CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF Professor R. S, Hosmer DATE DUE ww'E^w^m m=^^ w^^ a^rns^ .^ii4.^.i«iies M^ mM ia rt a M iJa r ii PRINTED INU.S-^ Cornell University Library BR 121 .C49 1856 Genius of Christianity, or. The spirit a olin 3 1924 029 192 429 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029192429 '.^A??u?te, ,^^iniy^ap^4y;^ i wmu ai C^ristianitg; Spirit anl> ^tmti at i\t ([\mm Idigian. VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND, Author of " Travels in Greece and Palestine," " The Martyrs^" " Atala," etc, etc. g. ^tbs unb Cotnpklf f rairslation from l^t Jnntlj. WITH A Preface, Biographical Notice of the Author, and Critical and Explanatory Notes. Br CHARLES I. WHITE, D. D. PHILADELPHIA: PUBLISHED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. BALTIMORE . . . JOHN MURPHY & CO. ""' 1856. 6/ '.\ r 1 1 Jfc£=„=.™ - =^-^i^&Si ZZ-i.^ 1^ ^=^ yS^"~- /\ l*4^' X^'f r Entered according to Act nf Congress, in the ye:ir li?56, by JOHN MURPHY & CO. ill the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Miuyland. Uobmc-.^f- ' V^ PREFACE. In 1798, wMle the author of this work was residing in London, exiled from France by the horrors of the Revolution, and gaining a subsistence by the produc- tions of his pen, which were tinctured with the skep- ticism and infidelity of the times, he was informed of the death of his venerable mother, whose last days had been embittered by the recollection of his errors, and who had left him, in her dying moments, a solemn admonition to retrace his steps. The thought of having saddened the old age of that tender and religious parent who had borne him in her womb, overwhelmed him with confusion ; the tears gushed from his eyes, and the Christian sentiments in which he had been educated returned under the impulses of a generous and afiectionate heart: '■'■I wept and I hdieved." But the trouble which harassed his mind did not entirely vanish, until he had formed the plan of redeeming his first publications by the consecration of his splendid abilities to the honor of religion. Such was the origin of the Genius of Christianity, in the composition of which he labored with " all the ardor of a son who was erect- ing a mausoleum to his mother."* * Memoires d' Outre- Tombe, vol. i. 1» 5 PREFACE. When this work made its appearance, in 1802, in- fidelity was the order of the day in France. That beautiful country, whose people had once held so pro- minent a rank among the Catholic nations of Europe, presented hut a vast scene of ruins, the fatal conse- quences of that systematic war which impious sophists had waged against religion during the latter half of the eighteenth century. The Revolution had swept away in its desolating course all the landmarks of the ancient society. Churches and altars had been over- thrown ; the priests of God had been massacred, or driven into exile ; asylums of virtue and learning had been profaned and laid waste ; every thing august and sacred had disappeared. In the political and social sphere the same terrific destruction was witnessed. After a succession of convulsions, which had over- thrown the Bourbon dynasty, and during which the passions of men had rioted amid the wildest anarchy and the most savage acts of bloodshed, the chief au- thority became vested in a consul whose mission was to re-establish social order, and whose efibrts in that direction were gladly welcomed by the nation, grown weary and sick, as it were, of the dreadful calamities that had come upon them. It was an auspicious mo- ment for the fearless champion of Christianity, to herald the claims of that religion whose doctrines con- stitute the only safe guide of the governing and the governed. But, among a people who to a great extent had conceived a profound antipathy to the theory and practice of religion, by the artful and persevering efforts of an infidel philosophy to render the Christian name an object of derision and contempt, a new PREFACE. method of argument was necessary to obtain even a hearing in the case, much more to bring back the popular mind to a due veneration for the Church and her teachings. It would have been useless, when the great principles of religious belief were disregarded, when the authority of ages was set at naught, to un- dertake the vindication of Christianity by the exhi- bition of those external evidences which demonstrate its divine origin. Men had become deluded with the 1 idea that the Christian religion, or the Church, (for j these terms are synonymous,) had been a serious ob- I stacle in the way of human progress ; that, having i been invented in a barbarous age, its dogmas were absurd and its ceremonies ridiculous ; that it tended ■ to enslave the mind, opposed the arts and sciences, i and was in general hostile to the liberty of man and I the advancement of civilization. It was necessary, j therefore, in order to refute these errors, to exhibit I the intrinsic excellence and beauty of the Christian • religion, to show its analogy with the dictates of na- ; tural reason, its admirable correspondence with the in- I stincts of the human heart, its ennobling influence \ upon literature and the arts, its beneficent effects upon i society, its wonderful achievements for the civilization I and happiness of nations, its infinite superiority over I aU other systems, in elevating the character, improving the condition, and answering the wants of man, under ; all the circumstances of Ufe ; in a word, to show, ac- cording to the design of our author, not that the Chris- tian religion is excellent because it comes from God, but that ' it comes from God because it is excellent. For this purpose, he passes in review the principal PREFACE. mysteries and tenets of Christianity, draws a compa- rison between Christian and pagan literature, displays the advantages which painting, sculpture, and the other arts, have derived from religious inspiration, its accordance with the scenes of nature and the senti- ments of the heart, describes the wonders of mis- sionary enterprise, the extensive services of the mo- nastic orders, and concludes with a general survey of the immense blessings conferred upon mankind by the Christian Church. In displaying this magnificent picture to the contemplation of the reader, the author employs all the resources of ancient and modern learning, the information derived from extensive travel and a profound study of human nature, and those ornaments of style which the loftiest poetry and the most glowing fancy can place at his command. In turn the philosopher, the historian, the traveller, and the poet, he adopts every means of promoting the great end in view, — to enamor the heart of man with the charms of religion, and to prove that she is emi- nently the source of all that is "lovely and of good re- port," of all that is beautiful and sublime. Among all the works of Chateaubriand, none, perhaps, is so re- markable as this for that combination of impressive eloquence, descriptive power, and pathetic sentiment, which imparts such a fascination to his style, and which caused Napoleon I. to observe, that it was "not the style of Racine, but of a prophet ; that nature had given him the sacred flame, and it breathed in all his works." The publication of such a work at such a time could not but enlist against it a powerful opposition among PREFACE. 