passed in Berlin, had been a pensioner of the “reptile fund,” he could
not have written more unworthily.
FAITH AND MODERN THOUGHT. By Ransom B. Welch, D.D., LL.D.,
Professor in Union College. With introduction by Tayler
Lewis, LL.D. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1876.
Contrary to the intention of the author, the title of his work is
absurdly tautological, when interpreted by its contents. The
impression conveyed by the title page would lead us to expect, did in
point of fact lead us to expect, at least an orderly and careful
analysis of the subjects chosen. In this we have been disappointed,
not by the good-will with which the author labors, but by his want of
success. The work is composed of six chapters which might have been
published independently of one another. Of these the first is valuable
as an aggressive demonstration of the materialistic and irrational
tendency of certain modern professors. The fifth and, perhaps, the
sixth possess a similar value; while the rest of the book, although
fairly written, is comparatively worthless.
The author is manifestly devoted to Christianity; his mind is
sensitive to the repulsive features of modern heathenism; he seeks to
defend the nobler order of ideas. But the trouble is that his brief is
not full. He does not know his case. His theological speculations are
crude even to rawness, and the _point d’appui_ of his structure is not
only vague and inconsistent, but is shored up with declamation which
serves to impart an additional appearance of insecurity to that which
is already feeble. It is rather ludicrous to behold an evangelical
Protestant, at this late day, endeavoring to undo the whole work of
the Reformation, by trying to make faith appear reasonable, or by
seeking other grounds for it than his own interior inspiration.
Nevertheless, this is a step in the right direction. The writer claims
to be a searcher after truth. If so, we can scarcely imagine that he
will rest satisfied with his present work. The faith which gave to
Christianity its organization, and which converted the ancient world,
is no such vague chimera as the shadowy and subjective persuasion to
which the author clings. The pious wish and conviction to which Dr.
Welch adheres may serve to occupy and quiet his own active mind; but
it is less than impotent to compel the assent of others. Dr. Welch
seeks to call attention to the ideas contained in the Bible. He must
have sense enough to perceive that this very attempt is something
beyond his ability, and implies a living power having the right and
capacity to speak for the Bible. Men will not listen to Dr. Welch in
his well-meant endeavor to obtain a hearing. The inconsequent and
abortive assumption on the part of the author of that duty which used
to be accomplished by the teaching church, and which belongs to her or
else to nobody, and the futile effort to give a coherent account of
how he gets from a conviction of the necessity of revelation to belief
in evangelical Protestantism, will nullify that part of the work which
is good and render it merely another stumbling-block in the way of
thoughtful men. We trust that it will do as little harm as possible,
and that the author will eventually find some other occupation more
congenial to his vigorous and reverent spirit than his present task of
attempting to hold himself and others in unstable equilibrium.
ACHSAH: A NEW ENGLAND LIFE-STUDY. By Rev. Peter Pennot.
Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1876.
This is a capital story, or “study,” as the author very rightly calls
it, of New England life. The character are all _sui generis_, such as
only a small, narrow, sufficiently well-to-do New England town could
produce, while one of them, Deacon Manlius Sterne, is a creation.
Never have we seen that peculiar union of service of God and service
of Mammon, which Christ pronounced to be impossible, so admirably
portrayed as in this typical New England deacon, who himself would be
the first to quote our Lord’s words condemning such service to a
business rival, but who at the same time could very easy satisfy his
own conscience on the matter, and find what he would consider a
religious way out of the difficulty. God’s religion looks a very small
and mean affair among these New England Christians. This very book, we
take it, is a revolt against the sham and littleness of such a life.
The writer seems possessed of the best intentions, though not of the
profoundest knowledge of Christianity. His reflections, for instance,
on the death of Dr. Steinboldt are a little out of place in a
Christian’s mouth. Thus, he apostrophizes death: “Sent of God, to rich
and poor alike, to kings and emperors and peasants, to all nations and
peoples, this good physician comes to fulfil Christ’s crowning promise
of rest to all who are ‘weary and heavy laden.’” To which we say, all
very well; only that in the present instance “this good physician”
happens to come in the form of suicide to a murderer, who, to add to
his delinquencies, was a quack.
It was a mistake of the author, too, to make one of his characters, an
excellent Catholic apparently, attend Protestant service on the
Sunday, instead of going to the Catholic chapel in the town and
hearing Mass. However, he is evidently very favorably inclined towards
Catholics, so we will not quarrel with him on so palpable a slip.
“It has pleased God to give us no very clear idea of the great future,
and so we speculate and wonder and dream, each after the fashion of
his own heart; _and one is quite as likely to be right as another_.
Thank God that he has elevated the mysteries of life and death above
the realms of human reason, and left each to aspire to the future of
his own imagination, to long for the heaven of his own desires.” This
sounds to us little above the Turk’s dream of Paradise, who, by the
bye, according to our author, “is quite as likely to be right” as the
Christian. All this is a mistake. Our Lord has left us something far
more definite to long for than the heaven of our own imagination and
desires.
Again: “Madame Wandl, though a ‘bigoted Catholic,’ was more charitable
than these free and enlightened Dickeyvillians, and, when the two
talked together on matters of religious faith, it was the harmonious
meeting of two extremes of belief, one elevating the humanity of
Christ to the level of godliness, the other reducing the character of
God to the level of a perfect and idealized humanity. Those who read
this page will instantly decide which was right, but out of every ten,
five will decide in one way and five in another; and as for me [the
author], I don’t propose to create a majority one way or the other by
throwing myself into the balance, but shall rest contented if I can
preach Christ’s gospel of love acceptably and intelligently to my
people” (pp. 222, 223).
It seems to us very plain from this and other passages that the Rev.
Peter Pennot is far from having made up his mind as to who Christ is.
He tells us practically, in the passage just quoted, that he will not
say that Christ is at once true God and perfect man. Until he
satisfies himself on this point, it is to be feared that his preaching
of Christ’s gospel of love will not bear much fruit. It is one thing
to preach the Gospel of the Son of God, another to preach the gospel
of a being about whom we entertain great doubts.
We have been led aside by such points as these from the main story.
The author writes so earnestly and honestly that we cannot but look
upon his uncertainty with regret. For the rest, _Achsah_ is as
enjoyable a story as we have read for many a day. The author seems to
us to have all the gifts of a novelist. He has wit, humor, pathos, and
an unforced sarcasm that is very telling. His story runs along without
a halt. There is a pleasant, innocent love-plot, and some highly
sensational matter is introduced in a very unsensational manner.
MEDITATIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS FOR A RETREAT OF ONE DAY IN
EACH MONTH. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1876.
This little book has been composed for the benefit of those who have
or wish to have the most excellent practice of putting aside one day
in the month for a religious retreat. Whatever cultivates in us the
habit of serious reflection upon the affairs of the soul is of
inestimable value, since without some practice of meditation and
self-examination it is almost impossible to lead a religious life; and
we know of nothing better adapted to create in us this reflective
character of mind than what is called the monthly retreat. This
devotion is general in religious communities, but it may also be
easily followed by persons in the world without interfering with the
daily routine of life enough to attract the attention of any one. The
collection of meditations before us will, we hope, encourage many to
make proof of the efficacy of the monthly retreat. We would suggest,
however, that in another edition an introduction be added, giving
explanations concerning the nature and practice of this devotion,
pointing out how persons engaged in worldly occupations may most
easily perform these monthly exercises.
SCIENCE AND RELIGION: A Lecture Delivered at Leeds, England.
By Cardinal Wiseman. St. Louis: Patrick Fox, 10 South Fifth
Street. 1876. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.)
This lecture is one of the ablest and most interesting lectures of the
late Cardinal Wiseman. It proves in a conclusive and at the same time
most agreeable manner that “science has nowhere flourished more, or
originated more sublime or useful discoveries, than where it has been
pursued under the influence of the Catholic religion.” In
demonstrating this truth, the eminent writer has given a great number
of facts not generally known to the reading public, which prove the
deep indebtedness of science to Catholic Italy for many of its most
valuable truths and discoveries.
The publisher has done his part in a praiseworthy manner.
REVOLUTIONARY TIMES: Sketches of our Country, its People and
their Ways, one hundred years ago. By Edward Abbott. Boston:
Roberts Brothers. 1876.
This is a very interesting and tastefully printed volume of two
hundred pages, containing a great many items of interest with regard
to the habits and customs of our American forefathers in the beginning
of our national history, a glance at the state of literature, the
press, and education, with many entertaining sketches of the
“worthies” of that period.
From the chapter on “Political Geography” we cull the following
extract, which gives an idea of the style of the work:
“The colonization of the West was yet a dream of the Anglo-Americans,
the designs of France and Spain standing in the way of its fulfilment.
The present great State of Ohio had not a white settlement. St. Louis
was a Spanish town. What is now Indiana had but a single settlement,
that at Vincennes. Detroit was a far-distant outpost sheltering a few
hundred pioneers. This whole region was an unbroken waste, saving at
these few scattered points, which were in large measure military and
trading stations. Over all the Indian had free range. Adventurers were
exploring the lakes and the rivers, and currents of emigration were
only slowly setting in; and on the 9th of October, 1776, three months
after the Declaration of Independence, two Franciscan monks,
indefatigable missionaries of the Roman Church, took possession of the
Pacific coast by the founding of their mission of San Francisco, the
germ of the modern city of that name.”
THE NEW MONTH OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS. From the
original French. By S. P. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham
& Son, 29 South Tenth Street. 1876.
This neat and beautiful little manual cannot but be of service to
every lover of the Sacred Heart, especially at this season of the
year. This month is prolonged into thirty-three days, corresponding
with the thirty-three years of our Saviour’s life upon earth, and is
furnished with appropriate meditations and pious practices, calculated
to inspire devotion and excite the love of Christians towards the
Heart of their Divine Lord. It is sufficient to say of this little
work what the venerable Archbishop of Cincinnati says of it in his
recommendation—that “it is perfectly free from all blemish on the
score of faith, morals, and piety.” Truly, a high commendation.
NOTIONES THEOLOGICÆ CIRCA SEXTUM DECALOGI PRÆCEPTUM. Auctore
D. Craisson. Parisiis: Benziger Bros.; New York: The same.
A certain remnant of Jansenistic rigorism among the French clergy is
assigned by the author of this treatise as one of the reasons which
induced him to write on the subjects indicated by the title of his
book. In the work itself we have failed to discover anything of
importance which may not be found in almost any text-book of moral
theology.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXIII., No. 138.—SEPTEMBER, 1876.
Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1876.
THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN THE UNITED STATES.
The Constitution of the United States has these provisions:
“No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification
to any office or public trust under the United States.”—ART.
VI.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”—FIRST
AMENDMENT.
It is thus the case that, as originally framed, the Constitution
simply provided that “no religious test shall ever be required as a
qualification to any office or public trust under the United States,”
but did not, in terms, prohibit Congress from erecting a state
religion or interfering with the free exercise of religion otherwise
than as regards office. The First Amendment was therefore adopted, in
order that, as amended, the Constitution should forbid Congress from
intermeddling in any way whatever with religious matters; and it has
hence passed into the general understanding that the government of the
United States has no religious character or powers whatsoever, but is
purely a secular organization, contrived and devised for purely
secular ends. As stated in the eleventh article of the treaty of Jan.
3, 1797, between the United States and Tripoli, “the government of the
United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian
religion” (_Rev. Stats. U. S._, “Treaties,” p. 756).
It being thus the case that religious liberty, as we now understand
it, did not spring full-orbed and complete into existence in the
United States, it may be of interest to trace the stages of its
development. The provision that “Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion” owes its immediate origin to the
representations of the conventions of a number of the States upon
adopting the Constitution of the United States (1 _Stats._ 97), such
States being New Hampshire, New York, and Virginia (4 _Journ. Cong._,
1782-8, App. pp. 52, 53, 55). Back of these representations lay a
first cause which can only be understood by a reference to the
condition of the colonies at the outbreak of the Revolution. From _A
View of the Constitution of the British Colonies in North America and
the West Indies, at the time the Civil War broke out on the Continent
of America_—a work published in London in 1783 by Anthony Stokes (a
loyalist Welshman, who, as a barrister in the British West Indies from
1762 to 1769, and the royal Chief-Justice of Georgia from 1769 to
1783, had peculiar opportunities of becoming conversant with his
topic)—we learn that the Church of England was established by law in
most of the colonies in 1776. The _View_ says: “The clergy in America
do not receive tithes, but in most of the colonies before the civil
war (except the New England provinces, where the Independents had the
upper hand) an Act of Assembly was made to divide the colony into
parishes, and to establish religious worship therein according to the
rites and ceremonies of the Church of England; and also to raise a
yearly salary for the support of each parochial minister” (p. 199).
