practical working, by the side of this of France. In the one, every
bishop and priest offers daily the tremendous Sacrifice. Daily he has
to appear in that most awful presence, where nothing unclean can
stand: daily he is armed against those spiritual conflicts, for
himself and others, which he has to undergo, receiving "the holy Bread
of eternal life and the Cup of everlasting salvation." In the other,
the priest at rare intervals, in the vast majority of instances only
once a month, approaches the Source of life and health. But what is
the inward condition under which each approaches it? The one is under
complete spiritual guidance, taught, as a first element of spiritual
life, that constant and rigorous self-examination must be practised,
and for every sin willingly committed after baptism penance be
undergone and confession made: the other, left to himself in that work
most perilous to human frailty, the conduct of one's own spiritual
state; nor, again, that thus left to himself, he can work by a chart
in which the hidden shoals are pointed out, and his progress noted.
All, on the contrary, in this inward life, so unspeakably important,
is left a blank. How can he guide others who has never been taught to
guide himself, or submit himself to another's guidance? For as
to the duties of the priest, in these two Churches--in the one, the
very main duty, which is far more important than all others, is the
secret guiding of consciences, laden with guilt and in various degrees
of purification: all public ministrations are immensely inferior in
importance to this. Whereas in the other Church, it is these public
ministrations which alone exist in any degree of efficiency. Not one
Anglican priest in a hundred has ever been called to receive a
confession, or unfold the terms of reconciliation to a guilty soul.
Indeed so much is this the case, that the notion of the priest in most
parishes is extinct: it is the minister and the preacher who have
taken his place. Again, in the one Church a compact body of doctrine
and a line of preaching are set forth in the catechismus ad parochos:
in the other, it frequently happens that two adjoining priests are at
issue on the very first principles of Christian doctrine; whether, for
instance, there be or be not a Christian priesthood; whether there be
or be not grace in the sacraments. Again, in the one Church, for the
more devoted spirits religious orders and councils of perfection
exist, and celibacy is the condition of all superior spiritual
vocations; in the other it is yet in practice doubtful, whether
councils of perfection are not inventions of the Evil One, and whether
the putting forth of celibacy as meritorious be not an infringement of
the one Sacrifice offered on the Cross.
Perhaps this contrast might be carried farther, but it is an
unpleasant task to show how Anglicanism (meaning by that expression
not the real system of the prayer-book, but that which has practically
forced its way to a great extent into the pale of the English Church,)
is gold largely mingled with earthly alloy. A divine work is at
present interfered with by commixture of an heretical element, leaving
us only a fervent hope and prayer, that by the long suffering mercy of
God a seed may still remain, which in due time by most unambiguous
works of love shall prove its identity with the ancient Church of the
Island of Saints, and become one fold under one Shepherd.
"Christ only, of God's messengers to man,
Finished the work of grace which He began.
List, Christian warrior, thou whose soul is fain
To rid thy mother of her present chain;--
Christ will unloose His Church; yea, even now
Begins the work, and thou
Shalt spend in it thy strength, but, ere He save,
Thy lot shall be the grave."
The work of educating the French clergy is largely in the hands of the
Congregation of S. Sulpice, a celibate body of course, and whose
members are not paid, but merely clothed and boarded. They necessarily
teach one uniform dogma, that is, within that sufficiently wide range
of doctrine on which the Church has set her immutable seal. More than
this, they impress one uniform sacerdotal mould and type, and
exercise one discipline on all committed to them. It results, of
course, that all who go forth from them, passing through their various
public and private scrutinies, are trained and practised combatants to
the extent to which their teaching goes. More yet than this; a severe
ascetic and self-denying character is from the beginning attached to
the sacerdotal life; they take the Apostle literally, "no man that
warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life;" parents who
consent to their children entering into the priesthood think and speak
of it as "a sacrifice;" those who look forward to it have it so set
before them, and can count the cost before they take the first step.
Few situations to which they can afterwards be called require the
exercise of greater self-denial than has been expected from them from
the first. Does not this point out to us the quarter from which a
reform among ourselves must proceed? Surely before the laity can
become sound churchmen, the priesthood must be _uniformly taught_;
"the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law
at his mouth." But High Church and Low Church, not to mention the
interminable shapes of distinction in individual minds between and
beyond them, are utterly incompatible with each other. After the dogma
of the Trinity they part company. Until then the Anglican Church
teaches her priests an uniform dogma, and moulds them in a
severe and uniform discipline, she cannot hope for any other fate,
than that her bosom should be rent with interminable heresies and
divisions. The existence of the Séminaires, and the order of
S. Sulpice, is a reform in the Roman Church. Are we never to
_reform_? Not by introducing novelties, but by recurring to ancient
practices. The continual encroachment of the world upon the Church
rendered it necessary to promote Seminaries as places of spiritual
retreat for candidates for Holy Orders; and when, as a consequence of
the Revolution, the course of study in the university became quite
secularised, it became also necessary to detach the candidates
altogether from that course, and to provide all that was requisite for
instruction as well as for inward discipline within the walls of the
Séminaire. This, as to instruction, is not completely done yet. But it
is in course of doing. Now does not that necessity which sprung up in
the French Church exist just as much among ourselves? Are our
Universities at present a fit school for preparing men for a life of
the utmost patience, self-denial, and humiliation? Is the sacerdotal
type impressed there at all? Is anything like an uniform dogma known?
Is it not precisely there that moral control is relaxed, and habits of
indulgence are commonly introduced? Is there any attempt made to form
the inward life, and discern a man's vocation? Oh, is it not the
severest censure of our Universities even to mention such things? And
without any special training, without any knowledge of his inward
state, the young man who has been accustomed to unrestricted company,
to studies almost exclusively classical or mathematical, to every kind
of worldly amusement and sport, or to travel at the time of life most
perilous to innocence, is taken and made a priest of, and sent to the
"Cure of Souls," in a parish. Can any state of deeper practical
corruption than this be well imagined? Or any system more thoroughly
opposed to that pursued in the Church, which is proverbially mentioned
among us as "corrupt?"
Surely the establishment of a system of "Séminaires" among ourselves,
a course of close and effective moral discipline for the candidates
for orders, and the inculcation of one uniform dogma, must precede any
real change for the better among us. God grant that such a change may
come!
Another evil has arisen from this absence of a fixed type in the
clergy, and of a dogmatic standard in our Church. Both in France and
England the State has seized upon that most precious prerogative of
the Church--the nomination of her chief pastors: both in France and
England the State has ceased to be either Catholic or Christian.
Perilous then at the best it is, that a power not necessarily
religious should take to itself the choice of those who are to
fill the Apostolic Chairs. But this peril is so far lessened in France
that the State must at least appoint one who has had a priest's
education, has been moulded by the great Christian mother into the
character first of her child and then of her minister, and, whatever
his other qualifications be, will acknowledge her in her true
unearthly character of the spouse of Christ, and defend her privileges
before all things. This is the Church's guarantee in France,--not a
sufficient one--but something. And, moreover, lest this character
should by possibility be wanting in any nominee, power is reserved to
the Apostolic See to refuse institution to such a one. But in
England,--in this miserable diversity of belief in the bosom of the
Church herself, this utter absence of dogmatic teaching,--the State
may select at its pleasure the Erastian, the Latitudinarian, the
Sabellian, the Low Churchman--the man, in short, that it wants for its
own evil designs against the Church, and place him in a position where
he commands the obedience of the Church's children. A fatal power, of
which we are suffering the results.
On one more point there is a striking contrast. In the French Church
there are special communities, as we have seen, (les Pères Lazaristes,
les Missions Etrangères, &c.) for instructing those who are willing to
give themselves to missionary work. In their institutions the
bent of the mind, the special aptitude for so pre-eminently difficult
a work, the vocation, in short, of these candidates is carefully
attended to: those who have been themselves engaged in missionary
work, and have the advantage of experience, direct their studies and
discipline: none but those who are most single-minded and unreserved
in their devotion are allowed to undertake the work of an apostle. On
our part, what sort of labourers,--how grounded, disciplined, and
tried,--have we been sending forth to be the Church's forlorn hope in
her assaults on the strongholds of heathenism? Men who found
difficulty in being employed in England from defective education or
other causes: men who looked to get their 300_l._ a-year, and marry
upon their missionaryship: or again, Lutherans from Basle, smuggled
into the garb of English churchmen through the Church Missionary
Society: nay, till very lately, a number of our missionaries have had
no orders!!
At "Les Missions Etrangères," to inspirit the zeal of the students,
they have brought back to them the bones and relics of those who have
suffered for Christ in foreign lands. There have been such in China,
within the last few years, men who, if now living, would only be
entering on the middle period of life. And not long ago there were two
missionaries in that country who were condemned to death. One was
executed; the other was saved by the accidental coming of a
French frigate off the coast the very morning of his execution. He
returned to France, and when he came to "Les Missions Etrangères" he
was shown, among other relics, the bones of his companion, with whom
he had so nearly suffered. His fortitude forsook him at the sight; he
could hardly support himself, and cried, "Ah! why did that unhappy
frigate appear? But for that my bones would now be here, and my soul
had been in heaven."
And now, as we leave the French Church, let us glance a moment at that
whole community of which it is but one, though an important member. My
whole design in the foregoing pages has been to bring before sincere
and candid minds facts which otherwise might not be presented to their
notice. Facts have an objective existence; if we shut our eyes to them
they do not cease to be. The sun shines, though we are blind to its
rays. Wisdom utters her voice in the streets, though none listen to
her. Now incomparably the most important facts in the Roman Church are
those which concern not merely a member of it, but the whole
Communion: _e.g._ its extent, its doctrine, its internal discipline,
its vital principle, and its generative and expansive power. If under
these heads we consider the Roman Church, taking it merely as a fact,
like the British monarchy, is it too much to say, that no work of
art, no discovery of genius, no scheme of philosophy, physical
or metaphysical, earthly or heavenly, no history of human deeds in
doing or in suffering, no political constitution, no scientific
confederacy, no association of monarchs or of peoples, no past or
present civilisation, nothing about which men have wearied themselves
in research and discussion, is so worthy of patient thought and humble
consideration as is that Communion. The following are a few reasons
for the above observation:--1. The Roman Catholic hierarchy depends on
the Pope as its centre of unity, and as the divinely-appointed Head of
the Church on earth. From him all its bishops receive canonical
institution, that is, the grant of spiritual jurisdiction.
Accordingly, they sign themselves Bishops "by the mercy of God, and
the grace of the Holy Apostolic See." What, then, is their number, and
into how many countries do they extend? The following is as near an
approximation to the truth as I can make.
IN EUROPE.
Archbishops. Bishops.
Bavaria 2 6
Austria 9 24
Hungary 3 22
France 15 65
Spain 8 53
Belgium 1 5
Prussia 2 6
Hanover - 2
Bavaria 2 6
Baden 1 4
England } Vicars { - 11
Scotland } Apostolic { - 5
Ireland 4 23
Portugal 4 17
Poland 1 8
Switzerland - 4
Russia 1 5
Holland } Vicars { - 5
Norway & Sweden } Apostolic { - 1
Greece 1 3
Ionian Islands 1 1
Turkey in Europe 3 4
Epirus 1 1
Servia 1 -
Bulgaria } Vicars { - 1
Archipelago } Apostolic { - 2
Italy--
Milan and Venice 2 17
Modena - 4
Naples and Sicily 22 81
Parma - 4
States of the Church 8 62
Sardinia- 7 34
Tuscany 4 18
Malta 1 -
___ ___
Total in Europe 102 498
IN ASIA.
Patriarchs. Archbishops. Bishops.
Asia Minor - - 2
Eastern Asia (Syria, &c.)--
Maronites 1 7 2
Syrians 1 1 4
Melchites 1 6 5
Armenian, Cilicia 1 - -
Babylon, Chaldean 1 4 5
India - 1 1
Syria - - 1
Arabia - - 2
Persia (Vicars Apostolic) - - 1
India - - 7
Asia beyond Ganges - - 6
China (Bishops) - - 3
(Vicars Apostolic) - - 10
___ ___ ___
Total in Asia 5 20 49
IN AFRICA.
Bishops.
Egypt 2
Cape and Mauritius 2
Algiers 1
Centa and Tangiers (Isles under Portugal) 2
___
Total in Africa 7
IN AUSTRALASIA.
Archbishops. Bishops.
Australia 1 3
New Zealand - 1
Batavia - 1
Polynesia - 3
___ ___
Total in Australasia 1 8
IN AMERICA.
Archbishops. Bishops.
North--
English Possessions 1 5
United States 1 23
Mexico 1 10
Central America 1 4
West Indies 1 2
South--
United States of the South 1 8
Venezuela 1 2
Bolivia 1 2
Peru 1 4
Chili 1 4
Paraguay - 1
Plata 1 3
Brazil 1 7
_Vicars Apostolic._
English Possessions - 2
Texas - 1
Antilles - 3
Hayti - 1
Guiana - 2
___ ___
Total in America 12 84
TOTAL.
Patriarchs. Archbishops. Bishops.
In Europe - 102 498
In Asia 5 20 49
In Africa - - 7
In Australasia - 1 8
In America - 12 84
___ ___ ___
5 135 646
Here, then, is one spiritual empire, stretching over all the continents
of the earth, entering into so many various nations utterly different
in manners, language, origin and temper. This empire, though outnumbered
in some few of these nations by other Christian Communions, yet has no
one other set over against it, equally wide-spread, united, and
claiming like it universality. And its functions, though necessarily
exercised in this world, sometimes in friendship with, sometimes in
opposition to, the civil power, have to do exclusively with man's
relations to the unseen world. So that it is strictly in this aspect a
"kingdom of heaven" on earth, whose several members hold together by
their common union with one chief.
2. But further, this hierarchy, thus numerous, thus widely spread, and
thus united, are in possession of a vast body of doctrine, which they
maintain to have descended to them from our Lord through His Apostles.
This body of doctrine is uniform, coherent, systematic, forming a
whole which comprehends all the relations of man to God from the
formation of the first man to the general judgment of the world. These
bishops, and the priests under them, are not in the habit of disputing
what this body of doctrine is: for, as to all that concerns the
Christian life, it has long ago been clearly defined and established.
In the long course of eighteen hundred years disputes about it have
indeed arisen: they have then been terminated by common consent:
individuals who took a different view about them from the whole body
have been obliged to leave it, and the truth has only come out the
more sharply defined from these contests. Moreover, as this doctrine
claims to be _revealed_, and as all revelation must be partial, as a
light shining amid darkness, penetrating it indeed on all sides, but
leaving indefinite spaces beyond unillumined, there are a multitude of
questions more or less touching on this doctrine, yet not comprehended
in it, or decided by it. Only enough is, by the consent of all members
of this hierarchy, decided, so as to leave the Christian in no doubt
as to any point concerning his salvation, or as to any practical means
of obtaining it. There is no split in this doctrine, dividing its
professors into separate camps: no internal opposition of principles
reproduced in external divisions. It is one logical whole. If fresh
doubts as to any point not yet decided be raised by the ever-active
intellect of man, then the hierarchy, either collectively or by tacit
adherence to the voice of its chief, declares and decides the point
mooted. This body of doctrine, thus possessed and taught by this
hierarchy, is termed _the Faith_, and it is necessary for every
simple member of the Communion to hold and believe it. It is clear
that no such body of doctrine could exist without a power coexisting
at all times to declare what does or does not belong to it: for
were it simply written in a book, interminable disputes would arise as
to the meaning of the book. Just as the English law, the work of ages,
exists in a great number of volumes, but requires no less for its
practical daily working the decision of a supreme judicial authority.
The sovereign declares in his courts of justice what is _the law_:
the Church declares in her court what is _the Faith_. This in civil
matters, is government; in spiritual, it is infallibility: without it,
in the state there would be no one authority, in the Church no one
Belief: this would be dissolved in anarchy, and that distracted by
heresy.
3. But thirdly, this great spiritual empire, with an hierarchy thus
widely extended yet thus closely united, and a code of belief at once
so large and so definite, erects its tribunal for the heart and
conscience of every one belonging to it. In virtue of certain words
spoken by its divine Founder to His Apostles, it intervenes as a
living power between man and his God, exercises the most special
authority of its Head, and retains or remits sins in His name. It does
not recoil before the pride, the self-will, the independence of human
nature, but grasps it in its inmost recesses, and compels it to hear
on earth the voice of the Judge of quick and dead. The authority it
claims is so vast, so fearful, so incalculably important to those who
live under it, so beyond the natural powers of man to exercise,
that it is manifestly either divine or diabolical. For hundreds of
years it has formed the subject of numberless reproaches directed
against this empire by those who belong not to it: yet it subsists
still: there is no sign of its being surrendered or modified. It
subsists under all forms of civil government, absolute or
constitutional monarchies, or wild democracies, whose very symbol is
the entire independence of the human will. And what is remarkable, the
most devoted and saintly men who have lived under this spiritual
empire, and whose lives were a continued sacrifice of their own
leisure, toil, sufferings, and will to God, have been most zealous to
uphold, and most skilful to exercise, this tribunal over the
consciences of men. It has been now for many generations the chosen
taunt of the unbeliever, and the constant practice of the saint.
4. But further, this empire dares to offer up the dearest affections
of the natural man to the more uninterrupted service of God. It
requires of all those whom it employs in the office of teaching a
surrender of the liberty to engage in those ties which the Gospel
itself seeks, not to proscribe, but to sanctify. Thus the Communion,
which honours marriage as a sacrament, requires of all members of its
hierarchy, down to the subdeacon inclusively, to abstain from it. It
regards them as the militia of the Church; and "no man that
warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life." Multitudes
there are besides, both of men and women, who accept not only this
condition, but voluntarily embrace the vows of poverty and obedience
in addition. To all these this spiritual empire promises one only
compensation, great indeed, but received by faith alone; that, in
proportion as they surrender all delight arising from the creature, and
bring their will into subjection to another, the larger shall be their
inheritance in the Creator; the more absolute the union of their will
with His. And on this super-human life, founded in self-renunciation,
and supported by Divine love, all great works in the Roman Communion
depend. Not only is it the condition of the whole hierarchy, of all
who have the Church's commission publicly to teach her belief, but the
task of education, from the highest to the lowest classes, and the
manifold labours of charity for the sick and poor, are all committed
to those who give this proof of the sincerity of their vocation.
5. Lastly, in this spiritual empire there are a great number of
institutions or congregations of men specially intended for its wider
extension among yet heathen nations. To the conditions above
enumerated they must add a yet more special aptitude for the most
difficult and laborious work; a yet more complete surrender of human
praise, reward, comfort, or support. Sisters of charity are seen
to cross over the ocean to the extremity of the world, that they may
work in combination with missionaries, whose task it is to live among
savages, and to make them first men, in order that they may hereafter
be Christians; both alike without endowment, in simple dependence on
Providence, trusting to the labour of their hands for maintenance,
putting their lives in the power of the faithless and fickle savage,
and showing him, by their own homelessness, that they but live and
labour for him. Nor has the blood of martyrs wholly ceased to flow.
Seventy persons in China, Tonking, and Cochin China, have in the last
fifty years borne witness with their lives to the faith of
Christ--some of them Frenchmen and Spaniards, but some likewise
priests and catechists taken out of one of the naturally feeblest
races of the East, whom the grace of God nerved to endure torments
unsurpassed for their severity in the earliest persecutions of the
Church.
Whatever be the imperfections of human agents, is there not enough in
all this to make us behold the working of a Divine and supernatural
power? Should we not each, in our several spheres, labour and pray for
reconciliation and unity--the adjustment of differences--the mutual
understanding of Christendom? One alone can do this--let it be our
first and last request to Him.
"O Thou, who doest all things
whereby to bring again our race to Thee,
that it may be partaker
of Thy divine nature and eternal glory;
who hast borne witness
to the truth of Thy Gospel
by many and various wonders,
in the ever-memorable converse of Thy Saints,
in their supernatural endurance of torments,
in the overwhelming conversion of all lands
to the obedience of faith,
without might, or persuasion, or compulsion;--
end the schisms of the Churches,
quench the haughty cries of the nations,
restore the wanderers,
knit them to Thy Holy Catholic Apostolic Church,
and receive us all into Thy kingdom,
acknowledging us as Sons of Light;
and Thy peace and love
vouchsafe to us, O Lord our God."
APPENDIX.
I subjoin the following, as giving a further view of the Seminary of
S. Sulpice, which could not so well be incorporated into the Journal
itself.
Picture of the duties of a seminarist who desires to sanctify and
prepare himself worthily to fulfil the functions of the holy
ministry:--
"Meditate upon these things, give thyself wholly to them, that thy
profiting may appear to all." 1 Tim. iv. 15.