9 the advocates of infidelity ; but its superior excellence and brilliant character obtained an easy triumph over the critics who had attempted to crush its influence. In two years it had passed through seven editions ; and such was the popularity it acquired, that it was translated into the Italian, German, and Russian lan- guages. In France, the friends of religion hailed it as the olive branch of peace and hope — a messenger of heaven, sent forth to solace the general affliction, to heal the wounds of so many desolate hearts, after the frightful deluge of impiety which had laid waste that unfortunate country. On the other hand, the waver- ing in faith, and even they who had been perverted by the sophistry of the times, were drawn to a profitable investigation of religion, by the new and irresistible charms that had been thrown around it. It cannot be denied that the Genius of Christianity exerted a most powerful and beneficial infiuence in Europe for the good of religion and the improvement of literature. The eloquent Balmes has well said : " The mysterious hand which governs the universe seems to hold in re- serve, for every great crisis of society, an extraordinary man. .... Atheism was bathing France in a sea of tears and blood. An unknown man silently traverses the ocean, .... returns to his native soil." .... He finds there "the ruins and ashes of ancient temples devoured by the flames or destroyed by violence ; the remains of a multitude of innocent victims, buried in the graves which formerly aflEbrded an asylum to per- secuted Christians. He observes, however, that some- thing is in agitation : he sees that religion is about to redescend upon France, like consolation upon the un- jQ PREFACE. fortunate, or the breath of life upon a corpse. From that moment he hears on all sides a concert of celestial harmony ; the inspirations of meditation and solitude revive and ferment in his great soul ; transported out of himself, and ravished into ecstasy, he sings with a tongue of fire the glories of religion, he reveals the delicacy and beauty of the relations between religion and nature, and in surpassing language he points out to astonished men the mysterious golden chain which connects the heavens and the earth. That man was Chateaubriand. ' ' * The eloquent work here referred to must, we may easily conceive, be productive of good in any age and in any country. Although the peculiar circumstances that prompted its execution and proved so favorable to its first success have passed away, the vast amount of useful information which it embodies vsdll always be consulted with pleasure and advantage by the scholar and the general reader; while the "vesture of beauty and holiness" which it has thrown round the Church cannot fail to be extensively instrumental in awakening a respectful attention to her indisputable claims. One of the saddest evils of our age and country is the spirit of indifferentism which infects all classes of society; and the question, among a vast number, is not what system of Christianity is true, but whether it is worth their while to make any system the subject of their serious inquiry. Such minds, wholly absorbed by the considerations of this world, would recoil from a doctrinal or theological essay with * Protestantism and Catholicity Compared, Sfc., p. 71. PREFACE. H almost the same aversion as would be excited by the most nauseous medicine. But deck religious truth in the garb of fancy, attended by the muses, and dis- pensing blessings on every side, and the most apa- thetic soul will be arrested by the beauteous spectacle, as the child is attracted and won by the maternal smile. Among unbelievers and sectarians of different complexions, who discard all mysteries, who consult only their reason and feelings as the source and rule of religious belief, who look upon Catholicism as something effete, and unsuited to the enlightenment of the age, this work will be read with the most bene- ficial results. It will warm into something living, consistent, and intelligible, the cold and dreamy specu- lations of the rationalist ; it will indicate the grand fountain-head whence flow in all their fervor and effi- ciency those noble sentiments which for the modern philosopher and philanthropist have but a theoretical existence. It will hold up to view the inexhaustible resources of Catholicism, in meeting all the exigencies of society, all the wants of man, and triumphantly vindicate her undoubted claims to superiority over all other systems in advancing the work of true civili- zation. It was to establish this truth that Balmes composed his splendid work on the Comparative Influence of Pro- testantism and Catholicity, and Digby described the Ages of Faith, and the Compitum, or Meeting of the Ways. These productions are of a kindred class with the Genius of Christianity, and the former embraces to a certain extent the same range of subject, having in view to display the internal evidences of Catholicity, 12 PREFACE. a3 derived from its beneficial influence upon European civilization. But Chateaubriand was the first to enter the field against the enemies of religion, clad in that effective armor which is peculiarly adapted to the cir- cumstances of modern times. "Without pretending in the least to question the necessity or detract from the advantages of theological discussion, we are firmly convinced that the mode of argument adopted by our author is, in general, and independently of the prac- tical character of the age in which we live, the most effectual means of obtaining for the Church that favor- able consideration which will result in the recognition of her divine institution. "The foolish man hath said in his heart, there is no God."