With the exception of South Carolina, our author does not specify by
name the colonies in which this system obtained, but from other
sources we have that information. The charter of New Hampshire
provided “that liberty of conscience shall be allowed to all
Protestants, and that such especially as shall be conformable to the
rites of the Church of England shall be particularly countenanced and
encouraged,” which substantial establishment existed in that colony up
to the Revolution (Town of Pawlet _v._ Clark, 9 Cr. 292). The first
constitution of New York, that of April 20, 1777, recognizes a like
establishment by providing for the abrogation of “all such parts of
the common and statute law, and acts of Assembly, as establish any
denomination of Christians or their ministers.” Dr. David Ramsay, the
contemporary historian of the Revolution, says: “In Connecticut all
persons were obliged to contribute to the support of the church as
well as the commonwealth.… The Congregational churches were adopted
and established by law” (1 _Hist. U. S._, p. 150); also: “The Church
of England was incorporated simultaneously with the first settlement
of Virginia, and in the lapse of time it also became the established
religion of Maryland. In both these provinces, long before the
American Revolution, that church possessed a legal pre-eminence, and
was maintained at the expense not only of its own members but of all
other denominations” (_id._ p. 220). As to the establishment of the
Church of England in Virginia, see also Terrett _v._ Taylor, 9 Cr. 43.
From art. 34 of the first constitution of North Carolina, that of Dec.
18, 1776, which inhibits taxation “for the purchase of any glebe, or
the building of any house of worship, or for the maintenance of any
minister or ministry,” it is inferrible that a like establishment
existed in that colony. In South Carolina Chief-Justice Stokes
mentions the Church of England as established by law (_View_, p. 199),
and the constitution of that State of March 19, 1778, secured “the
churches, chapels, parsonages, glebes, and all other property now
belonging to any societies of the Church of England, or any other
religious societies” (art. 38). In Georgia the Church of England was
established by colonial statute of March 15, 1758 (_Watkins’ Dig._
52). In Massachusetts a colonial statute of 1716 established a
compulsory religious establishment which remained up to the framing of
the State constitution in 1780, the Assembly providing all towns
declining to do so for themselves with “a minister qualified as by law
is provided”—namely, “an able, learned, orthodox minister, of good
conversation”—and imposing taxes for his support (Chalmers’ _Colonial
Opinions_, p. 49; I Ramsay, _Hist. U. S._, p. 150).
From the foregoing it will be gathered that at the outbreak of the
American Revolution some form of church establishment ordained by law
was familiar to the people of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New
Hampshire, New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Georgia. “In Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and
New Jersey there never was any established religion” (I Ramsay, _Hist.
U. S._, p. 232). One of the incidents of the religious establishments
in the colonies where they existed was that the clergy thereunder were
governmental appointees. In Massachusetts, under the act of 1716, the
Assembly settled ministers in the unprovided towns; in Maryland the
proprietary had the advowsons (Chalm. _Col. Op._, 42); and in the
provincial establishments or king’s governments, as New Hampshire, New
York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, the royal
governor had the right of collation or appointment (Stokes’ _View_, p.
199). Another incident was the church rates or taxes, above referred
to. At the outbreak of the Revolution, then, two-thirds of the
colonies were face to face with a religion established or favored by
law; with a clergy appointed by government; and a general taxation to
uphold one and maintain the other. The dissatisfaction thus engendered
is best evidenced by the care which the people of the colonies, then
States, took, in framing their constitutions, to forbid the
continuance of such a system where it then existed, or to prevent its
adoption where it was not as yet known.
The New Jersey constitution of July 2, 1776, provided “that there
shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this province
in preference to another” (art. 19); “nor shall any person within this
colony ever be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any other rates for
the purposes of building or repairing any church or churches, place or
places of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry,
contrary to what he believes to be right or has deliberately and
voluntarily engaged himself to perform” (art. 18); and so sacred were
these provisions deemed that an oath was prescribed for all members of
the legislature, engaging them never to assent to any law, vote, or
proceeding to annul, repeal, or alter any part or parts thereof (art.
23).
The Virginia constitution of July 5, 1776, declares “that religion, or
the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging
it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force and
violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free
exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, and
that it is the mutual duty of all to practise Christian forbearance,
love, and charity toward each other” (art. 16); and while this does
not in terms equal the New Jersey provisions _ante_, the Supreme Court
of the United States has construed it as equipollent, saying in
Terrett _v._ Taylor, 9 Cr. 43: “Consistent with the constitution of
Virginia, the legislature could not create or continue a religious
establishment which should have exclusive rights and prerogatives, or
compel the citizens to worship under a stipulated form or discipline,
or to pay taxes to those whose creed they could not conscientiously
believe.”
The constitution of Delaware of Sept. 20, 1776, provides: “No man
shall, or ought to, be compelled to attend any religious worship, to
contribute to the erection or support of any place of worship, or to
the maintenance of any ministry, against his free-will and consent.…
Nor shall a preference be given by law to any religious societies,
denomination, or modes of worship” (art. 1, § 1).
The North Carolina constitution of Dec. 18, 1776, provides “that there
shall be no establishment of any one religious church or denomination
in this State in preference to any other; neither shall any person, on
any pretence whatsoever, be compelled to attend any place of worship
contrary to his own faith or judgment, nor be obliged to pay for the
purchase of any glebe, or the building of any house of worship, or for
the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he
believes right or has voluntarily and personally engaged to perform”
(art. 34).
The Georgia constitution of Feb. 5, 1777, says: “All persons whatever
shall have the free exercise of their religion, provided it be not
repugnant to the peace and safety of the State; and shall not, unless
by consent, support any teacher or teachers, except those of their own
profession” (art. 56).
The New York constitution of April 20, 1777, abrogates “all such parts
of the common and statute law, and acts of Assembly, as establish any
denomination of Christians or their ministers.”
The early constitutions of Maryland, South Carolina, and Massachusetts
enunciated substantially the same principles as the other organic laws
above set forth, but did not entirely destroy the connection of church
and state. The Maryland constitution of Aug. 14, 1776, says: “Nor
ought any person to be compelled to frequent, or maintain, or
contribute, unless on contract, to maintain any particular place of
worship or any particular ministry: (yet the legislature may, in their
discretion, lay a general and equal tax for the support of the
Christian religion; leaving to each individual the power of appointing
the payment over of the money collected from him to the support of any
particular place of worship, or minister, or for the poor of his own
denomination, or the poor in general of any particular county).”
The South Carolina constitution of March 19, 1778, says: “No person
shall by law be obliged to pay towards the maintenance and support of
a religious worship that he does not freely join in or has not
voluntarily engaged to support” (art. 38), but in the same article
ordains that “the Christian Protestant religion shall be deemed, and
is hereby constituted and declared to be, the established religion of
this State,” extending this description to “all denominations of
Christian Protestants in this State.”
The Massachusetts constitution of March 2, 1780, says: “No
subordination of any sect or denomination to another shall ever be
established by law” (part i. art. 3), but allowed taxation to support
“public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality in all
cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily” (_id._),
with this qualification, however: that “all moneys paid by the subject
to the support of public worship and of the public teachers aforesaid
shall, if he require it, be uniformly applied to the support of the
public teacher or teachers of his own religious sect or denomination,
provided there be any, on whose instruction he attends; otherwise it
may be paid towards the support of the teacher or teachers of the
parish or precinct in which the said moneys are raised” (_id._)
If we state correctly—as we have not those documents by us—the New
Hampshire constitution of June 2, 1784, provided that “no person of
any one particular religious sect or denomination shall ever be
compelled to pay towards the support of the teacher or teachers of
another persuasion, sect, or denomination, … and no subordination of
any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by
law” (part i. art. 6), but that, subject to these provisions, the
legislature might authorize local taxation to support “public
Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality” (_id._); and the
Pennsylvania constitution of Sept. 28, 1776, provided “that no man
can, of right, be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of
worship or to maintain any ministry against his consent, … and that no
preference shall ever be given by law to any religious establishments
or modes of worship.” In Connecticut and Rhode Island the royal
charter continued the fundamental law until 1818 in the former and
1842 in the latter State; but, lest it may be thought that in these
States no opposition to an established church was manifested, it is
proper to remark that, upon ratifying the Constitution of the United
States, the Rhode Island Convention suggested as a highly desirable
amendment “that no particular religious sect or society ought to be
favored or established by law in preference to others” (1 Elliot Deb.
334); and in the Connecticut Convention Oliver Wolcott, in urging the
ratification of that instrument, refers to an inclination in that
assemblage to favor a like amendment, and says: “Knowledge and liberty
are so prevalent in this country that I do not believe that the United
States would ever be disposed to establish one religious sect, and lay
all others under legal disabilities. But as we know not what may take
place hereafter, and any such test would be exceedingly injurious to
the rights of free citizens, I cannot think it altogether superfluous
to have added a clause which secures us from the possibility of such
oppression” (2 Elliot Deb. 202).
We may thus say that, upon becoming States, the American colonies
declared with one voice that no religious establishment should possess
a legal pre-eminence in their several jurisdictions. In the Federal
Convention Charles Pinckney proposed to make it a part of the
Constitution of the United States that “the legislature of the United
States shall pass no law on the subject of religion” (_Journ._, May
29), and thus apply to the general government the rule previously
adopted by the States, which proposition failed. Mr. Pinckney then
submitted this proposition: “No religious test or qualification shall
ever be annexed to any oath of office under the authority of the
United States” (_Journ._, Aug. 20), which was unanimously adopted
(_Journ._, Aug. 30), Mr. Madison giving us this much of the debate:
“Mr. Pinckney moved to add: ‘But no religious test shall ever be
required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the
authority of the United States.’ Mr. Sherman thought it unnecessary,
the prevailing liberality being a sufficient security against such
tests. Mr. Gouverneur Morris and Gen. Pinckney approved the motion.
The motion was agreed to, _nem. con._” (5 Elliot Deb. 498). Upon the
final revision the words “the authority of” were struck out (_Journ._,
Sept. 12). When the Constitution was submitted for ratification,
considerable uneasiness was manifested at the failure of Mr.
Pinckney’s resolution that “the legislature of the United States shall
pass no law on the subject of religion,” and upon ratifying the
instrument the New Hampshire, New York, and Virginia Conventions urged
the adoption of an amendment to that effect. The North Carolina
Convention, while declining to ratify at its first session, assigned
the same emendation as desirable, as did also the Rhode Island
Convention upon ratifying; though, as the First Amendment had then
been proposed by Congress and was before the people, the action of
Rhode Island was not one of the causes leading to its submission. The
New Hampshire Convention recommended this amendment: “That Congress
shall make no laws touching religion or to infringe the rights of
conscience” (4 _Journ. Cong._, 1782-8, App. p. 52). The New York
Convention: “That no religious sect or society ought to be favored or
established by law in preference to others” (_id._ p. 55). The
Virginia (_id._ p. 53), North Carolina (_id._ p. 60), and Rhode Island
(1 Elliot Deb. 334) Conventions severally proposed “that no particular
religious sect or society ought to be favored or established by law in
preference to others.” In the Maryland Convention it was suggested as
a desirable amendment “that there be no national religion established
by law”; but, that body concluding to ratify the Constitution without
proposing amendments at that time, no final action was had on the
proposition (2 Elliot Deb. p. 553); and thereupon the change was made.
Thus it became a part of the Constitution of the United States that
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
In many, perhaps we may say most, other particulars the Constitution
was, when framed, an experiment, but in this the fathers of the
republic had the lamp of experience to illuminate their path. While a
myth to us, an established church had been a substantial reality to
them, and their verdict thereupon was, that upon every ground of
justice, interest, and harmony no religious sect or society ought ever
to be favored or established by law in preference to others in these
United States.
The second clause of the First Amendment, that Congress shall make no
law prohibiting the free exercise of religion, is substantially
included in the other provisions cited at the opening of this paper,
and need not be here specifically considered. It is a _casus omissus_
provision which speaks for itself. The provision that “no religious
test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public
trust under the United States” opens, however, another field of
inquiry.
At the outbreak of the American Revolution the colonists were deeply
imbued with the intolerant spirit of their English ancestors as
respects Roman Catholics, infidels, and Jews, and naturally impressed
those feelings on their earlier governmental declarations and
institutions. As the struggle progressed this aversion wore away, and
on the final settlement of the present American system of polity we
find the fathers of the republic formally renouncing their original
prepossessions in favor of religious tests. So far as regards Jews and
infidels, the citations now to be given will need no special comment;
but as respects Roman Catholics, it is proper to premise that the
ancestral antipathy of the colonists to those of that faith had been
particularly sharpened by the old French war, closing by the peace of
1763.
