The history of heathenism, in the past as in the present, is marked by

contempt for man, by the degradation of the multitude. In this respect

the civilization of Greece and Rome was not different from that of

India and China in our own day. If in Christian nations, after long

struggles and terrible conflicts, a better state of social existence

has been brought about, we owe it to Christ working in and through his

church. To render liberty possible an intellectual and moral

revolution had to take place. New ideas as to what man is in himself

simply, new sentiments as to what is due him by virtue of his very

nature, new doctrines as to what all men owe to all men, had to be

preached and accepted before there could be any question of civil

reform in the direction of larger and more universal liberty.

Institutions, laws, constitutions are mechanical, the surfaces of

things, social garments which, unless they cover and protect some

inner life and divine truth, are merely useless forms. Liberty,

individual and social, is inseparable from self-control, which is born

of self-denial. Good men cannot be made by good laws any more than by

good clothes. Man, of course, is influenced, in part educated, by what

he wears as by what he eats; but it does not follow that the wisest

course would be to hand over the children, body and soul, to cooks and

tailors. Not less unreasonable is it to surrender them to politicians

to be drilled and fashioned by the mechanical appliances of

government.

Liberty is of the soul; it is from this sanctuary that it passes into

the laws and customs of society. Men who are slaves in heart cannot be

made free by legislative enactments. The church of Christ taught men

how to be worthy to be free by showing them liberty’s great

law—self-denial; by restoring to the soul the sovereignty of which it

had been deprived since the gates of Paradise were barred; by clothing

human nature with inviolable sacredness and inalienable rights; by

proclaiming that man, for being simply man, is worthy of all love and

respect.

When Christ came, the slave, without honor and without hope, was

everywhere. The master was like his slave. Surrounded by human herds,

to whom vice in its most degrading forms had become a necessity, he

breathed in an atmosphere of corruption against whose deadly poison he

was powerless to contend. His life was a fever alternating between

lust and blood. The debauched are always cruel, and as men sank deeper

into the slough of sensual indulgence the cry for carnage grew

fiercer. Nothing but the hacking and mangling of human bodies could

rouse the senses, deadened by the gratification of brutish passions.

Here and there a stray voice protested, but only in the sad tones of

despair. Hope had fled; the world was prostrate; in the mephitic air

of sensuous indulgence the soul was stifled; the poor were starving

and the rich were glutted; a thousand slaves could hardly feed the

stomach of Dives; and Jesus Christ took Lazarus in his arms, and in a

voice from heaven called upon all who believed in God and in man to

follow him in the service of outraged humanity; and his voice was

re-echoed through the earth and through the ages. At its sound the

despairing took heart, the dead lived, the poor heard the new gospel

of glad tidings, and the slave, crushed and ignored by human society,

found citizenship and liberty in the kingdom of God.

[80] “A Sequel of the Gladstone Controversy.” THE CATHOLIC

WORLD, February, March, and April.

EASTER IN ST. PETER’S, ROME, 1875.

The glorious sun of Easter morning, 1875, arose in splendor, gilding

the domes and turrets of the Eternal City with burnished gold,

picturing to the mind the gates of Paradise this day opened by the Sun

of Righteousness. The Roman people were early astir, though no cannon

sounded from Mount St. Angelo to usher in the great festival, nor

papal banner flung its folds to the breeze from that old citadel this

bright spring day to speak to Christians of him whom our Lord

appointed to watch over his sheep.

After early Masses at the church of Sant Andrea delle Fratte, so much

beloved and sought after by English and American Catholics in Rome as

the place where Ratisbon the Jew received the great gift of faith, we

took our way to the Basilica of St. Peter. Multitudes filled the

streets, men and women in holiday attire, but not with the old-time

life and exhilaration of a great _festa_. Loss does not sit lightly on

the Roman; and everywhere there seemed to be something wanting to make

this day what it should have been; no grand processions, no public

solemn High Mass celebrated with august ceremonies by his Holiness, no

precious benedictions from his paternal hand. A veil hung over the

face of our Easter joys; for the Bride of Christ sat in sackcloth.

When we entered on the pavement of St. Peter’s, far-off sounds of

joyous music came from the canon’s chapel, scarcely reaching the

hallowed arches without; but a wail of sadness, a chord of grief, ran

through it all, for wicked men had made it impossible that our Holy

Father should present himself at the altar where he alone officiates,

lest his presence should excite tumult and bloodshed among his dear

children. High Mass was being celebrated in the canon’s chapel, which

contains one of the forty or more altars of St. Peter’s, and is shut

off from the aisle by a glass partition. Crowds had pressed in among

the dignitaries of the church, and far out into the nave hundreds were

uniting themselves to the Holy Sacrifice there offered.

There is perhaps no place on earth where a person can be so entirely

alone among a multitude as at St. Peter’s. Each one seems bent upon

the particular purpose that brought him there. The church on this day

contained twelve thousand people at least (we heard the number rated

much higher), but no noise was heard save the constant footfall on the

marble pavement and the faint echo of the voices from the choir, while

of room there was no lack. Low Masses were being celebrated at many of

the altars, around which gathered groups of attentive worshippers; and

when the tinkling of the small bell hung at the door of the sacristy

gave notice of another Mass, from every quarter persons were seen

moving rapidly forward following the priest to the altar where he was

to celebrate.

Many there were in that privileged place on that holy day who had come

from motives of curiosity, to see what it was all like—gazers who

looked upon Catholics with cool contempt as but a step removed from

the heathen to whom they send missionaries; the industrious

sight-seeker, the tourist, whom no solemn function can hold more than

a few minutes, coming even on Easter day with their red-covered

‘Bädeker,’ and sometimes with their opera-glasses levelled at the

altar where the priest was saying Mass, and walking with perfect

nonchalance over and among the people kneeling in devotion. They spoke

to each other in undertones (intelligible to one of their own tongue),

and with visible sneers, of the subjection and superstition of “these

Romanists.” A few of them were Americans, while more were English;

but, it is needless to say, none of them persons of good breeding.

Long lines of students from the various colleges in Rome passed and

repassed, each in their distinctive color, pausing a moment on bended

knee to speak to our dear Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, then going

onward toward the hundred lamps that burn continually before the tomb

of the Prince of the Apostles, and passing quietly out again to visit

some other temple. There were schools of boys and schools of girls in

picturesque costumes, charity children and children of princes, all

kneeling together before their common Lord, all seeking their share in

his Easter benedictions. Streams of people flowed in from the

Campagna, often rough, ragged, unkempt—the women in their harlequin

holiday clothes, the men in goat-skin breeches and brilliant vests.

These, like the others, had come _home_; for St. Peter’s is a home for

all, and the poorest beggar feels that he has a right within those

consecrated walls. Soldiers and officers in the varied uniform of the

Italian army walked about listlessly, sometimes haughtily, only a few

bending their knee as they recognized the divine Presence. We pitied

them greatly; to be an earnest Catholic in Victor Emanuel’s army must

be a great trial to one’s faith.

The numerous confessionals, for many different languages, were the

resort of wayfarers that day, while the confessors sat quietly at

their posts hour after hour listening to the tale of sin and

repentance. Almost every Catholic paused to touch and kiss the foot of

the bronze statue of St. Peter, worn by centuries of devout kisses.

The statue had this day a new attraction; for over it was hung a

gorgeous drapery of scarlet and gold. We found that these rich

hangings, so graceful and beautiful, were in mosaic from the famous

workshop of the Vatican. A fine portrait of the Holy Father crowned

the whole, wrought from the same material, and a very satisfactory

likeness.

This calls to mind an incident which took place in the Vatican

Basilica a short time before the Easter day of which we are writing.

We had gone to St. Peter’s for Lenten rest and refreshment, and,

having visited the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, were directing our

steps to the altar of our Blessed Mother, when a sacristan politely

requested us to leave the church. We were inclined to rebel for a

moment, till we observed the whole assembly, priests as well as

people, moving towards the entrance; we followed, of course, and the

doors were closed. So surprising a movement in the middle of the day

was the cause of much questioning, and it was discovered that his

Holiness wished to see the decorations put over the statue of St.

Peter by his orders. He could not appear before the congregation, lest

the zeal of his Catholic children might get the better of their

prudence, and cries of _Viva il Papa!_ might bring upon innocent

friends the indignation of the Italian government, as they had done on

a former occasion.

This day we were to see no illuminations of the grand façade and the

broad portico; no brilliantly-lighted cupola, visible to the furthest

corner of Rome; none of the imposing ceremonies that have been so much

sought after and admired by Protestants. These latter go away from the

Easter celebrations dissatisfied, sometimes annoyed and angry, that

they should be deprived of the fine sights “just for a whim of the

Pope.” We heard them utter these words as we passed down the massive

steps leading to the piazza. They seemed to forget that holy church

puts not forth her beauties solely for the delectation of Protestants

who come to Rome at Christmas and Easter “to see sights.” They might

know that when her Head is bowed with sorrow, all true children of the

church carry the same cross, the whole body suffering with the head.

There was joy tempered with much sadness in our hearts as we went from

the noble basilica and wandered away to the Coliseum, fit emblem of

the church in the Rome of to-day. Ruthless hands—hands of those who

would make Rome like any modern city—have shorn this sacred spot of

half its beauties; hard hearts have stripped it of its hallowed

stations and forbidden the people to pray where the martyrs shed their

blood.

THE ETERNAL YEARS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE DIVINE SEQUENCE.”

IV

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD’S GOVERNMENT—LONGANIMITY

As a lavish and yet unwasteful abundance was the first condition and

eminent characteristic of the creation, so is longanimity, or

patience, the special quality which marks the dealings of God with his

creatures, in the gradual and long-enduring developments of his

government. It is the quality to which we are most indebted, and yet

which, as regards the history of mankind, we value and understand the

least. Possibly the fact of our own brevity of life, as compared with

the multitude of thoughts, efforts, and emotions which the immortality

of our being crowds across the narrow limit of time, leaving an

impression of breathlessness and haste, may put it almost out of our

power—save as all things are possible by the grace of God—to raise

ourselves to any approximate appreciation of God’s long-enduring

patience. And this is increased in the minds of those who are zealous

for God’s glory. They chafe at the outrages committed against his law;

they sicken before the long, dreary aspect of man’s incredulity and

hardness of heart; and the rise of a new heresy, the advent of an

antipope, or the horrors of a French Revolution lead them hastily to

conclude, and impatiently to wish, that the last day may be at hand.