* The disorder of the heart, arising partly from passion, partly from preju- dice, shuts out from the mind the light of truth. Hence, whoever wins the heart to an admiration of the salutary influences which that truth has exerted in every age for the happiness of man, will have gained an essential point, and will find little difliculty in con- vincing the understanding, or securing a profitable attention to the grave expositions of the theologian and the controversialist. Such were the considerations that led to the present translation of the Genius of Christianity. The work was presented in an English dress for the first time in England; and the same edition, reprinted in this country in 1815, would have been republished now, if it had not been discovered that the translator had taken unwarrantable liberties with the original, omit- * Psalm xiv. 1. PREFACE. 13 ting innumerable passages and sometimes whole chap- ters, excluding sentences and paragraphs of the highest importance, those particularly which gave to the au- thor's argument its peculiar force in favor of Catholi- cism. Such, in fact, was the number and nature of these omissions, that, with the introduction of occa- sional notes, they detracted, in a great measure, from the author's purpose, and gave to a latitudinarian Christianity an undue eminence, which he never con- templated. "With these important exceptions, and various inaccuracies in rendering the text, the transla- tion of Mr. Shoberl has considerable merit. In pre- paring the present edition of the work, we have fur- nished the entire matter of the original production, with the exception of two or three notes in the Ap- pendix, which have been condensed, as being equally acceptable to the reader in that form. Nearly one hundred pages have been supplied which were never before presented to the public in English. In render- ing the text, we have examined and compared different French editions ; but there is little variation between that of 1854 and its predecessors. Where the sense of the author appeared obscure or erroneous, we have introduced critical and explanatory notes. Those marked S and K have been retained from Mr. Shoberl's translation ; those marked T were prepared for this edition. In offering this translation to the public, we take pleasure in stating that we have made a free use of that to which we have alluded, especially in the latter portion of the work. We have also con- sulted the translation by the Rev. E. O'Dounel, which was issued in Paris in 1854. In that edition, however, 14 PBEFACK. nearly one-lialf of the original production has been omitted, and the order of the contents has been en- tirely changed. In conclusion, we present this work to the public with the hope that it may render the name of its illus- trious author more extensively known among us, and may awaken a more general interest in the study of that religion which, as Montesquieu observes, "while it seems only to have in view the felicity of the other life, constitutes the happiness of this." The Tbanslatok. PikesvilU, Md. April, 1856. CONTENTS. Notice OP THE ViscooNT BE Chateadbeiand 23 PART I. DOGMAS AND TENETS. BOOK I. MYSTERIES AND SAOEAMENTS. PAOB Chap. I. Introduction *^ II. Of the Nature of Mysteries 61 III. Of tlie Christian Mysteries — Tiie Trinity 53 IV. Of tlie Kedemption 59 V. Of tlie Incarnation 66 VI. Of tlie Sacraments — Baptism and Penance 67 VII. Of tlie Holy Communion 71 Tin. Confirmation, Holy Orders, and Matrimony 75 IX. The same subject continued — Holy Orders 82 X. Matrimony ^^ XL Extreme Unction ^1 BOOK II. VIRTUES AND MORAL LAWS. Chap. 1. Vices and Virtues according to Beligion 93 II. Of Faith 95 III. Of Hope and Charity 97 IV. Of the Moral Laws, or the Ten Commandments 99 BOOK III. THE TRUTHS OF THE SCRIPTURES — THE FALL OF MAN. Chap. I. TheSuperiority of the History of Moses to all other Cosmogonies 107 II. The Fall of Man— The Serpent— Remarks on a Hebrew Word... 110 III. Primitive Constitution of Man — New proof of Original Sin 114 15 16 CONTENTS. BOOK IV. CONTINUATION OF THE TRUTHS OF SCRIPTURE — OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE SYSTEM OF MOSES. PAGE Chap. I. Chronology 119 II. Logography and Historical Facts 122 III. Astronomy 128 IV. Continuation of the preceding subject — Natural History — The Deluge 133 V. Youth and Old Age of the Earth 136 BOOK V. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD DEMONSTRATED BY THE WONDERS OF NATURE. Chap. I. Object of this Book 138 11. A General Survey of the Universe 139 III. Organization of Animals and Plants 141 IV. Instincts of Animals 145 V. Song of Birds — Made for Man — Laws relative to tho cries of Animals 147 VI. Nests of Birds 150 VII. Migrations of Birds — Aquatic Birds — Their Habits — Goodness of Providence 152 VIII. Sea-Fowl — In what manner serviceable to Man — In ancient times Migrations of Birds served as a Calendar to the husbandman 156 IX. The subject of Migrations concluded — Quadrupeds 160 X. Amphibious Animals and Reptiles 163 XI. Of Plants and their Migrations 168 XII. Two Views of Nature 170 XIII. Physical Man 174 XIV. Love of our Native Country 177 BOOK VI. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL PROVED BY THE MORAL LAW AND THE FEELINGS. Chap. I. Desire of Happiness in Man 184 II. Remorse and Conscience 187 III. There can be no Morality if there is no Future State — Presump- tion in favor of the Immortality of the Soul deduced from the Respect of Man for Tombs 190 IV. Of certain Objections 191 V. Danger and Inutility of Atheism 196 CONTENTS. 17 PAOH VI. The conclusion of the Doctrines of Christianity — State of Pu- nishments and Rewards in a Future Life — Elysium of the Ancients 202 VII. The Last Judgment 205 VIII. Happiness of the Righteous 207 PART II. THE POETIC OF CHBISTIANITY. BOOK I. GENERAL SURVEY OP CHRISTIAN EPIC POEMS. Chap. I. The Poetic of Christianity is divided into Three Branches : — Poetry, the Fine Arts, and Literature — The Six Books of this Second Part treat in an especial manner of Poetry 210 II. General Survey of the Poems in which the Marvellous of Chris- tianity supplies the place of Mythology — The Inferno of Dante — The Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso 212 in. Paradise Lost 216 rV. Of some French and Foreign Poems 222 V. TheHenriad 220 BOOK II. OP POETRY CONSIDERED IN ITS RELATIONS TO MAN. Characters. Chap. I. Natural Characters 232 II. The Husband and Wife — Ulysses and Penelope 233 III. The Husband and Wife continued — Adam and Eve 236 IV. The Father— Priam 242 V. Continuation of the Father — Lusignan 245 VI. The Mother — Andromache 247 VII. The Son— Gusman 250 VIII. The Daughter — Iphigeuia and Zara 253 IX. Social Characters — The Priest 260 X. Continuation of the Priest — The Sibyl — Jehoiada — Parallel be- tween Virgil and Racine 257 XL Ihe Warrior— Definition of the Beautiful Ideal 202 XII. The Warrior continued 266 2* B 18 CONTENTS. BOOK III. OF POETRY CONSIDERED IN ITS EELATIOlStS TO MAN — THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. 