especially among ignorant or wicked people, is not so much owing to the
purity and loftiness of its truths, as to its harmony with prevailing
errors and corruptions. When Mohammed preached his sublimest doctrines,
and appealed to reason and conscience, he converted about a score of
people in thirteen years. When he invoked demoralizing passions, he
converted all Arabia in eleven years. And does not this startling
conclusion seem to be confirmed by the whole history of mankind? How
slow the progress of Christianity for two hundred years, except when
assisted by direct supernatural influences! How rapid its triumphs when
it became adapted to the rude barbaric mind, or to the degenerate people
of the Empire! How popular and prevalent and widespread are those
religions which we are accustomed to regard as most corrupt! Buddhism
and Brahmanism have had more adherents than even Mohammedanism. How
difficult it was for Moses and the prophets to keep the Jews from
idolatry! What caused the rapid eclipse of faith in the antediluvian
world? Why could not Noah establish and perpetuate his doctrines among
his own descendants before he was dead? Why was the Socratic philosophy
unpopular? Why were the Epicureans so fashionable? Why was Christianity
itself most eagerly embraced when its light was obscured by fables and
superstitions? Why did the Roman Empire perish, with all the aid of a
magnificent civilization; why did this civilization itself retrograde;
why did its art and literature decline? Why did the grand triumphs of
Protestantism stop in half a century after Luther delivered his message?
What made the mediaeval popes so powerful? What gave such ascendency to
the Jesuits? Why is the simple faith of the primitive Christians so
obnoxious to the wise, the mighty, and the noble? What makes the most
insidious heresies so acceptable to the learned? Why is modern
literature, when fashionable and popular, so antichristian in its tone
and spirit? Why have not the doctrines of Luther held their own in
Germany, and those of Calvin in Geneva, and those of Cranmer in England,
and those of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England? Is it because, as men
become advanced in learning and culture, they are theologically wiser
than Moses and Abraham and Isaiah?
I do not cite the rapid decline of modern civilized society, in a
political or social view, in the most favored sections of Christendom; I
do not sing dirges over republican institutions; I would not croak
Jeremiads over the changes and developments of mankind. I simply speak
of the marvellous similarity which the spread and triumph of
Mohammedanism seem to bear to the spread and triumph of what is corrupt
and wicked in all institutions and religions since the fall of man.
Everywhere it is the frivolous, the corrupt, the false, which seem to be
most prevalent and most popular. Do men love truth, or readily accept
it, when it conflicts with passions and interests? Is any truth popular
which is arrayed against the pride of reason? When has pure moral truth
ever been fashionable? When have its advocates not been reviled,
slandered, misrepresented, and persecuted, if it has interfered with the
domination of prevailing interests? The lower the scale of pleasures the
more eagerly are they sought by the great mass of the people, even in
Christian communities. You can best make colleges thrive by turning them
into schools of technology, with a view of advancing utilitarian and
material interests. You cannot make a newspaper flourish unless
you fill it with pictures and scandals, or make it a vehicle of
advertisements,--which are not frivolous or corrupt, it is true, but
which have to do with merely material interests. Your libraries would
never be visited, if you took away their trash. Your Sabbath-school
books would not be read, unless you made them an insult to the human
understanding. Your salons would be deserted, if you entertained your
guests with instructive conversation. There would be no fashionable
gatherings, if it were not to display dresses and diamonds. Your pulpits
would be unoccupied, if you sought the profoundest men to fill them.
Everything, even in Christian communities, shows that vanities and
follies and falsehoods are the most sought, and that nothing is more
discouraging than appeals to high intelligence or virtue, even in art.
This is the uniform history of the race, everywhere and in all ages. Is
it darkness or light which the world loves? I never read, and I never
heard, of a great man with a great message to deliver, who would not
have sunk under disappointment or chagrin but for his faith. Everywhere
do you see the fascination of error, so that it almost seems to be as
vital as truth itself. When and where have not lies and sophistries and
hypocrisies reigned? I appeal to history. I appeal to the observation
and experience of every thoughtful and candid mind. You cannot get
around this truth. It blazes and it burns like the fires of Sinai. Men
left to themselves will more and more retrograde in virtue.
What, then, is the hope of the world? We are driven to this
deduction,--that if truth in itself is not all-conquering, the divine
assistance, given at times to truth itself, as in the early Church, is
the only reason why truth conquers. This divine grace, promised in the
Bible, has wrought wonders whenever it has pleased the Almighty to
bestow it, and only then. History teaches this as impressively as
revelation. Christianity itself, unaided, would probably die out in this
world. And hence the grand conclusion is, that it is the mysterious, or,
as some call it, the supernatural, spirit of Almighty power which is,
after all, the highest hope of this world. This is not discrepant with
the oldest traditions and theogonies of the East,--the hidden wisdom of
ancient Indian and Persian and Egyptian sages, concealed from the
vulgar, but really embraced by the profoundest men, before corruptions
perverted even their wisdom. This certainly is the earliest revelation
of the Bible. This is the power which Moses recognized, and all the
prophets who succeeded him. This is the power which even Mohammed, in
the loftiness of his contemplations, more dimly saw, and imperfectly
taught to the idolaters around him, and which gives to his system all
that was really valuable. Ask not when and where this power shall be
most truly felt. It is around us, and above us, and beneath us. It is
the mystery and grandeur of the ages. "It is not by might nor by power,
but by my spirit," saith the Lord. Man is nothing, his aspirations are
nothing, the universe itself is nothing, without the living, permeating
force which comes from this supernal Deity we adore, to interfere and
save. Without His special agency, giving to His truths vitality, this
world would soon become a hopeless and perpetual pandemonium. Take away
the necessity of this divine assistance as the one great condition of
all progress, as well as the highest boon which mortals seek,--then
prayer itself, recognized even by Mohammedans as the loftiest
aspiration and expression of a dependent soul, and regarded by prophets
and apostles and martyrs as their noblest privilege, becomes a
superstition, a puerility, a mockery, and a hopeless dream.
AUTHORITIES.
The Koran; Dean Prideaux's Life of Mohammed; Vie de Mahomet, by the
Comte de Boulainvilliers; Gagnier's Life of Mohammed; Ockley's History
of the Saracens; Gibbon, fiftieth chapter; Hallam's Middle Ages;
Milman's Latin Christianity; Dr. Weil's Mohammed der Prophet, sein Leben
und seine Lehre; Renan, Revue des Deux Mondes, 1851; Bustner's
Pilgrimage to El Medina and Mecca; Life of Mahomet, by Washington
Irving; Essai sur l'Histoire des Arabes, par A.P. Caussin de Perceval;
Carlyle's Lectures on Heroes and Hero Worship; E.A. Freeman's Lectures
on the History of the Saracens; Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled; Maurice
on the Religions of the World; Life and Religion of Mohammed, translated
from the Persian, by Rev. I.L. Merrick.
CHARLEMAGNE.
* * * * *
A.D. 742-814.
REVIVAL OF WESTERN EMPIRE.
The most illustrious monarch of the Middle Ages was doubtless
Charlemagne. Certainly he was the first great statesman, hero, and
organizer that looms up to view after the dissolution of the Roman
Empire. Therefore I present him as one with whom is associated an epoch
in civilization. To him we date the first memorable step which Europe
took out of the anarchies of the Merovingian age. His dream was to
revive the Empire that had fallen. He was the first to labor, with giant
strength, to restore what vice and violence had destroyed. He did not
succeed in realizing the great ends to which he aspired, but his
aspirations were lofty. It was not in the power of any man to civilize
semi-barbarians in a single reign; but if he attempted impossibilities
he did not live in vain, since he bequeathed some permanent conquests
and some great traditions. He left a great legacy to civilization. His
life has not dramatic interest like that of Hildebrand, nor poetic
interest like the lives of the leaders of the Crusades; but it is very
instructive. He was the pride of his own generation, and the boast of
succeeding ages, "claimed," says Sismondi, "by the Church as a saint, by
the French as the greatest of their kings, by the Germans as their
countryman, and by the Italians as their emperor."
His remote ancestors, it is said, were ecclesiastical magnates. His
grandfather was Charles Martel, who gained such signal victories over
the Mohammedan Saracens; his father was Pepin, who was a renowned
conqueror, and who subdued the southern part of France, or Gaul. He did
not rise, like Clovis, from the condition of a chieftain of a tribe of
barbarians; nor, like the founder of his family, from a mayor of the
palace, or minister of the Merovingian kings. His early life was spent
amid the turmoils and dangers of camps, and as a young man he was
distinguished for precocity of talent, manly beauty, and gigantic
physical strength. He was a type of chivalry, before chivalry arose. He
was born to greatness, and early succeeded to a great inheritance. At
the age of twenty-six, in the year 768, he became the monarch of the
greater part of modern France, and of those provinces which border on
the Rhine. By unwearied activities this inheritance, greater than that
of any of the Merovingian kings, was not only kept together and
preserved, but was increased by successive conquests, until no so great
an empire has ever been ruled by any one man in Europe, since the fall
of the Roman Empire, from his day to ours. Yet greater than the
conquests of Charlemagne was the greatness of his character. He
preserved simplicity and gentleness amid all the distractions attending
his government.
His reign affords a striking contrast to that of all his predecessors of
the Merovingian dynasty,--which reigned from the immediate destruction
of the Roman Empire. The Merovingian princes, with the exception of
Clovis and a few others, were mere barbarians, although converted to a
nominal Christianity. Some of them were monsters, and others were
idiots. Clotaire burned to death his own son and wife and daughters.
Frédegunde armed her assassins with poisoned daggers. "Thirteen
sovereigns reigned over the Franks in one hundred and fourteen years,
only two of whom attained to man's estate, and not one to the full
development of intellectual powers. There was scarcely one who did not
live in a state of perpetual intoxication, or who did not rival
Sardanapalus in effeminacy, and Commodus in cruelty." As these
sovereigns were ruled by priests, their iniquities were glossed over by
Gregory of Tours. In _his_ annals they may pass for saints, but history
consigns them to an infamous immortality.
It is difficult to conceive a more dreary and dismal state of society
than existed in France, and in fact over all Europe, when Charlemagne
began to reign. The Roman Empire was in ruins, except in the East, where
the Greek emperors reigned at Constantinople. The western provinces were
ruled by independent barbaric kings. There was no central authority,
although there was an attempt of the popes to revive it,--a spiritual
rather than a temporal power; a theocracy whose foundation had been laid
by Leo the Great when he established the _jus divinum_ principle,--that
he was the successor of Peter, to whom were given the keys of heaven and
hell. If there was an interesting feature in the times it was this
spiritual authority exercised by the bishops of Rome: the most useful
and beneficent considering the evils which prevailed,--the reign of
brute force. The barbaric chieftains yielded a partial homage to this
spiritual power, and it was some check on their rapacity of violence. It
is mournful to think that so little of the ancient civilization remained
in the eighth century. Its eclipse was total. The shadows of a dark and
long night of superstition and ignorance spread over Europe. Law was
silenced by the sword. Justinian's glorious legacy was already
forgotten. The old mechanism which had kept society together in the
fifth century was worn out, broken, rejected. There was no literature,
no philosophy, no poetry, no history, and no art. Even the clergy had
become ignorant, superstitious, and idle. Forms had taken the place
of faith. No great theologians had arisen since Saint Augustine. The
piety of the age hid itself in monasteries; and these monasteries were
as funereal as society itself. Men despaired of the world, and retreated
from it to sing mournful songs. The architecture of the age expressed
the sentiments of the age, and was heavy, gloomy, and monotonous. "The
barbarians ruthlessly marched over the ruins of cities and palaces,
having no regard for the treasures of the classic world, and unmoved by
the lessons of its past experience." Rome itself, repeatedly sacked, was
a heap of ruins. No reconstruction had taken place. Gardens and villas
were as desolate as the ruined palaces, which were the abodes of owls
and spiders. The immortal creations of the chisel were used to prop up
old crumbling walls. The costly monuments of senatorial pride were
broken to pieces in sport or in caprice, and those structures which had
excited the admiration of ages were pulled down that their material
might be used in erecting tasteless edifices. Literature shared the
general desolation. The valued manuscripts of classical ages were
mutilated, erased, or burned. The monks finished the destruction which
the barbarians began. Ignorance as well as anarchy veiled Europe in
darkness. The rust of barbarism became harder and thicker. The last hope
of man had fled, and glory was succeeded by shame. Even slavery, the
curse of the Roman Empire, was continued by the barbarians; only, brute
force was not made subservient to intellect, but intellect to brute
force. The descendants of ancient patrician families were in bondage to
barbarians. The age was the jubilee of monsters. Assassination was
common, and was unavenged by law. Every man was his own avenger of
crime, and his bloody weapons were his only law.
Nor were there seen among the barbaric chieftains the virtues of ancient
Pagan Rome and Greece, for Christianity was nominal. War was universal;
for the barbarians, having no longer the Romans to fight, fought among
themselves. There were incessant irruptions of different tribes passing
from one country to another, in search of plunder and pillage. There was
no security of life or property, and therefore no ambition for
acquisition. Men hid themselves in morasses, in forests, on the tops of
inaccessible hills, and amid the recesses of valleys, for violence was
the rule and not the exception. Even feudalism was not then born, and
still less chivalry. We find no elevated sentiments. The only refuge for
the miserable was in the Church, and the Church was governed by narrow
and ignorant priests. A cry of despair went up to heaven among the
descendants of the old population. There was no commerce, no travel, no
industries, no money, no peace. The chastisement of Almighty Power seems
to have been sent on the old races and the new alike. It was a
desolation greater than that predicted by Jeremy the prophet. The very
end of the world seemed to be at hand. Never in the old seats of
civilization was there such a disintegration; never such a combination
of evils and miseries. And there appeared to be no remedy: nothing but a
long night of horrors and sufferings could be predicted. Gaul, or
France, was the scene of turbulence, invasions, and anarchies; of
murders, of conflagrations, and of pillage by rival chieftains, who
sought to divide its territories among themselves. The people were
utterly trodden down. England was the battle-field of Danes, Saxons, and
Celts, invaded perpetually, and split up into petty Saxon kingdoms. The
roads were infested with robbers, and agriculture was rude. The people
lived in cabins, dressed themselves in skins, and fed on the coarsest
food. Spain was invaded by Saracens, and the Gothic kingdoms succumbed
to these fierce invaders. Italy was portioned out among different
tribes, Gothic and Slavonic. But the prevailing races in Europe were
Germanic (who had conquered both the Celts and the Romans), the Goths in
Spain, the Franks and Burgundians in France, the Lombards in Italy, the
Saxons in England.
What a commentary on the imperial government of the Caesars!--that
government which, with all its mechanisms and traditions, lasted
scarcely four hundred years. Was there ever, in the whole history of
the world, so sudden and mournful a change from civilization to
barbarism,--and this in spite of art, science, law, and Christianity
itself? Were there no conservative forces in that imposing Empire? Why
did society constantly decline for four hundred years, with that
civilization which was its boast and hope? Oh, ye optimists, who talk so
glibly about the natural and necessary progress of humanity, why was the
Roman Empire swept away, with all its material glories, to give place to
such a state of society as I have just briefly described?
And yet men should arise in due time, after the punishment of five
centuries of crime and violence, wretchedness and despair, to
reconstruct, not from the old Pagan materials of Greece and Rome, but
with the fresh energies of new races, aided and inspired by the truths
of the everlasting gospel. The infancy of the new races, sprung however
from the same old Aryan stock, passed into vigorous youth when
Charlemagne appeared. From him we date the first decided impulse given
to the Gothic civilization. He was the morning star of European hopes
and aspirations.
Let us now turn to his glorious deeds. What were the services he
rendered to Europe and Christian civilization?
It was necessary that a truly great man should arise in the eighth
century, if the new forces of civilization were to be organized. To show
what he did for the new races, and how he did it, is the historian's
duty and task in describing the reign of Charlemagne,--sent, I think, as
Moses was, for a providential mission, in the fulness of time, after the
slaveries of three hundred years, which prepared the people for labor
and industry. Better was it that they should till the lands of allodial
proprietors in misery and sorrow, attacked and pillaged, than to wander
like savages in forests and morasses in quest of a precarious support,
or in great predatory bands, as they did in the fourth and fifth
centuries, when they ravaged the provinces of the falling Empire.
Nothing was wanted but their consolidation under central rule in order
to repel aggressors. And that is what Charlemagne attempted to do.
He soon perceived the greatness of the struggle to which he was
destined, and he did not flinch from the contest which has given him
immortality. He comprehended the difficulties which surrounded him and
the dangers which menaced him.
The great perils which threatened Europe were from unsubdued barbarians,
who sought to replunge it into the miseries which the great irruptions
had inflicted three hundred years before. He therefore bent all the
energies of his mind and all the resources of his kingdom to arrest
these fresh waves of inundation. And so long was his contest with
Saxons, Avares, Lombards, and other tribes and races that he is chiefly
to be contemplated as a man who struggled against barbarism. And he
fought them, not for excitement, not for the love of fighting, not for
useless conquests, not for military fame, not for aggrandizement, but
because a stern necessity was laid upon him to protect his own
territories and the institutions he wished to conserve.
Of these barbarians there was one nation peculiarly warlike and
ferocious, and which cherished an inextinguishable hatred not merely of
the Franks, but of civilization itself. They were obstinately attached
to their old superstitions, and had a great repugnance to Christianity.
They were barbarians, like the old North American Indians, because they
determined to be so; because they loved their forests and the chase,
indulged in amusements which were uncertain and dangerous, and sought
for nothing beyond their immediate inclinations. They had no territorial
divisions, and abhorred cities as prisons of despotism. But, like all
the Germanic barbarians, they had interesting traits. They respected
women; they were brave and daring; they had a dogged perseverance, and a
noble passion for personal independence. But they were nevertheless the
enemies of civilization, of a regular and industrious life, and sought
plunder and revenge. The Franks and Goths were once like them, before
the time of Clovis; but they had made settlements, they tilled the land,
and built villages and cities: they were partially civilized, and were
converted to Christianity. But these new barbarians could not be won by
arts or the ministers of religion. These people were the Saxons, and
inhabited those parts of Germany which were bounded by the Rhine, the
Oder, the North Sea, and the Thuringian forests. They were fond of the
sea, and of daring expeditions for plunder. They were a kindred race to
those Saxons who had conquered England, and had the same elements of
character. They were poor, and sought to live by piracy and robbery.
They were very dangerous enemies, but if brought under subjection to
law, and converted to Christianity, might be turned into useful allies,
for they had the materials of a noble race.
With such a people on his borders, and every day becoming more
formidable, what was Charlemagne's policy? What was he to do? The only
thing to the eye of that enlightened statesman was to conquer them, if
possible, and add their territories to the Frankish Empire. If left to
themselves, they might have conquered the Franks. It was either anvil or
hammer. There could be no lasting peace in Europe while these barbarians
were left to pursue their depredations. A vigorous warfare was
imperative, for, unless subdued, a disadvantageous war would be carried
on near the frontiers, until some warrior would arise among them, unite
the various chieftains, and lead his followers to successful invasion.
Charlemagne knew that the difficult and unpleasant work of subjugation
must be done by somebody, and he was unwilling to leave the work to
enervated successors. The work was not child's play. It took him the
best part of his life to accomplish it, and amid great discouragements.
Of his fifty-three expeditions, eighteen were against the Saxons. As
soon as he had cut off one head of the monster, another head appeared.
How allegorical of human labor is that old fable of the Hydra! Where do
man's labors cease? Charlemagne fought not only amid great difficulties,
but perpetual irritations. The Saxons cheated him; they broke their
promises and their oaths. When beaten, they sued for peace; but the
moment his back was turned, they broke out in new insurrections. The
fame of Caesar chiefly rests on his eight campaigns in Gaul. But Caesar
had the disciplined Legions of Rome to fight with. Charlemagne had no
such disciplined troops. Yet he had as many difficulties to surmount as
Caesar,--rugged forests to penetrate, rapid rivers to cross, morasses to
avoid, and mountains to climb. It is a very difficult thing to subdue
even savages who are desperate, determined, and united.