Fanned by sea-gale, nor trod, as others used,
The curving way, but faced the abrupt ascent,
And halted not, so worked in both her will,
Till now between the unfinished towers they stood
Panting and spent. The portals open stood:
Ceadmon passed in alone. Nor ivory decked,
Nor gold, the walls. That convent was a keep
Strong ’gainst invading storm or demon hosts,
And naked as the rock whereon it stood,
Yet, as a church, august. Dark, high-arched roofs
Slowly let go the distant hymn. Each cell
Cinctured its statued saint, the peace of God
On every stony face. Like caverned grot
Far off the western window frowned: beyond,
Close by, there shook an autumn-blazoned tree:
No need for gems beside of storied glass.
He entered last that hall where Hilda sat
Begirt with a great company, the chiefs
Down either side far ranged. Three stalls, cross-crowned,
Stood side by side, the midmost hers. The years
Had laid upon her brows a hand serene,
And left alone their blessing. Levelled eyes
Sable, and keen, with meditative strength
Conjoined the instinct and the claim to rule;
Firm were her lips and rigid. At her right
Sat Finan, Aidan’s successor, with head
Snow-white, and beard that rolled adown a breast
Never by mortal passion heaved in storm,
A cloister of majestic thoughts that walked,
Humbly with God. High in the left-hand stall
Oswy was throned, a man in prime, with brow
Less youthful than his years. Exile long past,
Or deepening thought of one disastrous deed,
Had left a shadow in his eyes. The strength
Of passion held in check looked lordly forth
From head and hand: tawny his beard; his hair
Thick-curled and dense. Alert the monarch sat
Half turned, like one on horseback set that hears,
And he alone, the advancing trump of war.
Down the long gallery strangers thronged in mass,
Dane or Norwegian, huge of arm through weight
Of billows oar-subdued, with stormy looks
Wild as their waves and crags; Southerns keen-browed;
Pure Saxon youths, fair-fronted, with mild eyes
(These less than others strove for nobler place),
And Pilgrim travel-worn. Behind the rest,
And higher-ranged in marble-arched arcade,
Sat Hilda’s sisterhood. Clustering they shone,
White-veiled, and pale of face, and still and meek,
An inly-bending curve, like some young moon
Whose crescent glitters o’er a dusky strait.
In front were monks dark-stoled: for Hilda ruled,
Though feminine, two houses, one of men:
Upon two chasm-divided rocks they stood,
To various service vowed, though single. Faith;
Nor ever, save at rarest festival,
Their holy inmates met.
“Is this the man
Favored, though late, with gift of song?” Thus spake
Hilda with placid smile. Severer then
She added: “Son, the commonest gifts of God
He counts his best, and oft temptation blends
With powers more rare. Yet sing! That God who lifts
The violet from the grass as well could draw
Music from stones hard by. That song thou sang’st,
Sing it once more.”
Then Ceadmon from his knees
Arose and stood. With princely instinct first
The strong man to the abbess bowed, and next
To that great twain, the bishop and the king,
Last to that stately concourse ranged each side
Down the long hall; and, dubious, answered thus:
“Great Mother, if that God who sent the song
Vouchsafe me to recall it, I will sing;
But I misdoubt it lost.” Slowly his face
Down-drooped, and all his body forward bent
As brooding memory, step by step, retracked
Its backward way. Vainly long time it sought
The starting-point. Then Ceadmon’s large, soft hands
Opening and closing worked; for wont were they,
In musings when he stood, to clasp his goad,
And plant its point far from him, thereupon
Propping his stalwart weight. Customed support
Now finding not, unwittingly those hands
Reached forth, and on Saint Finan’s crosier-staff
Settling, withdrew it from the old bishop’s grasp;
And Ceadmon leant thereon, while passed a smile
Down the long hall to see earth’s meekest man
The spiritual sceptre claim of Lindisfarne.
They smiled; he triumphed: soon the Cow-herd found
That first fair corner-stone of all his song;
Then rose the fabric heavenward. Lifting hands,
Once more his lordly music he rehearsed,
The void abyss at God’s command forth-flinging
Creation like a Thought:—where night had reigned,
The universe of God.
The singing stars
Which with the Angels sang when earth was made
Sang in his song. From highest shrill of lark
To ocean’s deepest under cliffs low-browed,
And pine-woods’ vastest on the topmost hills,
No tone was wanting; while to them that heard
Strange images looked forth of worlds new-born,
Fair, phantom mountains, and, with forests plumed,
The marvelling headlands, for the first time glassed
In waters ever calm. O’er sapphire seas
Green islands laughed. Fairer, the wide earth’s flower,
Eden, on airs unshaken yet by sighs
From bosom still inviolate forth poured
Immortal sweets. With sense to spirit turned
Who heard the song inhaled those sweets. Their eyes
Flashing, their passionate hands and heaving breasts,
Tumult self-stilled, and mute, expectant trance,
’Twas these that gave their bard his twofold might,
That might denied to poets later born
Who, singing to soft brains and hearts ice-hard,
Applauded or contemned, alike roll round
A vainly-seeking eye, and, famished, drop
A hand clay-cold upon the unechoing shell,
Missing their inspiration’s human half.
Thus Ceadmon sang, and ceased. Silent awhile
The concourse stood (for all had risen), as though
Waiting from heaven its echo. Each on each
Gazed hard and caught his hands. Fiercely ere long
Their gratulating shout aloft had leaped
But Hilda laid her finger on her lip,
Or provident lest praise might stain the pure,
Or deeming song a gift too high for praise.
She spake: “Through help of God thy song is sound:
Now hear His Holy Word, and shape therefrom
A second hymn, and worthier than the first.”
Then Finan stood, and bent his hoary head
Above the Scripture tome in reverence stayed
Upon his kneeling deacon’s hands and brow,
And sweetly sang five verses, thus beginning,
“_Cum esset desponsata_,” and was still;
And next rehearsed them in the Anglian tongue:
Then Ceadmon took God’s Word into his heart,
And ruminating stood, as when the kine,
Their flowery pasture ended, ruminate;
And was a man in thought. At last the light
Shone from his dubious countenance, and he spake:
“Great Mother, lo! I saw a second Song!
T’wards me it came; but with averted face,
And borne on shifting winds. A man am I
Sluggish and slow, that needs must muse and brood;
Therefore that Scripture till the sun goes down
Will I revolve. If song from God be mine
Expect me here at morn.”
The morrow morn
In that high presence Ceadmon stood and sang
A second song, and manlier than his first;
And Hilda said, “From God it came, not man;
Thou therefore live a monk among my monks,
And sing to God.” Doubtful he stood—“From youth
My place hath been with kine; their ways I know,
And how to cure their griefs.” Smiling she answered,
“Our convent hath its meads, and kine; with these
Consort each morning: night and day be ours.”
Then Ceadmon knelt, and bowed, and said, “So be it”:
And aged Finan, and Northumbria’s king
Oswy, approved; and all that host had joy.
Thus in that convent Ceadmon lived, a monk,
Humblest of all the monks, save him that slept
In the next cell, who once had been a prince.
Seven times a day he sang God’s praises, first
When earliest dawn drew back night’s sable veil
With trembling hand, revisiting the earth
Like some pale maid that through the curtain peers
Round her sick mother’s bed, misdoubting half
If sleep lie there, or death; latest when eve
Through nave and chancel stole from arch to arch,
And laid upon the snowy altar-step
At last a brow of gold. From time to time,
By ancient yearnings driven, through wood and vale
He tracked Dëirean or Bernician glades
To holy Ripon, or late-sceptred York,
Not yet great Wilfred’s seat, or Beverley:—
The children gathered round him, crying, “Sing!”
They gave him inspiration with their eyes,
And with his conquering music he returned it.
Oftener he roamed that strenuous eastern coast
To Yarrow and to Wearmouth, sacred sites,
The well-beloved of Bede, or northward more,
To Bamborough, Oswald’s keep. At Coldingham
His feet had rest—there where St. Ebba’s Cape
That ends the lonely range of Lammermoor,
Sustained for centuries o’er the wild sea-surge
In region of dim mist and flying bird,
Fronting the Forth, those convent piles far-kenned,
The worn-out sailor’s hope.
Fair English shores,
Despite the buffeting storms of north and east,
Despite rough ages blind with stormier strife,
Or froz’n by doubt, or sad with sensual care,
A fragrance as of Carmel haunts you still
Bequeathed by feet of that forgotten saint
Who trod you once, sowing the seed divine!
Fierce tribes that kenned him distant round him flocked;
On sobbing sands the fisher left his net,
His lamb the shepherd on the hills of March,
Suing for song. With wrinkled face all smiles,
Like that blind Scian upon Grecian shores,
If God the song accorded, Ceadmon sang;
If God denied it, after musings deep
He answered, “I am of the kine and dumb”;—
The man revered his art, and fraudful song
Esteemed as fraudful coin.
Music denied,
He solaced them with tales wherein, so seemed it,
Nature and Grace, inwoven, like children played,
Or like two sisters o’er one sampler bent,
One pattern worked. Ever the sorrowful chance
Ending in joy, the human craving still,
Like creeper circling up the Tree of Life,
Lifted by hand unseen, witnessed that He,
Man’s Maker, is the Healer too of man,
And life his school, expectant. Parables—
Thus Ceadmon named his legends. They who heard
Made answer, “Nay, not parables, but truths;”
Endured no change of phrase; to years remote
Transmitted them as facts.
Better than tale
They loved their minstrel’s harp. The songs he sang
Were songs to brighten gentle hearts, to fire
Strong hearts with holier courage, hope to breathe
Through spirits despondent, o’er the childless floor
Or widowed bed, flashing from highest heaven
A beam half faith, half vision. Many a tear,
His own, and tears of those that listened, fell
Oft as he sang that hand, lovely as light,
Forth stretched, and gathering from forbidden boughs
That fruit fatal to man. He sang the Flood,
Sin’s doom that quelled the impure, yet raised to height
Else inaccessible, the just. He sang
That patriarch facing at Divine command
The illimitable desert—harder proof,
Lifting his knife o’er him, the seed foretold:
He sang of Israel loosed, the twelve black seals
Down pressed on Egypt’s testament of woe,
Covenant of pride with penance; sang the face
Of Moses glittering from red Sinai’s rocks,
The Tables twain, and Mandements of God.
On Christian nights he sang that jubilant star
Which led the Magians to the Bethlehem crib
By Joseph watched, and Mary. Pale, in Lent,
Tremulous and pale, he told of Calvary,
Nor added word, but, as in trance, rehearsed
That Passion fourfold of the Evangelists,
Which, terrible and swift—not like a tale—
With speed of things which must be done, not said,
A river of bale, from guilty age to age,
Along the lamentable shore of things
Annual makes way, the history of the world,
Not of one race, one day. Up to its fount
That stream he tracked, that primal mystery sang
Which, chanted later by a thousand years,
Music celestial, though with note that jarred
(Some wandering orb troubling its starry chime),
Amazed the nations—“There was war in heaven:
Michael and they, his angels, warfare waged
With Satan and his angels.” Brief that war,
That ruin total. Brief was Ceadmon’s song:
Therein the Eternal Face was undivulged:
Therein the Apostate’s form no grandeur wore:
The grandeur was elsewhere. Who hate their God
Change not alone to vanquished but to vile.
On Easter morns he sang the Saviour Risen,
Eden regained. Since then on England’s shores
Though many sang, yet no man sang like him.
O holy House of Whitby! on thy steep
Rejoice, howe’er the tempest, night or day,
Afflict thee, or the craftier hand of Time,
Drag back thine airy arches in mid spring;
Rejoice, for Ceadmon in thy cloisters knelt,
And singing paced beside thy sounding sea!
Long years he lived; and with the whitening hair
More youthful grew in spirit, and more meek;
And they that saw him said he sang within
Then when the golden mouth but seldom breathed
Sonorous strain, and when—that fulgent eye
No longer bright—still on his forehead shone
Not flame but purer light, like that last beam
Which, when the sunset woods no longer burn,
Maintains its place on Alpine throne remote,
Or utmost beak of promontoried cloud,
And heavenward dies in smiles. Esteem of men
Daily he less esteemed, through single heart
More knit with God. To please a sickly child
He sang his latest song, and, ending, said,
“Song is but body, though ’tis body winged:
The soul of song is love: the body dead,
The soul should thrive the more.” That Patmian Sage
Whose head had lain upon the Saviour’s breast,
Who in high vision saw the First and Last,
Who heard the harpings of the Elders crowned,
Who o’er the ruins of the Imperial House
And ashes of the twelve great Cæsars dead
Witnessed the endless triumph of the just,
To earthly life restored, and, weak through age,
But seldom spake, and gave but one command,
The great “_Mandatum Novum_” of his Lord,
“My children, love each other!” Like to his
Was Ceadmon’s age. Weakness with happy stealth
Increased upon him: he was cheerful still:
He still could pace, though slowly, in the sun,
Still gladsomely converse with friends who wept,
Still lay a broad hand on his well-loved kine.
The legend of the last of Ceadmon’s days:—
That hospital wherein the old monks died
Stood but a stone’s throw from the monastery:
“Make there my couch to-night,” he said, and smiled:
They marvelled, yet obeyed. There, hour by hour,
The man, low-seated on his pallet-bed,
In silence watched the courses of the stars,
Or casual spake at times of common things,
And three times played with childhood’s days, and twice
His father named. At last, like one that, long
Begirt with good, is smit by sudden thought
Of greater good, thus spake he: “Have ye, sons,
Here in this house the Blessed Sacrament?”
They answered, wrathful, “Father, thou art strong;
Shake not thy children! Thou hast many days!”
“Yet bring me here the Blessed Sacrament,”
Once more he said. The brethren issued forth
Save four that silent sat waiting the close.
Ere long in grave procession they returned,
Two deacons first, gold-vested; after these
That priest who bare the Blessed Sacrament,
And acolytes behind him, lifting lights.
Then from his pallet Ceadmon slowly rose
And worshipped Christ, his God, and reaching forth
His right hand, cradled in his left, behold!
Therein was laid God’s Mystery. He spake:
“Stand ye in flawless charity of God
T’wards me, my sons, or lives there in your hearts
Memory the least of wrong or wrath?” They answered:
“Father, within us lives nor wrong, nor wrath,
But love, and love alone.” And he: “Not less
Am I in charity with you, my sons,
And all my sins of pride, and other sins,
Humbly I mourn.” Then, bending the old head
Above the old hand, Ceadmon received his Lord
To be his soul’s viaticum, in might
Leading from life that seems to life that is,
And long, unpropped by any, kneeling hung
And made thanksgiving prayer. Thanksgiving made,
He sat upon his bed, and spake: “How long
Ere yet the monks begin their matin psalms?”
“That hour is nigh,” they answered; he replied,
“Then let us wait that hour,” and laid him down
With those kine-tending and harp-mastering hands
Crossed on his breast, and slept.
Meanwhile the monks
(The lights removed in reverence of his sleep)
Sat mute nor stirred such time as in the Mass
Between “_Orate Fratres_” glides away,
And “_Hoc est Corpus Meum_.” Northward far
The great deep, seldom heard so distant, roared
Round those wild rocks half way to Bamborough Head;
For now the mightiest spring-tide of the year,
Following the magic of a maiden moon,
Had reached its height. More near, that sea which sobbed
In many a cave by Whitby’s winding coast,
Or died in peace on many a sandy bar
From river-mouth to river-mouth outspread,
They heard, and mused upon eternity
That circles human life. Gradual there rose
A softer strain and sweeter, making way
O’er that sea-murmur hoarse; and they were ware
That in the black far-shadowing church whose bulk
Up-towered between them and the moon, the monks
Their matins had begun. A little sigh
That moment reached them from the central gloom
Guarding the sleeper’s bed; a second sigh
Succeeded: neither seemed the sigh of pain:
And some one said, “He wakens.” Large and bright
Over the church-roof sudden rushed the moon,
And smote the cross above that sleeper’s couch,
And smote that sleeper’s face. The smile thereon
Was calmer than the smile of life. Thus died
Ceadmon, the earliest bard of English song.
Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1878.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONFESSION IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.[160]
The subject of confession has of late been brought prominently before
the British public. We need hardly say that a storm of indignation has
been raised. Parliament has been called upon to put a stop to a
practice which is generally believed to be quite at variance with the
spirit of the Church of England, and many of the bishops have publicly
condemned it. It may, however, be doubted whether any effect has really
been produced; for as long as clergy are found who claim the power of
forgiving sin, and as long as people feel the need of absolution, it is
certain that confession will be practised.
A Catholic must necessarily look on confession, as existing in the
Anglican communion, with feelings of a very mixed nature. On the one
hand it is impossible not to appreciate the sincerity and humility
evinced by those who voluntarily seek what they believe to be a means
of grace. It is hard to doubt that the habit of self-examination and of
watchfulness naturally resulting from confession must have its value;
above all, it seems as if we might fairly hope that the spirit of
obedience and the faithfulness in acting on conviction will be rewarded
by fuller light and knowledge.
On the other hand, it is equally impossible to shut our eyes to the
great dangers which beset confession among Anglicans. In the first
place, there is the absence of all sacramental grace; secondly, of
training, and even of theological knowledge, in the clergy; and,
thirdly, those who use confession are in an exceptional position, which
of itself is fraught with peril to the soul.
Of course no Catholic supposes Anglican clergymen to have true orders.
Confession in the English communion is simply a conversation between
two lay people on some of the most important subjects that can occupy
the thoughts of human beings. There may be on either side sincerity,
piety, and earnestness, but sacramental grace there is not. Relations
so close between two souls are certainly not without peril; we do not
speak of the danger to morals which the Protestant party constantly
insists upon, and whose existence we cannot altogether deny, but of the
tyranny on the part of the minister, and of the unreasonable obedience
yielded by the penitent to a self-appointed guide.
Those who have looked a little into their own hearts, and who have
reflected on the subtle influences which have told on their characters,
must feel that dealing with another soul is no light matter; that the
chances of doing harm are many and great; and that special graces are
needed by those who are called to so sacred an office. The need of
training, too, is obvious; he who is to be the physician of the soul
ought to be as well acquainted with moral theology as a physician
should be with medical science. Among the clergy of the Church of
England there is an absolute want of theological knowledge. It would be
hard to mention an Anglican book on any subject connected with moral
theology. Anglican clergymen, even where they have learnt to believe
many of the dogmas of the Catholic faith, are, generally speaking,
ignorant of the difference between mortal and venial sin. Hence results
a spirit of severity on the part of the confessor which tends to
produce scrupulosity and depression in the penitent. Converts have
declared that the first time they heard Catholic teaching as to the
nature of sin it seemed to them the most consoling doctrine possible.
It is true that of late years some Catholic manuals have been
translated and “adapted” to the Anglican use. In the recent
controversies regarding the _Priest in Absolution_ some of the leading
High-Church clergy have proclaimed their ignorance of the book, and
have asserted that experience had taught them all that they could learn
from its pages; but while they were gaining their experience what
became of the poor souls who were the subjects of their study? In the
Catholic Church a person cannot be said in any way to distinguish
himself by going to confession; he does what has to be done if he would
save his soul. Among Anglicans, although the practice is now pretty
widely spread, the case is very different; the man or woman who goes to
confession occupies a somewhat exceptional position, and is more or
less considered as a support of the church, as one of those through
whose influence that church is gradually to be reformed and restored.
It is hard to get at statistics as to the actual strength of the
extreme High-Church party, and even among those who call themselves
High Church there are many shades and differences of opinion; the
amount of notice which it has attracted is due rather to the adoption
of practices unknown in the Church of England, and to the earnestness
and activity of its clergy, than to the great number of its adherents.
If we were to count one-tenth part of the members of the Church of
England as High Church we should probably be overshooting the mark; and
of these it is by no means to be assumed that the greater number go to
confession. Personal inquiry in at least one so-called centre of
ritualism has led us to believe that it is the practice of a mere
minority.
We believe that the practice of confession may be said to be pretty
nearly universal in the case of the Anglican religious communities
(which are about thirty in number). Many people living in the world are
accustomed to go to confession weekly or fortnightly, and in some few
London churches the practice is probably followed by the majority of
the congregation; children are trained to it from their earliest years,
and it is boldly proclaimed to be the “remedy for post-baptismal sin.”
As far as we can gather from the testimony of those who have confessed
and heard confessions as Anglicans, we should say that confession is
often an actual torture to the soul; that penances are often imposed
altogether without proportion to their cause; that a kind of obedience
unknown among Catholics is claimed and is rendered. This, after all, is
the great danger. It will never be known till the last day how many
souls have been kept out of God’s church by the authority of their
Protestant “directors.” A director finds that one of his penitents
begins to think that the Catholic Church has claims worthy, at least,
of being examined. At once active works of charity are proposed as a
remedy; all reading of Catholic books, or intercourse with Catholic
friends or relations, is forbidden; the director is not afraid to say
that leaving the Church of England is a sin against the Holy Ghost, and
furthermore will promise to answer at the last day for the soul that,
in reliance on his dictum, suspends all search after truth and blindly
obeys. The moment of grace is too often lost; the soul holds back and
will not respond to God’s call. Too often those things which it had are
taken from it, and the sad result is an utter loss of faith.
A Catholic’s interest in the working of the Anglican Church is solely
in reference to the work of conversion. Those who in one sense are said
to come nearest to the Catholic Church are often in reality the
furthest off; for they believe Catholic doctrines not because they are
proposed by a divine authority, but because they consider them
reasonable, or find that they are in accordance with the testimony of
antiquity. Their religion is as much a matter of private judgment as
that of the Bible Christian; the difference lies in the fact that the
ritualist exercises his private judgment over a more extended field
than the other.