27(6 Passions. PAGE OiiAP. I. Christianitj has changed the Relations of the Passions by chang- ing the Basis of Vice and Virtue 269 II. Impassioned Love — Dido 272 III. Continuation of the preceding subject — The Phaedra of Racine.. 275 IV. Continuation of the preceding subject — Julia d'Etange — Clemen- tina ^ 277 V, Continuation of the preceding subject — Eloisa 2S0 VI. Rural Love — The Cyclop and G-Jilatea of Theocritus 285 VII. Continuation of the preceding subject — Paul and Virginia.. 287 VIII. The Christia;n Religion itself considered as a Passion 291 IX. Of the Unsettled State of the Passions 296 BOOK IV. or THE marvellous; OR, OF POETRY IN ITS RELATIONS TO SUPERNATURAL BEINGS. CuAP, I. Mythology diminished the Grandeur of Nature — The Ancients had no Descriptive Poetry properly so called 299 IL Of Allegory 303 III. Historical part of Descriptive Poetry among the Moderns 305 IV. Have the Divinities of Paganism, in a poetical point of view, the superiority over the Christian Divinities? 309 v.. Character of the True God 312 VI. Of the Spirits of Darkness 314 VII. Of the Saints 310 VIIL Of the Angels 319 IX. Application of the Principles established in the preceding chap- ters — Character of Satan., 321 X. Poetical Machinery — Venus in the woods of Carthage — Raphael in the bowers of Eden j 304 XI. Dream of ^neas — Dream of AthMie 326 XII. Poetical Machinery continued — Journeys of Homer's gods Satan's expedition in quest of the New Creation 330 XIIL The Christian Hell 333 XIV. Parallel between Hell and Tartarus — Entrance of Avernus Dante's gate of Hell — Dido— Prancisca d'Arimino — Tor- ments of the damned 334 XV. Purgatory 33{j XVI. Paradise 34^ CONTENTS. 19 BOOK V. THE BIBLE AND HOMER. PAGE Chap. I. Of the Scriptures and their Excellence 344 II. Of the three principal styles of Scripture ,345 III. Parallel between the Bible and Homer — Terms of Comparison... 362 IV. Continuation of the Parallel between the Bible and Homer — Examples 358 PAET III. THE FINE AETS AND LITERATURE. BOOK I. THE FINE ARTS. Chap. I. Music — Of the Influence of Christianity upon Music 370 II. The Gregorian Chant 372 III. Historical Painting among the Moderns 375 rV. Of the Subjects of Pictures 378 V. Sculpture 380 VI. Architecture — H5tel des Invalides 381 VII. VersaiUes 383 Vm. Gothic Churches 384 BOOK II. PHILOSOPHY. Chap. I. Astronomy and Mathematics 388 II. Chemistry and Natural History 399 IIL Christian Philosophers — Metaphysicians 404 rV. Christian Philosophers continued — Political Writers 407 V. Moralists — La BruySre 408 VI. Moralists continued — Pascal 411 20 CONTENTS. BOOK III. HISTORY. PAGE Chap. I. Of Christianity as it relates to the Manner of Writing History.. 417 II. Of the General Causes which have prevented Modern Writers frona succeeding in History — First Cause, the Beauties of the Ancient Subjects 419 III. Continuation of the preceding — Second Cause^the Ancients have exhausted all the Historical styles, except the Christian style 422 IV. Of the reasons why the French have no Historical Works, but only Memoirs 425 V. Excellence of Modern History 428 VI. Voltaire considered as an Historian 430 VII. Philip de Commines and EoUin 432 VIIL Bossuet considered as an Historian 433 BOOK lY. ELOQUENCE. Chap. I. Of Christianity as it relates to Eloquence 437 II. Christian Orators — Fathers of the Church 439 III. Massillon 445 IV. Bossuet as an Orator 448 V. Infidelity the Principal Cause of the decline of Taste and the degeneracy of Genius 453 BOOK v. THE HARMONIES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION WITH THE SCENES OF NATURE AND THE PASSIONS OF THE HUMAN HEART. Chap. I. Division of the Harmonies 459 II. Physical Harmonies 459 III. Of Kuins in General — Ruins are of two kinds 466 IV. Picturesque Effect of Ruins — Ruins of Palmyra, Egypt, &o 469 v. Ruins of Christian Monuments 471 VI. Moral Harmonies — Popular Devotions 473 CONTENTS. 21 PART IV. WOBSHIP, BOOK I. OHXIECHES, ORNAMENTS, SINGING, PRAYERS, ETC. PAGE Chap. I. Of Bells 479 II. Costume of the Clergy and Ornaments of the Church 4S1 III. Of Singing and Prayer 483 rV. Solemnities of the Church — Sunday 489 v. Explanation of the Mass 491 VI. Ceremonies and Prayers of the Mass 493 VII. Solemnity of Corpus Christi 496 VIII. The Rogation-Days 498 IX. Of certain Christian Festivals — Epiphany — Christmas 500 X. Funerals — Funerals of the Great 503 XI. Funeral of the Soldier, the Rich, &o 505 XII. Of the Funeral-Service 607 BOOK II. TOMBS. Chap. I. Ancient Tombs — The Egyptians 511 II. The Greeks and Romans 512 III. Modern Tombs — China and Turkey 513 rV. Caledonia or Ancient Scotland 514 V. Otaheite 514 VI. Christian Tombs 516 VII. Country Churchyards 518 VIII. Tombs in Chui-ches 520 IX. St. Dennis 622 BOOK III. GENERAL VIEW OF THE CLERGY. Chap. I. Of Jesus Christ and his Life 526 II. Secular Clergy — Hierarchy 531 III. Regular Clergy — Origin of the Monastic Life 540 IV. The Monastic Constitutions 544 V. Manners and Life of the Religious — Coptic Monks, Maronites, (fee. 648 VI. The subject continued — Trappists — Carthusians — Sisters of St. Clare — Fathers of Redemption — Missionaries— Ladies of Charity, &o 561 22 CONTENTS. BOOK IV. MISSIONS. PAGE Chap. I. General Survey of the Missions 557 II. Missions of the Levant 5"* III. Missions of China 5®" IV. Missions of Paraguay — Conversion of the Savages 571 V. Missions of Paraguay, continued — Christian Republic — Happi- ness of the Indians 57j VI. Missions of Guiana 583 VK. Missions of the Antilles 585 VIII. Missions of New France 589 IX. Conclusion of the Missions 598 BOOK V. MILITARY ORDERS OR CHIVALRY. Chap. I. Knights of Malta 600 IL The Teutonic Order 604 III. The Knights of Calatrava and St. Jago-of-the-Sword in Spain.. 605 rV. Life and Manners of the Knights 608 BOOK VI. SERVICES RENDERED TO MANKIND BY THE CLERGY AND BY THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN GENERAL. Chap. I. Immensity of the Benefits conferred by Christianity 619 II. Hospitals 620 III. Hotel-Dieu — Gray Sisters 626 rV. Foundling Hospitals — Ladies of Charity — Acts of Beneficence.. 