Experience is a slow process. At fifty a man only begins to learn the

great value of life and to look back with marvel at the lavish waste

of his earlier years. But if to the individual the convictions

resulting from experience are of slow and laborious growth, they are

still more so to the multitude. Consequently, though more than

eighteen hundred years have come and gone since St. John wrote to his

disciples, “Little children, it is the last hour,” nevertheless the

pious of all shades of opinion in all ages have not been afraid to

utter random guesses that the end of the world cannot be far off

because of the wickedness of men. It is indeed true, as the Holy Ghost

spoke by St. John, that it is the “last hour.” But what does that

“last hour” mean? Not surely a literal last hour or last day, but a

last epoch. The epoch in the history of the cosmos before the coming

of the Redeemer—that is, before the hypostatic union in a visible,

tangible, and real human body of the second Person of the Triune

Godhead—was the first hour, or the first epoch. The period since the

Incarnation is the last hour, or the last epoch; because nothing

mightier or greater can take place than the fact of God taking flesh

in the womb of the Blessed Virgin. It is the consummation; it is the

one great end of all creation. This last epoch will have its eras,

evolving themselves within the bosom of the Catholic Church, just as

the first epoch had its eras in the diverse revelations which God made

of himself to man; and which were, if we may use the term without

seeming to derogate from their unspeakable importance and their divine

origin, of a more desultory nature than those which are, and shall be,

accorded to God’s spouse, the infallible church. What is this but to

say again what we are endeavoring to express in every page, namely,

that “He who sitteth on the white horse went forth conquering, that he

_might conquer_”;[81] and that God’s work ever has been, is now, and

ever will be a progressive work. “Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O

Thou most mighty. With thy comeliness and thy beauty set out,

_proceed_ prosperously and reign.”[82] When the whole of Scripture is

teeming with promises of future more glorious eras of which we now

only see the germ, developed here and there in some favored soul, in

some special corner of God’s vast vineyard, the church (for the saints

have always been men of the future, in advance of their own time), is

it not a marvel to hear desponding men talking as though there were

nothing better to be hoped for than the end of the world, coming, as

they seem to expect it, like a terrific frost which shall nip in the

bud all the, as yet, unfulfilled promises, and drown the wicked in a

deluge of flame! And this we expect and almost desire, hoping we

ourselves may be saved, but without a second thought for God’s

beautiful earth, which he has blessed a thousand fold by his own

divine footprints on its surface; and where he now makes his

tabernacle in ten thousand churches, waiting, nay watching, with that

ineffable patience of his, whose cycles of longanimity we are

incapable of appreciating!

But it is cruel to speak harshly of a few words of discouragement

falling from the lips of those who are weary with vigils waiting for

new daylight. Only let us learn that the Sun of Righteousness to our

perceptions, as it were, sets and rises again. We are like children

who think when the glorious golden disc has sunk beneath the horizon

that it is utterly gone and is perhaps extinct, while on the contrary

the children of another hemisphere are playing in the warmth of its

beams; so we see the dark clouds of evil hiding from us the light of

grace, first in one spot, then in another, and we grow downcast and

impatient. We forget that “not one jot or one tittle shall pass of the

law till all be fulfilled”;[83] and that our Lord tells us he “did not

come to destroy either the law or the prophets, but to fulfil them.”

Bearing this in mind, let our readers take up the Psalms and the

Prophets, and study, with a deliberate faith in the inspired words,

the promises which concern the future of the world under the tent of

the church, the place of which tent shall be enlarged that she may

“pass on to the right hand and to the left; and inhabit the [now]

desolate cities.”[84]

It is a want of hope—and let us ever remember that hope is a virtue,

and not a mere quality or faculty of the mind—which leads us to read

the stupendously sublime promises of God to the whole earth in the

future of the church, as so much beautiful imagery of which a limited

application manifests itself, from time to time, in the partial

conversion of some thousands here and there over the vast face of the

semi-civilized world, while millions upon millions remain heathens,

Hindoos, Jews, and Mussulmans. We read these glorious utterances of

the Scriptures with the restrained admiration of one who, while

admiring a poem, makes allowances for the “fine frenzy” of the poet.

We take it _cum grano salis_, and forget that it is the trumpet voice

of absolute truth; and that whether or no it point to a millennium

upon earth—a question left open by the church, and so little discussed

as yet by her modern theologians that we will not dwell upon it—it

must mean all it says; and, after the fashion of God’s gifts, more

than we can conceive. This, then, is what the patience and longanimity

of God is leading us to. These glories, which have exhausted the

tenderest as well as the most powerful utterance of language to

depict, are the future of the church, when the spouse of Christ shall

be the mistress of the world. St. Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews,

quoting the eighth Psalm on the high destinies of man, says, “Thou

hast subjected all things under his feet,” and adds, “but we see not

as yet all things subject to him.” Nevertheless the delay gave no

place for doubt that the promise should have an ultimate and complete

fulfilment; while he unfolds to us the wherefore of these sublime

predictions, the only adequate reason why the human race should be

crowned with glory and honor—the one, sole emphatic cause, namely,

that all creation is in and for the Incarnation; that the Incarnation

is the basement, and the sublime architrave and final coping-stone of

the whole edifice; that the creation is for him as entirely as it is

by him, and that man is the younger brother of his Redeemer, and

shares in his inheritance.

We have already spoken of the indirect and adaptive government of God;

of “the government which he condescends to administer in his world

through the moral and physical activity with which he has endowed

mankind.” We have shown that the representative law of creation is

“increase and multiply.” We now come to the fact that since the fall

the corollary of that law is labor and toil. The earth from

henceforward brought forth thorns and thistles; in other words, on all

sides obstacles and difficulties met the advancing steps of the

discrowned lord of creation. Speaking according to the eternal decrees

of God, and not according to their manifestation through time, we

should say that the younger and fallen sons of God had to reconquer

the world they were given to reign over, as the elder Son of God, he

who is from all eternity, has, in consequence of the same fall, to

reconquer the reign of grace in the souls of men, step by step,

vanquishing the thorns and thistles with which our unbelief and

iniquity tear and rend his bleeding feet! There is God’s work going on

in the material world, and there is God’s work going on in the

spiritual world. And what we want to do is to persuade our readers not

so constantly to put the two in opposition, as though, while the

progress of grace is exclusively God’s work, material progress were

quite as exclusively man’s work—to say nothing of those who hold it to

be the devil’s work.

When the three Persons of the ever blessed Trinity said, “Let us make

man,” it was with the expressed intention that he should have dominion

over the whole earth—“_universæ terræ_.” That constitution of man as

the lord of creation was not annulled when man fell. It is true that

it became a dominion he had to contest with the beasts of the forest,

who were originally to have been his willing slaves; with the thorns

and thistles that ever since bar his passage; and with the convulsions

of nature, to the secret harmonies of which he had lost the key; while

the angelic guardians of the cosmos could not hold intercourse with

him in his degraded state, who, although they be “ministering

spirits,” are so in secret only, until the time shall come for their

promised mission upon earth. Nevertheless man was a monarch still,

though a fallen monarch. Or rather we should say that, as redeemed

man, he is God’s viceroy; and in that character is reconquering the

material world, that as the ages roll on the church, the spouse of

Jesus, may “lengthen her cords and strengthen her stakes.”[85]

Materialism is no necessary consequence of material progress.

Scientific discovery, whether as regards the solar system, the dynamic

forces, chemical affinities, or the properties of the world’s flora,

the habits of its fauna and the uses to which all these may be put,

is—next to the development of theological truth, of which in a certain

sense, as will one day be proved, it is the correlative—the highest

gift of God. It is simply man’s fulfilment of his second and inferior

mission upon earth. His first mission, or rather his vocation, is to

save his soul from sin, and to live in union with his God. His second

is to fill the one spot, be it wide or narrow, which God has assigned

him in the creation with all the faculties of his mind and intellect.

It may be a very small, a scarcely discernible spot that he occupies;

but in his degree he too has to conquer his territorial inch and

govern in the creation, though he do so but as a shepherd or a

ploughman. We are conscious as we write this of all that may be said

in detriment of material progress, of the luxury it leads to, of the

rapid propagation of false opinions, evil literature, and irreligious

thought; or of the increased facilities for the wholesale slaughter of

mankind in modern warfare. No wonder the pure-minded shrink in dismay

from much that material progress appears to be producing in the world,

and that timid souls are led to believe that such progress not only is

not God’s work, but (if we may make this distinction) is also not his

intention. We would entreat all such to take courage from a few

considerations which will lay before them their error in principle,

and also give them a wider view of God’s merciful designs in his own

creation.

First, it may be assumed that, as the Almighty has not abdicated his

providential government of the world in favor of the powers of

darkness, therefore no great and wide-spread movement takes place

amongst the children of men without its having an ultimate end for

good. We do not believe that evil is to win the day. We utterly refuse

to give credit to those who look upon the Lord of Hosts as vanquished

in the end, and upon the personal Lucifer, and the principle of evil

which he embodies and represents, as going off the field with a crowd

of prisoners who will far outnumber the armies of the Lord. This

desponding about the triumphs of grace is the residuum of

Protestantism. It is the melancholy of sectarianism. It is not in

accordance with the teaching of the church; she who is forever lifting

up her eyes unto the hills from whence cometh her help. The church

which is built on the Incarnation, which is fed with the Eucharistic

Sacrifice, and which owns as her queen the woman “clothed with the

sun,” “terrible as an army with banners,” does not limit her hopes to

a few sheep scattered in the wilderness, but knows that the “cattle on

a thousand hills” also belong to her Lord and Master.

We have no wish to palliate the evil which dogs the footsteps of

modern progress. We see that, like the huge behemoth, it tears down

many a sacred barrier, many a hallowed landmark, with its gigantic

strides, and we mourn with our mother the church, and with all the

body of the faithful, over the souls that perish in the fray. But not

even for this is it possible to doubt the ultimate designs of God’s

providence in making all work together for good.

Good works through evil, not as its instrument but as its vanquished

enemy; and material and scientific progress is so certainly a good in

itself that it arises from and forms part of the development of man’s

original destination, as being lord over the creation. It is the

necessary result of that; consequently it is a fulfilment of God’s

will. As to its fatal, or at least deleterious, moral effects on

individuals, or even for a time on the multitude, this is but the

weaving of the dark woof into the web of man’s existence, which is the

result of man’s estrangement from God, but which, neither in this nor

in any other form, will be allowed ultimately to defraud the Almighty

of his glory, by turning a relative, and much less a positive, good

into positive evil. We see the beginning; we do not see the end, save

by the eyes of faith, and trust in the goodness of God. We are looking

out on the world through the small aperture of time, our own limited

time, our own individual brief life, and thus we see all the present

evil, and but little, and occasionally nothing, of the future good.