In 1705 the following questions were propounded to the
Attorney-General Northey: “Whether the laws of England against Romish
priests are in force in the plantations, and whether her majesty may
not direct Jesuits or Romish priests to be turned out of Maryland?” In
reply he first takes up 27 Eliz., c. 2, making it high treason for any
British-born Romish priest to come into, be, or remain in any part of
the royal dominions, and says: “It is plain that law extended to all
the dominions the queen had when it was made; but some doubt hath been
made whether it extendeth to dominions acquired after, as the
plantations have been.” He next considers II William III., c. 4,
subjecting any popish bishop or priest who shall exercise any
ecclesiastical function in any part of the British dominions to
perpetual imprisonment, and says: “I am of opinion this law extends to
the plantations, they being dominions belonging to the realm of
England, and extends to all priests, foreigners as well as natives.”
Lastly, he says: “As to the question whether her majesty may not
direct Jesuits or Romish priests to be turned out of Maryland, I am of
opinion, if the Jesuits or priests be aliens, not made denizens or
naturalized, her majesty may, by law, compel them to depart Maryland;
if they be her majesty’s natural-born subjects, they cannot be
banished from her majesty’s dominions, but may be proceeded against on
the last before-mentioned law” (Chalm. _Colonial Op._, 42). And that
this was the accepted state of the crown law as late as May 29, 1775,
appears from an address of that date of the American Congress to the
inhabitants of Canada, wherein they are asked to make common cause
with the other colonies, and told: “The enjoyment of your very
religion on the present system depends on a legislature in which you
have no share and over which you have no control, and your priests are
exposed to expulsion, banishment, and ruin whenever their wealth and
possessions furnish sufficient temptation” (1 _Journ. Cong._, p. 75,
Way & Gideon ed., Washington, 1823). It was also the case that a
number of the royal charters under which the colonists had been
accustomed to live denied religious liberty to Roman Catholics. The
charter of New Hampshire provided “that liberty of conscience shall be
allowed to all Protestants” (Town of Pawlet _v._ Clark, 9 Cr. 292);
that of Massachusetts read: “For the greater ease and encouragement of
our living subjects, inhabiting our said province or territory of
Massachusetts Bay, and of such as shall come to inhabit there, we do,
by these presents, for us, our heirs and successors, grant, establish,
and ordain that for ever hereafter there shall be a liberty of
conscience allowed in the worship of God to all Christians (except
papists) inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be resident within, our
said province or territory” (Chalm. _Col. Op._, 48). The charter of
Georgia, as of force up to 1752, ordains: “There shall be a liberty of
conscience allowed in the worship of God to all persons inhabiting, or
which shall inhabit or be resident within, our said province, and that
all such persons, except papists, shall have a free exercise of
religion” (White’s _Hist. Coll. Ga._, p. 9). The charter of Rhode
Island—which recites that it was granted the petitioners therefor
because “they have freely declared that it is much on their hearts (if
they be permitted) to hold forth a lively experiment that a most
flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained, and that
among our English subjects, with a full liberty in religious
concernments”; and ordains “that all and every person and persons may,
from time to time, and at all times hereafter, freely and fully have
and enjoy his own and their judgments and consciences, in matters of
religious concernments, throughout the tract of land hereafter
mentioned, they behaving themselves peaceably and quietly, and not
using this liberty to licentiousness and profaneness, nor to the civil
injury or outward disturbance of others; any law, statute, or clause
therein contained, or to be contained, usage, or custom of this realm,
to the contrary hereof in any wise notwithstanding,” and which, to us,
seems to guarantee absolute freedom of conscience—was interpreted by
the colonial government as excepting Roman Catholics, Dr. Ramsay
saying: “Since the date of the charter the form of the government has
suffered very little alteration. An act was passed, in 1663, declaring
that all men of competent estates and good conduct, who professed
Christianity, with the exception of Roman Catholics, should be
admitted freemen” (1 _Hist. U. S._, p. 156).
With this much we come to the Continental Congress which met at
Philadelphia Sept. 5, 1774, to consider the relations of the colonies
to the parent state. It at once became apparent that one prime
grievance alleged against the crown was the act of Parliament (14 Geo.
III., c. 83), passed early in that year, respecting the boundaries and
government of the Province of Quebec, as Canada was called after its
cession to England by the peace of 1763, which extended the limits of
that province southward to the Ohio, westward to the Mississippi, and
northward to the boundary of the Hudson’s Bay Company; qualified Roman
Catholics to sit in the provincial council; applied the French laws,
dispensing with juries to civil cases, and the English practice to
criminal; and secured the Catholic clergy their estates and full
liberty in their religion. Massachusetts was particularly indignant at
this statute, and the Congress had scarcely organized before the
following resolution was presented with others from Suffolk County in
that State: “10. That the late act of Parliament for establishing the
Roman Catholic religion and the French laws in that extensive country
now called Quebec is dangerous in an extreme degree to the Protestant
religion and to the civil rights and liberties of all America; and
therefore, as men and Protestant Christians, we are indispensably
obliged to take all proper measures for our security” (1 _Journ.
Cong._, p. 11). On the 10th of October Congress, having considered
“the rights and grievances of these colonies,” “_Resolved_, N. C. D.,
That the following acts of Parliament are infringements and violations
of the rights of the colonists; and that the repeal of them is
essentially necessary in order to restore harmony between Great
Britain and the American colonies, viz., … the act for establishing
the Roman Catholic religion in the province of Quebec, abolishing the
equitable system of English laws, and erecting a tyranny there, to the
great danger (from so total a dissimilarity of religion, law, and
government) of the neighboring British colonies, by the assistance of
whose blood and treasure the said country was conquered from France.…
To these grievous acts and measures Americans cannot submit” (_id._
pp. 20-22).
The main work of the Congress of 1774 was the famous “Continental
Association,” which is, in brief, a solemn engagement on the part of
the colonies to break off commercial relations with Great Britain
until such time as divers obnoxious acts of Parliament were repealed.
It opens by arraigning the British ministry for adopting a system of
administration “evidently calculated for enslaving these colonies,”
and proceeds to specify among other instruments to this end “an act
for extending the province of Quebec, so as to border on the Western
frontiers of these colonies, establishing an arbitrary government
therein, and discouraging the settlement of British subjects in that
wide-extended country, thus, by the influence of civil principles and
ancient prejudices, to dispose the inhabitants to act with hostility
against the free Protestant colonies whenever a wicked ministry shall
choose to direct them” (_id._ p. 23). The Congress also resolved upon
addresses to the people of Great Britain, to the inhabitants of the
colonies represented in the Congress, to the king, and to the people
of Canada. That to the people of Great Britain says: “Know that we
think the legislature of Great Britain is not authorized by the
Constitution to establish a religion, fraught with sanguinary and
impious tenets, or to erect an arbitrary form of government in any
quarter of the globe” (_id._ p. 27). It then charges that at the close
of the French war a plan of enslaving the colonies was concerted
“under the auspices of a minister of principles, and of a family
unfriendly to the Protestant cause and inimical to liberty,” and says:
“Now mark the progression of the ministerial plan for enslaving us.…
By another act the Dominion of Canada is to be so extended, modelled,
and governed as that, by being disunited from us, detached from our
interest, by civil as well as religious prejudices, that by their
numbers daily swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe, and by
their devotion to administration so friendly to their religion, they
might become formidable to us, and, on occasion, be fit instruments in
the hands of power to reduce the ancient, free, Protestant colonies to
the same state of slavery with themselves. This was evidently the
object of the act; and in this view, being extremely dangerous to our
liberty and quiet, we cannot forbear complaining of it as hostile to
British America.… Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British
Parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion
that has deluged your island in blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry,
persecution, and murder through every part of the world” (_id._ p.
30). The memorial to the colonists also refers to the Quebec act, “by
which act the Roman Catholic religion, instead of being tolerated, as
stipulated by the treaty of peace, is established,” and says: “The
authors of this arbitrary arrangement flatter themselves that the
inhabitants, deprived of liberty, and artfully provoked against those
of another religion, will be proper instruments for assisting in the
oppression of such as differ from them in modes of government and
faith” (_id._ p. 37). To reassure the colonists, it concludes: “The
people of England will soon have an opportunity of declaring their
sentiments concerning our cause. In their piety, generosity, and good
sense we repose high confidence, and cannot, upon a review of past
events, be persuaded that they, the defenders of true religion and the
asserters of the rights of mankind, will take part against their
affectionate Protestant brethren in the colonies, in favor of our open
and their own secret enemies, whose intrigues for several years past
have been wholly exercised in sapping the foundations of civil and
religious liberty” (_id._ p. 38). The petition to the king represents
as one of the obstacles to a restoration of harmony between the
colonists and the crown the act “for extending the limits of Quebec,
abolishing the English and restoring the French laws, whereby great
numbers of British Frenchmen [_sic_] are subjected to the latter, and
establishing an absolute government and the Roman Catholic religion
throughout those vast regions that border on the westerly and
northerly boundaries of the free Protestant English settlements”
(_id._ p. 47); reminds the monarch that “we were born the heirs of
freedom, and ever enjoyed our right under the auspices of your royal
ancestors, whose family was seated on the British throne to rescue and
secure a pious and gallant nation from the popery and despotism of a
superstitious and inexorable tyrant”; and adjures him “for the honor
of Almighty God, whose pure religion our enemies are undermining,” and
“as the loving father of your whole people, connected by the same
bonds of law, loyalty, faith, and blood,” to withstand the ministerial
plan (_id._ p. 49).
The terrific arraignment of the Roman Catholic religion made in these
various state papers will show to what an extent the colonists were
unfavorably disposed toward that faith at the inception of the
Revolutionary struggle. The fourth and last address, however, adopted
remains to be noticed, and in this appears the first indication of
that spirit of universal religious liberty and toleration which
afterwards became one of the main animating impulses of the American
system of government. The _Journal_, unfortunately, does not disclose
the name of the wise and just man who drew up this document, but the
internal evidence points to John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, who
afterwards prepared the Articles of Confederation (1 _Secret Journ._,
p. 290). Oct. 21, Thomas Cushing of Massachusetts, Richard Henry Lee
of Virginia, and Mr. Dickinson were appointed a committee to prepare
an address to the inhabitants of Quebec, and, as adopted, this urges
the Canadians to make common cause with the other colonists, setting
before them their rights as British subjects, and saying: “What is
offered to you by the late act of Parliament in their place? Liberty
of conscience in your religion? No. God gave it to you; and the
temporal powers with which you have been and are connected firmly
stipulated for your enjoyment of it. If laws, divine and human, could
secure it against the despotic caprices of wicked men, it was secured
before” (1 _Journ._, p. 42). The address then imagines the president,
Montesquieu, urging his countrymen to unite with the English
colonists, and concludes: “We are too well acquainted with the
liberality of sentiment distinguishing your nation to imagine that
difference of religion will prejudice you against a hearty amity with
us. You know that the transcendent nature of freedom elevates those
who unite in her cause above all such low-minded infirmities. The
Swiss cantons furnish a memorable proof of this truth. Their union is
composed of Roman Catholic and Protestant states, living in the utmost
concord and peace with one another, and thereby enabled, ever since
they bravely vindicated their freedom, to defy and defeat every tyrant
that has invaded them” (_id._ p. 44).
May 10, 1775, another Congress met. Blood had been shed; it was seen
the sword must decide the event; and from this time the American
Congress may be said to have remained in permanent session until the
government under the Constitution was inaugurated. May 26, 1775, John
Jay, Samuel Adams, and Silas Deane were appointed a committee to
draught a letter to the people of Canada, which, as adopted, urged
them to unite with the other colonists, declaring “the fate of the
Protestant and Catholic colonies to be strongly linked together”; and
adding: “The enjoyment of your very religion, on the present system,
depends on a legislature in which you have no share and over which you
have no control; and your priests are exposed to expulsion,
banishment, and ruin whenever their wealth and possessions furnish
sufficient temptation” (_id._ p. 75). This failing, Congress came
closer by directing Robert Livingston, Robert Treat Paine, and J.
Langdon, Nov. 8, 1775, to proceed to Canada, and there use their
utmost efforts to procure the assistance of the Canadians in Gen.