630 V. Education — Schools — Colleges — Universities — Benedictines and Jesuits 633 VI. Popes and Court of Rome — Modern Discoveries 638 VII. Agriculture 644 VIII. Towns and Villages — Bridges — High-Roads 647 IX. Arts, Manufactures, Commerce 651 X. Civil and Criminal Laws 653 XI. Politics and Government 658 XII. General Recapitulation 664 XIII. What the Present State of Society would be had not Chris- tianity appeared in the World — Conjectures — Conclusion 663 Notes 687 NOTICE VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND.* , Eene Feancis Augustus, Viscount de Chateau- briand,' was iborn at Saint-Malo, in France, on the 4th of September, 1768. His family, on the paternal side, one of the most ancient in Brittany, descended in a direct line, by the barons of Chateaubriand, from Thierri, grandson of Alain m., who was the sovereign of the Armorican peninsula. Having commenced his classical studies at the college of Dol, he continued them at Rennes, where he had Moreau for a rival, and completed them at Dinan in the company of Broussais. Of a proud disposition, and sensitive to a reprimand, young Chateaubriand distinguished him- self by a very precocious intellect and an extraor- dinary memory. His father, having destined, him for the naval profession, sent him to Brest for the purpose of passing an examination ; but having remained some time without receiving his commission, he re- turned to Combourg, and manifested some inclination for the ecclesiastical state. Diverted, however, from this project by the reading of pernicious books, he * Compiled oliiefly from an article in Feller's Dictionnaire Sistorique. 23 24. NOTICE OF THE exchanged his sentiments of piety for those of infi- dehty, and in liis solitary situation, with the passions for his guides, he hecame the sport of the most ex- travagant fancies, ^eary of life, he had even to struggle against the temptation of committing suicide ; hut he was relieved from these somhre thoughts by the influence of his eldest brother, the Count of Com- bourg, who obtained for him a lieutenancy in the regi- ment of Xavarre. After the death of his father, in 1786, he left his military post at Cambrai, to look after his inheritance, and settled with his family at Paris. Through the means of his brother, who had married Mademoiselle de Eosambo, grand-daughter of Males- herbes, he was introduced into society and presented at court, which obtained for him at once the rank of a captain of cavalry. It was designed to place him in the order of Malta ; but Chateaubriand now began to evince his literary predilections. He cultivated the society of Giuguene, Lebrnn, Champfort, Delisle de Salles, and was much gratified in having been per- mitted, through them, to pubhsh in the Almaimch des Muses a poem which he had composed in the forest of Combourg. In 1789 he attended the session of the States of Brittany, and took the sword in order to repulse the mob that besieged the hall of assembly. On his return to Paris, after the opening of the States- general, he witnessed the first scenes of the revolu- tion, and in 1790 he quit the service on the occasion of a revolt that had taken place in the regiment of Xavarre. Alarmed by the popular excesses, and hav- ing a great desire to travel, he embarked in January, 1791, for the United States of America. He hoped. VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 25 witli the advice and support of Malesherbes, to dis- cover a north-west passage to the Polar Sea, which Hearn had already descried in 1772. A few days after his arrival at Baltimore, he proceeded to Philadelphia, and having a letter of introduction to General "Wash- ington from Colonel Armand, (Marquis de la Rouerie,) who had served in the war of American Independence, he lost no time in calling on the President. "Washing- ton received him with great kindness and with his .usual simplicity of manners. On the following day, Chateaubriand had the honor of dining with the Pre- sident, whom he never saw afterward, but whose cha- racter left an indelible impression upon his mind. "There is a virtue," he says, "in the look of a great man."* On leaving Philadelphia, he visited ITew York, Boston, and the other principal cities of the Union, where he was surprised to find in the manners of the people the cast of modern times, instead of that ancient character which he had pictured to himself. From the haunts of civilized life he turned to those wild regions which were then chiefly inhabited by the untutored savage, and as he travelled from forest to forest, from tribe to tribe, his poetical miijd feasted upon the grandeur and beauty of that virginal nature which presented itself to his contemplation. At the falls of Magara he was twice in the most imminent danger of losing his life, by his enthusiastic desire to enjoy the most impressive view of the wonderful cataract. "While thus setting to profit his opportunities of ob- * Memoires (f Outre-Tombe. 25 NOTICE OP THE servation in the new world, Chateaubriand learned from the public prints the flight and capture of Louis XVI., and the progress of the French emigration. He at once resolved upon returning to his native country. After a narrow escape from shipwreck, he arrived at Havre in the beginning of 1792, whence he proceeded to St. Malo, where he had the happiness of again embracing his mother. Here also he formed a matrimonial alliance with Mademoiselle de Lavigne, a lady of distinction. A few months after, in company with his brother, he set out for Germany with a view to join the army of French nobles who had ralUed in defence of their country. At the siege of Thionville, his life was saved by the manuscript of Atala, a literary production which he carried about him, and which turned a shot from the enemy. He was, however, severely wounded in the thigh on the same occasion, and, to add to his misfortunes, he was attacked with the small-pox. In this suiFering condition he under- took a journey of six hundred miles on foot, and was more than once reduced to the very verge of the grave by the pressure of disease and the extraordinary priva- tions he was compelled to undergo. One evening he stretched himself to rest in a ditch, from which he never expected to rise. In this situation he was dis- covered by a party attached to the Prince of Ligne, who threw him into a wagon and carried him to the walls of ITamur. As he made his way through