As the pacific manifestations on the eve had produced a favorable

moral effect, it was proposed to renew them during the day, as I

learned from some of my friends, known to be devoted to the cause of

liberty and order, so strangely compromised. The aim they had in view

and the means to which they had recourse were not only incontestably

legal, but also in conformity with the interests and dignity of all

the inhabitants of Paris. Therefore, far from concealing them, they

openly discussed them, hoping they would be understood and appreciated

as they deserved to be. They desired to promote, by means of

persuasion and conciliation, respect for order and the laws,

disregarded by the bold ringleaders and a part of the national guards

led astray. In the midst of ruins accumulated by an unfortunate war,

they wished to declare the assembly of the representatives of the

country in session at Versailles to be the sole power charged to watch

over our destinies, that we should rally around them and await their

solution of the inextricable difficulties of the moment. The

inhabitants of the Place Vendôme and the neighboring streets, wounded,

and not without reason, at seeing their quarter invaded and occupied

by the national guards from other quarters, who prevented travel,

terrified their families, and paralyzed all commercial transactions,

proposed to claim their rights, as inhabitants of the first

arrondissement, to become the police of their own quarter. They

violated no right, they were not lacking any propriety, in begging the

citizens of the arrondissements of Montmartre and Belleville, who were

installed there without any notice, to leave it to their own care. Not

only are those who live in the Place Vendôme Parisians as well as the

inhabitants of Belleville and Montmartre, but it was evident to those

who knew Paris that four-fifths of the national guards that held

possession of the Place Vendôme on the twenty-first, and especially on

the twenty-second of March, had never seen Paris three years 134

previously. Paris is rather the theatre than the author of the

revolutions that take place there.

Revolutionists and rioters belong to all parts of France and Europe,

and in disastrous times they hasten to Paris, hoping to catch fish in

the troubled waters.

I have studied all the large cities of Europe from a political and

social point of view. For reasons too extended to be enumerated here,

not one is like Paris, the rendezvous of all suspicious and corrupt

characters--of the unfortunate who are at variance with the laws of

their own country, and of men of no class who are ready to become

revolutionary agents--and these are the worst of all. After the siege

it had endured, the state of agitation and prostration resulting from

so great a struggle, so much suffering, and so many deceptions, could

not fail to attract the leading charlatans and rogues of all parts of

Europe. It is not to the honor of the popular class at Paris, the most

frivolous and the most credulous in the world, that these new-comers

met with a success beyond their expectations, for they became in a

moment our masters. Thanks to this cosmopolitan invasion, and also to

the departure of too large a number of genuine Parisians who feared

the Prussian bombardment less than the mob of international agents,

Paris, the brilliant centre of elegance, art, and of intellect, as

well as a financial and political centre, became, according to the

expressive comparison of the _Times_, an infernal caldron, which

terrified all Europe, and in which mingled and seethed all human

passions.

The party that was playing its part at Paris was not Parisian or

French, but exclusively social. It was a flock of birds of prey, a

herd of roaming wild beasts, who had hastened from the four cardinal

points to fall on the capital of France, which a five months’ siege

had weakened. The International agents wished to found the Commune,

and, to realize the idea of the Commune, which especially clings to

locality, home, the fireside, the steeple, the associations and

traditions of domestic interest, they summoned to Paris all their boon

companions of the Old and the New World, and forced the real

inhabitants of Paris to take refuge in the provinces or abroad. It was

a revolting cynicism, pregnant with disaster.

At half-past two, some persons, filled with terror and indignation,

entered the Madeleine to inform me of a sinister catastrophe. The

agents of the pacific manifestation, who had proposed on the eve to

traverse the principal streets of the city, crying, _Vive la

République! Vive l’Ordre! Vive l’Assemblée Nationale!_ had become the

victims of a horrible ambuscade. After passing through the Rue de la

Paix, a large number of respected citizens of Paris, unarmed, and

influenced only by the patriotic desire of securing, by the most

inoffensive means and for the benefit of all good citizens, the

triumph of equity, law, and a spirit of conciliation, had been met at

the entrance of the Place Vendôme by a murderous fusillade from the

insurgent national guards. The reports of the number of the killed and

wounded varied, but it must have been considerable.

At the same time, I saw from the outer colonnade of the Madeleine the

shops hastily shut up and people fleeing in disorder from the

direction of the Place Vendôme. Every face expressed wrath and

consternation. Some national guards of the eighth arrondissement

hastened to rally around the church to watch over the public security.

I made inquiries about the condition of the wounded, and was told 135

they were being carried home, and that several belonged to the parish

of the Madeleine, which includes the Rue de la Paix and the Place

Vendôme. As I did not know the address of the victims, and knew from

an experience of ten years that the members of the parish had the

Christian habit of summoning the priest to the aid of the dying, I

waited with emotion for them to have recourse to my ministry.

At four o’clock no one had come, and I was ignorant of the name and

address of any of the wounded. At half-past four there was a report

that some of the killed and wounded remained on the Place Vendôme, and

that there were detained there some of those engaged in the pacific

manifestation, among others, the father of a young man from the Rue

Tronchet, whose skull had been fractured by a ball, and whom the

insurgents refused to deliver up. Other details were added of such a

revolting character that I could scarcely credit them. I ordered the

Madeleine to be closed--took with me all that was necessary for the

administration of the sacraments, and went by way of the boulevards

towards the Place Vendôme, resolved, as on the preceding night, to

recede before no obstacle to my reaching the victims who might need

religious aid. The Boulevard de la Madeleine, generally so lively and

brilliant, was almost deserted. The inhabitants were inquiring in a

low tone, and in terror, about the incidents of the bloody drama that

had just taken place in the neighborhood. Some soldiers only, who had

joined the insurgents four days previously, were passing along with a

careless and almost satisfied air. If these unhappy men were aware of

the frightful event that then preoccupied all Paris, they only

retained a glimmering of moral sense. Already unworthy to bear the

name of a soldier, they would no longer merit to bear that of man.

At the entrance of the Rue Neuve-des-Capucines, which leads from the

Boulevard de la Madeleine to the Place Vendôme, I was stopped by a

group of people, who from a distance were regarding with mingled

sentiments of curiosity and terror the patrols of the mob scattered

along the street. “Do not go any further, monsieur l’abbé,” cried

several persons to me in trembling voices, more charitable than brave.

“If you go among those wretches, you are lost! We have seen them fire

upon inoffensive men who were bearing away the wounded at the entrance

of the Rue de la Paix.” I made no reply to what was dictated more by

fear than reason, and came to the first patrol stationed before the

Crédit Foncier. All the houses of the Rue Neuve-des-Capucines were

closed, and this street, one of the liveliest of the quarter, seemed

like a tomb. The head patrol, a jolly young fellow, with a face as red

as blood, advanced towards me, and, solemnly raising his sabre to

attest his authority, which I had no intention of disputing, ordered

me to stop. I explained to him, without concealing my sadness, the

object of my mission: “I am going as a priest belonging to the parish

of the Madeleine to see the wounded on the Place Vendôme.” He

immediately motioned with his sabre for me to pass; this was his only

reply. Was he aware of the effect of this sinister beginning of civil

war upon the condition of Paris? I doubt it--to parade and appear

important seemed to be his principal care. The other national guards,

vigilant and with their hands on their loaded arms, resembled

sentinels in face of the enemy, without their discipline and proper

carriage.

The second patrol, stationed in the middle of the street, allowed me 136

to pass without objection. It was composed, like the first, of

national guards of all ages, but not of all conditions: they were from

the most uncivilized class of the faubourgs. Their accoutrements were

not uniform or neat. Some appeared quite satisfied; they were the

youngest; others had a less blustering manner; but all felt an

instinctive joy to rule over the most brilliant part of Paris, and

inspire the citizens with a lively terror.

Before I came to the third patrol, placed at the opposite end of the

street, I noticed on the pavement many stains of blood. It was in fact

only a few steps distant that, only a short time before, the victims

of the fusillade fell. I will not attempt to describe the anguish that

filled my soul at the sight of this blood of my countrymen, shed by

insurgents without country and without God. In the midst of my great

distress I recalled the sublime cry of Monseigneur Affre: “Let my

blood be the last shed!” I ardently prayed in my turn that the blood

of these innocent and peaceful victims might be the last poured out,

but it was to be feared that the revolutionary and social crisis, that

weighed on Paris like a horrible nightmare, would only end, as it had

commenced, by a terrible effusion of blood.