Schuyler’s operations, and to induce them to enter into a union with
the other colonies, the instructions mentioning as one inducement to
be held out: “And you may and are hereby empowered farther to declare
that we hold sacred the rights of conscience, and shall never molest
them in the free enjoyment of their religion” (_id._ p. 170). This
also failing, a third effort was made to the same end by appointing
Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton—the
latter not a member of Congress at the time, but selected as a Roman
Catholic (2 Ramsay _Hist. U. S._, p. 65)—commissioners to Canada, May
20, 1776, instructing them: “You are farther to declare that we hold
sacred the rights of conscience, and may promise to the whole people,
solemnly in our name, the free and undisturbed exercise of their
religion; and, to the clergy, the full, perfect, and peaceable
possession and enjoyment of all their estates; that the government of
everything relating to their religion and clergy shall be left
entirely in the hands of the good people of that province and such
legislature as they shall constitute; provided, however, that all
other denominations of Christians be equally entitled to hold offices,
and enjoy civil privileges and the free exercise of their religion,
and be totally exempt from the payment of any tithes or taxes for the
support of any religion” (1 _Journ._, p. 290). This failed in turn,
but the fathers were long loath to relinquish their hopes of the
accession of Canada. The Articles of Confederation provided that
“Canada, acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures
of the United States, shall be admitted into and entitled to all the
advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into
the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States” (art.
11); and guaranteed that each State should be protected in its
religion by the common strength of all (art. 3). It is further
memorable that the King of France co-operated with the Americans in
the attempt to secure the accession of Canada to the Union, and that
in accordance with the royal instructions the Count d’Estaing
published an address on the 28th of October, 1778, in his majesty’s
name, to the Canadian French, adjuring them by every tie of lineage
and religion to make common cause with the United States. The priests,
in particular, were besought to use their influence to this end, and
reminded that they might become a power in a new government, and not
be dependent on “sovereigns whom force has imposed on them, and whose
political indulgence will be lessened proportionally as those
sovereigns shall have less to fear” (2 Pitk. _U. S._, p. 68). This,
however, like all the invitations of the American Congress, was in
vain. The contemporary fact was—and no doubt the British crown
officers took care to have it well known throughout Canada—that while
England was enacting laws to exempt the Canadians from her
anti-Catholic statutes, and to indulge them with full liberty of
conscience in their ancestral Catholic faith, the American Congress
was solemnly resolving and declaring “that we think the legislature of
Great Britain is not authorized by the constitution to establish a
religion fraught with sanguinary and impious tenets in any quarter of
the globe.” “Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British
Parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion
that has deluged England in blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry,
persecution, murder, and rebellion throughout every part of the
world.” So sharp a contrast had a powerful effect on the sixty-five
thousand Roman Catholics who then inhabited Canada, according to
Stokes (_View_, p. 30), and is, in all human probability, the reason
why that extensive country is not a part of the United States to-day.
That invaluable contemporary authority, Dr. Ramsay, assures us that
the predilections of the Canadian masses were in favor of a union with
the other colonies, but “the legal privileges which the Roman Catholic
clergy enjoyed made them averse to a change, lest they should be
endangered by a more intimate connection with their Protestant
neighbors.”
The founders of the republic seem early to have perceived the mistake
of yielding to what they termed in their first overture to Canada “the
low-minded infirmity” of religious prejudice, and the severe recoil of
that error in this case had much to do with their subsequent
prohibition of religious tests.
Recurring now to the States, we find a religious test prescribed as a
qualification to office in a number of the early constitutions. The
New Jersey constitution of July 2, 1776, provides “that no Protestant
inhabitant of this colony shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil
right merely on account of his religious principles; but that all
persons professing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect, who
shall demean themselves peaceably under the government as hereby
established, shall be capable of being elected into any office of
profit, or trust, or being a member of either branch of the
legislature, and shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege and
immunity enjoyed by others their fellow-subjects” (art. 19). The North
Carolina constitution of December 18, 1776, says “that no person who
shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion,
or the divine authority of either the Old or New Testaments, or who
shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and
safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place
of trust or profit in the civil department within this State” (art.
32). The Georgia constitution of February 5, 1777, says that the
members of the legislature “shall be of the Protestant religion” (art.
6). The South Carolina constitution of March 19, 1778, provides for “a
governor and commander-in-chief, a lieutenant-governor, both to
continue two years, and a privy council—all of the Protestant
religion” (art. 3); that “no person shall be eligible to sit in the
House of Representatives unless he be of the Protestant religion”
(art. 13); and “that all denominations of Christian Protestants in
this State demeaning themselves peaceably and faithfully shall enjoy
equal religious and civil privileges” (art. 38). In this State the
governor was sworn “to the utmost of his power to maintain and defend
the laws of God, the Protestant religion, and the liberties of
America” (Grimke’s _Laws So. Ca._, 297). The Delaware constitution of
September 11, 1776, provided the following oath to be taken by all
members of the legislature: “I, A. B., do profess faith in God the
Father, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, and in the Holy Ghost; and I
do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be
given by divine inspiration” (art. 22). The Maryland constitution of
August 14, 1776, provided that “a declaration of a belief in the
Christian religion” (Bill of Rights, art. 35) should be a
qualification to office; and “that every person, appointed to any
office of profit or trust shall, before he enters on the execution
thereof, … subscribe a declaration of his belief in the Christian
religion” (Const., art. 55). The New Hampshire constitution of January
5, 1776, while not expressly prescribing a religious test, is
understood by the provision continuing the body of the colonial law in
force to have required all members of the legislature to be of the
Protestant religion. The spirit occasioning the above tests was
remarkably manifested in the convention framing the New York
constitution of April 20, 1777. An article granting “to all mankind
the free exercise of religious profession and worship” being under
consideration, John Jay, afterwards the first Chief-Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States, moved to add the following:
“Except the professors of the religion of the Church of Rome, who
ought not to hold lands in, or be admitted to a participation of the
civil rights enjoyed by the members of, this State until such time as
the said professors shall appear in the Supreme Court of the State,
and there most solemnly swear that they verily believe in their
consciences that no pope, priest, or foreign authority on earth has
power to absolve the subjects of this State from their allegiance to
the same; and, farther, that they renounce and believe to be false and
wicked the dangerous and damnable doctrine that the pope, or any other
earthly authority, has power to absolve men from sins described in and
prohibited by the holy Gospel of Jesus Christ, and particularly that
no pope, priest, or foreign authority on earth has power to absolve
them from the obligation of this oath,” which was lost—yeas, 10; nays,
19; one county divided (Sparks’ _Life of Gouverneur Morris_, vol. i.,
p. 124). The Pennsylvania constitution of September 28, 1776, required
members of the General Assembly and civil officers to sign “a
declaration of belief in one God, the creator and governor of the
world, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked,” and
also to make “an acknowledgment that the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testament are given by divine inspiration” (Stokes’ _View_, p. 81).
It will thus appear that the early constitutions of New Jersey, North
Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, and New Hampshire made a profession
of Protestantism, and those of Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania
made a belief in Christianity, a qualification for office; and so the
fundamental law of those States remained until after the ratification
of the Constitution of the United States.
In 1787 the Federal Convention met, and, as has already been stated,
while declining to make it a part of the Constitution that “the
legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of
religion,” did insert in that instrument the provision that “no
religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office
or public trust under the United States.” Or, in other words, the
Federal Constitution did not inhibit Congress from creating a
religious establishment, but did forbid it to prescribe a religious
test as a qualification to office; while, _per contra_, the State
constitutions, while prohibiting such an establishment, admitted such
tests. We have seen how the States conformed the Federal Constitution
to their own in the article of the inhibition of an established
church, and are now to inquire how the State constitutions modelled
themselves upon the Constitution of the United States so far as
respects the prohibition of religious qualifications for office.
When the Federal Constitution was proposed for ratification to the
State conventions, considerable opposition was manifested in some of
those bodies to this prohibition. It was alleged that, as the
Constitution stood, the Pope of Rome might become President of the
United States, and there was even a pamphlet published to sustain that
objection (4 Elliot Deb., p. 195). In the North Carolina Convention,
in particular, a hot debate occurred. Mr. Abbott said: “The exclusion
of religious tests is by many thought dangerous and impolitic. They
suppose that if there be no religious test required, pagans, deists,
and Mahometans might obtain offices among us, and that the senators
and representatives might all be pagans” (_id._ p. 192). Mr. Iredell
referred to the deplorable results of religious tests in all ages, and
said: “America has set an example to mankind to think more modestly
and reasonably—that a man may be of different religious sentiments
from our own without being a bad member of society.… But it is
objected that the people of America may, perhaps, choose
representatives who have no religion at all, and that pagans and
Mahometans may be admitted into offices. But how is it possible to
exclude any set of men without taking away that principle of religious
freedom which we ourselves so warmly contend for?… I met, by accident,
with a pamphlet this morning in which the author states as a very
serious danger that the Pope of Rome might be elected President. I
confess this never struck me before; and if the author had read all
the qualifications of a President, perhaps his fears might have been
quieted. No man but a native or who has resided fourteen years in
America can be chosen President. I know not all the qualifications for
pope, but I believe he must be taken from the college of cardinals;
and probably there are many previous steps necessary before he arrives
at this dignity. A native of America must have very singular good
fortune who, after residing fourteen years in his own country, should
go to Europe, enter into Romish orders, obtain the promotion of
cardinal, afterwards that of pope, and at length be so much in the
confidence of his own country as to be elected President. It would be
still more extraordinary if he should give up his popedom for our
presidency. Sir, it is impossible to treat such idle fears with any
degree of gravity.… This country has already had the honor of setting
an example of civil freedom, and I trust it will likewise have the
honor of teaching the rest of the world the way to religious freedom
also. God grant both may be perpetuated to the end of time!” (_id._ p.
193 _et seq._) Gov. Johnston said: “When I heard there were
apprehensions that the Pope of Rome could be the President of the
United States, I was greatly astonished. It might as well be said that
the King of England or France or the Grand Turk could be chosen to
that office. It would have been as good an argument.… It is
apprehended that Jews, Mahometans, pagans, etc., may be elected to
high offices under the government of the United States. Those who are
Mahometans, or any others who are not professors of the Christian
religion, can never be elected to the office of President or other
high office but in one of two cases: First, if the people of America
lay aside the Christian religion altogether, it may happen. Should
this unfortunately take place, the people will choose such men as
think as they do themselves. Another case is, if any persons of such
descriptions should, notwithstanding their religion, acquire the
confidence and esteem of the people of America by their good conduct
and practice of virtue, they may be chosen” (_id._ p. 198). Mr.
Caldwell said: “There was an invitation for Jews and pagans of every
kind to come among us. At some future period this might endanger the
character of the United States.… I think that in a political view
those gentlemen who formed this Constitution should not have given
this invitation to Jews and heathens” (_id._ p. 199). Mr. Spencer
said: “Religious tests have been the foundation of persecutions in all
countries. Persons who are conscientious will not take the oath
required by religious tests, and will therefore be excluded from
offices, though equally capable of discharging them as any member of
society” (_id._ p. 200). Mr. Spaight, who had been in the Federal
Convention, said: “No test is required. All men of equal capacity and
integrity are equally eligible to offices. Temporal violence may make
mankind wicked, but never religious. A test would enable the
prevailing sect to persecute the rest” (_id._ p. 208). Mr. Wilson
“wished that the Constitution had excluded popish priests from office”
(_id._ p. 212). Mr. Lancaster said: “As to a religious test, had the
article which excludes it provided none but what had been in the
States heretofore, I would not have objected to it.… For my part, in
reviewing the qualifications necessary for a President, I did not
suppose that the pope could occupy the President’s chair. But let us
remember that we form a government for millions not yet in existence.
I have not the art of divination. In the course of four or five
hundred years I do not know how it will work. This is most certain:
that papists may occupy that chair, and Mahometans may take it. I see
nothing against it. There is a disqualification, I believe, in every
State in the Union; it ought to be so in this system” (_id._ p. 215).
In the Massachusetts Convention there was considerable debate on the
same clause. Mr. Singletary “thought we were giving up all our
privileges, as there was no provision that men in power should have
any religion; and though he hoped to see Christians, yet, by the
Constitution, a papist or an infidel was as eligible as they” (2
Elliot Deb., p. 44). Several members of the convention urging that the
provision “was a departure from the principles of our forefathers, who
came here for the preservation of their religion; and that it would
admit deists, atheists, etc., into the general government,” Rev. Mr.