that city, crawling on his knees and hands, he excited the compassion of some good women of the place, who afforded him what assistance they could. Having at length reached Brussels, he was there recognised by VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 27 his brother, who happened to meet him, and from whom he received every aid and attention. Though far from having recovered his strength, he left this place for Ostend, where he embarked in a fisherman's boat for the Isle of Jersey. Here he met with a por- tion of his family who had emigrated from France, and among whom he received the attentions which his suffering condition demanded. He soon after repaired to London, where he lived for some time in a state of poverty. Too haughty to apply for assistance to the British government, he relied altogether upon his own efforts for the means of subsistence. He spent the day in translating, and the night in composing his Essay on Kevolutions. But this incessant labor soon undermined his health, and there being moreover little to do in the way of translating, the unfortunate exile experienced for some days the cravings of hun- ger. Happily, at this juncture, his services were re- quested by a body of learned men who, under the direc- tion of the pastor of Beccles, were preparing a history of the county of Suffolk. His part of the labor con- sisted in explaining some French manuscripts of the twelfth century, the knowledge of which was neces- sary to the authors of the enterprise. On his return to London, Chateaubriand completed his Essai sur les involutions, which was published in 1T97. This work produced quite a sensation, won fcfr him the commendations and sympathy of the French nobility then in England, and placed him in relation with Montlosier, Delille and Fontanes. He was sorely tried, however, by the afiictions of his family. He had received the distressing intelligence that his bro- 28 NOTICE OF THE ther and sister-in-law, with his friend Malesherbes, had been guillotined by the revolutionary harpies, and that his wife and sister had been imprisoned at Eennes, and his aged mother at Paris. This pious lady, after having suffered a long confinement, died in 1798, with a prayer on her lips for the conversion of her son. Young Chateaubriand was not insensible to this prayer of his venerated parent. " She charged one of my sisters," he writes, "to recall me to a sense of that religion in which I had been educated, and my sister made known to me her wish. When the letter reached me beyond the water, my sister also had de- parted this life, having succumbed under the effects of her imprisonment. Those two voices coming up from the grave, and that death which had now become the interpreter of death, struck me with peculiar force. I became a Christian. I did not yield to any great su- pernatural light : my conviction came from the heart. I wept, and I believed." His ideas having thus under- gone a serious change, he resolved to consecrate to religion the pen which had given expression to the skepticism of the times, and he planned at once the immortal work, Le Gbiie du Chrisiianisme. As soon as Buonaparte had been appointed First Consul, Chateaubriand returned to France under an assumed name, associated himself with Fontanes in the editorship of the Mercure, and in 1801 published his Atala. This romance, attacked by some, but en- thusiastically received by the greater number, was eminently successful, and added to the circle of the author's friends many illustrious names. Madame Bacciochi and Lucien Buonaparte became his protec- VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 29 tors, while he was brought into intercourse with Jou- bert, de Bonald, La Hai-pe, Chenedolle, Mesdames Eecamier and de Beaumont. His design, in the pub- lication of Aiala, was to introduce himself to the public, and to prepare the way for the G6nie du Chris- tianisme, which appeared in 1802. No sooner was it issued from the press, than the disciples of Voltaire stamped it as the offspring of superstition, and pamph- leteers and journalists united in visiting the author and his work with proud contempt ; but the friends of religion and of poetry applauded the intentions and admired the taknts of the writer. Buonaparte, who was at this time busy with the con- cordat, was desirous of seeing the man who so ably seconded his views ; and, with the hope of attaching him to his fortune, appointed him first secretary of Cardinal Fesch, then ambassador to the Court of Rome. When the new diplomatist was presented to Pius Vn., this venerable pontiff was reading the GrSnie du Christianisme. The honors of the French embassy had no great attractions for our author. Averse to being an instrument of the tortuous policy which it began to display, he resigned his post and returned to Paris. iNTapoleon, sensible of his eminent abilities, sought rather to conquer than to crush his independ- ent spirit, and appointed him minister plenipotentiary to the Valais. He received this commission the day before the Duke d'Enghien, who had been seized on foreign territory, in contempt of the law of nations, was shot in the ditch of Vincennes. That very even- ing, while fear or astonishment still pervaded the minds of all, Chateaubriand sent in his resignation. 3* 30 NOTICE OF THE JSTapoleon could not but feel the censure implied in this hold protestation, which was the more meritorious as it was the only expression of fearless opposition to his proscriptive measure. He did not, however, betray his displeasure, nor did he disturb the courageous writer in whom he began to detect an enemy ; on the contrary, in order to draw him into his service, he made him every offer that could flatter his interest or ambition. The refusal of Chateaubriand to accept any post under the consular regime made him obnoxious to ISTapoleon, who gratified his resentment by crippling the literary resources of his political adversary. Under these circumstances, he paid a visit to Ma- dame de Stael, who had become his friend by a com- munity of sentiment and misfortune, and who was living in exile at Coppet. The following year — 1806— he executed his design of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Eevisiting Italy, he embarked for Greece, spent some time among the ruins of Sparta and the monuments of Athens, passed over to Smyrna, thence to the island of Cyprus, and at length "which alone will have nothing to send forth at the | end of time," he sailed for Egypt, explored the fields of