But surely as Christians we are bound to believe that no waves of

thought or sentiment, and no sustained and wide-spread effort of _any

kind_, take possession of mankind without a special beneficial

intention of God’s providence, and without a distinct and absolute

good being their ultimate result. We bow our heads to the storm of the

elements; we accept the flood and the hurricane, and even the

pestilence, as coming by the permission of our heavenly Father, and as

in some way working for good. And shall we behold the moral and

intellectual activity of man scanning the high heavens, searching the

deep bosom of the earth, snatching from nature her most hidden

secrets; seeking the principles of life, and the occult laws of

development and progression; shall we watch wonderingly the strange,

new, and pathetic tenderness with which men are beginning to

appreciate and investigate the whole world of creation inferior to

themselves, but holding perchance in its silent and patient existence

secrets important to us—shall we behold all this, while our hearts

burn within us, and not intimately and intently believe that God is

carrying on his work, while man seems only to be following his own

free will in the exercise of his intellect? Let us be larger hearted

and more trusting with our God; nor for a moment suppose that the

reins of government have fallen from his hands, or that passing evil

will not terminate in greater good. The darkest hour is ever the one

before the dawn. Doubtless when the eagles of Rome sped victorious

over the vast and crowded plains of the Gaul and the Frank there were

gentle spirits left at home who, having kept themselves pure by the

undiscerned aid of the grace which our heavenly Father never refuses

to men of good will, grieved that the corruption of Roman luxury

should infiltrate its poison into the simple lives of the

semi-barbarous and valorous nations. And yet, but for these victorious

eagles what would the world be now?

God brings good out of evil; and though material progress is seldom a

real advantage at its first advent, yet when the moral excitement of

its early possession has subsided, when the ever living, ever

penetrating spirit of God has gradually, through the poor human

instruments he condescends to use, claimed all that man can know, do,

or acquire, as belonging to himself in the great scheme of creation

and redemption, then, by slow degrees perhaps, but by sure ones, the

evil gives way to good. It rests with us to hasten the appropriation

of all that men call progress, gathering into Peter’s net the large

and the small fishes; for it is all ours. As children of the church,

to us alone does the world belong in the ultimate and supreme sense.

It is our fault if we are not more rapidly converting the raw material

which is swept to our feet into increments of God’s glory. It rests

with the church in her children to make what the world calls progress

become a real progress.

There is no real progress without a fixed principle as its basis and

starting point. And that Christianity alone can give; and chiefly

Christianity in its only full and perfect form, the Catholic Church.

By Christianity we mean the fear and the love of God, with all the

pure moral results which flow therefrom. The moral law is the first

law, and material progress is not a real gain until it is married to

the moral law. The immediate consequence of material progress is to

increase wealth; and the immediate result of increased wealth is a

doubtful benefit. While the wealth remains in the hands of the few,

the gulf between rich and poor is widened and animosities increased.

When first it percolates into the lower strata of society, for the

time it exercises thereon a demoralizing effect; for the tendency of a

vast deal of material progress, and of its resulting modern

institutions and modern customs, is to sap real happiness, and

substitute a fictitious excitement based on wealth and luxury. We are

thus forever eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and

evil. The bitter and the sweet will grow together till God shall part

them. But the evolutions of the eternal years gradually reconquer the

crude materials to the cause which must ultimately triumph; and as the

spirit of God moves over the face of the troubled waters the

discordant social elements fall into place, and a further degree of

the real, true, moral progress of mankind is found to harmonize with

the material progress that man was so proud to have gained, and which

when he did so was but the coarse though precious ore which waited to

be purified in the crucible of the divine law.

Is there any sane man now living who really regrets the invention of

printing? We have heard the project of a railroad in China deprecated

by a zealous friend to truth. It will carry our merchandise; but will

it not also carry our priests? We remember when men said murders would

increase because London was to be lit with gas! Do these

sincere-hearted men really think that man is working out solely his

own will, and that an evil will, in all this heavy tramp of material

progress through God’s world? Is not man fulfilling his destiny of

conquering the world; and when he has done his part, albeit done too

often in blind and arrogant ignorance, will not the rightful owner of

the vineyard come and claim the whole?

It is impossible for us to be slack in the exercise of any one virtue

without the omission affecting the whole of our inner and spiritual

life. If we allow our hopes to sink low it is certain to affect our

faith; and if our faith, then also our love. Nor should we forget that

it is “_according_ to our faith that it shall be done unto us.” We are

not seconding God’s precious intentions towards us so long as we are

taking a desponding, narrow, and unaspiring view of what are likely to

be his intentions as regards the future of his creation; and all

despising of that creation, all holding cheap the law, the order, the

beauty, and the uses of the material creation, arises from an

inadequate sense of the mystery of the incarnation, of the _Verbum

caro factum est_ which is the one sole efficient reason of all we see

and of all that exists. Once raise the inferior questions of nature,

of science, and of art up to that level, and we shall find that it

imparts a certain balance to all our thoughts, and diffuses a peaceful

looking forward and a calm endurance of present ills which are morally

what the even pulse and the vigorous strength are physically to the

man in perfect health. He is as free from the excitability of fever as

from the lassitude of debility; he is a sane man.

There is another point from which we can view the material progress of

the world with hopefulness, as helping to work out the future in a

sense favorable to the church; and this point comes under the head of

what we have called God’s adaptive government of his creation. It is

the fact that the progress of civilization develops the natural

characteristics of the various races of mankind, and that the history

of the church reveals how the providence of God makes use of the

characteristics of race—as he does of everything else—for the building

up and development of the church, and of truth by her. The life and

death of our Lord having been accomplished in the chosen land, among

the chosen people, the infant church was speedily transplanted from

the shadow of Mount Calvary to the City on the Seven Hills. Judea was

her cradle, but Rome was to witness her adolescence. The two leading

characteristics of the Latin race were necessary to her growth; for

the Latins were the conquerors and the lawgivers of the world, and the

pioneers of the future. She was borne on the wings of the Roman

eagles. She followed in the footsteps of the victorious legions, and

as Rome and time went on with devouring steps, she caught the

conqueror and the conquered both in her mystic net, and reigned among

the Latin-Celtic races. Rome was the world’s lawgiver. The Latin

genius is essentially legislative and authoritative. Subtlety,

accuracy, and lucidity were the necessary human elements for the

outward expression of the divine truth which the church carried in her

bosom; for Catholic theology is a _certain_ science, admitting of

fuller developments as “things new and old” are brought forth from her

treasured store, but never making one step too far in advance of

another throughout her rhythmical progress. These human elements

resided essentially in the Latin mind; and in the Latin tongue, which

has ever been the language of the church, and which, the church having

consecrated it to her own purposes, became what we popularly call a

dead language so far as concerns the shifting scenes and fluid states

of man’s mortal life; she laid her hand upon it, and it sublimated

beneath her touch, and was consecrated to her use, beyond all changing

fashion or wavering sense. The dying Roman Empire involuntarily

bequeathed it to her; and the language of the great lawgivers of the

world became that of the church, and only on her lips is a living

language to this hour. The Latin people were the fountain of law;

their code to the present day forms the common law, or the base of the

common law, of all Christian nations except where the retrogradations

of the Napoleonic code have been flung in the face of humanity and the

church as an insult to both. The principle of law, the love of law,

lay in them as an hereditary gift. Thus were they as a race specially

adapted to become the framers of the church’s canon law, of her

discipline, and of her glorious ritual, each phrase of which is the

crystallization of a theological truth, a fragment from the Rock of

Peter, but perfect in itself and concomitant with all the rest.

Thus also she wrote in letters of red and gold her marvellous ritual,

the least part of which embodies a symbolic act relating to the things

that are eternal. There is not a touch that is not significative,

there is not a line that does not seem caught from the traditions of

the nine choirs of angelic ministers. As full of mystery as of

practicality, beautiful, graceful, and complete, it runs through all

the life of the church like the veins through the living body, and

carries order and harmony through every low Mass in the village

church, through high pontifical ceremonials and within the silent

gates of cloistered orders where men and women daily and hourly enact

and represent the drama of the church.

The same genus runs through all the component parts; and that genus

belonged to the race to whom was consigned the laying of the church’s

foundations, and the raising of the edifice. And thus there exists,

besides the divine integrity of the whole, a certain human consistency

which, humanly speaking, is the consequence of the work having been

put into the hands of the race that was naturally adapted to effect

it. Now, as the ways of God are necessarily always consequent—that is,

consistent with each other, moving in harmony and working through

law—it is not a vain presumption to imagine that as he has constituted

different races with different characteristics, so it is his intention

to make use of each and all in the fuller developments of his church.

“Other sheep I have that are not of this fold; them also must I

bring.” The words were spoken in Jerusalem while the Latin race was

lying in the blind pride of paganism, and the Celtic races were only

recently being hewn out of the darkness of their far-off life by the

swords of the conquering nation. Surely it is one of those words the

fulfilment of which is not complete. There are other races waiting to

bring into the vineyard the tools that their native genius has put

into their hands. As the church through the Latin race has formed her

external, congregational, hierarchical, and authoritative condition,

and has crowned the whole in the last Vatican Council by the dogma of

the infallibility, laying thereby the keystone that locks the perfect

arch, so now the Teutonic Saxon races, the people of individuality, of

complete inner life, combined with vast exterior activity and

resistless energy, will be brought forth in God’s providence to carry

out the law of liberty which is the correlative of the law of

individuality.

God speaks to the individual soul through his organ the church,

through her sacraments, down to her least ceremony, and through her

authority. Nor have we any absolute test and security that it is his

voice we hear and no delusion of our own, _except as we are in harmony

with her authority_. All may be a mistake save what is in accordance

with the one infallible voice. But nevertheless it is to the

_individual_ soul that God speaks, and not to the masses as such. God

leads each soul separately, and individually apart, and there is no

real religion that is not the secret intercourse, the hidden

communion, of the solitary soul, alone with God. Every human soul has

its secret with God, a secret of love, or a secret of hatred, or of

avoidance. God penetrates our souls through the sacraments of the

church; but past the sacraments, and as the result of the sacraments,

there must grow up the continued, sustained, and ever more and more

habitual presence of God in the soul, before we arrive at that state

for which the church and the sacraments are but the means to an

end—though a divine means. “We will come to him and make our abode

with him.”[86]

Nothing less than this is the promise of God, and should be the object

of man. The church in her sacraments and ordinances is the one

authorized and infallible way to bring about this blessed union. But

unless that be accomplished, all the outward devotions that saints, or

confraternities, that individuals or congregations, ever devised and

poured into the church’s lap like handfuls of flowers, will be to

those who rest in them as fading as flowers, and as sure to be swept

away and burned when the fire shall try of what sort the work is. The

dying to self—not as man’s restrictions can produce its outward

semblance, but as God’s working in the soul joined to our good will

can alone effect it—and the consequent union with him whose divine

spirit rushes in wherever we make room for him to come, is the one

sole object of all that the church gives us and does for us; of all

the barriers she erects, of all the gardens she plants, of all her

discipline and her ceremonial. It is the only living reality. It was

so with the saints of all ages and nations. They valued all in

proportion as by its use they killed self and put the living God

instead; and they valued it no more. Low down in the soul the deep

pulsation of the thought of God, ruling all our actions from the least

to the greatest, this is what our dear Lord demands of us in every

communion we make; this is what his church intends in all her

teaching. This alone will hasten the reign of the Holy Ghost, when God

“will pour his spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters

shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men

shall see visions.”[87] In other words, the gates of the supernatural

world shall be thrown open, not to a rare and scanty few, but to all

to whom “it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God.”[88]

We seem to have wandered from our subject; but it is not so. We were

writing of the future development of the church through the different

characteristics of different races, as instruments in God’s hands in

the working of his adaptive government; and this has led us to

describe the necessity of the inner life of the soul with God, because

the Teutonic and Saxon races are the people with whom the tendency to

a deep inner life is a natural peculiarity. They are more

self-contained, self-reliant, reserved, and recollected than the

versatile Latin races; and though none of these characteristics

necessarily lead to a spiritual inner life of any form—that being a

free grace from God—they are the apt instruments for grace to make use

of in producing a certain form. They are, therefore, those to whom we

may look for the next important era in the church’s history; when all

the vast and complicated edifice of her hierarchy being complete she

has now to expand the fuller development and deeper utterance of her

inner life in individual souls; and that no longer as an occasional

glorious phenomenon of grace, but as spread over a vast area, as

influencing whole peoples, and as becoming the sustained life of

Christianity. Law and liberty in one; the “freedom wherewith Christ

hath made us free.”