Shute said: “To establish a religious test as a qualification for
offices in the proposed Federal Constitution, it appears to me, sir,
would be attended with injurious consequences to some individuals, and
with no advantage to the whole.… In this great and extensive empire
there is and will be a great variety of sentiments in religion among
its inhabitants. Upon the plan of a religious test the question, I
think, must be, Who shall be excluded from national trusts? Whatever
answer bigotry may suggest, the dictates of candor and equity, I
conceive, will be, _None_. Far from limiting my charity and confidence
to men of my own denomination in religion, I suppose and I believe,
sir, that there are worthy characters among men of every
denomination—among the Quakers, the Baptists, the Church of England,
the papists, and even among those who have no other guide in the way
to virtue and heaven than the dictates of natural religion. I must
therefore think, sir, that the proposed plan of government in this
particular is wisely constructed; that as all have an equal claim to
the blessings of the government under which they live and which they
support, so none should be excluded from them for being of any
particular denomination in religion. The presumption is that the eyes
of the people will be upon the faithful in the land; and, from a
regard of their own safety, they will choose for their rulers men of
known abilities, of known probity, of good moral characters. The
Apostle Peter tells us that God is no respecter of persons, but in
every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is
acceptable to him. And I know of no reason why men of such a
character, in a community of whatever denomination in religion,
_cœteris paribus_, with other suitable qualifications, should not be
acceptable to the people, and why they may not be employed by them
with safety and advantage in the important offices of government. The
exclusion of a religious test in the proposed Constitution, therefore,
clearly appears to me, sir, to be in favor of its adoption” (_id._ p.
118).
These utterances form so excellent a commentary on the last clause of
the sixth article of the Constitution of the United States that it is
to be regretted that we know no more of their admirable and sagacious
author than that he was the Rev. Daniel Shute, of Hingham, in Suffolk
County, and voted on what the original journal calls “the decision of
the grand question” in favor of ratifying the Constitution; as did
also his colleague, Major-General Benjamin Lincoln.
Recurring to the debate, Col. Jones “thought that the rulers ought to
believe in God or Christ, and that, however a test may be prostituted
in England, yet he thought, if our public men were to be of those who
had a good standing in the church, it would be happy for the United
States” (_id._ p. 119). Major Lusk “passed to the article dispensing
with the qualification of a religious test, and concluded by saying
that he shuddered at the idea that Roman Catholics, papists, and
pagans might be introduced into office, and that popery and the
Inquisition may be established in America” (_id._ p. 148). Rev. Mr.
Backus said: “I now beg leave to offer a few thoughts upon some points
in the Constitution proposed to us, and I shall begin with the
exclusion of any religious test. Many appear to be much concerned
about it; but nothing is more evident, both in reason and the Holy
Scriptures, than that religion is ever a matter between God and
individuals; and therefore no man or men can impose any religious test
without invading the essential prerogatives of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Ministers first assumed this power under the Christian name, and then
Constantine approved of the practice when he adopted the profession of
Christianity as an engine of state policy. And let the history of all
nations be searched from that day to this, and it will appear that the
imposing of religious tests hath been the greatest engine of tyranny
in the world. And I rejoice to see so many gentlemen who are now
giving in their rights of conscience in this great and important
matter. Some serious minds discover a concern lest, if all religious
tests should be excluded, the Congress would hereafter establish
popery or some other tyrannical way of worship; but it is most certain
that no such way of worship can be established without any religious
test” (_id._ p. 149).
In the Conventions of Virginia (3 Elliot Deb., p. 204), and
Connecticut (2 _ib._ p. 202), and in the South Carolina Legislature (1
_id._ p. 312), the same clause was discussed, but more briefly, and
after the final ratification of the Constitution the principle of the
provision seems to have been universally conceded as correct. The
Georgia constitution of May 6, 1789, the first new State constitution
adopted after the inauguration of the government under the
Constitution of the United States, omitted the qualification that
members of the General Assembly should be of the Protestant religion;
the South Carolina constitution of June 3, 1790, the next adopted,
omitted the same test, as also all the former provisions making the
Protestant religion the State faith, and provided that “the free
exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without
discrimination or preference, shall for ever, hereafter, be allowed
within this State to all mankind” (art. 8, sec. 1), and from this time
forward it may be taken as the case that as fast as the States
remodelled their constitutions of the Revolutionary era the
religious-test provisions were formally omitted, and in the interim
passed _sub silentio_.
The immediate cause of this universal abrogation of religious
qualifications for office was, as we have seen, the sixth article of
the Constitution of the United States, but beyond this were some
potent operative causes. The loss of Canada was one. Dr. Ramsay, who
tells us that he had access to all the official papers of the United
States up to 1786, when he ceased to be a member of the Congress under
the Confederation (pref. 2 _Hist. U. S._), says: “The province was
evacuated with great reluctance. The Americans were not only mortified
at the disappointment of their favorite scheme of annexing it as a
fourteenth link in the chain of their Confederacy, but apprehended the
most serious consequences from the ascendency of the British power in
that quarter” (_id._ p. 71). It was felt too late that the indiscreet
utterances of the Congress of 1774 respecting the Roman Catholic
religion had led to this loss.
Another operative cause was the yearning desire of the early statesmen
of the United States to invite and secure foreign immigration. As
early as the address of Congress of Oct. 21, 1774, it was noticed that
the population of Canada was “daily swelling with Catholic emigrants
from Europe”; and after the peace of 1783 showed that Canada was to
remain a British possession, it was seen that to impress an
anti-Catholic character on the government of the United States would
tend to build up that province at the expense of the United States,
and that only by proffering religious as well as civil liberty could
this country hope to divert that emigration to its own shores. Some of
the States had already suffered, when colonies, from legalizing
inequalities in religion, and that, too, had no doubt its weight;
Ramsay telling us that the legal pre-eminence of the Episcopal Church,
and its maintenance at the expense not only of its own members but of
all other denominations in Virginia and Maryland, “deterred great
numbers, especially of the Presbyterian denomination, who had
emigrated from Ireland, from settling within the limits of these
governments” (1 _Hist. U. S._, p. 220).
Another cause operating in favor of a removal of religious tests to
office was the eminent services rendered the States in the
establishment of their independence by two Catholic powers, France and
Spain. It is currently supposed that it was not until after the
Americans, by their capture of Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777, had
demonstrated their power that they received efficient assistance from
those nations; but the contrary is the case. Before the Declaration of
Independence Silas Deane was sent to France for assistance, and
contemporaneous with the Declaration large supplies of money and arms
were furnished by that power. Arms, clothing, and ammunition for
25,000 men and 100 field-pieces were asked by Congress, and the
response of his Christian majesty was 2,000,000 livres in money and
small arms, 200 field-pieces, the best in the royal arsenals, a credit
for 1,000,000 livres with the clothier-general of the French forces,
and the services of Monsieur Coudray, the best military engineer in
the royal army, and as many of his officers as were needed (1 Pitk.
_Hist. U. S._, pp. 387, 500). Spain also assisted the Americans with
1,000,000 livres as early as May, 1776 (_id._ p. 411). Still another
1,000,000 livres were added by France before the treaty of 1778; and
to appreciate fully the various pecuniary aids given by this power to
the United States during the struggle, the reader may well consult the
treaties with that power of 1782 and 1783 (_Rev. Stats._, “Treaties,”
pp. 214-9). Prior to 1778 some 3,000,000 livres were advanced, and
from that time to 1782 some 18,000,000 more were granted and an
endorsement given to Holland for 10,000,000 in addition. In 1783 a
further grant of 6,000,000 livres was made, making 37,000,000 in all.
All expenses of commissions, negotiations, etc., were borne by France
and made a present to the United States, as also all the interest
accrued during the entire war on the debt, and the total principal of
the sums forwarded in 1776, for all of which benefactions the most
lively acknowledgments were made by the United States in the treaties
referred to above. Nor were French fleets and armies wanting. In July,
1778, a French squadron of twelve line-of-battle ships and four
frigates reached the United States under Count d’Estaing (2 Ramsay
_Hist. U. S._, p. 258). In 1779 the same commander appeared off the
Georgia coast with 20 ships of the line and 11 frigates, and some
3,500 French troops, infantry and artillery; and at this time occurred
the bloody assault on the British entrenchments at Savannah, where
Gen. Lincoln, at the head of 600 Continentals, and d’Estaing at the
head of the French infantry, charged side by side, 200 of the
Americans and 637 of the French being left on the field. In July,
1780, still another French fleet arrived at Rhode Island with 6,000
troops (2 Pitk. 117). In 1781 Count de Grasse arrived with 28 ships of
the line and 3,200 French troops under the Marquis de St. Simon (2
Ramsay, p. 427). In 1782 a French fleet of 34 ships of the line,
having on board 5,500, rendezvoused in the West Indies to draw off the
British by an attack on Jamaica, and here sustained an appalling
defeat at the hands of Admiral Rodney. The French troops were so
crowded on the vessels that in one ship alone 400 men were killed, and
the total slaughter amounted to thousands (_id._ p. 5). In the same
year we find 7,000 French regulars at Yorktown; and from the
contemporary accounts the French engineers and artillery were
eminently instrumental in forcing the surrender of Cornwallis,
particularly Major-General du Portail, Brigadier-General Launcy, Col.
Gouvion, and Capt. Rochefontaine, who were thanked and promoted by
Congress and warmly commended to their sovereign (_id._ p. 438; 4
_Journ._ 290).
Nor was Spain backward in her efforts. Before the Declaration of
Independence she sent the Americans 1,000,000 livres (1 Pitk. 411). In
1777 she forwarded several cargoes of naval stores, cordage,
sail-cloth, anchors, etc., from Bilboa (_id._ p. 528). In 1779 she
declared war against Great Britain, and carried on a campaign in
Florida with such vigor as to drive out the British from that
province. In 1780 an immense Spanish armament appeared in the West
Indies to co-operate with the French in creating a diversion in that
quarter, the combined fleet numbering thirty-six ships of the line,
crowded with troops (2 Ramsay, 374). In 1782 a grander attempt was
made in the same field, the combined French and Spanish navies
numbering sixty ships of the line, with an immense number of frigates
and smaller armed vessels, and conveying thousands of land forces. The
first attempt failed by the appearance of a mortal disease which
decimated the Spanish troops, and the latter by the bloody defeat of
the French by Admiral Rodney. In the course of the war the Spanish
navy received a terrible blow at Cape St. Vincent, though the Spanish
admiral, Don Juan de Langara, fought till his flag-ship was a mere
wreck and his fleet was sunk or taken. One vessel in particular, the
_San Domingo_, of 70 guns and carrying 600 men, blew up, and all on
board perished (_id._ p. 372).
To sustain American independence, in short, French and Spanish blood
was poured out like water. The arms, the gold, the ships, the armies
of the two great Catholic powers were given in unstinted measure to
the United States, and on the establishment of the present polity of
the republic it would have been disgraceful beyond measure to have
fixed therein a stigma on the faith of those friends in time of need.
In answering the congratulations of the Catholic clergy and laity on
his first accession to the presidency, Gen. Washington said: “I
presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part
which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution and the
establishment of their government, or the important assistance which
they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is
professed” (_Cath. Al._, 1876, p. 63). Possibly, also, the demeanor of
the French troops may have removed many misapprehensions and
prejudices against their religion. Madison, who was an eye-witness of
their march through Philadelphia, where Congress was then in session,
in 1782, _en route_ to Yorktown, highly applauds their regularity and
decency of conduct in his letters of that date (Mad. Papers); and
speaking on the same subject Dr. Ramsay, also then in Congress, says:
“The French troops marched at the same time and for the same place. In
the course of this summer they passed through all the extensive
settlements which lie between Newport and Yorktown. It seldom, if
ever, happened before that an army led through a foreign country, at
so great a distance from their own, among a people of different
principles, customs, language, and religion, behaved with so much
regularity. In their march to Yorktown they had to pass through 500
miles of a country abounding in fruit, and at a time when the most
delicious productions of nature growing on and near the public
highways presented both opportunity and temptation to gratify their
appetites. Yet so complete was their discipline that in this long
march scarce an instance could be produced of a peach or an apple
being taken without the consent of the inhabitants” (2 _Hist. U. S._,
p. 434). Allies of this character were in high favor with the American
people, and most gratefully remembered at the time of the final
settlement of civil government in the United States, not to speak of
the influence of the Continental soldiery, who, no doubt, bore in mind
their brethren in arms at Savannah and Yorktown, and recalled
Washington’s general order whereby the black cockade of the American
army was mounted with a white relief in honor of Catholic France (2
Ramsay, p. 358).
To conclude, then, the provisions of the Constitution of the United
States bearing on religion are not mere ill-considered generalities,
but positive convictions based upon long and sore experience. The
prohibition of a national religion or of any governmental interference
with spiritual persuasions owes its origin to the actual existence in
former days of church establishments, the hierophants wherein were
appointees of the political power, and the expenses whereof were
compulsorily borne by those of other creeds. And the inhibition of
religious tests for office arises out of the fact that the history of
this country demonstrates it equally impolitic, ungrateful, and
dishonest to require such qualifications in these United States.
ASSISI.
“St. Francis be my speed!”
Think of being taken into Umbria, preternatural Umbria, where every
olive-sandalled mountain is full of mysterious influences, and every
leaf and flower of the smiling valleys seem to breathe out some sweet
old Franciscan legend, by a steam-engine bearing the name of Fulton!