There was no difference between this patrol and the preceding, except

that it was more actively vigilant. The chief of the national guards

that formed it, and who seemed surprised to behold me, having asked

where I was going, and what I was going to do, sent two men to conduct

me to the post that guarded the entrance to the Place Vendôme. During

the siege of Paris, I one day passed along the formidable defences of

the Point-du-Jour at Auteuil. The consigne there was of a different

degree of mildness and condescension from that at the entrance of the

Place Vendôme, which the insurgents evidently wished to make their

headquarters, and where they were entrenching themselves. The national

guards that defended the entrance were less blustering, but more

numerous and more decided, than those of the evening before. They

allowed me to pass without hindrance; many of them must have felt that

where the dead and dying are to be found is the proper place for a

minister of Jesus Christ. A sentinel was ordered to accompany me to

the Ministère de la Justice, where I intended to go first. He

possessed neither the intelligence nor the politeness of the national

guard that escorted me the night before. He was rather an animated

machine than a man. Not a word, not a gesture, not a change in his

features! After wondering what he was thinking of, I ended by doubting

if he thought at all. I should render him this justice--that, from a

material point of view, he discharged his commission with

irreproachable exactitude.

I experienced an undefinable impression in the Place Vendôme, produced

by a twofold contrast, the remembrance of which will not be effaced to

the latest moment of my life.

This Place, with which Louis XIV. adorned Paris, was first called the

Place des Conquêtes, to recall the brilliant victories which had

secured to France the fine provinces which we have just lost a large

part of, after most lamentable reverses. The sumptuous edifices, built

according to Mansard’s plans, which form the contour, render it in an

architectural point of view the finest Place in Europe. Destined by

Louis XIV. to bring together the royal library and imprimerie, the

academies, the mint, and the hôtel of foreign ambassadors; now 137

inhabited by wealthy families, rich travellers, and some of the

government officials; situated between the garden of the Tuileries and

the Boulevards des Capucines and des Italiens; entered at its two

extremities by the Rues de Castiglione and de la Paix, through which

pour wealthy merchants and elegant promenaders, it became on the

twenty-second of March the theatre of uproar and civil war: it was

covered with blood, and occupied by an armed crowd, in which prevailed

the most sinister faces from the worst quarters of Paris.

The national guards of Bercy that I had seen the night before were

models of civilization and distinction compared with these. Some were

rather boys than men. They appeared to be only sixteen or seventeen

years of age. As proud as they were surprised to carry a gun, they

only sought for an opportunity or a pretext to use it. Those who have

witnessed the revolutions of Paris know that armed children are

capable of atrocious misdeeds. Sprung from the lowest grades of

society, destitute of all moral sense, they care but little what cause

they have to defend or what enemy to attack: their highest ambition is

to display their audacity and to fire off their guns. As I am only

relating the things I witnessed myself, I shall not speak of the

fiendish part taken, according to some spectators, by a boy in the

fusillade which had just shot down too great a number of pacific and

honorable citizens. Many of the insurgents were in a state of

overexcitement, proceeding less from their political and social

opinions than from a too copious absorption of wine and other liquors:

this is on days of revolutionary storms another category of insurgents

capable of everything because they have lost all moral sense. There

was but little care and uniformity about their accoutrements. Some had

on only a part of the uniform of the national guards: others wore a

képi and a blouse. A great number of the képis were not numbered. Here

and there were to be seen some red sashes.

In this nameless multitude might also be remarked men of fifty or

sixty years, whose ferocious and degraded faces excited the worst

suspicions respecting their moral instincts and their previous

relations with the legal authorities. I at once saw that many of them

were foreigners, particularly Italians and Poles. What a contrast

between such insurgents, hardly to be found in June, 1848, in the

lowest parts of Paris, and the imposing architectural splendor of one

of the finest squares in the world! I could not express the effect of

this mingling of poetic beauty and foul deformity upon me.

Another contrast no less sad rent my heart. The side of the Place

Vendôme toward the Rue de la Paix was sprinkled with blood; now and

then the wounded and dead were carried by; and over these spots of

human blood, by the side of these unfortunate victims of civil war, a

great number of insurgents, perhaps the very ones who without any

motive or provocation had shot them down, were laughing, eating,

drinking, and amusing themselves, as if they were celebrating the

happiest event of their lives.

In going to the Ministère de la Justice, I had to pass through several

groups of varied physiognomy. They were generally astonished to see

the ecclesiastical garb among them. I acknowledge that, if I had not

had a mission of sacerdotal obligation to accomplish, I should hardly

have procured them this surprise, notwithstanding my natural love of 138

observation. Some--a small number, however--received me with coarse

insults and horrid laughter. A few steps from the Ministère de la

Justice, a national guardsman, who was talking and gesticulating with

uncommon vivacity, stopped to address me, while shaking his fist at

me, this singular apostrophe: “When shall we be delivered from those

wretches?” I will not relate other pleasantries of this nature of

which I was the butt: this one is only too much. Their authors had

doubtless learned to know and judge the clergy by the violent

diatribes of citizens Blanqui and Félix Pyat.

Others, on the contrary, saluted me with a respect and cordiality

which I was careful to return politely. They were honest workmen who

had doubtless had intercourse with their parish priests, or whose

children attended the catechism classes or the schools of the

religious congregations, and received a benefit which they understood

how to appreciate. There were strange contrasts in this mixture. Not

to forget a single characteristic detail, I caught some observations

that denoted on the part of their authors serious regrets for the

dreadful catastrophe which terrified the whole city.

If, among the insurgent battalions chosen to fire on the inoffensive

inhabitants of Paris, there were some to deplore the horrors of civil

war, how many might not have been found in the other battalions! If

the ringleaders could be separated from those whom they lead, and the

deceivers from the deceived, the number of the latter would be

considerable, and the former somewhat modified. One of the most

serious faults of the workman of Paris is the incredible facility with

which he enters into all the hollow schemes of the rogue and the

charlatan who tempt him, and sacrifices to their mad ambition and

culpable projects his peace, his property, his honor, and his life.

My guide, or rather my guard, appeared insensible to the insults as

well as to the salutations I received on the way. Arms in hand, always

impassible and solemn, it was only now and then he cast toward me an

inquisitorial glance, as if to assert his authority and my dependence.

I made known the object of my mission to the leader of the post at the

Ministère de la Justice. He was a young and well-bred officer. He

listened to me with attention, and replied, after saluting me twice

with a politeness full of respect, that I was at liberty to do all I

wished.

I found the sick person I had seen the evening before in the hôtel of

the minister of justice, exhausted by excitement that was hastening

his end. He could see from his sick-bed all that occurred on the

Place. In one corner of the apartment his sister, endowed with the

higher Christian virtues, and an aged lady whom I did not know, but

who was probably their mother, were weeping over the public as well as

their own private woes. I had promised the sick person the night

before to visit him again in three or four days, but as I could not

enter the Place Vendôme without indicating the precise place I wished

to go to, and could not have a better means of ascertaining where the

victims of the fusillade had been transported, I briefly explained the

reason of my unexpected call and gave him some religious

encouragement, which was to be the last. I learned that the dead and

wounded removed from the Place had been carried to one of the

neighboring houses occupied by the administration and the ambulance 139

of the Crédit Mobilier. I hurried thither.

The Ministère de la Justice was as silent and deserted as on the

preceding night. Four sentinels were posted between the court and

garden; a fifth at the door of the hôtel had the air of guarding most

conscientiously an absent excellency.

In going out, I sought with a discreet glance for my solemn guard, to

become anew his prisoner. The officer who had received me a few

moments before informed me he had sent him back to his post. From that

moment I could go where I pleased.

At the Crédit Mobilier I met two bodies that were being carried to

their relatives. I was told that one was M. Molinet, one of the most

pious and exemplary young men of the parish. He had been shot down by

the side of his father, who, notwithstanding his inexpressible grief,

had been torn from the body of his only son and carried as a prisoner

to the staff-officer of the Place. After offering up a prayer for

these two unfortunate victims, I inquired for the apartment to which

the wounded had been carried.

The consternation and terror that reigned among the inhabitants of the

Place Vendôme may be imagined from the sinister events that had

occurred before their eyes, and the dangers of all kinds with which

they were threatened. Stupor was depicted on the faces of the

concierges of the Crédit Mobilier. These good people were hardly

willing to half-open the door of their lodge, and muttered something

vague which was not an answer to my question. At last they sent with

me to the _salle_ of the wounded a charming child of eight or ten

years of age. He examined with more curiosity than fear the strange

features of the citizens of Montmartre and Belleville who occupied the

vestibule.