We were also speaking of material progress; and these same Teutonic

Saxon races are the races who are specially extending it throughout

the world. We have endeavored to show that in material progress man is

achieving his secondary mission of exercising dominion over the whole

creation. Thus we find that, having in his wonderful providence united

the two characteristics of strong individuality and vehement activity

in certain races, God has prepared for the future of the church, when

inner spiritual life shall be more diffused, an era when the spirit of

God will take possession of all that man can know, do, or acquire as

belonging to himself, “and through him to his church, in the great

scheme of creation and redemption.” And thus material progress will be

assimilated to the welfare of the church; and the stones will be

turned into bread—not in the sense of the arch deceiver, who claims

all material progress as his own region, but united with “the word

that proceedeth from the mouth of God”;[89] the material sanctified by

the spiritual, when all shall be “holy to the Lord.”

The inaccuracy of the popular, as distinguished equally from the

Catholic and the rationalistic view of the importance of matter, and

of material progress which is the march of man’s conquest over matter,

arises chiefly from the imperfect manner in which we realize the

universal presence of God. Many among us can look back with a distinct

recollection to the time when a mother first announced to us the great

truth that God is everywhere. With the unfailing practical sense of

children, we probably began to individualize certain familiar objects

with the query was he there—in this table, in that flower, in my

living hand, in the pen I hold? And the bewilderment of immensity

crept over us as we tried to grasp the thought of the great universal

presence.

As in later years theological questions opened upon us—the mysteries

of our faith, the angelic choirs, the army of saints and martyrs, the

Incarnation, and the localization of the eucharistic presence in the

Blessed Sacrament—many of us have gradually dropped the more intense

sense of God’s omnipresence. It probably was more accurately felt by

the Old Testament saints than by any, except saints, under the new

law. It is not that we have lost sight of the truth that he sees,

hears, and knows each one of us, always and everywhere; but we forget

that he fills all space, and that he is in all things. It is a

remarkable fact that the very lowest, the least theological and

dogmatic, of all heathen beliefs, where all are a jargon of error, is

nevertheless the faint reflection of this truth. We allude once more

to the animism of the lower savage races, which lends a spiritual

presence even to inanimate and inorganic matter. To them God is

everywhere and in every thing; so that to them no _thing_ exists

disconnected from a spiritual presence as abiding in it, and that not

in the pantheistic form of many gods, but as all matter holding an

occult spirit, which is the same spirit in each substance. But there

it ends; a blind creed, which does not even go the length of

acknowledging a personal deity or a divine providence. None the less

is it founded on a truth which often slips out of our consciousness,

while we are occupied with the more familiar articles of our faith.

Let us examine how this great truth, as we hold it in its fulness and

completeness, may be brought to bear on the question now before us of

the value of the cosmos, of the status of matter, and of the fact that

it is the indirect revelation, even as the Incarnation is the direct

revelation of God—Jesus Christ the God-Man being the mediator between

the creature and his creator.

First let us bear in mind that no cause can act where it is not

virtually present by its power, even if not actually present by its

matter. And this law has its correlative in the spiritual world. I

influence you only so far as I touch you. I shall have written in vain

unless these pages touch your sight. If I were speaking to you with my

living voice I could only reach the hearts of those who heard me. To

all the rest I am dead; and they are dead to me. This is the moral

side of the question, as between man and man. As regards the material

side, let us suppose I push forward a ball. It is force emanating from

my touch which sets it in motion; but my force has not ceased with my

direct touch. It is still my force propelling it as absolutely, though

not so powerfully, as at the moment I touched it; and the ball only

stops when my force is expended, or when a counter force arrests it.

But whence comes my force? Solely from him in “whom we live, and move,

and are.” He is our motive power; every act of ours is formed out of

his force, equally whether we are acting according to his will or

against it.

We have said that causes can only act where they are actually or

virtually present. But it is a great fact in the material world that

there is no such thing as material contact. No matter what substance

or what fluid we select, the limpid air or the hard iron, in all each

infinitesimal molecule dwells solitary and apart, and crush them

together as we may there is still a space between.

Now, theology teaches us that God is nearer to us than we are to

ourselves. His divine contact with us is closer on our bodies and our

souls than the molecules of our bodies are to each other. The only

real contact is the presence of God; whether through ourselves or in

the vast cosmos around us, the action of forces is God making himself

felt. Force is the contact of God, the touch of the divine being on

the material world. He is not in us, nor in the worlds around us, as

he is in his own essential essence, as he is in himself; but he is

there in the effects of his concurrence, and the moment he were to

cease to be there (were such a thing possible) in all, or in any one

part, the whole or the part would fall away into chaos, quite as

certainly as the ball which I have set in motion will cease to roll

the instant my force has exhausted itself and ceases to act on the

ball. My force diminishes gradually; it is a limited and a borrowed

force. The ball goes slower and slower; but so long as it moves, my

force is upon it in a stronger or weaker degree. But the force of the

divine Being is almighty, is always absolute, is always infinite, is

always under his own control; and consequently it never fails, it

never waxes less at any one moment, in any one direction.

In every act of our existence we are using God’s force, for him or

against him. The whole universe is doing the same. His presence is the

sole real contact; the contact of the _Qui Est_, of pure absolute

being with his own creation.

And all around us we hear a vain clamor about an immutable law that

governs nature, while the great primary cause has withdrawn himself

from all interference.

We hear of blind forces which spring from nowhere, and hurry us on

without any guide save themselves. We repeat it—Law and force are not

God; but God is both law and force. There is no motion without a

motive power; and there is no motive power at an actual distance from

the object set in motion. And thus God, who is law and force, is upon

us, within us, around us; and within all, always, and throughout

space. There are mutations and diversities in the exhibitions of God’s

force, according to his divine will; but there is never anywhere any

cessation of it. And there never will be; for if there were, he would

contradict himself, and that is impossible.

This, then, is what matter is. It is the exponent of the being of God

to the angels and to us. It is not the exponent of himself to himself.

_That_ is the eternal generation of the Son in his own bosom; the

second person of the Trinity, the divine Logos. And the Incarnation of

the eternally-begotten Son in the womb of the ever blessed Virgin

Mother is the blending of this double exponent of his being; for it is

the Word made flesh; it is God clothing himself in the matter of his

own creation, and dwelling amongst men.

Could matter be more beautiful than this? Can we say more in its

praise? And could any reflections lead us further from the notions of

materialism, or draw us nearer to God?

[81] Apocalypse vi. 2.

[82] Psalm xliv.

[83] Luke v. 18.

[84] See the whole of the 54th chapter of Isaias, as

well as numerous other passages.

[85] Isaias liv. 2.

[86] John xiv. 23.

[87] Joel ii. 28.

[88] Mark iv. 11.

[89] Matt. iv. 3, 4.

SACRED EPIGRAPHY AND THE INVOCATION OF THE MARTYRS IN BEHALF OF THE

DEAD.

The church is once more in the Catacombs. She has not fled thither

from persecution, albeit she is suffering sorely at present; but she

has gone down there to live over again the memories of the past. With

the lamp of research held aloft, she paces reverently through those

dark and tortuous passage-ways where erst she lived in her saints and

martyrs. Many a precious relic of her primitive existence is delved

out of the accumulated masses of tufa and _débris_, all more or less

showing forth the usages of the early times, and she experiences no

small consolation in beholding that what she was then, in all those

usages which are founded in dogma, she is now. She has not changed.

She is consistent throughout—the beautiful Spouse of Christ,

yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Every new discovery in those

limitless necropolises is a vindication of the maxim of St. Augustine:

_Ecclesia orat, ergo credit_—The church prays, therefore she believes.

The chapels, the altars, the rude frescos, the sarcophagi, the very

inscriptions on the tombs, bear evidence to the great truth couched in

the words of the inspired Doctor of Hippo. To prove, therefore, that

the church prays is identical with proving that she believes; and what

she believes must be true, else she is no church, not the spouse of

Christ, but an unworthy and intruding handmaid. But we are not going

to dogmatize. We would only show on archæological authority, that, as

the church, in her liturgy, at this day commends the dead and the

dying to the intercessory influence of the saints, so did she in the

beginning, when not her dogmas, but her very existence, was called in

question; when, had she been a human institution, she must have made a

false step, for then there were no critical rationalists or fribbling

logicians to take her to task. Sophists there were many, even in those

days. But they had good faith enough to acknowledge that, if she were

a church at all, she could not err; so they consistently confined

themselves to an attack upon her existence.

Among the many important discoveries made of late in the cemetery of

St. Domitilla, outside of the gate of St. Sebastian at Rome, by the

illustrious Chevalier de Rossi (to whose _Bulletin_ we are indebted

for the inscriptions given below), that of the tomb of Veneranda, a

Roman matron, is not the least important, since it constitutes a

strong link in the chain of archæological evidence on the antiquity of

intercessory prayers for the dead. The tomb lies in a chamber which

branches off from one of the subterraneous galleries, entered from the

apsis of the old basilica. On the wall over the sarcophagus is a

fresco in a good state of preservation and of a style anterior to the

Byzantine. It represents a matron in the act of praying in the garden

of Paradise, which is symbolized by a flower plant springing up at her

feet. She is dressed in a loose dalmatic, and veiled like other

Christian matrons who are represented as praying in various cemeterial

pictures of the third and fourth centuries. There is none of that

stiffness in the style and coloring which indicates the graceless

Byzantine school, but such an ease and elegance mark the figure as

have induced De Rossi to compare it with that of the “Five Saints”

(St. Dionysias and her companions) in the crypt of St. Eusebius in the

adjoining catacombs of St. Calixtus. Over the right arm is the

inscription, VENERANDA DET. VII. IDVS IANVARIAS. On the left is the

figure of a maiden, without any veil, dressed in a long double tunic

and pallium. The right hand of the figure is extended as if in the act

of welcoming or receiving Veneranda. She points with the left to an

open box or casket full of volumes, a symbol of the salutary faith

contained in the Holy Scriptures. An open volume is suspended on the

wall, and on the pages are the names of the four Evangelists. Beside

this figure are the words PETRONELLA MARTyr. Of the title of martyr

applied to St. Petronilla we will say a few words presently. On the

whole, the style of the fresco, the fashion of the dress, the form of

the letters, and the ancient laconism “Petronella Martyr,” without the

epithet saint, pronounce the picture to be as ancient as the middle of

the fourth century. The purpose of the picture is unmistakable, being

in form like many which represent some of the characters in an

attitude of prayer, while others are in the act of receiving them into

heaven or inviting them to go in as they draw aside the curtains. This

picture, however, has the additional worth of declaring explicitly the

names of the intercessor and the advocate. The prayers used by the

church from time immemorial in behalf of the dying invite the saints

and martyrs to come and meet the departing soul and conduct her to a

“place of refreshment, light, and peace.” In the same manner the

acclamations which we read in the epitaphs of the early ages call upon

the spirits of the blessed to receive the soul of the departed. Here

is a beautiful epitaph, discovered in one of the cemeteries of Rome

towards the end of the last century:

PAVLOFILIO MERENTI IN PA

CEM TE SVSCIPIAN OMNIVM ISPIRI

TA SANCTORVM.

The acclamation reads: _Paulo Filio merenti_: _in pacem te

suscipian_(t) _omnium ispirita sanctorum_—To the worthy son Paul: May

the spirits of all the saints receive thee in peace. The strange

plural form, _ispirita_ or _spirita_, need not be wondered at. The

Catacombs abound in similar inscriptions. Here are a few of the most

noteworthy: _Leopardum cum spirita sancta_ [that is, _Cum spiritibus

sanctis_] _acceptum_—Leopard received with the blessed spirits.

Another inscription, bearing the date 291, reads: _Refrigera cum

spirita sancta_—Grant him refreshment with the blessed spirits. From

what has been said a clue may be had to the understanding of many more

or less laconic acclamations which the visitor meets with in the Roman

Catacombs; such as, CVM SANCTIS—INTER SANCTOS. They are to be taken in

the sense explained above, because they allude clearly to the soul of

the departed, and not to the body, which is buried close to the tomb

of the saint appealed to. The prayers and acclamations of the faithful

to the saints in behalf of the dead were not simply the outpourings of

tender hearts moved by a pious fancy, but the result of a strong

belief, confirmed by the authority of the church speaking in her

liturgies. In an ancient Sacramentary of Gaul we read, in the Mass of

a martyr: _Tribue (Domine) tuorum intercessione sanctorum martyrum

caris nostris, qui in Christo dormiunt, refrigerium in regione

vivorum_—Grant, O Lord! through the intercession of thy holy martyrs,

to our beloved who sleep in Christ, refreshment in the land of the

living; and in the Mass of SS. Cornelius and Cyprian: _Beatorum

martyrum, Cornili_ [_sic_] _et Cypriani … nos tibi Domine commendet

oratio, ut caris nostris, qui in Christo dormiunt, refrigeria æterna

concedas_—Let the prayer of thy blessed martyrs, Cornelius and

Cyprian, commend us to thee, O Lord! that thou grant eternal

refreshment to our beloved who sleep in Christ.[90] In an ancient

Mass, discovered by More, express mention is made of the times of

persecution—a proof that the invocation of the saints for the repose

of the faithful departed was an established usage in the very earliest

days of the church. Before the reading of the diptychs the priest

prayed in these words: _Deus, præsta, si quies adridat te colere, si

temptatio ingruat, non negare_—God, grant that if peace smile upon us,

we may continue to worship thee; if temptation assail us, we may not

deny thee. Here there is an evident allusion to the intervals of peace

which the early Christians enjoyed between different persecutions.

After the recitation of the diptychs the priest continued: _Sanctorum

tuorum nos gloriosa merita, ne in pœna_(m) _veniamus, excusent;

defunctorum fidelium animæ, quæ beatitudinem_ [_sic_] _gaudent nobis

opitulentur; quæ consolatione indigent ecclesiæ precibus

absolvantur_—May the glorious merits of thy saints excuse us, that we

may not be brought to punishment; may the souls of the faithful

departed that enjoy blessedness assist us; may those [souls] that need

consolation be pardoned through the prayers of the church. The

distinction in this prayer between the commemoration of the living, of

the blessed, and of those souls that have need of the prayers of the

church could not be more evident.

The faith of the early Christians in the efficacy of the prayers of

the martyrs especially, was the reason why they had such a strong

desire, and regarded it as a great privilege, to be buried near the

tombs of the martyrs. St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his funeral epigrams,

makes frequent allusions to proximity with the tombs of the martyrs,

and takes occasion thence to apostrophize them in behalf of the dead.

In an epigram which he wrote on the death of his mother, Nonna, whose

body was laid close to the martyrs, he says: “Receive, O martyrs! this

great victim, this mortified flesh, joined to your blood.” The words

“joined to your blood” have a spiritual signification. By her life of

mortification and sacrifice she had assimilated herself to the

martyrs; but they have also a literal meaning, and allude to the

material contiguity of her tomb with that of the martyrs; for he

premises with the words, “Her body we have placed near the martyrs.”

The idea that the blood of the martyrs penetrated into the neighboring

tombs, and its spiritual signification, that the merits of their

sufferings, and their intercession, invoked by the living, would be

salutary to the dead, are beautifully shown forth in the epigram of

St. Ambrose on the tomb of his brother Satirus, who was buried in

Milan, side by side with the martyr St. Victor:

“Hæc meriti merces ut sacri sanguinis humor

Finitimas penetrans abluat exuvias.”[91]

This distich was quoted by the Irish monk Dungal, in the eighth

century, as a powerful argument in favor of intercessory prayer,

against Claudius of Turin, who was opposed to the invocation of the

saints in behalf of the dead. The same thought is expressed in the

touching verses of Paulinus of Nola, wherein he narrates the sepulture

of his little child near the last resting-place of the martyrs. And as

the little innocent (he died at the age of eight days) had no

short-comings of his own to atone for, the father beseeches him, and

his cousin Celsus, who died at the age of eight years, that the

intercession of the martyrs, near whose holy remains they slept, might

be turned to the benefit of their parents.

“Innocuisque pares meritis, peccata parentum

Infantes castis vincite suffragiis.”[92]

This was in the time of St. Augustine. We find him interrogated by the

same Paulinus, who had granted permission to a widow to bury her son,

Cynesius, near the tomb of St. Felix of Nola: _Utrum prosit cuique

post mortem quod corpus ejus apud sancti alicujus memoriam

sepeliatur_—Whether it might benefit one after death to have his body

buried near the tomb of some saint. The answer was St. Augustine’s

celebrated work entitled _De cura pro mortuis_. The ultimate

conclusion of the book is this: that being buried in proximity to the

tomb of the martyrs is beneficial to the dead in this much only: that

the remembrance of the place invites the living to commend them to the

intercession of the martyrs whose holy remains repose near by. It is

in this sense that we must understand Maximus of Turin when he writes:

_Fratres, veneremur eos [martyres] in sæculo, quos defensores habere

possumus in futuro; et sicut eis ossibus parentum nostrorum jungimur,

ita et eis fidei imitatione jungamur; … sociemur illis tam religione

quam corpore_—Brethren, let us venerate them [the martyrs] in this

life, that we may have them as our defenders in the next; and as we

are united with them through the bones of our parents, so also let us

be joined to them by imitating their faith; let us be associated with

them in religion as well as in the body. Nor did the archdeacon

Sabinus depart from the spirit of the church and the old fathers when

he censured the indiscreet desire and the material devotion of many of

the faithful, in wishing to be buried near the tombs of the martyrs.

He himself chose the last place, near the door, in the Church of St.

Lawrence outside the walls of Rome, and on his tomb is the following

inscription, written at his own dictation:

“Nil juvat, immo gravat, tumulis hærere piorum;

Sanctorum meritis optima vita prope est.

Corpore non opus est, anima tendamus ad illos,

Quæ bene salva potest corporis esse salus.”[93]

In the first part of the epitaph he

alludes to the difficulty of finding a

place vacant near the tombs of the

martyrs, and in the end he writes that

the efficacy is not in being joined to

them in body, but in the soul, which,

being saved, will ensure the salvation

of the body. Maximus, whose

words we cited above, and who

was bishop of Turin after the year

412, insinuates the same when he

says: _Et sic ut eis ossibus parentum_

_nostrorum jungimur_. Hence we conclude

that the usage of burying

the dead near the bodies of the

martyrs was regarded as an ancient

tradition even in the fifth century.

It is not the fact of the material

burying-place to which we would

invite the reader’s attention, but to

the spirit of faith in the efficacy

of the martyrs’ intercession. The

chamber which contains the tomb

of Veneranda is filled with _loculi_,

most of which date back as far as

the year 356. A Roman epitaph of

the year 382 testifies that even at

that date they were very few who

obtained the privilege of being buried

_intra limina sanctorum_—within

the threshold of the saints. The

privilege was only granted to those

whose merits during life had been

eminent, and who had signalized

themselves in the service of God,

and especially in their charity towards

the poor. Thus we read of

a Roman by the name of Verus,

_qui post mortem meruit in Petri limina

sancta jacere_—who after his death

merited that he should repose within

the sacred threshold of Peter.

We are far, however, from asserting

that the formula _sociatus sanctis_ always

alludes to the proximity of a

martyr’s tomb. Very often the formula

refers to the soul, which is already

supposed to be in Paradise.

Here is a fragment of a beautiful

epitaph found in the cemetery of

St. Commodilla:

_BIVS INFANS PER AETATEM SENE PECCA

EDENS AD SANCTORVM LOCVM IN PA

ESCVT_ [Illustration]

The ingenious De Rossi makes of this fragment the following

inscription: (Euse)_bius_ _infans per ætatem sene_ (sine) _pecca_(to)

(acc)_edens_ _ad sanctorum locum in_ _pa_(ce) (qui)_escit_—The infant

Eusebius, going to the place [abode] of the saints without sin,

because of his age, rests in peace.

To remove all doubt regarding the spirit which prompted the early

Christians to desire burial near the tombs of the martyrs, we will

cite a passage from one of the homilies of Maximus, Bishop of Turin:

“Therefore the martyrs are to be honored most devoutly; but we must

venerate those especially whose relics we possess. With these we have

_familiarity_; … they receive us when we go out from this body.” This

special devotion of _familiarity_ with the martyrs, whose relics the

faithful possessed, as it inspired the pious trust that the spirits of

the martyrs would welcome them into the realms of bliss, so did it

induce the faithful living to invoke the intercession of the martyrs

for those who were already gone from this life. But we have yet some

of the most beautiful epigraphs to cite—those touching, deprecatory

appeals to the saint or martyr by name, near whose tomb the remains of

the departed are placed: SANCTE LAVRENTI, SVSCEPA(m) (h)ABETO ANIMA(m)

(ejus)[94]—St. Lawrence, receive his soul!

In the cemetery of St. Hippolytus Bosius read the following:

REFRIGERI TIBI DOMNVS IPOLITVS _refriger_(et) _tibi dom_(i)_nus_

_Hippolytus_—May the lord Hippolytus refresh thee. Here is an

invocation, in a fragmentary state, of St. Basilla: SERENVS FLENS

DEPRECOR IPSE deum…ET BEATA(m) BASILLA(m) VT VOBIS PRO M(eritis).

Another appeal to St. Basilla may be seen in an epigraph now exposed

in the Lateran museum. It is that of a bereaved father and mother who

commend their departed daughter to the protection of the saint:

_Domina Basilla, commandamus tibi Crescentinus et Micina Filia_(m)

_nostra_(m) _Crescen_(tiam)—St. Basilla, we, Crescentius and Micina,

recommend our daughter Crescentia to thee. Side by side with this is

the epitaph of Aurelius Gemelli, a child of four years of age. It was

written by his mother, of whose tender affection a more moving

expression cannot be found than those four words: _Commando Basilla

Innocentia_(m) _Gemelli_—Basilla, I recommend [to thee] Innocence

Gemelli. She calls him not only _innocent_, but innocence itself.

Since we have mentioned the above as a specimen of the tender

affection of the Romans for their dead, and how they gave expression

to it in their epitaphs, it may not be out of place to mention

another, to be seen to-day in the _hypogeum_ of the Church of St.

Praxedes. It is in this form: _Sancti Petre, Marcelline, suscipite

vostrum alumnum!_—Sts. Peter and Marcellinus, receive your pupil. The

Chevalier de Rossi is of the opinion that this inscription belongs to

the cemetery of St. Helen, on the Labican Way. As a sort of

counterpart to it he gives another, of the same tenderness of tone,

which he read in Carpentras: MARTER BAVDELI S PER PASSIONIS DIE DNO

DVLCEM SVVM COMMENDAT ALMVNVM—_Martyr Baudelius per passionis_ [_suæ_]

_die_(m) _Domino dulcem suum commendat alumnum_—The martyr Baudelius,

through the day of his passion, commends his sweet pupil to the Lord.

Hence we may conclude with the illustrious archæologist, whose

erudition has borne us out so far, that the custom of burying the dead

near the tombs of the martyrs, and of asking, as it were, their local

protection for the dead, was universal in the first five or six

centuries. He cites the only exception to this usage that has come

within his extensive observation. It is a Greek epitaph, in which the

three divine Persons, the archangels Michael and Gabriel, the prophets

Jeremias and Henoch, the Blessed Virgin, and, finally, the sibyl are

besought in behalf of the departed.

Thus far we have appealed almost exclusively to the testimony afforded

us by inscriptions discovered in the Roman Catacombs. In conclusion we

would transcribe entire two epitaphs which, though not Roman, are of

the greatest importance in the matter we have been treating. One is

the epitaph on the tomb of Cynesius, in the Church of St. Felix of

Nola, the same of whom Paulinus wrote to St. Augustine, asking

“whether it were efficacious to bury the dead near the tomb of the

martyrs.” The inscription was probably dictated by Paulinus himself.

We give it with the restorations:

ilium nuNC FELICIS HABET DOMVS ALMA BEATI

atque ita per loNGOS SVSCEPTVM POSSIDET ANNOS

patronus plACITO LAETATVR IN HOSPITE FELIX

sic protectVS ERIT IVVENIS SVB IVDICE CHRISTO

cum tuba terriBILIS SONITV CONCVSSERIT ORBEM

excitæque aniMAE RVRSVM IN SVA VASA REDIBVNT

Felici merito HIC SOCIABITVR ANTE TRIRVNAL[95]

Here there is a thought expressed rarely to be met with in sacred

epigraphy—that the martyr Felix will, on the day of general

resurrection, accompany his “guest” before the tribunal of the Great

Judge, and that “the youth shall be protected before the judge,

Christ.” As a general rule the patronage of the martyrs is invoked for

the souls of the faithful departed as they are now. We will give

another epigraph in conclusion which confirms the conception we have

just been speaking of. It is read upon the tombstone of a priest in

Vercelli, by name Sarmata. It is metrical, and the illustrious Father

Bruzzi is inclined to attribute its authorship to St. Flavian, the

poet, who was bishop of Vercelli about the end of the fifth century.

This is the Flavian who was styled by his contemporaries the “Damasus

of Liguria.” Sarmata was buried in the _loculi_ between the martyrs

Nazarius and Victor. The chronicles speak of this privilege in the

following terms: _Sedes proxima sanctis martyribus concessa est ad

mercedem meritis_—The nearest place to the martyrs was given as a

reward of his merits. Here is the epitaph:

NAZARIVS NAMQVE PARITER VICTORQVE BEATI

LATERIBVS TVTVM REDDVNT MERITISQ CORONANT

O FELIX GEMINO MERVIT QVI MARTYRE DVCI

AD DOMINVM MELIORE VIA REQVIEMQVE MERERI.[96]

Nazarius and Victor are here spoken of as the ushers of Sarmata into

the presence of the Lord—_ad Dominum_—and to eternal rest. In the same

manner St. Petronilla is represented, in the fresco of which we spoke

in the beginning, as introducing the matron Veneranda into Paradise.

The epigraphical, liturgical, and patristic testimonies hitherto

quoted place in a clear and unmistakable light the deep religious

significance and the topographical worth of the representation on the

tomb of Veneranda. St. Petronilla, the patroness of the departed, and

whose holy ashes reposed not far distant, _familiarly_ (the expression

of Maximus of Turin) receives her into heaven, and the painter gave

expression to the holy trust of her relatives that St. Petronilla

would intercede for her, while the picture itself would invite them to

pray more fervently to the saint whose holy “memories” (St. Augustine)

were near at hand.

Now that the signification of the picture has been fairly determined,

it may not be an unfitting conclusion to our paper to inquire into the

accuracy of the title of _martyr_ applied to St. Petronilla in this

fresco. In the first place, it is certain that no other saint or

martyr is alluded to but the veritable St. Petronilla whose remains

reposed in the _hypogeum_ of the basilica of SS. Nereus and Achilleus.

Still, it is also certain from the Acts of the two martyrs, in which

mention is made of St. Petronilla, that she was not a martyr in any

sense whatever. The martyrology of Ado speaks of her thus: “When

Flaccus, a knight, desired to be united with her in marriage, she

asked for a delay of three days, and, together with her foster-sister,

Felicula, giving herself up to continual fasting and prayer, and the

divine Mysteries being celebrated on the third day, as soon as she had

received the Sacrament of Christ she lay down upon her bed and gave up

the ghost.” In other codices of her life the opening chapter is

entitled, _De obitu Petronillæ et passione Feliculæ_—On the death of

Petronilla and the martyrdom of Felicula. Hence there is a formal

contradiction between her Acts and this fresco. Without entering into

a critical examination of the authenticity of the Acts of Nereus and

Achilleus—which, by the way, receive new confirmation from every fresh

discovery in the cemetery—we will merely say that, were they

apocryphal, the supposition would be that they would rather magnify

her glory, by giving her the title of martyr, than diminish it.

Setting aside the inscription, the appearance of the picture confirms

her Acts. She is said to have been a virgin of extraordinary beauty,

and that she belonged to a noble family. The picture coincides

perfectly with this belief; for she is represented as being beautiful;

she wears her hair in plaited tresses, wound into a knot on the top of

the head, according to the custom of virgins in those days; while the

make of her dress proclaims her as belonging to noble rank. For the

rest, there is not a single authentic document which gives her the

title of martyr, but all speak of her as _Sancta Petronilla_, or

simply _Virgo Petronilla_. Hence there is no reason in the world why

we should give credence to the inscription of the painter. The title

of _martyr_ accorded to her by him does not become an inexplicable

mystery to us when we recall to mind the many and obvious examples of

the title of _martyr_ being given, especially by private individuals,

without due regard for historical facts. For instance, St. Pudentiana,

St. Cyriaca, and others have been styled martyrs, when we have

positive evidence that they were not. Thus popes who lived after the

persecutions—Mark, Julius, and Damasus—are called martyrs. Nay,

Petronilla herself is named _martyr_ in the _Liber Pontificalis_, at

the life of Leo III. (816), when the history of her life, as given by

Ado, was universally accepted. However, if we recall to mind what has

already been said on the special confidence of the primitive

Christians in the intercession of the martyrs for the dead; if we

reflect that they were regarded as the principal citizens in the

kingdom of God, to whom the heavens were opened, as St. Stephen said

(_martyribus patent cœli_), and hence that to them was attributed,

equally with the angels, the office of introducing departed souls into

the divine Presence, it is easy to understand why the artist, in

portraying Petronilla as receiving Veneranda into Paradise, either

believed her a martyr or deliberately wished to make her equal to one.

_Pictoribus atque poetis æqua est licentia._

But in this matter we must not observe the material form as it is

presented to us, accurately or inaccurately as the case may be. That

is merely relative and secondary. It is the spirit of the work which

we must contemplate—that great faith in the intercessory prayers of

those who had fought the good fight, and whose happiness was complete

in the Beatific Vision. Some of the epigraphs may be very inaccurate,

even exaggerated; yet they bear, in their way, testimony to a sublime

dogma of the church—the communion of saints, not only for the good of

the living, but for the happy repose of the dead. In fine, they are

the embodiment of the loving counsel: “It is a holy and a wholesome

thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins.”

[90] Mabillon, _Liturgia Gallicana vetus_, pp. 278, 289.

[91] Such the reward of his merit that his sacred blood

should penetrate and lave [spiritually] adjacent

remains.

[92] And being alike in the merits of innocence, children,

cover the sins of your parents by your pure

Intercession.

[93] It availeth nothing, nay it oppresseth rather, to

lie near the tombs of the blessed. The best life

approacheth the merits of the saints. In body it is not

necessary; let us cleave to them in soul, which, being

saved, can be the salvation of the body.

[94] The inscription is one carried from Rome to

the museum in Naples.

[95] The holy house of Blessed Felix now holds him,

and so possesses him for long years. Felix his patron

is glad in his happy guest; thus when the awful trumpet

shall shake the world with its sound, and resuscitated

souls shall return to their bodies, the youth shall be

protected before Christ, the Judge; he will stand near

Felix before the tribunal.

[96] For Blessed Nazarius and Victor alike protect

him at their side and crown him with merits. Oh! happy

he who was worthy to be led to the Lord through a

happier path by the two martyrs, and to obtain repose.

SUNSHINE.

Over the glad earth, with her robe of beauty,

Glideth the Spring;

Pouring out perfume from a thousand censers

The peach-wands swing.

Down through the sunny vista of the orchard

Tender green glows,

Gnarled apple-boughs arrayed in robes of splendor

Pearl tint and rose.

Out from the dead leaves and the soft green mosses,

Like joy from pain,

Trailing arbutus, the sweet May evangel,

Bloometh again.

Who can remember, in this wealth of beauty,

How April came?

Crowned with a frost wreath on her pallid forehead,

And snow-star rain.

Yet ‘neath the shadow of the wing of winter

Nature’s heart beat,

Golden wine surging through each rugged column

Like dancing feet.

Thus, my belovèd! though upon us shadows

Coldly may fall,

God worketh slowly with the germs of beauty

Given to all.

Out from the shadow of our solemn parting

Shall sweet hope spring;

Faith, to an altar where the fire is hallowed,

Her gifts will bring.

Grace hath not left thee; it but sleeps, belovèd.

Through wintry hours,

Waiting the footsteps of the soul’s glad spring-time

To wake the flow’rs.

What though the sadness of an earthly parting

On us be laid?

In the bright sunshine of the blest hereafter

Shadows shall fade.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ALZOG’S UNIVERSAL CHURCH HISTORY. Pabisch and Byrne. Vol. II.

Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co. 1876. (For sale by The

Catholic Publication Society.)

The time included in this second volume of the great work edited by

Dr. Pabisch and Father Byrne extends from the beginning of the fourth

century to the beginning of the sixteenth. We have already said all

that is requisite on the excellence of the work in general in our

notice of the first volume. At present we have no criticisms to make,

except on a very few special points. A condensed summary of this kind

is always liable to the fault of ambiguity in some of its general

statements from the very fact of its extreme conciseness, and thus may

give occasion to false impressions on the mind of an ordinary reader.

There is a notable instance of this on page 22, where a short notice

is given of the famous Ulfila. He was, as is well known, an Arian. The

historian tells us that he “accepted it [viz., Christianity] with

simple and earnest faith, just as he found it, putting aside all the

idle and speculative questions that distracted the religious mind of

the age.” We are inclined to agree with the opinion, which the author

evidently intended to express, that Ulfila was not culpably in error

respecting the faith, and that to his simple, untutored mind the

disputes between Catholics and Arians were unintelligible.

Nevertheless, the language we have quoted, taken in connection with a

previous sentence in which the Gothic bishop is called a “great

apostle and bishop,” and another in which it is curtly stated that the

Christianity to which the Goths were converted “meant simply the

_Arian heresy_,” is so extremely awkward and inaccurate that one would

naturally understand it to imply that Catholic faith only differed

from Arian heresy in respect to _idle and speculative questions_. A

careful and instructed reader would, of course, judge that Dr. Alzog

could not have intended such a grossly absurd and heterodox sense;

nevertheless, his translators would have done well to add an

explanatory note showing what he really did intend, but signally

failed to express in a suitable way.

On page 972 the author speaks of the “pantheistic language of

_Tauler_.” In this instance he seems to have followed closely the

opinion of Dr. Stöckl, an author for whom we have a sincere respect,

but whose estimate of Tauler we regard as altogether wrong. We have no

fault to find with the censure pronounced upon the _Theologia

Germanica_, and pass over what is said of the writings of Master

Eckhart, since, although we incline to the opinion that his subjective

sense was orthodox, the objective sense of many of his propositions is

pantheistic and deserved the condemnation of the Holy See. In regard

to Tauler, however, of whom the author speaks in another place in the

highest terms, Dr. Alzog has made, as it seems to us, an inconsiderate

statement by a blind following of Stöckl and other authors who condemn

all the German mystics without discrimination. We have never observed

a single expression in Tauler which has any more semblance of

pantheism than the language of St. Bonaventure or any other approved

mystical writer. We cannot perceive any difference between the

doctrine of Tauler and that of St. John of the Cross, except that the

latter states more distinctly the precise theological and

philosophical sense of several important propositions.

The learned editor-in-chief of the present translation, Dr. Pabisch,

sustains his reputation as a scholar who has a vast knowledge _de

omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis_, perhaps on a par with that of Dr.

Alzog himself. With the exception of occasional infelicities of

diction of not much importance, and the frequent use of italics, which

gives us the sensation of jouncing on a road with many ruts in it, the

style and manner of the translation, which are chiefly due to the

diligent care of the Rev. Mr. Byrne, are satisfactory, and the various

tables at the end are extremely serviceable to the student. One more

volume will complete this exceedingly valuable compendium of the

history of the church.

BURNING QUESTIONS. By William Molitor. London: Burns &

Oates. 1876. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.)

Burning pretty briskly they have been, these questions, for some time

past; the fire seems to be spreading, and not a very speedy prospect

of putting it out! Mr. Molitor has a very agreeable and skilful way of

handling this kind of fire. A gentleman once went to lecture on

nitro-glycerine. Proceeding coolly and with an unembarrassed air to

the platform, one of the committee who surrounded him and were

pleasantly chatting on the subject of the lecture having casually

asked him if he would exhibit any specimens, he replied: “Oh!

certainly; my pockets are full of them.” Several gentlemen of the

committee retired to the back seats on hearing this announcement,

awaiting in fear and trembling the dreaded explosion in the safest

place they could find. The application of Catholic principles to

politics has long and widely been dreaded as explosive and incendiary.

Of late politics have been brought into pretty smart collision with

Catholic principles. Of course it makes no particular difference

whether you throw nitro-glycerine on a rock or throw a rock on

nitro-glycerine. An explosion has certainly resulted in Europe which

is likely to be followed by more explosions. If any damage is done, it

will not be suffered by the church. The anticipated destruction of

Hell Gate by General Newton next July is a figure of what must take

place in that quarter after which a certain locality in the East River

was facetiously named by our Dutch ancestors. We have said that Mr.

Molitor, although in a similar position with the gentleman who

lectured on nitro-glycerine, handles his themes very agreeably and

pleasantly. He is not only good-tempered and humorous, but he makes

his somewhat abstruse topics quite intelligible and interesting. The

form adopted by the author, who is a German priest of high rank in the

church and of considerable note as a writer, is that of a series of

conversational discussions. The interlocutors are educated men of

several nationalities, one of them an American, who are passing a

vacation together on the borders of Lake Como. Several little episodes

and descriptions of scenery are introduced, making a pretty and

enlivening _mise en scène_ for the talkers and their very intelligent

and learned talk. We have not seen the book in its original language,

which is German, but the English translation reads well, and the book

is a masterpiece in its way, both in respect to its matter and form.

The intelligent reader will already have perceived that its subject is

the relation of the church to the state. In substance it is a popular

exposition of one part of ethics which is treated of scientifically in

every Catholic text-book or treatise on morals—such, for instance, as

Liberatore’s _Philosophical Prelections_. We cannot too strongly

recommend its careful perusal to all those of our readers who wish to

understand what Catholic principles and doctrines really are, in

opposition to the popular errors condemned in the Syllabus. We are

glad to see that a more extensive and formal treatise on the same

topics by Hergenröther has been translated and is advertised in the

English papers, although we have not yet received a copy.

CATECHISM FOR CONFESSION AND FIRST COMMUNION. By a Priest of

the Diocese of Springfield. Springfield: Philip J. Ryan.

1876.

We never take up a new catechism without distrust. It is easy to find

objections, real or imaginary, to any and every abridgment of the

Christian doctrine, and consequently there is little difficulty in

coming to the conclusion that a new catechism is needed; but it is

rare that even tolerable success rewards the compilers of text-books

of this kind. We are of the opinion that it is not so important that

we should have the best possible catechism as that one which is good

should be adopted throughout the whole country. Many of our wisest and

most learned prelates have insisted upon this point, and in the first

Plenary Council of Baltimore (1852) a catechism was approved of and

recommended to the clergy of the United States; and this is still

to-day, we think, the best to be found in this country.

The catechism by a priest of the Diocese of Springfield, which we have

carefully examined, has not changed our opinion upon this subject. It

is not free from errors and inaccuracies which are of themselves

sufficient to deprive it of any value as a text-book of religious

instruction. In the “Act of Hope,” p. 4, we come upon the following

ungrammatical sentence: “O my God! who _has_ promised every blessing.”

“What is God?” is asked at the very outset, and the answer given is:

“God is a spirit.” This is no more a definition of God than it is of

an angel or a soul. “What was the Garden of Paradise? Answer—A place

of pleasure.” This is a poor, not to say false, rendering of the

Scriptural phrase. “Who is the devil? Answer—One of the fallen

angels.” Is he not the prince of fallen angels? “Who are the angels?

Answer—Pure spirits without a body.” Is it, then, possible for pure

spirits to have a body? Hell, we are informed, is “a place of eternal

torments, where there is all evil and no good.” This is theologically

inaccurate. It is impossible that a place where there is _no_ good

should exist, since existence itself is a good.

“What are the chief things we must believe? Answer—The chief things we

must believe are contained in the Apostles’ Creed.” Question and

answer do not agree. The one is _what_ and the other is _where_.

“Why did he establish but _one_ church? Answer—Because God being

_one_, he could have but _one_ church.” To affirm that God’s nature

renders more than one church impossible is, we think, unwarranted.

“Can the church err? Answer—She cannot.” The catechism approved by the

First Plenary Council says: “She cannot err in matters of faith.” The

priest of the Diocese of Springfield fails to give the four marks of

the church; and this is certainly a very grave omission. He, moreover,

says not a word about the infallibility of the pope, which is equally

inexcusable.

“How many kinds of sin are there? Answer—Two kinds: original sin and

actual sin.” We were under the impression that the kinds of sin were

very numerous.

“What sins are mortal? Answer—Grievous sins.” And what sins, then, are

grievous? Mortal sins, we suppose.

“Is tale bearing a great sin? Answer—Yes; supported by a text of

Scripture.” Now, we cannot think that tale-bearing is necessarily a

great sin, or even that it is generally so.

“What is the Eucharist made from? Answer—From wheaten bread and the

wine of the grape.” This, in our eyes, as a matter of taste, if for no

other reason, is very objectionable.

We confess that much of what we have found fault with is not of great

moment, but in a work of this kind we have the right to demand the

strictest care and accuracy. We have no desire to be severe in our

criticism, and gladly bear testimony to evidences of talent in the

author, who, with greater pains, would have given us, we doubt not, a

very excellent catechetical text-book.

OUTLINES OF THE RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY OF SWEDENBORG. By

Theophilus Parsons. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1876.

Philosophy of Swedenborg! That is a desideratum which we have looked

for in vain some twenty years or more. We have read a considerable

number of volumes of the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and much that

has been written on their contents, conversed with not a few of his

prominent followers, and yet we have failed to obtain from them all a

clear and philosophical statement of the doctrines which he taught.

Here, however, is a volume written expressly to give to the world such

a statement.

But, alas! we are again doomed to disappointment; for nowhere do we

find in it, in precise terms, the nature of this new revelation. The

nearest we come to it is in the following passage: “If a new

revelation was to be made through him, if it was to be made by his

statement of spiritual truths, they should be not merely new, but so

entirely distinct from all that was ever before known, so well adapted

to send the mind forward on a new path and from a new beginning, so

able to supply new motives and incentives to a new moral and

affectional as well as intellectual progress, and new instruction to

guide this progress, as to justify and authorize this large claim.”