It was hard. Not but we have the highest respect for—nay, a certain
pride in—that great inventor; still it seemed a positive grievance to
find anything modern in what was to us a world of poetry and mediæval
tradition. We wished, if not to gird ourselves humbly with the cord
like Dante, at least to put ourselves in harmony with one of the most
delicious regions in the world, where at every step the lover of the
classic, of art, or of the higher mystic lore finds so much to suit
his turn. The name of Fulton sounds well along the Hudson, but to hear
the shriek of an engine awaken the echoes of the Apennines, and see it
go plunging insensibly through the very heart of poetical Umbria,
along the shores of “reedy Thrasimene,” through “the defiles fatal to
Roman rashness,” was a blow difficult to recover from. It required the
overpowering influences of this enchanting region, as every one will
believe, to restore our equanimity.
Umbria is a mountainous region of the Ecclesiastical States that
gradually ascends from the Tiber toward the Apennines, now called the
Duchy of Spoleto. It is full of sweet, sunny valleys enclosed among
majestic mountains, with a range of temperature that produces great
variety of vegetation, from the pine and the oak to the orange and
aloe, the olive and the vine. Its cliffs are crowned with sanctuaries
which are resonant night and day with prayer and psalmody, or old
towns, each with the remembrance of some saint whose shrine it guards
with jealous care, or some artist or poet whose works have made it
renowned, or some venerable classical recollection that clings to it
like the vine which gives so much grace and freshness to the
landscape. There is Spoleto, whose gates closed against Hannibal;
Arezzo, where Petrarch was born; Cortona, with its “diadem of towers”
and its legend of St. Margaret; _Perugia dolente_, which Totila only
took after a seven years’ siege, and which Charlemagne placed under
the sweet yoke of the Papacy; Montefalco, like a falcon’s nest on the
crest of the mountain, famous for its virgin saint and its frescos of
Benozzo Gozzoli; and picturesque Marni, where the Blessed Lucy when a
child played with the Christorello. We pass Orvieto, with its
wonderful proofs of past cultivation; the lake of Bolsena, with its
isle where a queen died of hunger, and its shores verdant with the
glorious pines sung by Virgil, at the foot of which Leo X., when a
guest at the Farnese villa, used to gather around him the artists and
poets of the day, to indulge in intellectual converse till “the azure
gloom of an Italian night” gathered around them with hues that spoke
of heaven.
But over all hovers especially the grand memory of St. Francis, with
which the whole of this beautiful region is embalmed. Along its
valleys and mountain paths he used to go with Fra Pacifico, the poet
laureate of Frederick II., singing their hymns of praise, calling
themselves God’s minstrels, who desired no other reward from those who
gathered around them but the sincere repentance of their sins. There
is the lake of Perugia, where he spent forty days alone on an island
among the sad olives, fasting in imitation of our Saviour, in
continual communion with God and the angels—a spot now marked by a
convent whose foundations are washed by the waters of the lake. There
is the blue lake of Rieti, to which, in his compassion for God’s
creatures, he restored the fish alive, with the four Franciscan
convents on the hills that enclose it. There is Gubbio, with the
legend of the fierce wolf he tamed, to which the people erected a
statue—an unquestionable proof of its truth. There is the
“Hard Rock
‘Twixt Arno and the Tiber,”
where
“He from Christ
Took the last signet which his limbs two years
Did carry.”
Above all, there is Assisi with his tomb, one of the most glorious in
the world after that of Christ, around which centred all the poetry
and art of the thirteenth century. We caught our first glimpse of it
at Spello—Spello on its spur of red limestone—where we were shown the
house of Propertius, “the poet of delicate pleasures,” in full sight
of Assisi, where was born one who sang of a higher love. Assisi stands
on an eminence overlooking the whole country around, and we could not
take our eyes off it all the way from Spello, till, glancing towards
the valley below, we saw the towers and dome of _Santa Maria degli
Angeli_, which encloses the sacred Porziuncula. We were now in the
very “land of wonder, of miracle, and mysterious influences,” the
first glimpse of which one can never forget. Think of a railway
station close by the Porziuncula! We went directly there on descending
from the cars.
St. Mary of the Angels is a vast church that stands almost solitary in
the plain. It is modern also, and out of keeping with the venerable
traditions of the place, which was a disappointment. The old church
was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in 1854. The present one is of
noble proportions, however, and has been compared to the garments of a
queen that now clothe the humble sanctuary of the Porziuncula which
stands beneath the dome, the first thing to strike the eye on entering
the church. We hastened towards it at once, to pray where St. Francis
so often wept and prayed, and where so many generations since have
wept, and prayed, and found grace before God. It was here Picca, his
mother, often came to pray before he was born, and where his birth was
announced by mysterious songs attributed to the angels. St. Francis
loved this spot above all places in the world; for it was here he was
called to embrace the sublime folly of the cross, and where he laid
the foundations of the seraphic order. It was here, in the year 1222,
he beheld Christ and his holy Mother surrounded by a multitude of
angels, and prayed that all who should henceforth visit this chapel
with hearts purified by contrition and confession might obtain full
pardon and indulgence for all their sins. This was the origin of the
celebrated indulgence of the Porziuncula, which the grave Bourdaloue
regarded as one of the most authentic in the church, because granted
directly by Christ himself. The treasures of the church were not dealt
out so generously in those days as now, and thousands came hither from
all parts of Christendom, in the middle ages, to gain this wonderful
indulgence. When St. Bernardine of Siena came in the fourteenth
century, he found two hundred thousand pilgrims encamped in the valley
around. St. Bridget spent the whole night of one 1st of August praying
in the Porziuncula; and still, when the great day of the _Perdono_
comes (it lasts from the Vespers of the 1st of August till the Vespers
of the following day), thousands flock down from the mountains and
come up from the extremity of southern Italy. The highway is lined
with booths where eatables and religious objects are sold. Processions
come with chants and prayer. The great bell of _Predicazione_,
originally cast for Fra Elias, is heard all over the valley from the
_Sagro Convento_, announcing the indulgence. When the church doors
open, an overwhelming crowd pours in with cries, and invocations, and
_vivas_ for the Madonna and St. Francis with true Italian exuberance
of devotion.
The Porziuncula has wisely been left in its primitive simplicity, with
the exception of the front, on which Overbeck, in 1830, painted the
above-mentioned vision to St. Francis with true pre-Raphaelite
simplicity. The remainder is just as it was in the time of the saint;
only its rough walls have been polished by the kisses of pilgrims, and
hung with pious offerings. Lamps burn continually therein as if it
were a shrine.
Back of the Porziuncula is the low, dark cell St. Francis inhabited,
and where he ended his days. It was here, while he was dying, two of
the friars sang his Hymn of the Sun, which breathes so fully his love
for everything created. And when they ceased, he himself took up the
strain, to sing the sweetness of death, which he called his “sister,
terrible and beautiful,” in the spirit of Job, who said to corruption:
Thou art my father; to the worm: Thou art my mother and my sister.
Then we were taken into the recess where St. Francis so often
chastised his body, which he regarded as his beast of burden that it
behoved him to beat daily and to lead around with a halter. When
dying, he is said to have begged pardon of this old companion of the
way for inflicting so many stripes on it for the good of his soul.
There is also the _Cappella delle Rose_ with the _Spineto_—a little
court once filled with coarse brambles, but now aflush with roses.
Here St. Francis, being tempted to renounce a life in which he was
consumed with watchings and prayers, for his only reply threw himself
among the thorns, which, tinged with his blood, were immediately
changed into roses. They bloom here still, but without thorns, and
their petals are stained as with blood. If transplanted elsewhere, the
stains are said to fade away and the thorns to come forth again. It
was twelve of these roses, six red and six white, the saint bore with
him into the Porziuncula when the great _Perdono_ of the 2d of August
was granted—roses that for ever will embalm the church, and that have
been immortalized by artists all over Italy and Spain.
The immense convent of Observantine friars adjoining is now solitary
and desolate. The Italian government has turned the inmates out of
this cradle of their order, with the exception of two or three, who
are left as guardians of the church. The hundreds of poor, once fed at
their gates in time of need, now take revenge on the passing
traveller, and fasten themselves on him with pertinacious grasp. But
who can refuse a dole where St. Francis has made Poverty for ever
glorious?
From St. Mary of the Angels we went winding up the hill to Assisi. Its
base is clothed with the olive, the vine, and the fig, but its sides
are as nude and destitute as the Bride of St. Francis. Above, on the
right, rises the tall campanile of _Santa Chiara_ over the tomb of St.
Clare. At the left is the fortress-like edifice of the _Sagro
Convento_ on the Hill of Paradise, once known as the _Colle
d’Inferno_, where St. Francis desired to be buried among malefactors.
This monastery against the mountain side stands on a long line of
double arches that seem hewn out of the very cliff. It is one of the
most imposing and most interesting monuments in Italy, and astonishes
the eye by its bold, massive, and picturesque appearance, quite in
harmony with the old mediæval city. It has been called the _Sagro
Convento_ ever since its consecration by Pope Innocent IV. in 1243—the
Sacred Convent, _par excellence_. _Santa Chiara_ and this convent of
St. Francis seem like two strongholds at the extremities of the town
to protect it from danger. Between them it rises in terraces, crowned
by a ruined old citadel of feudal times. The declining sun lighted up
its domes, and towers, and venerable gray walls as we ascended, and
made it seem to our enraptured eyes a seraphic city indeed.
Half way up the hill we came to the Spedalicchio—the ancient ’Spital
where St. Francis so often came to take care of the lepers. It was
here, as he was borne on a litter to the Porziuncula by the friars, a
few days before his death, he begged them to stop and turn him around,
not to take a last look at the city he loved—for the eyes that had
wept so many tears were now blind—but to bless it with uplifted hands,
in solemn, tender words that have been graven over one of the gates:
_Benedicta tu civitas a Domino, quia per te multæ animæ salvabuntur,
et in te multi servi Altissimi habitabunt, et de te multi eligentur ad
regnum æternum._—A city blessed of the Lord art thou, because by thee
many souls shall be saved, and in thee shall dwell many servants of
the Most High, and from thee many shall be chosen to reign for ever
and ever!
With what emotion one enters its gates!… We drove through old, narrow,
ascending streets, silent and monastic, named after the saints; past
old rock-built houses of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with
the holy names of Jesus and Mary over nearly every door; flower-pots
with pinks and gillyflowers in all the windows, even the poorest, or
on ledges, or set in rings projecting from the walls; and women
spinning under the old archways like St. Clare, who, we are told, even
when wasted and enfeebled by her austerities, sat up in bed and span
linen of marvellous fineness.
Our hotel was close to the _Sagro Convento_, and, though extremely
fatigued, we at once hastened to the church, not to examine its
treasures of art, but to pray and find repose of heart overburdened by
the flood of memories that come over one in such a place as Assisi.
Then we returned to our room, and sat at the window looking off at the
setting sun and golden sky, and the shining dome of St. Mary of the
Angels, and the broad plain where was held the famous Chapter of Mats
in St. Francis’ time, with its narrow river winding through it. It was
like the page of a beautiful poem laid open before us. St. Francis
loved these hills clothed with the pale olive, this valley covered
with harvests and the vine, the free air and azure heavens, the
running stream, a fine prospect; and we sat long after the rich,
glorious convent bells rang out the Ave Maria, gazing at the fair
scene before us. Purple shadows began to creep up the rugged sides of
the hill, the golden light faded away in the wrest, the dome over the
Porziuncula grew dim, and the valley was covered with the rising
mists. It was time to close the window.
We spent most of the following day in the church. It is the very
inflorescence of Christian art, a great epic poem in honor of St.
Francis. A pope laid the corner-stone. All Christendom sent its
offerings. The most celebrated architects and painters of the time
lent the aid of their genius. One would think it had grown out of the
hill against which it is built. Its azure vaults starred with gold,
its ribbed arches that bend low like the boughs of a gloomy forest,
the delicacy of its carvings, its marble pavement, its windows with
their jewelled panes, and above all its walls covered with mystic
paintings that read like the very poetry of religion, need almost the
tongue of angels to describe them. M. Taine says: “No one, till he has
seen this unrivalled edifice, can have any idea of the art and genius
of the middle ages. Taken in connection with Dante and the _Fioretti_
of St. Francis, it is the masterpiece of mystic Christianity.” It was
the first Gothic church erected in Italy.[192] It is built in the form
of a cross, in memory of the mysterious crucifixion of St. Francis.