The number of the wounded in the ambulance was six. They were still on

the litter on which they had been brought. Two infirmarians, who wore

the red cross of the International society, were zealously attending

to them: a _cantinière_ of somewhat free manners also manifested

an equal desire to aid them. The insurgents that frequented the rooms

behaved with propriety; they spoke in low tones, and instead of the

care which they were not fitted to bestow, the most of them manifested

a sympathy mingled with curiosity. Beyond this, their faces displayed

no emotion; my presence did not astonish them; they discreetly retired

when I approached the sufferers. No one appeared to me mortally

wounded. Nevertheless, I administered religious aid to one of them at

his own request, and confined myself to giving the rest as much

encouragement as possible, for which they earnestly thanked me. They

all belonged to the bourgeoisie. The last to arrive lived in the Rue

Meyerbeer, and did not appear to be more than thirty years old. He

told me he was to have set out that very evening to join his wife and

children in the country, but wished before leaving to perform the part

of a good citizen by joining in the manifestation. He had been wounded

three times, but not dangerously.

At the entrance of the room a young man seized with frightful

convulsions had been laid down on the parquet. He was partly dressed

as a soldier of the line, and partly as a national guardsman. He was

doubtless one of the too numerous soldiers who had united with the

insurgents, and been drawn into serving their sad cause. The fusillade

from the ranks of his new colleagues, and the numerous victims they

had just shot down, must have caused a violent fit of remorse. He 140

was not wounded, but only had a sudden nervous attack, that affected

him in a manner painful to behold. He did not appear to understand

anything, and was suffering from contractions and contorsions of a

truly frightful character. I approached him--tried to calm him with

some kind words, and then recommended him aloud to the care of the two

infirmarians of the International society. The national guards who

surrounded him appeared touched to see manifested for one of their

number an interest equal to that I had just shown for the victims of

devotedness to the cause of law and order.

Before leaving the Place Vendôme I wished to ascertain if any of the

victims had been taken to the ambulance of M. Constant Say. This was

one of the six ambulances I was appointed to visit during the siege,

to administer religious aid and awaken the moral sense of the soldiers

who were sick or wounded. This ambulance was kept in perfect order.

More than once, in observing the meals of the wounded, I envied them

the healthful and abundant nourishment served up to them during the

interminable months of December and January. They were treated as real

members of the family, and were truly the spoiled children of the

house. They were daily visited by one of the most celebrated

physicians of Paris, who lavished on them the most intelligent care,

and by the minister of Jesus Christ, who no less kindly spoke to them

of God, their souls, their absent mothers, and of their temporal and

eternal welfare. It could not be otherwise in a family whose extensive

industrial establishment and inexhaustible charity are such a benefit

to the laboring classes of Paris. I had the consolation of seeing all

the soldiers who were taken to this ambulance leave it better Christians

and better Frenchmen.

As to the rest, during the entire siege, the solicitude of the

Parisians for the sick and wounded soldiers was truly admirable, and

the praise I am bound in justice to accord to the ambulance of M.

Constant Say, may be equally given to the rest I was appointed to

visit: the ambulances of M. Frottin, formerly mayor of the first

arrondissement, in the Rue St. Honoré; that of M. Jourdain, a member

of the Institute, in the Rue du Luxembourg; of Dr. Moissenet, a

physician of the Hôtel Dieu, in the Rue Richepanse; of Madame Dognin,

of the Point-du-Jour at Auteuil; and, finally, the ambulance bravely

founded and directed at Grenelle by some laboring women of ardent

faith, and a devotedness that works wonders, and transferred after the

bombardment of Grenelle to the magnificent hôtel of M. le Comte Mercy

d’Argenteau on the Rue de Suresne.

I was also aware that there were still some wounded soldiers in M.

Say’s ambulance. The brutal invasion of the Place Vendôme had

prevented me from visiting them the two days previous. To go there, I

was obliged to cross the entire Place. It seemed more like a field of

battle than a Place. Here were stacks of arms, there were caissons

full of supplies, further on were delegates of the central committee

of the Hôtel de Ville, who where transmitting orders with feverish

haste, and everywhere were the insurgents who had just fired, and who

were ready to take fresh aim.

I had no longer an armed guard to accompany me. During my walk, which

I frankly acknowledge would have seemed much shorter on ordinary

occasions, I was again an object of insult and sarcasms not highly

seasoned with wit from some, of respect and sympathy from others, and 141

of astonishment or indifference from the greatest part. I had never

seen so great a number of persons eating and drinking. Their appetite

only gave out after complete exhaustion of the means of gratifying it.

It is true that, to the demoralized workmen who abound in Paris, the

word riot signifies the time for good eating, and still better

drinking, and no work at all.

Against the railing that surrounds the column were squatting several

national guardsmen, to whom a _cantinière_ dealt out liquor. The

oldest was certainly not eighteen. At my approach one of them, who had

doubtless been a chorister in some church, instinctively made a

respectful bow. A second, who made some pretensions to delicate wit,

pointed at me with his sabre, uttering a laugh more stupid than

malicious. A third, and this became more serious, loaded, or pretended

to load, his musket, which he pointed at me. At the same time the

_cantinière_ encouraged him with atrocious words, that no

delicate ear would pardon me for relating. I had had for seven months

so many occasions to recommend my soul to God, that I thought it

opportune to do so once more. Nevertheless, not to take things too

seriously, I recalled the amusing reply made me by an excellent man,

from the neighborhood of St. Sulpice, who was obliged, after the three

first days of bombardment on the left side by the Prussians, to seek

refuge in the vicinity of the Madeleine. When I approved of his

prudent decision, he replied, “In fact, I could not reasonably pass

every night in recommending my soul to God!”

I arrived at my ambulance without any harm but a momentary fright.

None of the victims of the fusillade had been brought here. I found

my dear wounded ones in a fair way to be healed, but very much

depressed by what was passing around them, and humiliated especially

by the shameful defection of a part of the troops on the deplorable

day of Saturday, the eighteenth.

My sacerdotal mission was ended. In returning across the Place

Vendôme, I was not the witness or the object of any occurrence that

merits attention. The dense line of insurgents that guarded the

entrance of the Place from the Rue de la Paix opened for me to pass.

The patrol, who remembered having allowed me to enter, asked no

questions in permitting me to go out. I met a man in the Rue

Neuve-des-Capucines who was covering a real pool of blood with sand.

There was no change in the manner of the patrols: the street was still

like a tomb. Nearly in front of the Crédit Foncier, a shop-keeper of

respectable appearance timidly opened one of the doors of his shop,

and asked permission to pass from the last patrol toward the

boulevard, which was not more than fifty yards from me. He appeared so

alarmed, and his face was so extremely pale, that the patrol, proud of

the fear he inspired, did not fail to avail himself of so favorable an

opportunity of amusing himself at the other’s expense. He questioned

him with an affected solemnity which would have excited my laughter in

less tragical times, addressed him a long and severe recommendation,

and when the man turned, more dead than alive, toward the boulevard,

the youngest of the band, who hid the malicious hilarity of a

_gamin_ under the gravity of a judge, took his gun, and pointing

it toward the shop-keeper, who happily was not aware of such a salute,

had the air of saying: “If the rest of the bourgeoisie resemble this 142

one, Paris is certainly ours.”

I was as much saddened at the dejected and disconcerted appearance of

most of the inhabitants of this quarter, as I had been alarmed by the

boldness and audacity displayed on the Place Vendôme by the workmen of

the faubourgs, old criminals and revolutionists from all countries,

who held possession of it. There was more stupor than indignation

among the former. They hardly ventured to the doors of their houses,

they spoke in low tones for fear of being compromised. This

unfortunate attitude of the lovers of order only encouraged the energy

and boldness of the enemies of society. I comprehended for the first

time how a handful of factionists had been able in 1793 to terrify and

decimate the better part of the community, who were ten times as

numerous. The very day when the lovers of order will say to those of

disorder, with the same energy and firmness as God to the waves of the

sea, “Thou shalt go no further!” Paris will have no more to fear from

anarchy and revolution, and France will no longer oscillate between

the equally deplorable extremes of despotism and license.

If this simple and impartial account, intended to cast a little light

upon one of the saddest and most execrable episodes of the revolution

of the eighteenth of March, could also have the effect of calling the

more particular attention of the lovers of order and stability, of

whatever nation and party, to the dark aims of the International

league of demagogues who, under the mask of workingmen’s associations,

prudential interests, and mutual protection, aim at the denial of God,

the destruction of family and country, of public capital and private

savings, of the domestic and political hierarchy--in a word, the

destruction of all those principles which are the foundation of

society; and also of thoroughly convincing the better classes of Paris

and all the larger cities of France, that the promoters of disorder

and anarchy, though now recruiting from the lowest social grades of

Europe, are only strong in consequence of their own inaction and

regard for self; that such power is only derived from their own want

of discipline and energy; that they would only have to enroll,

organize, and assert themselves to utterly destroy it--I shall have

realized one of my most ardent wishes, and labored in my sphere of

action for the consolidation of the social edifice and of public

order, so profoundly shaken.

It was nearly six o’clock when I reached home. I had passed a little

more than three-quarters of an hour among the insurgents and the

wounded of the Place Vendôme. God alone knows with what emotion and

earnestness I implored him that I might never be subjected again to

such a trial to my heart as a priest and a Frenchman.

Here ends my first account, drawn up at the end of March. I need not

add that my prayer was not granted. The Commune was founded in blood

and terror, and was to end in a fiendish debauchery of madness and

crime.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[41] Here is what, according to the _Paris Journal_ of

Versailles for the 18th of May, citizen Raoul Rigault wrote

from the préfecture of police to citizen Floquet, one of the

unhappy instigators of this pretended compromise:

“My dear Floquet, you have decided then to set out with

Villeneuve and the prefect Lechevalier for Bordeaux. We are

too much united in our sentiments for you not to feel the

importance of your mission. The league of the republican

union, in pleading its own cause, pleads ours. As to your

9,500 francs, I will endeavor to furnish them, though it is

difficult to procure remittances.”

----------

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 143

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MOTHER MARGARET MARY HALLAHAN, O.S.D. 1 vol.

12mo. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1871.

The great success of the original life of Mother Margaret Mary

Hallahan, foundress of the Third Order of Dominican Nuns in England,

and the edification it has given to thousands of readers everywhere,

have induced her sisters and admirers to prepare an abridged life for

more general reading.

The abridgment is in every respect a creditable performance. In beauty

of diction, as well as in the subject-matter treated, superior ability

in biographical style is very discernible. The paper, printing, and

binding are also of the first class.

All who are interested, either from motives of faith or even of

curiosity, in the surprising revival of the Catholic religion in

England within the last half-century, will be cheered and delighted by

the perusal of this new edition, as it may be called, of the life of

one of the greatest agents in this wonderful work of God. The

cheapness of the work, moreover, puts it within easy reach of all

Catholic readers.

SCHOOL-HOUSES. By James Johonnot. Architectural Designs by S. E.

Hewes. New York: J. W. Schermerhorn & Co. 1871.

Undoubtedly the subject treated in this work is one of considerable

importance, involving, as it does, the health and future prospects as

well as the present comfort of the rising generation. No doubt, also,

there is immense room for improvement in the internal arrangements of

the buildings in which so large a portion of the time of the young,

and especially of children, is to be passed; above all, as regards the

points of light, heating, and ventilation. The construction

particularly of country school-houses is also certainly open to change

for the better, and many good suggestions are made and designs

furnished by the authors. Some of these designs, however, strike us as

being unnecessarily ornate. The latter part is occupied with the

questions of furniture, apparatus, grounds, etc., and with many

illustrations of chairs, desks, globes, and other appliances, which

will be found useful and interesting. The book is finely printed, and

beautifully bound.

OF ADORATION IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH. Written in four books. By John

Eusebius Nieremberg, S.J., native of Madrid, and translated into

English by R. S., S.J., with a Preface by the Rev. Peter Gallwey,

S.J. London: Burns, Oates & Co. 1871.

This beautiful volume forms the first of a series of works, under the

title of “St. Joseph’s Ascetical Library,” undertaken by the Fathers

of the Society of Jesus in England. It is no novelty in itself, though

it will probably be new to almost all who see it in its present form.

The author was born at Madrid in 1590, and died in 1658; and this

translation of his work was made nearly two hundred years ago, in

1673, and has that charm of quaintness and simplicity which it is now

in vain to imitate.

The title might convey the idea that the treatise before us was a very

abstract and mystical one, unsuited to the generality of readers. But

such an idea would be soon dispelled by a glance at some of the

headings of its chapters, such as, “How Incommodious a Thing Sleep

is,” “How Penances and Corporal Afflictions help Us,” and “That we

must rise Fervorously to our Morning Prayer.” It is practical enough 144

for any one, perfectly clear, intelligible, and interesting; and, at

the same time, no one can find in it any want of devotion or

spirituality.

It is divided into four books, as stated in the title; the first,

second, and fourth treating of the purgative, illuminative, and

unitive ways respectively; the third being concerned with “What

Belongs to a most Perfect Practical Performance of Our Actions,” which

illustrates in detail the general principles laid down in what

precedes.

We are under great obligations to the editors for having brought into

notice, and into general use, as we trust, this treasure of Catholic

piety. It will be of inestimable value to all who desire to lead a

really spiritual life and to practice the “adoration” of which it

treats, which is nothing else than complete self-renunciation and

devotion, in the true sense of the word, to God and to his service.

IGNATIUS LOYOLA, AND THE EARLY JESUITS. By Stewart Rose. London:

Longmans, Green & Co.

We have several excellent biographies of St. Ignatius in the English

language, but the present one is likely, we think, to become the most

popular. It is carefully compiled, written in that literary style and

with those graphic sketches of surrounding circumstances which modern

taste demands, and published in an elegant manner. Its principal

distinctive excellence consists in the portraiture of the early life

of Ignatius as the accomplished, valiant, and Christian knight, whose

noble and chivalrous character formed the basis of his future heroic

sanctity. We welcome any work which may make the illustrious founder

of the Society of Jesus and his Institute better known both to

Catholics and Protestants, and we hope for a wide circulation for this

ably and charmingly written biography.

MOUNT BENEDICT; OR, THE VIOLATED TOMB. By Peter McCorry. Boston:

Patrick Donahoe.

The burning of the convent in Charlestown, and the accompanying

horrors of that fearful night, are subjects worthy of a graphic

description, well calculated to point a moral and adorn a tale. We

confess our disappointment in this volume, written, no doubt, with a

good design. The conversations are weak and pointless, and too much of

the book is occupied with the irrelevant talk of the “conspirators.”

We protest against the introduction of oaths into story-books. The

interest of the story is marred by these faults.

MR. P. DONAHOE, Boston, announces as in press an account of the

“Passion Play” at Oberammergau, Bavaria, from the pen of the Rev.

George W. Doane, Chancellor of the Diocese of Newark. It will be

dedicated to the Rt. Rev. J. R. Bayley, D.D., Bishop of Newark.

The Catholic Publication Society will publish, early in November, _Mary,

Queen of Scots, and her Latest Historian_, by James F. Meline. This

book will contain the articles which appeared in THE CATHOLIC WORLD on

Mr. Froude, as well as a great deal of new matter. In fact, the

articles as they appeared in THE CATHOLIC WORLD are almost entirely

rewritten, and many new facts produced. It will be a complete

refutation of Mr. Froude’s romance of history.

* * * * *

ERRATUM.--In the article on “The Reformation not Conservative,”

p. 733, 1st column, 16th line from the bottom, for _French_ sovereigns

read _Frank_ sovereigns. Christendom was founded some centuries before

there was a French sovereign or a French kingdom, in the modern sense

of the word _French_, or France. The Franks were a Germanic race, and

the German was their mother-tongue.

THE 145

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XIV., No. 80.--NOVEMBER, 1871.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by

REV. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at

Washington, D. C.

AUTHORITY IN MATTERS OF FAITH.

The question we propose to discuss in this article is opened in the

note we introduce, answering an objection to the infallibility of the

church, made by a lawyer through a third person, and by an elaborate

note from the lawyer in reply, and urging another and, in his

judgment, a still more serious objection. The editor’s note is:

“The objection of your friend against the _infallible_ Bible

interpreted by a _fallible_ reason, as a sure rule of faith, is

unanswerable. Nothing stronger could be said against the

Protestant position.

“His objection against the church, _so far as it goes_, if I

understand it correctly, is also unanswerable. It is quite

evident that no agglomeration of fallible men can make an

infallible church, either by the personal authority of the

individuals or in virtue of their agglomeration. But that is by

no means the question with us.

“We deny that the church is simply an agglomeration of men; and

we deny that the infallibility comes by the authority of its

members in any way.

“As Christ is a Theanthropical person, so also the church is a

Theanthropical society, of which Christ is the head, the Holy

Ghost the soul, and the regenerated men the body. The

infallibility comes from the Holy Ghost, through Christ, to the

body.

“_If it is so_, it is evident that the infallibility will remain

as long as the union shall last. And in that supposition the

learned lawyer cannot fail to see that infallibility does not, in

any way, come to the body by the authority of its members, but

from God, the only authoritative and absolute power in the world,

which can bind the minds as well as the wills of men.

“That is the Catholic question, and the real position we

maintain.

“If each man is his own authority, according to the preceding

remarks in this book (and that is conceded), then an

authoritative church is impossible, because it presents an

authority external to me, and then asks me to accept it. I admit

that, if there is to be _any_ church, it must be of divine

origin. Even were the Bible inspired and infallible, I, being

fallible, must interpret it fallibly, and therefore it must be

the same _to me_ for all intents and purposes as if it were a

fallible book. The same argument applies to the church as a

divine, authoritative institution--what is _outside_ of the

man--that is, the so-called fact is not an authority for him; but

he is the authority for it; if not an absolute authority, at any

rate, the only authority possible. The trouble arises from the

Baconian philosophy, which has attempted to build up a system on

_facts_ so-called--without rejecting the _authority_ for those

facts--_as if the authority were in the fact itself_.”

This speaks for itself, and the position it takes is not controverted. 146

But the lawyer says it does not meet the question, that is, we

presume, the question as it is in his mind, though he had not

previously expressed it. He says:

“The note given me does not meet the question. It is claimed that

the church is infallible because a divine institution--that is,

because established by God.

“Now, admit it to be a divine institution, if it is to be

presented for our acceptance, it must be for the acceptance of

our fallible reason.

“For example, when the missionary carries the church to the

heathen, does he not present it for their rational acceptance?

And if so, does he not ask their finite judgment to pass upon and

accept the infinite and the absolute?

“Now, the point is this: if the thing or truth presented be

infinite and absolute, and the person to whom it is presented be

imperfect, fallible, and conditioned, how can the truth--or the

church, if you please--appear otherwise to him than according to

his finite and partial interpretation of it?

“The question in respect to the absolute is, not whether it be

_really_ true and absolute or not, but to what extent does the

normal affirmation go respecting it. In short, must not the same

argument obtain against the church as against the Bible?

“It comes to the question of _authority_; and, if all intelligent

authority resides in _the person_ (and certainly each one must,

from the nature of his constitution, be his own authority), then

it follows that no authority whatever can reside in the state,

the church, or in any mere institution or being _outside_ of the

person, whether that church or institution assume divinity or

not.

“The authority is not in the _so-called fact_, but in _the

person_ to whom the so-called fact is presented, and who is

called upon to pass upon it.

“The Baconian system is false, because it makes the so-called

fact the authority for itself; when plainly the very existence or

comprehension of the so-called fact depends wholly on the

_person_ to whom it is presented.”

The objection is, apparently, the objection we ourselves bring to the

Protestant rule of faith, namely, the Bible interpreted by private

judgment. The Bible may be the word of God and infallible, but my

interpretation of it, or my private judgment in interpreting it, is

fallible, and therefore I have in it and with it only a fallible rule

of faith. So the church may be a divine institution, and by the

assistance of the Holy Ghost infallible; but her teaching is addressed

to my intelligence, and must be passed upon by my private judgment,

which is finite and fallible, therefore incompetent to pass upon the

infinite and absolute. Hence, the Catholic rule no more gives

infallible faith than does the Protestant rule. The principle of the

objection the lawyer urges is that authority is intrinsic, not

extrinsic; comes not from without, but from within, from the mind, and

can never be greater than the mind itself; and as that is fallible,

there is and can be no infallible authority for faith or belief. The

objection is simply that an infallible authority for the mind in

matters of faith is impossible, because the mind is not itself

infallible, and therefore incapable of an infallible act or assent.

This, we believe, is the objection in all its force.

The objection rests on two principles, neither of which is tenable:

first, that the mind or intellect is universally fallible; and,

second, that the authority in matters of faith is in the mind itself,

not out of it, and, therefore, belief in anything on extrinsic

authority is impossible.

1. The intellect is not universal or infinite, and does not and cannot

know all things; but it is never false in what it knows, and in its

own sphere is infallible; that is, the intellect is not false or

fallible in what it knows, for every one who knows knows that he

knows. The judgment is false or fallible only when and where, and so

far as knowledge fails. Thus, St. Augustine says,[42] _Omnis qui 147

fallitur, id quo fallitur, non intelligit_. The error is not in the

intellect or intelligence, but in the ignorance or non-intelligence.

Doubtless, we can and do err in our judgment of matters of which we

are ignorant, of which we have only an imperfect knowledge, or when we

undertake from what we do know to judge of things unknown, which is

all that St. Thomas means when he says, “_Falsitas est in

intellectu_.”[43] To deny this is to deny all human knowledge, and to

assert universal scepticism, and then the lawyer could not assert his

objection, and would be obliged to doubt even that he doubts. If the

intellect is universally fallible, we may as well close the discussion

at once, for nothing can be settled. If it, in its own province, where

it really does know, is infallible, then the only question is,

whether, in passing judgment on the facts that establish the

infallibility of the church, the intellect is obliged to go out of its

own province, and judge of matters in regard to which it is

confessedly incompetent and fallible?--a question we shall consider in

its place.

2. We join issue with the lawyer on his assertion that the authority

is intrinsic in the mind itself, not extrinsic, either in the object

or the authority that affirms it. He says in his note that “no

authority whatever can reside in the state, the church, or any mere

institution or being _outside_ of the person, whether that church or

institution assume divinity or not. The authority is not in the

so-called _fact_, but in the _person_ to whom the so-called fact is

addressed, and who is called upon to pass upon it. The Baconian system

is false, because it makes the so-called fact the authority for

itself; when plainly the very _existence_ or comprehension of it

depends wholly on the person to whom it is addressed.” So we do not

know facts because they exist, but they exist because we know them or

judge them to exist! But how can so-called facts be addressed to the

person before they exist? The lawyer goes farther than his argument

against the church requires, and consequently proves, if anything, too

much, and therefore nothing. He makes not only all knowledge, but,

unintentionally, we presume, all existences, depend on their being

known, and therefore makes them purely subjective, and falls into

Fichteism or pure egoism.

The lawyer’s rule excludes not only faith, but knowledge of every sort

and degree; for all knowledge is assent, and in the simplest fact of

knowledge the intellectual assent is given on authority or evidence

extrinsic to the person, though intrinsic in the object. Knowledge is

either intuitive or discursive. In intuitive knowledge, the evidence

or motive of the intellectual assent is intrinsic in the object, but

extrinsic to the assenting mind. The immediate presence of the object

motives or authorizes the assent, and the mind has simply the power or

faculty of apprehending the object, or judging that it is, when

presented; for, without the object affirming its presence to the mind,

there can be no fact of knowledge or intellectual assent. In

discursive knowledge the authority or evidence, as in intuitive

knowledge, is intrinsic in the object, but it is implicit, and can be

placed in immediate relation with the intellectual faculty only by

discursion--a process of reasoning or demonstration. But demonstration

does not motive the assent; it only removes the _prohibentia_, or

renders explicit what is implicit, for nothing can be asserted in the 148

conclusion not already implicitly asserted in the premises; yet the

assent is by virtue of the evidence or authority intrinsic in the

object, as in intuition. All this means that we know objects because

they are and are placed in relation with our cognitive faculty, not

that they are because we know them, or because the mind places them,

or makes them its object. If the lawyer’s rule, that authority is not

in the object but in the mind or person, were true, there could be no

fact of knowledge, either intuitive or discursive, because the mind

cannot know where there is nothing to be known.

Faith or belief agrees with knowledge in the respect that it is

intellectual assent, but differs from it in that it is mediate assent,

by an authority extrinsic, as authority or evidence, both to the

object and to the person. The authority or evidence mediates between

the mind and the fact or object, and brings them together in a manner

somewhat analogous to that in which the middle term in the syllogism

brings together the two extremes and unites them in the conclusion. If

the evidence or the authority is adequate, the belief is reasonable

and as certain as any conclusion of logic, or as the immediate assent

of the mind in the fact of science or knowledge. I am as certain that

there is such a city as Rome, though I have never seen it, that there

was such a man as Julius Cæsar, George Washington, or Napoleon

Bonaparte, as I am that the three angles of the triangle are equal to

two right angles. It is on this principle the lawyer acts and must act

in every case he has in court. He summons and examines witnesses, and

relies on their testimony or evidence to obtain a conviction or an

acquittal, except in a question of law; and then he relies on the

judge or the court. If there is no authority _outside_ the person,

that is, no authority not in his own mind, why does he summon and

examine and cross-examine witnesses or consult the judge? Why does he

not work the facts and the law out of his own “inner consciousness,”

as do most modern historians the facts they give us for history? As a

lawyer, our friend would soon find his principle, if he carried it

into court, operating as an effectual estoppel to the practice of his

profession.

The lawyer asks, “When the missionary carries the church to the

heathen, does he not present it for their rational acceptance? And if

so, does he not ask their finite judgment to pass upon and accept the

infinite and absolute?” We are sure our friend would argue better than

this if he had a case in court on which anything of importance

depended. When presented by his brother lawyer opposite with the

decision of the court of appeals barring his case, would he attempt to

judge or pass upon the judgment of the court before accepting it, or

would he not be content with simply verifying the fact that the

decision has been rendered by the court of appeals or court of last

resort? We feel quite sure that, if he were on the defensive, and

adduced the decision of the court of last resort barring the action,

he would be very far from allowing his brother opposite to question

the judgment. Nor would he as a lawyer dream of rejecting the decision

because his own mind had not passed upon its merits; but, when once

assured that the court had rendered it, he would accept it and submit

to it as law, not on his own judgment, but on the authority of the

court itself. All he would allow himself to do would be to verify the

powers of the court, in order to ascertain if it is a court of 149

competent jurisdiction, and to be sure that it had rendered the

decision. The decision itself he would not, as a lawyer, think of

examining any farther than to ascertain its meaning. He would take it

as final, and submit to it as law, whether for him or against him.

The objection fails to distinguish what, in the case supposed, the

heathen are required to pass upon in order to act rationally in

accepting the church. They would be required to pass on the

sufficiency of the evidence of her divine institution and commission

to teach and govern all men and nations in all things pertaining to

the kingdom of God on earth. That evidence, called by theologians

“motives of credibility,” found complete, all the rest follows as a

logical consequence, and there is no calling upon “the finite to pass

upon the infinite and absolute, any more than there is upon the

counsellor to pass upon the merits of the judgment of the court of

final resort after being certified that the court has actually

rendered it. All that one has to believe of the infinite and absolute,

after he has established by evidence appropriate in the case the

divine institution and commission of the church, he believes on the

authority of the church herself.

The missionary, no doubt, presents the church to their rational

acceptance, and must, therefore, present to them the motives of

credibility, or the facts which accredit her as divinely instituted

and commissioned, and these motives, these facts, must be addressed to

their understanding, and be such as their reason can pass upon and

accept or reject. But the question is, Supposing reason has passed

upon these facts or the motives, and found them sufficient to accredit

the church, as a teacher come from God, and commissioned or authorized

by him to teach his word, is not the acceptance of that word on her

authority as the word of God a “rational acceptance,” and all the most

rigid reason does or can demand?

The lawyer says no; and because all authority is in the person, and

resides nowhere _outside_ of him, and therefore it is necessary that

reason should pass upon the contents of the word, that is, upon the

doctrines and mysteries contained in the word the church professes to

teach, which is impossible; for it requires the finite to pass upon

the infinite and absolute, which exceeds its powers; therefore, faith

is impossible. But this simply implies that no belief is admissible

that is not science, and faith must be swallowed up in knowledge, and

thus cease to be faith, before the human mind can rationally accept

it.

The trouble with the lawyer’s objection is that it assumes that faith

is irrational, unless it is science or knowledge. His statement goes

even farther than this. He not only denies that there can be any

rational belief on extrinsic authority, but that there is or can be

any such authority, or that any state, church, or _being_ has or can

have any authority _outside_ of me, or not derived from me. This, as

far as words go, asserts that God himself has no authority over me,

and his word has no authority for my reason or will, not dependent on

me. We do not believe he means this, for he is not divested of the

reason common to all men. He means, we presume, simply that no state,

no church, not even God himself, has any authority on which I can

rationally believe anything which transcends the reach of my reason,

or which is not intrinsically evident to my reason by its own light. 150

But what is evident to me by the light of my own reason, I know, and

not simply believe. As belief is always on extrinsic authority simply

accredited to reason, this goes so far as to deny that any belief is

or can be rational, and that any authority or any amount of testimony

is sufficient to warrant it, which, as we have seen, is much farther

than the lawyer can go in the practice of his profession, or any man

in the ordinary business of life.

We do not think our legal friend has duly considered the reach of the

principle he lays down. Even in the so-called positive sciences, the

greater part of the matters accepted by the scientist are accepted on

extrinsic authority, not on personal knowledge. No geologist has

personally observed all or even the greater part of the facts he uses

in the construction of his science; no geographer, however great a

traveller he may have been, has visited and personally examined all

parts of the globe which he describes; the botanist describes and

classifies more plants, the zoölogist more forms of life, than he has

personally seen, and the historian deals almost entirely with facts of

which he has no personal knowledge. Eliminate from the sciences what

the scientist has not observed for himself, but taken on the reported

observation of others, and from the garniture of every mind what it

believes or takes on extrinsic authority, not on his personal

knowledge, and there would be very little left to distinguish the most

learned and highly educated man from the untutored savage. In all the

affairs of life, we are obliged to rely on extrinsic authority, on

evidence neither in the subject nor in the object, on the observations

and testimony of others, and sometimes on the observations and

accumulated testimony of ages, especially in wise and prudent

statesmanship; and if we were suddenly deprived of this authority

evidence, or testimony, and reduced to our own personal knowledge,

intuitive or discursive; society would come to a standstill, and would

soon fall below the level of the New Hollander, for even he inherits

some lessons from the past, and associates with his observations some

observations of others.

We presume our friend the lawyer means nothing of all this, and his

mistake arises from not sharply distinguishing between the motives of

credibility and the authority, on the one hand, and the authority and

what it authorizes, on the other. The existence of God is a fact of

science, though discursive, not intuitive, science. That God is, as

the theologians say, _prima veritas in essendo, in cognoscendo, et in

dicendo_, is also a truth of science--is a truth we not simply believe,

but know or may know, for it can be proved with certainty by natural

reason prior to faith. God is truth; it is impossible for him to lie,

since he is _prima veritas in dicendo_, the primal truth in speaking,

and can neither deceive nor be deceived, for he is _prima veritas in

cognoscendo_, or the principle of all truth in knowing.

This granted, the word of God must be true, infallibly true. So far we

can go by science or certain knowledge. Now, suppose the lawyer to

have full proof that it really is God’s word that is announced to him,

would he not be bound to believe it true, nay, could he in the

exercise of his reason help believing it true, prior to and

independent of any consideration of its contents, or what it is that

God says? God can neither deceive nor be deceived, therefore his word

must be true, and cannot possibly be false. God’s word is the highest 151

and most conclusive evidence conceivable of the truth of what is

asserted in his word, and, if the truth, then reasonable, for nothing

is more reasonable than truth or unreasonable than falsehood. It

would, therefore, be as unnecessary as irreverent and impertinent to

examine God’s word to see if what he asserts is reasonable before

yielding it our assent. We know beforehand that it is true, or else

God could not affirm it, and that whatever conflicts with it is false

and unreasonable; and the lawyer himself will admit, we presume, that

the highest possible reason for believing is God’s word, in case we

have it. Let us consider so much settled.

The next step is the proof or certainty that what is alleged to be the

word of God really is his word. His word is his revelation. Suppose,

then, that he made his revelation, and deposited it with the apostles

whom he commanded to go forth and teach it to all men and nations. The

apostles would, on this supposition, be competent and credible

witnesses to the fact that God made and deposited his revelation with

them. Suppose, farther, that the apostles transmitted to their

successors, or, rather, that the church is the identical apostolical

body, continued without any interruption or break down to our time,

the church would then be a competent and credible witness to the fact

of revelation and to what is revealed. Being the eye-witness of the

facts which proved our Lord a teacher come from God and authorized to

speak in his name, and the depositary of the revelation, her testimony

is conclusive. She saw with her own eyes the facts, she knows what has

been deposited with her, and the commission she received, and therefore

her testimony or evidence cannot be gainsaid. She is the living and

contemporary witness, and every-way credible, as we have shown in the

article _The Church accredits Herself_.[44]

The infallibility follows necessarily from her commission from God to

teach all men and nations. This commission from God commands all men

and nations in his name to believe and obey what she teaches as his

word. If she could err in teaching, then all men and nations might be

required by God himself to believe error or falsehood, which is

impossible, since God is truth, and can neither deceive nor be

deceived. The divine commission to the church or apostolic body to

teach carries with it the divine pledge of infallibility.

Now, supposing the church to be what she claims to be, reason itself

requires us to accept and obey as the word of God whatever she teaches

as his word, since his word is true, and the highest possible evidence

of truth. Nothing is or can be more reasonable than to believe the

word of God, or to believe God on his word. Equally reasonable with it

is it to believe that what the Apostolic Church declares to be his

word, really is so, if she is instituted and commissioned by God to

keep, guard, teach, interpret, declare, and define it. The only point,

then, to be proved is the divine institution and commission, both of

which, if the apostolic body, she is herself the authority for

asserting, as the supreme court is the authority for asserting its own

legal constitution, power, and jurisdiction. This leaves, then, only a

single point to be proved, namely, the historical identity of the body

calling itself the Catholic Church with the apostolic body with whom

the revelation was deposited.

We need not now go into the historical proofs of the identity of the 152

Catholic Church with the apostolic body, for that is easily done, and

has been done over and over again; besides, it lies on the very face

of history, and Pius IX., the Pontiff now gloriously reigning, is as

easily and as certainly proved to be the successor of Peter as Ulysses

S. Grant is proved to be the successor in the presidency of the United

States of George Washington, the schism of Jefferson Davis to the

contrary notwithstanding. Moreover, if the lawyer doubts, as we

presume he does not, the identity, we hold ourselves ready to adduce

the proofs whenever he calls for them. Assuming, then, the case to be

as stated, we demand what in the whole process of acceptance of the

faith the missionary proposes to the heathen is irrational, or not

satisfactory, to the fullest demands of reason? In fact, the points to

be proved are exceedingly few, and those not above the reach of

private judgment, or difficult. The authority of our Lord as a teacher

come from God was proved by miracles. These miracles the church

witnessed and testifies to as facts, and so far her testimony is

unimpeachable. Their supernatural and miraculous character we can

ourselves judge of. Whether they prove the divine authority of Jesus

or not, is also a matter of which we are competent to judge. His

divine authority proved, his divinity, and all the mysteries of his

person can be rationally accepted on his word, and what his word was,

the church who received it is competent to declare. There really,

then, is nothing to be proved which the church herself does not either

prove or supply the means of proving in order to render belief in what

she claims to be, and in what she teaches, as rational or reasonable

as belief in any well-ascertained fact in natural science. The motives

of credibility which she brings with her and presents to the

understanding of all men who hear her accredit her as the divinely

appointed depositary and teacher of the revelation God has made to

men, and all the rest follows of itself, as in the syllogism the

conclusion follows from the premises.

The lawyer does not admit it, and rejects the whole, because he

rejects all belief on extrinsic authority. But is not this because he

mistakes the meaning of the word _authority_ as used by theologians

and philosophers? We have generally found that the men who object to

belief on authority understand by authority an order or command

addressed to the will, without including anything to convince the

reason or to motive the assent of the understanding. This is not

precisely the theological sense of the term. The theologians

understand by authority in matters of faith authority _for_ believing

as well as an order _to_ believe. It is the reason which authorizes

the belief, and is therefore primarily authority for the intellect,

and furnishes it an ample reason to believe.

Authority addressed simply to the will ordering it to believe, and

giving the intellect no reason for believing, can produce no rational

belief, and induce no belief at all, and this we presume is what, and

all, our legal friend means. Taking authority in his sense, we

entirely agree with him, except a command from God is always a reason

for the intellect as well as an order to the will, since God is

_prima veritas_, and can command only what is true, reasonable, just,

and right. His command is his word, and an order from him to the will

is _ipso facto_ a reason for the understanding, since no higher

evidence of truth than his word is possible. With this reserve, the 153

lawyer is right in his objection to belief on authority, as he

understands it, for there is no belief where there is no intellectual

conviction. But he is mistaken in supposing that theologians mean only

authority in his sense, authority commanding the will, and giving no

reason to the understanding; they mean primarily by authority in

matters of faith or reason authority for believing, and commanding it

only through conviction to believe, which it must do if convinced.

The authority, then, which we assert, is the reason for believing; it

is the _medius terminus_ that unites the credible object and the

creditive subject, and renders the belief possible and an intellectual

act, and so far assimilates it to knowledge. Belief without authority

is belief without any ground or reason for believing, and is

irrational, unfounded, mere credulity, as when one believes a rumor

for which there is no authority. When the authority is worthy of

credit, the belief is warranted, and when it is infallible, the belief

is infallible. In believing what the church teaches me is the word of

God, I have infallible authority for my belief, and cannot be

deceived, be mistaken, or err. This is all so plain, and so fully in

accord with the demands of reason, that we are forced to explain the

repugnance so many people manifest to believing on authority, by

supposing that they understand by authority simply an order of a

master to believe, without accompanying it with anything to convince

the understanding, thus making the act of faith an act not of faith at

all, but of mere blind obedience. This is all wrong. Faith as an

intellectual act cannot be blind any more than is the act of

knowledge, and must have a reason that convinces the understanding.

Hence, the church does not censure unbelief in those who know not the

authority or reason there is for belief, and, if at all, it is only

for their neglect to avail themselves with due diligence of the means

of arriving at belief within their reach.

The authority or command of God is indeed the highest reason the mind

can have for believing anything, and it is therefore that unbelief in

those who have his command or authority becomes sinful, because it

implies a contempt of God, a contempt of truth, and practically says

to him who made us, from whom we hold all that we have, and who is

truth itself, “We _will_ not take your word; we do not care what you

say; we are the masters of our own thoughts, and will think and

believe as we please.” This is not only irreverent and disobedient,

indicating a wholly indefensible pride and self-will, but denies the

very principle asserted by unbelievers in justification of their

refusal to believe at the order or command of authority, namely, that

it is not in one’s power to believe or disbelieve at will, nor as one

wills.

These explanations suffice, we think, to show that private judgment or

individual reason is not required by the Catholic to judge “the

infinite and absolute,” or to pass upon any matter that lies out of

the province of natural reason, and exceeds its competence or finite

capacity. It is required to pass only upon the motives of credibility,

or the facts that prove the church is a divine institution,

commissioned to teach all men and nations through all time the divine

revelation which she has received, and of these we are able by our own

light to judge. The authority to teach established, all the rest

follows logically and necessarily, as we have just said, as in the

syllogism the conclusion follows from the premises. The authority

being addressed to the intellect as well as to the will, and a 154

sufficient reason for believing as well as obeying, the lawyer’s

principal objection is disposed of, and the acceptance of the faith is

shown to be a rational acceptance.

But, conceding the infallibility of the church, since her teaching

must be received by a fallible understanding, why is belief on the

authority of the church less fallible than belief on the authority of

an infallible book, interpreted by the same fallible understanding?

You say to Protestants: The Bible may be infallible, but your

understanding of it is fallible, and therefore even with it you have

no infallible rule of faith. Why may not the Protestant retort: Be it

that the church is infallible, you have only your fallible private

judgment by which to interpret her teachings, and, therefore, with

your infallible church have only a fallible faith?

More words are usually required to answer an objection than are

required to state it. We do not assert or concede the fallibility of

reason, intellect, or private judgment in matters which come within

its own province or competence. Revelation presupposes reason, and

therefore that man is capable of receiving it; consequently of

certainly knowing and correctly understanding it, within the limits of

his finite reason. We do not build faith on scepticism, or the

incapacity of reason to know anything with certainty. Reason is the

preamble to faith, and is competent to receive and understand truly,

infallibly, if you will, clear and distinct propositions in their

plain and obvious sense when presented to it in words spoken or in

words written. If it were not so, all writing and all teaching, all

books and all sermons, would be useless. So far the Protestant rule

and the Catholic are the same, with this difference only, that, if we

happen to mistake the sense of the church, she is ever present to

correct the error and to set us right, while the Protestant rule can

give no further explanation, or add a word to correct the

misapprehension. The teachings of the church need to be understood,

but not ordinarily to be interpreted; and, even when they do have to

be interpreted, she is present to interpret them, and declare

infallibly the sense in which they are to be understood. But the

Bible, from beginning to end, must be interpreted before it can be

understood, and, while private judgment or reason may be competent to

understand it when it is interpreted or explained, it is yet only a

fallible interpreter, and incompetent to explain to the understanding

its real sense.

The church interprets and explains herself; there are books, also,

that carry their own explanation with them, and so need no

interpretation or further explanation; but manifestly the Bible is not

such a book. It is inspired; it is true; it is infallible; and is, as

St. Paul says of all Scripture, divinely inspired, “profitable to

teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, that the man of

God may be perfect, furnished to every good word and work” (2 Tim.

iii. 16, 17); but it bears on its face the evidence that it was

addressed to men who were already believers, and already instructed,

partially at least, in the truths it teaches or enforces, and that it

was not written to teach the faith to such as had no knowledge of it,

but to correct errors, to present more fully the faith on certain

points, to point out the duties it enjoins, to exhort to repentance

and reform, and to hold up as motives on the one hand, the fearful

judgment of God upon those who disregard his goodness, or despise his

mercy, or abuse his long-suffering, and, on the other, the exceeding 155

riches of divine love, and the great reward prepared in heaven for

those that believe, love, and obey him. No one can read it without

perceiving that it neither is nor professes to be the original medium

of the Christian revelation to man, but from first to last supposes a

revelation previously made, the true religion to have been already

taught, and instructions in it already received. This is true of the

Old Testament, and more especially true of the New Testament; and we

know historically, and nobody denies it, that the faith was preached

and believed, and particular churches, congregations of believers,

were gathered and organized, before a word of the New Testament was

written.

The Protestant, reduced to the sacred text, even supposing he has the

genuine and authentic text, and his private judgment, would be reduced

to the condition of the lawyer who should undertake to explain the

statutes of any one of our states, in total ignorance of the Common

Law, or without the least reference to it or the decisions of the

common-law courts. Now and then a statute, perhaps, would explain

itself, but in most cases he would be wholly at a loss as to the real

meaning of the legislature. Our wise law reformers in this state, a

few years since, seeing and feeling the fact, attempted to codify the

laws so as to supersede the demand for any knowledge of the Common Law

to understand them, and the ablest jurists in the state find them a

puzzle, or nearly inexplicable, and our best lawyers are uncertain how

to bring an action under the new Code of Procedure. The Protestant

needs, in order to interpret the sacred text, a knowledge of

revelation which can neither be obtained from the text itself without

interpretation nor supplied by private judgment. Hence it is that we

find Protestants unable to agree among themselves as to what is or is

not the meaning of the sacred text, and varying in their views all the

way down from the highest Puseyite who accepts all Catholic doctrine,

“the damnatory clauses excepted,” to the lowest Unitarian, who holds

that our Lord was simply a man, the son of Joseph and Mary, and

rejects the church, the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation,

original sin, redemption, the expiatory sacrifice, regeneration,

supernatural grace, the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment,

the everlasting punishment of the incorrigible in hell, and the reward

of the just in any heaven above the Elysian Fields of the Greeks and

Romans or the happy hunting-grounds of the poor Indian. Protestants

are able to agree among themselves only so far as they follow Catholic

tradition and agree with the church. The Protestant needs to know the

Christian faith in order to interpret the sacred text and ascertain it

from the Bible, and this he cannot know by his own private judgment or

develop from his own “inner consciousness,” since it lies in the

supernatural order, and is above the reach of his natural faculties.

It is clear, then, that in the Bible interpreted by private judgment

he has and can have only a fallible authority.

It is not because the Holy Scriptures do not contain, explicitly or

implicitly, the whole faith, that, interpreted by private judgment,

they give only a fallible rule of faith, but because, to find the

faith in its unity and integrity in them, we must know it

_aliunde_ and beforehand. This difficulty is completely obviated by

the Catholic rule. The church has in Catholic tradition, which she

preserves intact by time or change, the whole revelation, whether 156

written or unwritten, and in this tradition she has the key to the

real sense of the sacred Scriptures, and is able to interpret them

infallibly. Tradition, authenticated by the church as the witness and

depositary of it, supplies the knowledge necessary to the

understanding of the sacred text. Read in the light of tradition, what

is implicit in the text becomes explicit, what is merely referred to

as wholly known becomes expressly and clearly stated, and we are able

to understand the written word, because tradition interprets it for

us, without any demand for a knowledge or judgment on our part that

exceeds our natural powers. Our judgment is no longer private

judgment, because we have in tradition a catholic rule by which to

judge, and our judgment has not to pass on anything above the province

of reason.

The objection we make to the Protestant rule, it must be obvious now

to our friend, cannot be retorted. The Protestant must interpret the

sacred Scriptures by his private judgment, which he cannot do without

passing upon questions which transcend its reach. The Catholic

exercises, of course, his judgment in accepting the infallible

teachings of the church, but he is not required to pass upon any

question above the reach of his understanding, or upon which, by his

natural reason, he cannot judge infallibly, or with the certainty of

actual and complete knowledge. He is not required to pass upon the

truth of what the church teaches, for that follows from her divine

institution and commission to teach the revelation God has made

previously established. He has simply to pass upon the question, What

is it she teaches, or presents clearly and distinctly to my

understanding to be believed? and, in passing upon that question, my

judgment has not to judge of anything beyond or above reason, and,

therefore, is not fallible any more than in any other act of

knowledge.

There is another advantage the Catholic rule has over the Protestant

rule. In this world of perpetual change, and with the restless and

ever-busy activity of the human mind, new questions are constantly

coming up and in need of being answered, and so answered as to save

the unity and integrity of the faith. The Bible having once spoken is

henceforth silent; it can say nothing more, and make no further

explanations of the faith to meet these new questions, and tell us

explicitly what the word requires or forbids us to believe with regard

to them. Hence, Protestants never know how to meet them. Then new or

further explanations and decisions are constantly needed, and will be

needed to the end of time. Even the explanations and decisions of the

church, amply sufficient when made, not seldom, through the subtlety

and activity of error, and its unceasing efforts to evade or obscure

the truth, become insufficient, and need themselves to be further

explained, and applied so as to strike in the head the new forms of

old error and deprive them of their last subterfuge. These

explanations and decisions so necessary, and which can be infallibly

made only by a living and ever-present infallible authority, can be

only fallibly made, if at all, on the Protestant rule. Even the creed

of the church, though unalterable, needs from time to time not

development, but new and further explanations, to meet and condemn the

new forms of error that spring up, and to preserve the faith

unimpaired and inviolate. How is this to be done infallibly by a book

written two thousand years ago and private judgment, or without the 157

divine and infallible authority of the church?

These remarks and explanations, we think, fully answer the objections

of our legal friend to the belief on authority, and prove that no

attempted retort of the Protestant on the Catholic can be sustained,

or entertained even, for a moment. We have thus vindicated for him the

Catholic rule, and proved that faith on that rule is possible,

practicable, and rational, is reasonable obedience, and by no means a

blind submission, as he probably supposes. What more can he ask of us?

He cannot repeat his charge and say we have not met the question, for

we have met it, at least so far as we understand it, and under more

forms than he probably dreamed of in urging it. The question is one

that meets the inquirer at the threshold, and he can hardly suppose

that we could have accepted the church ourselves without meeting it,

considering it at length, and disposing of it.

Yet there is one thing more wanting. The method of proof we have

pointed out, however sure and however faithfully followed, does not

suffice to make one a Catholic, or to give one true Catholic and

divine faith, or faith as a theological virtue; it only removes the

obstacles in the way of the intellect in believing, and yields only

what theologians call human faith--_fides humana_--which really

advances one not a single step towards the kingdom of God, or living

union with Christ. A man may be thoroughly convinced, so far as his

reason goes, of the whole Catholic faith, and yet, perhaps, never

become a Catholic. To be a Catholic, one must have supernatural faith,

and be elevated by the grace of God in baptism to the supernatural

order of life in Christ. Reason can construct no bridge over which one

can pass from the natural to the supernatural; the bridge must be

constructed by grace. Faith, the beginning of the Christian life, is

the gift of God. The method we have pointed out or the Catholic rule

produces the conviction of the truth of the church and what she

teaches, and shows it to be one’s duty to seek, if he has it not, the

grace that inclines the will, illumines the understanding, and

regenerates the soul.

The way in which to seek and find this grace is pointed out by our

Lord, Matt. vii. 7: “Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall

find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” The way is the way of

prayer. The grace of prayer, _gratia orationis_, is given unto all

men. All men can pray. He who prays for it shall receive the grace to

seek, and he who seeks shall find, and receive the grace to knock at

the door of the church, which will be opened to him, and he have the

grace to enter into the regeneration, and live the life of Christ. We

have no hope for the conversion of any one who does not pray; and we

have more confidence in the humble prayers of simple, sincere, and

fervent Catholic souls for the conversion of those without than in all

the reasonings in the world, however conclusive they may be. When once

grace has touched the heart, all clouds vanish of themselves, all

darkness is dissipated, all obstacles disappear, we know not how, and

to believe is the easiest and simplest thing in the world. To believe

is difficult only when one persists in relying on his own strength and

will accept no aid from above. Let those, then, who have faith pray

unceasingly for those who have it not.

[42] Lib. lxxxiii. quæst. xxx.

[43] _Vide Summa_, q. xvii. a. 3 in c.

[44] THE CATHOLIC WORLD for May, 1871, first article.

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