Carthage, passed over to Spain, and amid the ruins of the Alhambra wrote Le dernier des Ahencerages. On his return to France, in May, 1807, he published in the Mercure, which partly belonged to him, an article which greatly incensed the government against him. The emperor spoke of having him executed on the steps of the Tuileries, but, after having issued the VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 31 order to arrest him, he was satisfied with depriving him, of his interest in the Mercury. Chateaubriand now retired to his possessions near Aulnay, where he wrote his Itiniraire, Moise, and Les Martyrs. When the first-mentioned work was about to appear, in 1811, the author was notified by the government that the publication would not be permitted, unless he would introduce into its pages a eulogy of the emperor. Chateaubriand refused to submit to such a condition ; but having been informed that his publisher would suffer materially by the suppression of the work, he was induced by this consideration, to do, in some measure, what neither fear nor personal interest could extort from. him. In complying with the requisition of the authorities, he alluded in truthful language to the exploits of the French armies, and to the fame of their general who had so often led them on to victory ; but he carefully abstained from signalizing the acts of a. government whose policy was so much at variance with the principles which he professed. Buonaparte had still some hope of gaining over the independent and fearless writer. Wlien a vacancy had occurred in the French Academy by the death of Chenier, the situation was offered to Chateaubriand, who was also selected by the emperor for the general superintendence of the imperial libraries, with a salary equal to that of a first-class embassy. Custom, how- ever, required that the member-elect should pronounce the eulogy of his predecessor ; but in this instance the independence of Chateaubriand gave sufficient reason to think that, instead of heralding the merit of Che- nier, who had participated in the judicial murder of 32 NOTICE OF THE Louis XVI., lie would denounce in unmeasured terms the crimes of the French Eevolution. His inaugural address having heen submitted, according to custom, to a committee of inspection, they decided that it could not be delivered by the author. The emperor, moreover, having obtained some knowledge of its con- tents, which formed an eloquent protest against the revolutionary doctrines and the despotic tendencies of the existing government, he was exasperated against the writer, and in his excitement he paced Ms room to and fro, striking his forehead, and exclaiming — "Am I, then, nothing more than a usurper? Ah, poor France ! how much do you still need an instructor !" The admission of Chateaubriand to the Academy was indefinitely postponed. - But the star of Buonaparte had now begun to wane. The allied armies having entered France, Chateau- briand openly declared himself in favor of the ancient dynasty. His sentiments were unequivocally expressed in a pamphlet, which he published in 1814, under the title of Buonaparte et les Bourbons, and which Louis XVHI. acknowledged to have been worth to him an army. Upon the restoration of this monarch to the throne, Chateaubriand Avas appointed ambassador to Sweden ; but he had not yet taken his departure, when it was announced that Buonaparte had again appeared on the soil of France. Our author advised the king to await his rival in Paris ; but this suggestion was not followed. Louis XVIII. proceeded to Gaud, where Chateaubriand was a member of his council, in the capacity of Minister of the Interior, and drew up an able report on the condition of France, which w&b VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 33 considered as a political manifesto. After tlie second restoration of the Bourbons, he declined a portfolio in connection with Fouch^ and Talleyrand. Called to a seat in the House of Peers, he attracted considerable attention by some of his speeches. Not less a friend of the Bourbons than of the liberties guaranteed by the charter, he endeavored to conciliate the rights of the throne with those of the nation ; and he beheld with indignation men who had been too prominent during the revolutionary period, admitted to the royal councils and to various offices of the administration. Under the influence of these sentiments he published, in 1816, a pamphlet entitled La Monarchie selon la Charte, which was an able and popular defence of con- stitutional government ; but by the order of de Gazes, president of the council, the work was suppressed, and its author, although acquitted before the tribunals, was no longer numbered among the ministers of state. Deprived of his station and of his income, Chateau- briand was compelled to dispose of his library as a means of siibsistence. At the same time, he esta- blished the Conservateur, a periodical opposed to the Minerve, the ministerial organ, and, in conjunction with the Due de Montmorency and others, he carried on a vigorous war against the favorite of the crown. The cabinet of de Cazes could not withstand such an antagonist ; the daily assaults of the Conservateur made it waver, and the assassination of the Duke of Berry completed its downfall. On the accession of M. de Villele to power, Chateaubriand accepted the mission to Berlin. While he occupied this post, he won the attachment of the royal family, the confidence of the c 34 NOTICE OP THE Prussian ministers, and the intimate friendship of the Duchess of Cumberland. In 1822, he succeeded M. de Gazes as the representative of France at the court of St. James, and soon afterward crossed the Alps as a delegate to the Congress of Verona. Having distin- guished himself in this assembly by eloquently plead- ing the cause of Greece, and defending the interests of his own country in relation to the Spanish war, he returned to France and became Minister of Foreign Affairs. While he held this station, he succeeded in effecting the intervention of his government in behalf of Ferdinand VII., notwithstanding the opposition of M. de Villele. He could not, however, maintain his position long, with the antipathies of the king and the jealousy of his prime minister against him. He ac- cordingly retired from the cabinet in 1824, and re- entered the ranks of the liberal opposition, of which he soon became the leader. The contributions of his pen to the columns of the Journal des JD^bats allowed not a moment's truce to the ministry. He