, illic sedimus, et flevimus, cum
recordaremur Sion!_"
Yet, let him come to our land and visit _our Catholic_ churches--but
we anticipate; it is not of the proper place for the choir, but of
the choir itself we wish to speak.
A select choir of clerks, or singers vested in cassock and surplice,
who, ranged in the sanctuary, chant _in chorus_ the Asperges, the
Introit, Kyrie, Gloria, Gradual, Credo, Offertory, Sanctus, Agnus
Dei, Communion, and the responses of High Mass, and the antiphons,
psalms, versicles, etc., at Vespers, is what the ritual supposes and
expressly demands. A choir of mixed voices gathered in a gallery
at the extreme end of the church, either hidden behind curtains or
exposed to view, has neither been ever supposed or sanctioned by the
ritual, much less the omission of nearly one half of what is ordered
to be sung. When we look at the actual state of things as they are
in vogue amongst us, and honestly look the ritual of the Holy Church
in the face, does not our memory sometimes remind us of the reproach
of Almighty God to the negligent priests of the old law?--"_Non
servastis præcepta sanctuarii mei_;" a reflection which is not ours,
but very pertinently made by the zealous American bishop whose words
we have already quoted.
If, as has been well said, "Our present defective knowledge and
appreciation of the liturgy is one of the indications of an enfeebled
faith among a Catholic people," so we do not hesitate to affirm that
a reasonable knowledge of, and constant participation in the divine
offices of the Church is practically necessary to an intelligent
faith in the great mysteries of religion, and the only means of
keeping alive and nourishing true Catholic devotion. Prayer said in
union with the Church is both the light of the understanding and the
fire of divine love for the heart.
One of the directors of the seminary of St. Sulpice, in Paris, in a
recent publication, entitled, _Le Saint Office considéré au point de
Vue de la Piété_, significantly remarks:
"Quand on voit la piété se refroidir en tant d'endroits, il est
naturel de craindre qu'on ne l'envoque le bon Dieu avec tant de
ferveur, que le feu sacré ne languisse dans son sanctuaire. C'est
le moment de se demander si les adorateurs ne seraient devenus
plus froids en devenant plus rares, _si le silence des temples n'a
pas amené le sommeil des âmes_."
When one sees piety growing cold in so many places, it is but
reasonable to fear that God is invoked with so little fervor
because the sacred fire is dying out in his sanctuary. It is time
to ask ourselves if the worshippers have not become less devout
in becoming less attentive at the services of the church; if the
silence of our temples of religion has not brought on the sleep of
souls.
The slightest examination of the offices of the Church will show
how well they are adapted to instruction in doctrine, and for the
illustration of the Gospel record and the historic acts and interior
life of Christianity. We have not the time in this place, nor is it
necessary, to adduce proofs of this. They whose interest in this
matter we aim at arousing have a daily reminder of its truth.
That these holy offices are the fountain-head of solid, popular
devotion is equally indisputable. We have nothing to replace them,
nor do we care to have. We have plenty of so-called "popular
devotions," admirably adapted for their special purposes; but it
must be confessed that _popular devotion_ is far below that standard
of spirituality which the Church aims at inspiring; and which it is
not only possible to attain, but which in ages gone by, whose grade
of refinement and intellectual culture we affect to despise, was
the normal standard of Catholic piety. From whence did the people
draw this strong and healthy nourishment of the spiritual life? The
answer will be found in the fact that the people were educated from
childhood in the liturgy, and they were not, as now, for the most
part spectators, but participators at the celebration of the solemn,
instructive, and devout offices of the Church.
The accomplished author of the remarkable work on _Christian Schools
and Scholars_ thus writes: