unfettered strength would then, like a tidal wave, sweep you
triumphantly onward to the goal.
Yet when you stand in the pulpit to plead a brief for Christ the
simple, unaffected earnestness that everywhere else carries
conviction is abandoned for such a musty instrument as an
unctuous whine or a holy drone. The young priest should avoid it:
it spells ruin.
[Side note: Voice dropping]
It is wonderful how few the speakers are who sustain the same
pitch and energy of voice from the beginning of a sentence to its
closing syllable.
[Side note: Cause of the defect]
The temptation to exhaust the air in the lungs, and therefore
permit the final words to drop, is so strong that unless a
student watch it and assiduously guard against it he will
discover that he has fallen victim to this weak point before he
is twelve months a priest.
[Side note: It destroys a sermon]
Whenever you hear the last words of each sentence of a sermon
growing faint, like Marathon runners staggering feebly towards
the goal, and the final word dropping completely under, that
sermon, no matter how beautiful its conception or eloquent its
composition, is doomed to failure.
The entire meaning of many a sentence is completely lost if the
last words fail to reach the listeners' ears. Very often the last
word is the important member of a sentence, the others being
merely ancillary to it. In oratory, especially, many a sentence
has to depend for its driving force on the energy with which the
final words are sent home.
Now, when people give a preacher attentive interest, the least
they are entitled to expect is that he should let them hear every
word. But finding themselves invariably baffled by the last word
becoming inaudible, it is small wonder if, tantalised and
disgusted, they abandon all effort to follow him.
[Side note: The cure]
It is therefore of great importance that this defect, so fatal
yet so common, should be provided against in time. But how?
Since it comes from exhaustion, consequent on the mismanagement
of the voice, the remedy is obvious.
Let the student daily practise reading aloud in the open air,
preferably sermons or speeches by the best authors.
Let him nervously guard against allowing his voice to show the
slightest trace of fatigue in the final words of each sentence.
This can be accomplished by inhaling fully, going slowly, and not
only giving full value to the punctuation stops, but resting at
the rhetorical and logical pauses.
[Side note: Advantages of the remedy]
By this excellent practice he strengthens his lungs and vocal
organs, cultivates his ear, and acquires a control over his voice
so perfect that he can husband his reserve fund of breath and
strength to impart at will freshness to the final syllable.
This practice should be continued till it becomes a rooted habit,
till it has grown to be his normal method of speaking.
When he goes into the pulpit I would give him an advice, the
value of which time and experience can alone enable him to
appreciate.
Direct your voice not to the end of the church, but to the side
wall about three-quarters way down from the pulpit to the door.
Fix your eye on some person there; to him address your sermon,
but pitch your voice against the wall about two feet above his
head.
By this plan you not only secure your voice against unnecessary
fatigue, but you take the surest method of sending it into every
ear, and the reverberations of your own voice will act
electrically on you.
As ring after ring of your sentences comes back from the sounding
spot against which you have discharged them you are filled with
courageous confidence and an assurance that every word has found
its mark.
A recent writer in the _Quarterly Review_ discloses in one
luminous sentence the qualities that go to make an orator, and
every priest should struggle with all his might to be an orator
in the best sense of the word.
He says: "Nor is any man a great orator who has not many of the
gifts of a great actor--his command of gesture, his variety and
grace of elocution, his mobility of features, his instant
sympathy with the ethical tone of this or that situation, his
power of evoking that sympathy in every member of his audience;
and this is surely what Demosthenes meant by making acting not
action the secret of all oratory."
What a vista these words open up! What a variety of
accomplishments demanded that can only be acquired, even by the
most gifted, by long study and patient practice! And since
learning to speak in public is like learning to swim, or to
skate, or to ride a bicycle, in this sense at least, that no
amount of previous theoretical instruction will enable one to
realise the initial difficulties or find out how to overcome them
without actual experiment, it would be arrant folly on the part
of the future priest to neglect this subject during his student
years.
These questions--Culture, English, and Preaching--should occupy a
foremost place in the curricula of our colleges. It is only by
training the student from the start, by fostering literary,
dramatic and debating societies where not alone the practical art
of speaking is developed, but the social amenities of good
society are practised, that the young priest can be equipped to
efficiently discharge the high office awaiting him, and so
reflect a lasting credit on the Church of God at home and abroad.
CHAPTER SEVENTH
THE DANGER OF THE HOUR. HOW TO MEET IT
[Side note: Statement of the case]
The printing press is one of the greatest forces of the modern
world. The multitude of publications sent forth on its wings each
morning are messengers of light or darkness. Their influence for
good or evil is more powerful than that of armies or parliaments:
that influence we can no more escape than we can escape the
sunlight or the air that surrounds us. It penetrates our homes;
it colours our thoughts; it furnishes motives for our actions.
The Press is indeed the lever that moves the world of our day,
and we are but the puppets of its will.
Such being the case, is it not a question of first importance for
the priest to examine its bearing on his own life, and on the
lives of those committed to his care?
[Side note: A general principle]
That we may do so in a scientific manner, let us take a simple
general principle. Reading is the food of the mind. Now, the body
is marvellously influenced by the food it assimilates; give a man
wholesome nutriment and mark the bounding vigour of his blood,
the activity and healthy development of every organ; feed him on
innutritious food and the most robust must fade; on poisonous
food and the strongest languishes unto death.
The substance of the body is so influenced by what it assimilates
that scientists assure us, young animals fed on madder will
reproduce the purple dye of the plant in the very texture of the
bone.
[Side note: The principle illustrated]
With far greater thoroughness and completeness does thought act
upon the mind: thought blends with thought with a force and
subtleness unknown in matter. Watch the principle in action. Let
any man habitually read good books--and by good books I mean the
production of any person whose mind is illumined by faith and
whose heart is fed by the sacraments--it matters little in what
shape such books reach us, let it be a novel or a book of poems
or essays. No man can invariably read such works without growing
imperceptibly better. His Catholic principles grow more robust;
he becomes more fearless in expressing them; each volume leaves
an aroma behind and imparts a new flavour to his life. Fresh oil
is poured into the lamp of his piety, its flame burns brighter,
he feels an unction in his prayers; he has a holy relish for the
sacraments. His very interests in life change: he looks on
everything with supernatural eyes, he becomes touchy about the
interests of the Church, anxious about the foreign missions, and
feels an insult to the Holy See as a wound.
The food his brain is living on is leavening his whole life,
giving colour, tone and trend to his existence.
[Side note: Brownson]
This literature, on which he nourishes himself, has been
admirably described by the mastermind of Catholic America--Dr.
Brownson:--"Catholic literature is robust and healthy of a ruddy
complexion, and full of life. It knows no sadness but the sadness
of sin, and it rejoices for evermore. It eschews melancholy as
the devil's best friend on earth, abhors the morbid
sentimentality which feeds upon itself and grows by what it feeds
upon. . . . It washes its face, anoints its head, puts on its
festive robe, goes forth into the fresh air, the bright sunshine;
and, when occasion requires, rings out the merry laugh that does
one's heart good to hear. It is on principle that the Catholic
approves such gladsome and smiling literature."[1]
[1] Vol. xix., p. 155.
Now look at the converse picture. Let the mind of the most devout
Catholic feed on the writings of the Protestant or sensualist and
mark the transformation. See how his soul becomes enervated, his
judgment warped and his heart invaded by every temptation. His
Catholic principles insensibly vanish, and the standards of
paganism replace them. The light of the supernatural dies in his
eyes, a film of clay overspreads his vision; he looks on the
Church through coloured lenses, and the rankness of earth is upon
his life.
Thus our thoughts, views and actions are marvellously coloured
and influenced by the books we read.
[Side note: The English press operating on the Irish mind]
Let us now turn to examine how this bears on our own lives and
the lives of those around us.
Thick as snowflakes, but without their whiteness, the sensuous
and infidel Press of England is discharging its messengers of
evil on this land. It is speaking by a multitude of tongues into
the hearts of our people. The sensational novel, the suggestive
picture paper, the trashy magazine are breathing a deadly blight
over the soul of Ireland: they whisper thoughts that fall like
corrosive poison into the sanctuary of young hearts, destroying
the only jewels that are worthy of being there enshrined--bright
faith and pure morals.
[Side note: What the Londoner saw]
An Irishman residing in London, after visiting his native country
in 1900, records his impressions:--
"I have been amazed during recent visits to Ireland at the
display of London weekly publications, while Dublin publications
of a similar kind were difficult to obtain. I have seen the
counters of newsagents in such towns as Waterford, Limerick,
Kilkenny and Galway piled as thickly, and with as varied a
selection of these London weekly journals as in Lambeth or
Islington. . . . I was so impressed with the phenomenon that I
endeavoured when in Dublin to obtain some accurate information in
regard to its extent. At Messrs. Eason's I was told that within
the past ten years the circulation of these journals in Ireland
had almost quadrupled, although the population had diminished
within the same period by one-eighth."[2]
[2] Mr. MacDonagh in "Nineteenth Century," July, 1900.
This is the offal the national mind is feeding on, and yet people
express surprise that we are becoming West-British and losing
Catholic thought and character.
It is estimated that, without counting the book or parcel post,
every week there are three tons of this literature discharged on
the quays of Dublin alone. If this is even approximately true it
reveals a startling condition of things.
It may well be questioned whether the bayonets of Cromwell or the
plantations of James threatened more destruction to all we hold
dear. I believe they were as toy armies compared with the silent
foe now encamped upon the soil.
Out of these three tons it would be easy to count, not the
volumes, but the pages, devoted to a defence of the Ten
Commandments. Works of open or professed assault on faith or
morals are as yet few, the time is not ripe just yet, their
forerunners are here, however, the ground is being prepared. The
advance guards have come, and it is only a question of time till
the heavy ordnance is planted in our midst.
[Side note: Cardinal Logue]
Our present danger has been admirably described by an eminent
prelate:--"A mass of literature which professes to be innocent,
and ostensibly aims at being interesting, but seeks to create
that interest and engross attention by fostering thoughts that
appeal to the passions with no uncertain voice. Even when such
works do not openly attack faith or the sanctity of morals, they
seek to convey the subtle poison of unbelief or corruption by
covert insinuation, by ridicule, by ignoring religious truth and
supernatural motives as unworthy of consideration, more
effectually and fatally, than they would have done by open and
undisguised assault."[3]
[3] Cardinal Logue, Lenten Pastoral.
There are novels that constitute an unbroken attack, from the
first page to the last, against some divine truth, yet with such
a delicate hand is the insidious poison distributed that you may
be challenged to lay your finger on a single objectionable
passage. Satan has not been studying the human heart for six
thousand years without knowing it well. He takes very good care
not to label his drugs, or present his poison to timid minds in
large doses; hence there is no alarm: but the treacherous danger
of such books is well illustrated by a tree to be found in
tropical forests.
[Side note: The Tropical tree]
In early autumn it is ablaze with sheaves of fairest pink; it
warns you off by no repellant odour; its umbrageous shelter is
most inviting; yet so fatal is the subtle breath with which it
charges the air around that should an incautious traveller rest
his head for one night under its treacherous shade he would wake
no more.
So, the flowery brilliancy of style, the charms and graces of
diction of many a modern novel are fascinating, but the pages
they adorn exhale a deadly breath.
[Side note: A sample novel]
Let us take a sample novel. The foundation of the State is the
family; the corner-stone on which the family rests is the sacred
marriage bond. Dissolve that and you convert social harmony into
social chaos. Yet how many books are there which are covert
attacks on the marriage tie.
The heroine is generally a married lady who discovers that her
husband is not the man she should have married. From this
centre-point the web of intrigue is woven. Mawkish sentiment and
false pity are aroused. A glamour is thrown over the sins and the
sinners. Tears are demanded for libertines and their crimes are
gilded. Virtue becomes a tyranny; the marriage bond an
intolerable yoke, and the divorce court--which is truly a
vestibule of hell--a haven of relief.
It is unnecessary to trace the effects of such degrading teaching
on the lives of the young, whose minds are as wax to receive and
marble to retain: how the high standards of virtue taught in the
school and strengthened in the home vanish: how the touchy
sensitiveness of the pure soul becomes deadened and a hunger for
grosser excitements is awakened.
[Side note: The head leads the heart]
Now that we have analysed the intellectual food on which our
people live let us advance the enquiry one step further and
ask--Where must it all end? St. Thomas answers: "_Nihil volitum
nisi cognitum_." That principle is axiomatic in its truth: the
heart will ever follow the head. As you sow in thought you will
reap in action. Corrupt a nation's intellect, and as surely as
darkness succeeds sunset, as effect follows cause, so surely
corruption of that nation's heart must ensue.
How clearly the devil understands this and what use has he not
made of it!
For the past four hundred years the greatest evils that have
afflicted the Church are traceable to a licentious Press.
Printing was scarcely invented till Satan seized it for his own
purposes. By it the Humanists of the fifteenth century scattered
broadcast pagan ideas. The disentombed paganism continued to
ferment and rot the hearts of the people till in the next century
it burst forth in the deluge of unbridled passions that marked
the Reformation.
[Side note: France]
Voltaire and his disciples did not openly cry "down with the
Church," but they took the surest road to level it. They corroded
the foundations of Christian belief. By encyclopedias and
pamphlets they first attacked with sneer and jibe, the person of
the priest, then the sacraments he administered became the butt
of their mockery, and they finally flouted the gospel he
preached. And while the agents of evil were busy, the good cures
of France sounded no trumpet of alarm, but dreamed themselves
into the comforting delusion that all would blow over, till the
ground under their feet began to rock and heave in the convulsive
throes of the Revolution.
The disciples of Satan to-day are sleepless in their endeavours
to undermine the faith of Ireland through the same agency; while
it is to be feared that some of the guardians of that sacred
treasure are inclined to imitate the dreamy lethargy that led to
such disastrous results in France.
[Side note: Europe]
Look at Europe to-day seething with socialism and anarchy, its
huge standing armies scarcely able to hold these worse than
barbarian hordes in check. Out of what dark womb have these
monsters crept? A corrupt Press. The devil found men whose lives
were filled with pain and want; he came breathing through the
Press telling them to distrust God, and to make war upon society.
The Reformation, the Revolution, the social anarchy of to-day are
the direct offspring of a licentious Press. Permit a nation's
mind to be poisoned, and that nation's heart must rot. _Nihil
volitum nisi cognitum_.
[Side note: Fifty years ago]
In proof of this we need not look outside our own shores. Fifty
years ago the priests of Ireland often had recourse to rough
methods with the people. Even the aid of the "blackthorn" was
occasionally invoked as an effective instrument for securing
correction or impressing conviction. Yet, on the morrow, all was
forgotten; and the people would die for the man who punished
them. Let the priest of to-day but thwart the grand-children of
that generation, even in a small matter, and mark their rancour.
How bitter! how relentless! The Catholic spirit of half a century
ago was not operated on by the literature of a nation that is
daily losing even the veneer of Christianity.
You may gash a man with healthy blood to the bone, and time will
quickly heal the wound and scarcely leave a scar, but if the
man's blood be corrupt the scratch of a thorn may involve
consequences demanding the surgeon's knife.
The spirit that Catholic Ireland had fifty years ago is sadly
changed to-day; and its tendency to fester on slight provocation
is due to the poison distilled into it from an unwholesome,
anti-Catholic literature. Only twenty years ago we had a painful
illustration of the silent but terrible mischief that has been
done by England's Press upon the Catholic mind of this country.
[Side note: An evil crisis]
Up to the time of the Parnell crisis the priests imagined their
feet were planted upon a solid rock; they discovered they were
standing on a pie-crust. What a startling revelation was in store
for them. Small wonder they rubbed their eyes and asked in
bewilderment, Are we in Catholic Ireland?
The ground broke; the fiery breath of hell belched forth. We saw
the devil spitting hate through the lips of politicians, the
columns of the Press, and the resolutions of the schoolmasters.
Terrible as was this outward exhibition, it revealed but a
fraction. The spirit of revolt and infidelity that raged within
the breasts of young men and darkened their conversation was
awful. The writings of avowed freethinkers and libertines were
devoured, and if any young man had the heroic courage to
remonstrate, his words would be drowned in derision.
God permitted that warning to come, but have we taken it as a
warning? What efforts have we made since to secure the
entrenchments? The danger passed, and we sank back into the old,
dreamy lethargy, and left the field open to the devil to sow his
tares anew. Our greatest danger to-day is our apparent safety. We
wrap ourselves into a false security, while a dry rot is
permitted to stealthily corrode the pillars of intellectual
conviction that must uphold all. Unless this is fought, and
fought effectively, the structure of our Catholic life will
topple like a house of cards.
[Side note: Objections answered]
All looks calm now, but so long as the causes that produced the
sad outburst of twenty years ago continue unchecked, worse
inevitably awaits us. I may be told. Look at the union of priests
and people to-day; look at our flourishing sodalities and our
beautiful churches.
The union of priests and people was then tested by one strong
wrench, and it snapped; and so long as the evil forces that
caused the fissure continue to gnaw once more the bond that
unites the hearts of priests and people, is it stronger you
expect that bond to grow?
With regard to our pious sodalities. Did the question ever
present itself--How much of the average sodalist's piety is
resting on sentiment and tradition, and how little of it on
intellectual conviction? Transplant him from the hotbed to the
ice-chills of infidelity in America or Australia, where the very
air is electric with doubt and denial, and when the storm beats
upon him, is his head armed to defend his Faith?
Where could he get the necessary knowledge? Not from the book in
his hand, for it is "Marie Corelli" or "Hall Caine" you find him
best acquainted with. Not from the Catholic newspaper, for the
question is--Do we possess one? It is a strange fact that while
Irish Catholics abroad have founded, and support, splendid
Catholic journals in every land where they have found a home, the
mother Church from which they sprang is practically defenceless.
He gets poor assistance from the pulpit; for while homilies and
exhortations are admirable in their way, they fall far short of
covering the needs of this questioning age. Our dogmatic
treatises are permitted to lie entombed in dust on our top
shelves, while clear and homely exposition of Catholic truth
would be drunk in like honey by the people.
You point to our beautiful churches, beautiful they are indeed.
But to what purpose do we raise temples of stone if we permit the
living temple of the soul to be eaten into by the poison mildews
of evil thought. The Continent is dotted over with stately but
empty basilicas, silent and mournful monuments to a Faith and a
love long since departed.
[Side note: Questions]
Now that we begin to realise the danger and the extent of this
evil, a number of questions naturally suggest themselves.
[Side note: I]
How is it that the master carefully scrutinizes the character of
a servant before admitting her into his house, lest her influence
in his home might be for evil, and that same man allows the
author to pass in unchallenged? The author comes, not to minister
but to master; to impress his thoughts on the minds and perhaps
blast the virtue of the children.
[Side note: 2]
Since every parent is bound to provide that his children's
apartments are well supplied with healthy air, is not the
obligation far more serious to take care that the moral
atmosphere of the home does not hold the deadliest poisons in
solution?
[Side note: 3]
[Side note: Questions]
Why does not the young girl, who is so fastidious about the class
of people with whom she will associate, exercise even ordinary
discrimination in the selection of an author? This is the
companion whose influence sinks deeper and lasts longer than that
of the person with whom she sips tea or takes a walk. He whispers
into her soul under the shade of the midnight lamp. He embeds his
principles on her brain. He lives in her dreams. He becomes her
oracle to conjure by.
[Side note: 4]