Its walls are of white marble, in honor of the Immaculate Virgin; and
there are twelve towers of red marble, in memory of the blood shed by
the Holy Apostles. It consists of two churches, one above the other,
and a crypt beneath, where lies the body of St. Francis. The upper
church is entered from a grassy terrace on the top of the Hill of
Paradise. The lower one opens at the side into an immense court
surrounded by an arcade. This under church, with its low Byzantine
arches, full of the mysterious gloom and solemnity so favorable to
pensive contemplation and prayer, has often been supposed typical of
the self-abasement and mortified life of St. Francis. Its delicious
chapels, with their struggling light, are well calculated to excite
sadness, penitence, and tears. The crypt beneath, with its horrible
darkness, its damp walls and death-like stillness, and its one tomb in
the centre awaiting the Resurrection, is a veritable limbo; while the
upper church, with its lofty, graceful, upspringing arches, all light
and joy, is symbolic of the transfigured soul of the seraphic Francis
in the beatitude of eternal glory.
But how can we go peering around this museum of Christian art, as if
in a picture-gallery? It would be positively wicked. The knee
instinctively bends before the saintly forms that people the twilight
solemnity of the lower church. It was thus we gazed up at Giotto’s
matchless frescos of the three monastic virtues on the arches over the
high altar, which stands directly above the tomb of St.
Francis—Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience—fit crown indeed for that
“meek man of God.” We remember seeing them during the Forty Hours’
Devotion, when the candles lit them up wondrously; the figures came
out in startling relief; the angels seemed actually hovering over the
divine Host below. The most celebrated of these paintings is the
_Spozalizio_ sung by Dante—the mystic espousals of St. Francis with
Poverty, the lady of his choice.
“A Dame to whom none openeth pleasure’s gate
More than to death, was, ‘gainst his father’s will,
His stripling choice: and he did make her his
Before the spiritual court by nuptial bonds.”
This was not an original conception of Giotto’s or Dante’s. They only
gave a more artistic expression to the popular belief. There was not a
cottage in Umbria that did not believe in these espousals of St.
Francis with Lady Poverty, who had, says the Divine Poet, lived more
than a thousand years bereft of her first bridegroom, Christ; and it
was from the lips of the poor and lowly they gathered the significant
allegory. It was also before their time St. Bonaventura wrote: “St.
Francis, journeying to Siena in the broad plain between Campiglia and
San Quirico, was encountered by three maidens in poor raiment, exactly
resembling each other in age and appearance, who saluted him with the
words: ‘Welcome, Lady Poverty,’ and suddenly disappeared. The brethren
not irrationally concluded that this apparition imported some mystery
pertaining to St. Francis, and that by the three poor maidens were
signified Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, the sum and beauty of
evangelical perfection, all of which shone with equal and consummate
lustre in the man of God, though he made the privilege of poverty his
chief glory.”
Dante with all his pride, and Giotto with his repugnance to poverty,
even when consecrated by religion, chose one of the most democratic of
subjects when they depicted these sacred espousals of St. Francis; for
it was the people he identified himself with in this union. He wedded
for better and worse the sorrows and misery, the misfortunes and
groans, of Italy,[193] and when dying,
“To his brotherhood,
As their just heritage, he gave in charge
His dearest Lady, and enjoined their love
And faith to her.”
The church teaches that the poor are Christ’s suffering members; that
it is he who is hungered and athirst in the sick and destitute; to him
is every alms given. St. Francis gave his whole being to Poverty thus
identified with Christ—a bride chosen only by a few elect souls in
these days of luxury and self-indulgence, but in whom the Christian
philosophers of the middle ages found an infinite charm. Plato
represents Love with bare feet and tattered, disordered garments, to
signify the forgetfulness of self that gives all and reserves nothing.
It is in this sense the choice of evangelical poverty is one of the
highest expressions of love to God in the Catholic Church.
“O hidden riches! O prolific good!” exclaims Dante. And no one ever
understood its value more than St. Francis, the _glorioso poverello di
Christo_, who was, says Bossuet, “perhaps the most desperate lover of
poverty ever known in the church.”
“O Lord Jesus!” cries St. Francis, “show me the ways of thy
dear Poverty.… Take pity on me and my lady Poverty whom I
love with so much ardor. Without her I can find no peace.
And it is thou, O my God! who hast inspired this great love.
She is seated in the dust of the highway, and her friends
pass her by with contempt. Thou seest the abasement of this
queen, O Lord Jesus! who didst descend from heaven to make
her thy spouse, and through her to beget children worthy of
thee, who art perfect. She was in the humility of thy
Mother’s womb. She was at the manger. She had her part in
the great combat thou didst fight for our redemption. In thy
Passion she alone did not abandon thee. Mary, thy Mother,
remained at the foot of the cross, but Poverty ascended it
with thee.[194] She clung more closely than ever to thy
breast. It was she who lovingly prepared the rude nails that
pierced thy hands and feet; she who didst present thee with
gall when thou wast suffering from thirst.… Thou didst die
in her loving embrace.… And even then this faithful spouse
did not forsake thee. She had thy body buried in the grave
of another. She wrapped thy cold limbs in the tomb, and with
her thou didst come forth glorious. Therefore thou hast
crowned her in heaven, and chosen her to mark thy elect with
the sign of redemption. Oh! who would not choose Lady
Poverty above all other brides? O Jesus! who for our sakes
didst become poor, the grace I beg of thee is the privilege
of sharing thy poverty. I ardently desire to be enriched
with this treasure. I pray thee that I and mine may never
possess anything in the world of our own, for the glory of
thy name, but that we may only subsist, during this
miserable life, on that which is given us in alms.”
How foreign this seems to the spirit of our age; and yet it is the
science of the cross, of which we need an infusion to counterbalance
the general worship of Mammon. Coleridge seems to have caught a
glimpse of the beauty and dignity of poverty when he wrote:
“It is a noble doctrine that teaches how slight a thing is
Poverty; what riches, nay, treasures untold, a man may
possess in the midst of it, if he does but seek them aright;
how much of the fiend’s apparent bulk is but a fog vapor of
the sickly and sophisticated mind. It is a noble endeavor
that would bring men to tread the fear of this phantom under
their firm feet, and _dare_ to be poor!”
Giotto represents St. Francis receiving his bride from the hands of
Christ himself. Her head is crowned with roses and light, but her feet
are bleeding from the thorns of the rough way. Her cheeks are hollow
and pale, but her eyes are full of fire. Her garments are worn and in
tatters, but she is beautiful with modesty and love. Hers is the
tempered spiritual beauty of one who has been chastened by misfortune,
but there is nothing of the degradation of human passion. It is the
poverty of country life, free, modest, unabashed, but ennobled by an
expression that religion alone can give. Worldlings attack her with
blows, and a dog, that last friend of the poor, is barking at her with
fury. Angels, beaming with joy and admiration, encircle these
mysterious nuptials. Below, in one corner, are the vices of the times
personified—the rapacity of the nobility, and the greed of monks who
have become unmindful of their obligations. At the left is the
youthful Francis sharing his mantle with a beggar, while an angel
above is ascending with the garment to heaven. The central figure in
the painting is the radiant form of Him who took upon himself the
likeness of the poor, on whose condition he now confers fresh dignity
by perpetuating a love of poverty in the person of Francis and his
order. Over all are angels of sacrifice offering to God the riches
that have been abandoned for the love of him.
Philosophy, poetry, and religion are all in this wonderful allegory,
which has shone here nearly six hundred years as a memorial and a
perpetual admonition to the followers of St. Francis.
Chastity is represented under the veiled form of a maiden who has
taken refuge in the tower of a fortress, defended by a triple wall,
and guarded by Innocence and Fortitude. She is kneeling in the
attitude of prayer, while angels bring her a crown and a palm. Before
the castle gates are depicted the divine means of purifying the human
soul: Baptism, with the cardinal virtues in attendance, and an angel
bearing the robe of innocence; Penance, in her hood and garb of serge,
or, as some say, St. Francis receiving new members into his fold,
among whom may be seen Dante in the habit of the Third Order; and
angels of Expiation consigning unseemly vices to the purifying flames
of a yawning gulf.
_Sancta Obedientia_, the least pleasing of these paintings, is
represented by the monastic yoke placed on the shoulders of a novice.
Prudence and Humility are at his side; the former, entrenched behind a
barrier with mirror and compass, has two faces, one examining the past
and the other considering the future. Humility is bearing a torch. The
old Adam of the human heart, under the form of a centaur, is put to
flight by these virtues.[195]
In the midst of these three priceless jewels is represented St.
Francis radiant with holiness, in a rich deacon’s dress, on a throne
of gold, and surrounded by angels who hymn his praise. Never was
mortal more glorified on earth than the humble St. Francis, out of
whose tomb has grown this richest flower of mediæval art.
On the wall of the left transept is a sublime painting of the
Crucifixion by Pietro Cavallini—one of the most important monuments of
the school of Giotto, who was one of the first to soften the
representations of the awful sufferings of Christ by an expression of
divine resignation and beauty of form. The Byzantine type of the
twelfth century, still scrupulously adhered to, was repulsive and
expressive only of the lowest stage of human suffering, as all know
who have seen the green, livid figures of Christ on the cross by
Margaritone, who died of grief at seeing his standard of excellence
set aside and despised. Cavallini, whose piety was so fervent that he
was regarded as a saint, had scruples, however, about condemning as an
artist what he had knelt before in prayer, though he widely departed
from the old school. Nothing could be more beautiful or pathetic than
the angels in this picture, who are weeping and wringing their hands
with anguish around the dying Saviour.… Among the figures below is
Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens, then (in 1342) at the head of the
Florentine republic, for whom this picture was painted. He is on
horseback with a jewelled cap, clothed in rich robes, and, strange to
say, with a nimbus around his head, which seems to have been a symbol
of power as well as sanctity in those days.
It was one of Cavallini’s Christs[196] that spoke to St. Bridget at
St. Paul’s without the walls of Rome; and he was the architect of the
shrine of Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey.
At the foot of the altar beneath the Crucifixion is buried Mary of
Savoy, granddaughter of Philip II. of Spain, a member of the Third
Order of St. Francis, who often came here to venerate his tomb and
seek counsel of St. Joseph of Copertino, then an inmate of the _Sagro
Convento_.
All the chapels of this lower church are famous for their frescos by
noted artists. Simone Memmi, the friend of Petrarch, and painter of
Laura, has covered one with the life of St. Martin, who, like St.
Francis after him, divided his cloak with a beggar, remaining for ever
a symbol of the divine words: I was naked and ye clothed me. The
Maddalena Chapel is covered with the legend of the
“Redeemed Magdalene,
And that Egyptian penitent whose tears
Fretted the rock, and moistened round her cave
The thirsty desert,”
by Puccio Capana, who became so attached to Assisi that he settled
there for life.
The melancholy Giottino adorned the chapel of St. Nicholas with his
usual harmony of color. On the arches of the chapel of St. Louis of
France a Franciscan tertiary, Adone Doni, painted the beautiful Sibyls
which Raphael admired and imitated at _Santa Maria della Pace_ in
Rome. Taddeo Gaddi, the godson and favorite pupil of Giotto, has also
left here many touching and beautiful paintings. In fact, all the
renowned artists of the day seemed to vie with each other in adorning
this monument to the memory of St. Francis, and some of their works
were offerings of love and gratitude. To the artistic eye they are
models worthy of study, but to us pilgrims so many visions of beauty
and holiness.
In the sacristy is the most authentic portrait of St. Francis in
existence, by Giunta Pisano—a lank, wasted form that by no means
reflects the charm the saint most certainly had to attract so many
disciples around him, to say nothing of his power over the beasts of
the earth and the birds of the air. Two marble staircases lead down to
the sepulchral chamber where lies the body of St. Francis. This crypt,
or third church, as it is sometimes called, is of recent construction,
and, though not in harmony with the upper churches, is a prodigious
achievement, dug as it is out of the rock on which the whole edifice
rests. It is of the Doric order, and in the form of a Greek cross, and
lined with precious marbles. It is dark and tomb-like, being lighted
only by lamps around the bronze shrine, which stands in the very
centre. The body of St. Francis had lain nearly six hundred years in
the heart of the mountain, shrouded in a mystery that had given rise
to many popular legends. When brought here in 1230, it was still
flexible as when he was alive, and the mysterious stigmata distinctly
visible. This was four years after his death. It was then shown to the
people in its cypress coffin, amid the flourish of trumpets and the
shouts of the multitude, and put on a magnificent car drawn by oxen
which were covered with purple draperies sent by the Emperor of
Constantinople, and escorted by a long procession of friars with palms
and torches in their hands, chanting hymns composed by Pope Gregory
IX. himself. Legates, bishops, and a multitude of clergy followed. But
the car was guarded by the magistrates of Assisi, and so fearful were
the people lest the body of their saint should be taken from them
that, when it arrived at the _Colle d’Inferno_, they would not allow
the clergy to take possession of it, but buried it themselves in the
very bowels of the earth. Hence a certain mystery that always hung
over the tomb.
It is related that the third night after his burial the mountain was
shaken by an earthquake and surrounded by an unearthly light. The
friars, hastening to the place where they knew their patriarch lay
hidden, found the rock rent asunder and the saint standing on his tomb
with transfigured face and eyes raised to heaven. Gregory IX. is said
to have come to witness the prodigy, and left this inscription on the
wall: _Ante obitum mortuus; post obitum vivens_—Before his death,
dead; after death, living.
It became a popular belief that this body, which bore the impress of
the Passion of Christ, would never see corruption, and that he would
remain thus, ever living and praying, in the depths of his
inaccessible tomb.
In 1818 Pius VII. authorized the Franciscans to search for the body of
their founder. After continued excavations in the rock for fifty-two
days, or rather nights (for they worked in the silence and secrecy of
the night), they came to an iron grate that protected the narrow
recess where lay the saint. It was then the crypt was constructed to
receive the sacred body. The same old grate is before the present
shrine, and the sacristan thrust his torch through the bars, that we
might catch a glimpse of the remains of one
“Whose marvellous life deservedly were sung
In heights empyreal.”
Around this glorious tomb all the Franciscans of Assisi, before they
were suppressed by the present Italian government, used to gather
every Saturday at the vesper hour, to chant, with lighted tapers in
hand, the Psalm _Voce mea ad Dominum clamavi_, sung by St. Francis
when he was dying. It has been set to music by one of the friars in a
grand air known as the _Transito_ because it celebrates the _transit_
of the saint to a higher life. This became one of the attractions of
the place which kings and princes considered it a favor to hear, but
of course it is no longer sung. Let us hope that this forced
suspension is only transitory.
At the door of the crypt are the statues of Pius VII., in whose
pontificate it was constructed, and Pius IX., a member of the Third
Order, who has surrounded it with twelve bas-reliefs representing the
life of the saint.
A long flight of stone steps leads from the lower court to the terrace
before the upper church, which is grassy and starred with daisies.
This church is as lofty and brilliant with light as the other is
gloomy and low-browed. Cimabue and Giotto adorned its walls with
paintings that are now sadly defaced, but they have a fascination no
modern artist can inspire, and we linger over them as over the
remembrance of some half-forgotten dream, hoping to catch a clearer
view before they fade for ever away. Above are scenes from the Holy
Scriptures—a glorious _Biblia Pauperum_, indeed, it must have been
when fresh from the artist’s hands; and this is especially the church
of the people, as the lower one is that of the friars. Below is the
wondrous life of St. Francis, a poem in twenty-eight cantos, by
Giotto, the painter of St. Francis _par excellence_, who never seemed
weary of his favorite subject.
There are over one hundred stalls in the choir, delicately carved by
Sanseverino, with curious intarsia-work representing the popes,
doctors, and saints of the Franciscan Order.
The beautiful lancet windows of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries are “suffused with lessons sweet of heavenly lore,” glorious
in color, which gives marvellous hues to Cimabue’s angels who hover in
the arches with “varied plume and changeful vest.” The lower church is
that of poor mortals who struggle with earth and grope for the light.
This one depicts the glory of the saints, and is a symbol of Paradise.
Connected with the church is the _Sagro Convento_, which is entered by
an arched passage lined with portraits of distinguished Franciscans.
There are four large cloisters, now solitary but for the ascetic forms
painted on their walls, and the silent tombs of the dead friars. Long
corridors, lined with saints of the Order, lead to the narrow cells
intended for the living. Two refectories were shown us, one large
enough to contain two hundred and fifty persons, with _Silentium_ in
great letters on the wall over the fine Cenacolo by Solimena. Opposite
the latter is a Crucifixion by Adone Doni, with Jerusalem and Assisi
in the background, and SS. Francis and Clare at the foot of the cross.
Narrow tables extended around the room, with seats against the wall on
which the _Benedicite_ is carved.
But the most striking feature of this vast monastery is the immense
gallery on the western side, like an arcade on the brink of a
precipice, with a torrent in the depths below. This was constructed by
Sixtus IV., whose statue is at one end. It affords a grand view over
the whole Umbrian valley. Montefalco, Spello, and Perugia are in full
sight; below is the Porziuncula; in the distance the purple Apennines,
with the glorious Italian sky over all. One needs no better book of
devotion than this page of nature.
On the other side of the monastery the windows look down on the garden
of the friars with charming walks on the side of the mountain amid
olives and cypresses.
It was not till the second morning we began to explore Assisi. What
queer old lanes, up and down hill, we passed along, the walls covered
with moss and ferns out of which green lizards darted! The streets
were grassy and noiseless, being mostly inaccessible to carriages.
Coats-of-arms are sculptured over many of the massive old portals,
accompanied, perhaps, with some religious symbol. On one was _Viva
Gesu e Maria!_ Another had _Ubi Deus ibi pax_. Every few moments we
came to a lovely fresco of the Madonna—too beautiful a flower to bloom
on the rough highways of life. Everything was old and quaint, and in
harmony with the traditions of the place; everything redolent of the
middle ages and of the memory of St. Francis. Assisi is full of
monuments that perpetuate some incident of his life. There is _San
Francesco il Piccolo_—Little St. Francis—an oratory on the site of the
stable where he was born, with the inscription:
Hoc oratorium fuit bovis et asini stabulum
In quo natus est Franciscus mundi speculum;
—This chapel was the stable of an ox and ass, wherein was born
Francis, the mirror of the world.[197]
The _Chiesa Nuova_—the _New Church_, but over two hundred and sixty
years old—was built by Philip III. of Spain on the site of the house
of Pietro Bernardone, the father of St. Francis, and has always been
under the protection of the Spanish crown. It is in the form of a
Greek cross, with five domes in memory of the five mystic wounds of
the saint. Over the entrance are graven the arms of Spain. A flock of
white pigeons was around the door. A young friar with mild, pleasant
eyes came forward in his brown habit to show us the church. Some
portions of the original house of Bernardone have been preserved;
among others, a low, round arch with an old door held together by iron
clamps. And at the left is the low cell in which St. Francis was
confined three days by his father for selling some of his goods to
repair San Damiano. In it is a statue of the saint, kneeling with
folded hands, before which we found flowers and a burning lamp. Around
the central dome are statues of celebrated Franciscans: St. Louis of
Toulouse, St. Clare, St. Diego, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. In the
presbytery is shown St. Francis’ chamber.
In the bishop’s palace is the room where St. Francis stripped off his
garments in the presence of his father, and the bishop covered him
with his mantle. It contains a painting of the scene.
There is an oratory where once dwelt Bernard de Quintavalle, the first
disciple of Francis. Here he saw the saint upon his knees all night,
weeping and exclaiming, _Deus meus et omnia_—My God and my all! and
conceived such a veneration for him that he
“Did bare his feet, and in pursuit of peace,
So heavenly, ran, yet deemed his footing slow.”
The church of St. Nicholas is where they consulted the Gospel to know
what manner of life they should lead.
On our way to all these places, so touching to the heart of a
Catholic, we passed the theatre named for Metastasio, who was enrolled
among the citizens of Assisi, and whose father was a native of the
place. We visited likewise the portico of the temple of Minerva, now a
church, which is one of the finest specimens of Greek art in Italy.
Goethe stopped at Assisi on purpose to visit it, but, like our own
Hawthorne after him, passed by the marvels of art around the tomb of
St. Francis.
It must not be supposed that all this while we have forgotten St.
Clare, the moon in the heavens of the Franciscan Order, of which St.
Francis is the sun, as Lope de Vega, the celebrated Spanish poet, and,
by the way, a Franciscan tertiary, says:
“Cielo es vuestra religion
Y como sol haveis sido,
Quereis que haya luna Clara
Mas que su mismo appellido.”
We now went to visit her shrine, which is in the church of _Santa
Chiara_, on the very edge of the hill at the western extremity of
Assisi. The so-called piazza in front is rather a broad terrace from
which one looks directly down on the tops of the olives below. The
church is of the purest Gothic style of the thirteenth century, with
enormous flying buttresses to preserve it from earthquakes. Its lofty
campanile with open arches is one of the prominent features of Assisi.
Adjoining is the monastery of Clarists, that looks more like a castle
with ramparts and battlements. We entered the sculptured portal
between two lions growling over their cubs, and found ourselves in a
great church without aisles, almost without ornament, cold, severe,
and deserted. It was once nearly covered with paintings, of which only
a few remain. Over the main altar are encircled some of the celebrated
virgin saints who early gave their souls to heaven: Agnes, Cecilia,
Catherine, Lucy, Clare—a _Corona Virginum_ indeed, full of delicacy
and expression, painted by Giottino. In a side chapel is an
interesting old picture of St. Clare, said to have been painted by
Cimabue thirty years after her death. It represents her with noble but
delicate features, a fair complexion and smiling lips, and majestic in
form. In fact, she was of uncommon stature. The body of her sister
Agnes is in a tomb over the altar.
This church was first known as St. George’s, but took the name of St.
Clare after her body was brought here for burial. Here the
canonization of St. Francis took place. Through a grate that looks
into the nuns’ chapel, we saw by the light of a candle the old
Byzantine crucifix—of the tenth century, at least—which spoke to
Francis at San Damiano: _Vade, Francisce, et repara domum meam quæ
labitur_. It is painted on wood, with the Maries and St. John at the
foot, and angels hovering over the arms of the cross.
A broad staircase leads down from the nave to the subterranean chapel
recently constructed for the shrine of St. Clare. Her sacred remains,
by the permission of Pius IX., were, in 1850, taken out of the narrow
recess in the rock where they had lain five hundred and ninety years.
All the bones were found perfect. One hand was on her breast, the
other at her side with the remains of some fragrant flowers. On her
head was a wreath of laurel, the leaves still green and flexible; and
scattered around her were leaves of wild thyme. These remains were
borne solemnly through the city she and St. Francis have made so
illustrious. Children strewed the way before them with flowers and
green leaves, after the fashion of Italy, and young maidens followed
with lilies in their hands. In this manner they were taken to the
_Sagro Convento_, stopping at six convents on the way, and brought
back at night by the light of torches. They are now in a beautiful
Gothic chapel, partly due to the liberality of Pius IX. Two nuns in
gray showed us the shrine. St. Clare lies on a rich marble couch, with
a lily in her hand, and the rules of her rigid order on her breast,
surrounded by lamps. We also saw some of the long, fair hair cut off
at the Porziuncula, and some of the fine linen she spun with her own
hands.
Passing through an old gateway a little beyond _Santa Chiara_, we left
the city and strolled leisurely down the long, steep side of the
mountain, along a charming road lined with hedges and groves of
olive-trees. The fields were bright with poppies, the trees melodious
with birds, and the burning sun of Italy as intense as the soul of St.
Francis, who must often have trod the same path. At length we came to
a Madonna in a niche, at the corner of a group of buildings, with a
few faded flowers before her, and, in a minute more, to an old church
and monastery that looked as if they needed again the restoring hand
of St. Francis. This is San Damiano, homely and simple, but like a
bird’s nest on the mountain-side, half hid among olives which, gnarled
and twisted and split asunder, looked as old as the convent itself. It
seemed a fit dove-cot for the gentle Clare and her companions, whom
St. Francis established here in quietness and solitude.
A small court leads to the church, before which is a portico with a
fresco of St. Clare repulsing the Saracens. These Saracens were in the
employ of Frederick II. On their way to attack Assisi, ravaging the
country as they went, they came to San Damiano, and scaled the convent
walls in the night. The poor nuns, in their terror, took refuge around
the bed of St. Clare, who, though ill, rose by the aid of two sisters,
and, taking the Blessed Sacrament in her hands, she went forth on the
balcony, chanting in a loud voice: “Thou hast rebuked the heathen,
thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever
and ever!” This unexpected apparition in the darkness of night, amid
the light that streamed around the uplifted Host, so terrified the
infidel band that they took immediate flight. All Assisi resounded
with hymns of joy. But a few days after they returned anew, vowing to
take the city. Then Clare and her companions covered their heads with
ashes, and, prostrating themselves before the altar, wept and prayed
till the enemy was dispersed by the valiant citizens. This was on the
22d of June, 1234, on which day the inhabitants of Assisi vowed an
annual pilgrimage to San Damiano in gratitude for their deliverance.
Everything in this convent has been left in its primitive simplicity.
The bell is merely suspended from the wall. The rafters are bare. The
buildings are of unpolished stone. Everything bears the impress of the
evangelical poverty its inmates embraced. But nature supplies what is
lacking in art. The site is delicious. The view from the terrace is
lovely, with the dear Porziuncula in the distance, and the fertile
valley radiant in the sun.