The first pretension made in this paragraph for the new church is “new

motives and incentives to a new moral and affectional progress.”

Neither Swedenborg in his life nor his followers in theirs have yet

made this title good. Nowhere have they shown the signs of a higher

spiritual life or of a greater self-sacrifice. When they shall have

given us a St. Charles Borromeo, or a St. Vincent de Paul, or the

heroism displayed by a Sister of Charity, then, and not till then,

will there be reason to investigate their claim of a revelation which

is superior to that given by Christ himself.

The next assertion in this paragraph is that this “new revelation” is

a source of “new intellectual progress.” Swedenborg revolted at some

of the grossest errors of Protestantism, and, in repudiating them,

seems to have been entirely ignorant of Catholic theology. The author

supposes Swedenborg’s opposition to the errors of Calvinism is the

cause of its decline; seemingly, he is unaware of its refutation

centuries before Swedenborg lived, and the statements of the truths

opposed to it, by the Council of Trent. What is true in

Swedenborgianism is not new, and what is new is not true.

As a specimen of “intellectual progress” we take the very first

sentence of this book: “A church,” the author says, “may be defined as

the collective body of those who agree together in faith and in

worship.” This is the same as if he had said: “A man may be defined as

the collective body of those members which agree together in physical

action.” This is the play of _Hamlet_ with Hamlet left out. Had Mr.

Parsons the true conception of the church, this would have started the

question of the mission of his master!—a point upon which his evidence

would have proven very unsatisfactory.

Again he says “that it is of the very essence of this revelation that

it is given to man’s reason” (page 22).

Is the author ignorant of the fact that Christianity from the

beginning made, and has always made, appeal to man’s reason? By

Christianity we mean the Catholic, the Roman Catholic, Church, outside

of which Christianity never had, and has not now, a real, separate

existence. Have we to tell Mr. Parsons that the Catholic Church has

always upheld the value of human reason and defended its rights? Has

he ever looked into any work of Catholic theology? Has he ever opened

the _Summa_ of St. Thomas, or his volume _Contra Gentiles_? Does the

author not know that it was Martin Luther who asserted against the

church that “a man becomes all the better a Christian by throttling

his reason”? It seems that this new revelation, instead of being an

incentive to intellectual progress, acts upon the intellectual

faculties like a poison, leaving them without tone, vigor, or logical

perception, rapt in a dreamy self-sufficiency.

The author says “he agrees with Professor Tyndall in saying that to

yield to the religious sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the

problem of problems at the present hour,” and adds: “We believe also

that the system of thought and belief introduced by Swedenborg will

lead to the solution of this ‘problem of problems’” (page 30). This is

equivalent to saying that the Creator has made man for a destiny which

he has carefully concealed from him these six thousand years or more!

The same Creator did not fail to satisfy every appetite with its

proper food, except the highest of all—the thirst of the soul to know

its true destiny and the means of attaining it. This he allowed to

tantalize man up to the date of this new revelation! Pity poor

Professor Tyndall could not be made to see it! Happy Professor

Theophilus Parsons, who has found it at the feet of Emanuel

Swedenborg, whose words, he tells us, “were not God’s words, but his

own; full, as we believe, of truth and wisdom, but limited in their

scope and _liable to error_” (page 31).

Swedenborgianism is a product of a mind given to the pursuit of

natural sciences, ignorant of theology, and transported into the

dream-world—a sublimated materialism. There runs through all the

writings of the followers of Swedenborg the assumption of a superior

knowledge of spiritual truths, which allies it closely to the old

heresy of Gnosticism. In kind, Swedenborgianism does not differ from

modern Spiritism, only it assumes an air of greater respectability.

HYMNS. By Frederick William Faber, D.D. New York: E. P.

Dutton & Co. 1876.

The title “Faber’s Hymns” gleams in golden letters from the back of

this handsome little volume, “Hymns by Frederick Wm. Faber, D.D.” (in

choice mediæval characters) on either cover. “Faber’s Hymns”

consequently they must be. It is impossible to doubt their

authenticity, surrounded as they are by all that wealth of adornment

in which our ritualistic friends delight. Here are the thorns, and the

hammer and nails, and a chaste border of what may be taken at will for

the passion flower or forget-me-not, and over the title a gorgeous

cross and beneath it I. H. S. One would be shocked not to meet with

the softest-toned paper inside—paper full almost of that “dim

religious light” that Milton sang. He lingers over these externals,

for they are very lovely, and very characteristic; so lovely that a

sentimental person would weep to find they are only the adornments of

a wilful and systematic mutilation of the hymns of the gentle and

saintly man whose name the volume bears.

A complete collection of Father Faber’s Hymns was published in London

in 1861 with the approval of the author and under his direct

supervision. He wrote a preface to it in which he complained of the

liberties that had been taken with his hymns. He added that “he was

only too glad that his compositions should be of any service, and he

has in no instance refused either to Catholics or Protestants the free

use of them: _only in the case of Protestants he has made it a title

to stipulate, wherever an opportunity has been given him, that, while

omissions might be made, no direct alterations should be attempted_.

Hence he wishes to say that he is not responsible for any of the Hymns

in any other form, literary or doctrinal, than that in which they

appear in this edition.”

That edition bore and bears the same title as the one now under

notice. The difference in size, however, between the two volumes is

rather startling. This difference is accounted for by the fact that in

the ritualistic version fifty-eight hymns have disappeared. There are

one hundred and fifty in the original, there are ninety-two in the

new, and what the editor and publishers would doubtless consider

improved edition. Nor is the list of omissions complete even with

these fifty-eight absent.

But, to do what justice may be done to the ritualistic editor and

publishers—we should be delighted to give the editor’s name as well as

the publishers’, only that a judicious modesty has concealed it from

us—we quote from the preface: “This book of selections from Faber’s

Hymns contains all of the Author’s latest revised edition, except the

Hymns written for the use of Roman Catholics, such as those for the

festivals of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and the Holy Family, and for

the Devotions in honor of them, and the Hymns addressed to the Angels

and Saints.”

In other words, it contains “_all_ of the author’s latest revised

edition” with the insignificant omission of very nearly one-half. How

many hymns “of the author’s latest revised edition” were _not_

“written for the use of Roman Catholics” were an investigation worth

making, which the reader may take up at his choice. Leaving those

points, however, it is to be supposed that so honest a confession

amply atones for everything, especially after Father Faber’s

permission to Protestants to use his hymns. But there was a solemn

stipulation attached to that permission, and to inquire into how far

that stipulation has been observed is the purpose of the present

notice.

From the hymn entitled “God,” which is only the fourth in the volume,

verses 7 and 9 are left out. Those verses have the name of Mary in

them and sing of her beauty. The beauty of the angels and saints,

which is sung in the same hymn, is allowed to pass, but for the queen

of angels and saints of course there is no room.

In the hymn “My Father,” a few pages on, the same thing is observable.

The tender conscience of the editor revolted from and consequently

struck out such a verse as this:

“Mary, herself a sea of grace,

Hath all been drawn from Thine;

And thou couldst fill a thousand more

From out those depths divine.”

In the rendering of the _Veni Sancte Spiritus_ the last verse, which

prays for the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, is struck out, the editor

probably objecting to those gifts for some reason of his own. In

“Christmas Night” the pretty chorus is mutilated for the purpose of

throwing out the name of Mary. The original reads:

“All hail, Eternal Child!

Dear Mary’s little Flower

God hardly born an hour,

Sweet Babe of Bethlehem!

Hail Mary’s Little One,

Hail God’s Eternal Son,

Sweet Babe of Bethlehem,

Sweet Babe of Bethlehem!”

This the critical editor improves as

follows:

“All hail, Eternal Child!

Sweet Babe of Bethlehem!

Hail God’s Eternal Son,

Sweet Babe of Bethlehem!”

The fine hymn “The Three Kings” is shortened by two verses—4 and 12.

To be sure those two verses bear rather hardly on Protestants, but in

that case, and in many others, why not leave the hymn out altogether?

In the hymn immediately following it, “The Purification,” the last

verse, which claims “all rightful worship” for the Mother of Christ,

is thrown out—of course by Father Faber’s express desire. In “Lent,”

on the very next page, verse 3, which celebrates “the feast of

penance,” does not appear. Two pages on, in that most touching of

plaints, “Jesus Crucified,” such verses as these are found unworthy a

place:

“His mother cannot reach His face;

She stands in helplessness beside;

Her heart is martyred with her Son’s;

Jesus, our Love, is crucified!

* * * * *

“Death came, and Jesus meekly bowed;

His failing eyes He strove to guide

With mindful love to Mary’s face;

Jesus, our Love, is crucified!”

What a starved religion it must be that cannot stomach such lines as

those! And what justice to Father Faber! Yet the editor allows the

next hymn to open with the lines:

“Hail, Jesus! hail! who for my sake

Sweet blood from Mary’s veins didst take.”

It is to be supposed that he could not well deny the physical fact,

though he would seem to have strong doubts about it, for presently we

find him in “We come to thee, Sweet Saviour,” changing the last line

of the chorus,

“O blood of Mary’s son,”

to

“O blood of God’s dear son.”

Just one-half the hymn to “Jesus Risen” is thrown out, from verses 2

to 6 inclusively. These verses treat of the sacred humanity. “The

Apparition of Jesus to Our Blessed Lady,” “The Ascension,” and

“Pentecost,” which immediately follow, are among those struck out, as

are also the first eight verses of “The Descent of the Holy Ghost.”

The reason of course is that they eulogize the Mother of God. For the

same reason verses 13 and 14 are omitted. Indeed this hymn alone must

have caused the pious soul of the editor much trouble; for we find in

his fourth verse (the twelfth in the original) the lines:

“One moment—and the Spirit hung

O’er _them_ with dread desire”;

“O’er _her_ with dread desire”

is the original. Again in his sixth verse, which in the original reads:

“Those tongues still speak within the Church,

That Fire is undecayed;

Its well-spring was that Upper Room

Where Mary sat and prayed.”

Of course Mary cannot be tolerated in such company. Her name is

accordingly stricken from the roll and “the disciples” substituted for

it, so that the last line reads:

“Where the disciples sat and prayed.”

It is too much to look to this man for respect for the Mother of God;

but at least he might have some respect for Father Faber, and at the

very least for the laws of rhythm.

It is useless to multiply instances of this kind. They run through the

book. A few other gross liberties taken with the text cannot pass

unnoticed.

In “The Wages of Sin” the second verse of the author reads:

“We gave away all things for him,

And in truth it was much that was given—

The love of the angels and saints,

And the chance of our getting to heaven.”

The Protestant editor objects to

“The love of the angels and saints,”

for which he substitutes

“We gave away Jesus and God,”

a line that belongs to the third verse. This third verse of course

disappears, because it sings of “Mary and grace” and “prayer and

confession and Mass.”