assailed all the measures of the cabinet; the reduction of rents, the rights of primogeniture, the law of sacrilege, the dissolution of the national guard, all were denounced by him with a vigor and constancy which accom- plished the fall of M. de Villele. Such was the state of things when Louis X V 1 1 1 - was summoned from life ; and Chateaubriand, care- fully distinguishing the cause of the dynasty from that of its ministers, who, according to him, were unworthy of their position, published a pamphlet entitled Le roi est mort, vive le roi! which was a new proof of his de- votedness to the Bourbons. After the inauguration VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 35 of Charles X. and the formation of the Martignac cabi- net, he accepted a mission to Rome, after having de- clined the offer of a ministerial position. Upon the accession, however, of Prince Polignac to the office of Foreign Affairs, he immediately sent in his resigna- tion, and used his influence against the administration. The events which soon followed justified his political views. The fatal ordinances of the government, in July, 1830, against the liberty of the press and the right of suffrage, precipitated a revolution, which re- sulted in the exile of the elder branch of the Bourbons. In this crisis, Chateaubriand made an eloquent protest, in the House of Peers, against the change of dynasty, and advocated with all his ability the recognition of the Duke of Bordeaux and the appointment of a re- gent during his minority; but his efforts were fruit- less, and the Duke of Orleans rose to power, under the name of Louis Philippe. Unwilling to pledge himself to this new state of things, he relinquished his dignity of peer of the realm, with his'public honors and pensions, and retired poor into private life. The following year, however, he was roused from his political slumbers, and he published a pamphlet on the Nouvelle Bestauration, and, in 1832, a Mimoire sur la Capiivite de Madame la Duchesse de Berry, whom he had visited in her prison ; and in 1833 appeared another work, entitled Conclusions. This last produc- tion was seized by the government, and the author was arraigned before the tribunals, but was acquitted by the jury. After a visit to Italy and the south of France, Chateaubriand paid his respects to the family of Charles X., at Prague. On his return to Paris, he 3g NOTICE OF THE took no part in public affairs, and left his domestic privacy only to visit the Abbaye-aux-Bois, where Ma- dame Recamier assembled in her mansion the flower of the old French society. During the remainder of his life, he was occupied in the study of English litera- ture, in writing the Life of the Abbe de Ranee, and pre- paring his Memoms d' Outre- Tombe. The political revo- lution of February, 1848, which hurled Louis Philippe from the throne, did not surprise him, because he had predicted it in 1830. Drawing near to his end when the insurrection of June broke forth at Paris, he spoke with admiration of the heroic death of the archbishop, and, having received the last rites of religion with great sentiments of piety, he expired on the 4th of July, 1848. His remains were conveyed to St. Malo, his native city, and, in compliance with his own re- quest, were deposited in a tomb which the civil autho- rity had prepared for him under a rock projecting into the sea. M. Ampere, in the name of the French Academy, delivered an address on the spot, and the Duke de ISToailles, who succeeded him in that illus- trious society, pronounced his eulogy at a public session held on the 6th of December, 1849. Chateaubriand had rather a haughty bearing, and spoke little. He was fond of praise, and bestowed it liberally upon others. With republican tastes, he de- fended and served the monarchical system as the esta- blished order, and was devoted to the Bourbon dy- nasty as a matter of honor. His political sentiments never changed, and he never ceased to be the advo- cate of enlightened liberty. His religious views once formed, he vindicated them by his writings, and VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBEIAND. 37 honored them in the practice of his life. His disin- terestedness was equal to his genius, and his benefi- cence was continually seconded by that of his wife. They were the founders of the asylum Marie Theresa at Paris, a home for clergymen who are disabled by infirmity. The works of Chateaubriand are : JEssai Historique, Politique, et Moral, sur lesEioolutions Anciennes et Modernes, eonsiderees dans leur rapport avec la Revolution Fran'gaise. Londres, 1797, in 8vo, tome i. In this work, the au- thor, in his attempts to assimilate the events and per- sonages of the French Revolution to those of antiquity, displays more imagination than reflection. The style as well as the substance of the volume betraj^s the youth and inexperience of the writer. He completed this JEssai in 1814, observing that his political views had suffered no change. This was in fact true, as he espoused in his work the principles of constitutional monarchy, to which he had always adhered. To the honor of the author, he did not assert the same irre- ligious sentiments that had appeared in the Essai. These he nobly retracted in a series of notes which he added to the work, without deeming it necessary to expunge the objectionable passages from the context. Atala, ou les Amours de deux Sauvages dans le Desert. Paris, 1801, in 18mo. This little romance has been translated into several languages, and derives a sin- gular charm from the vivid descriptions and impas- sioned sentiments which it contains. Religion, how- ever, has justly censured the too voluptuous character of certain passages, which are unfit for the youth- ful eye. 4 88 NOTICE OF THE Le Ginie du Christianisme; or, The Genius of Chris- tianity. Paris, 1802, 3 vols. 8vo. Of all the works of Chateaubriand, this had the happiest influence upon his age and country. Voltaire and liis school had too well succeeded in representing the dogmas of Christianity as absurd, its ceremonial ridiculous, and its influence hostile to the progress of knowledge. But Chateaubriand, by the magic power of his pen, produced a revolution in public sentiment. Address- ing himself chiefly to the imagination and the heart, he compares the poets, philosophers, historians, orators, and artists of modern times with those of pagan anti- quity, and shows how religion dignifies and improves all that breathes its hallowed inspiration. The inaccu- racies of thought and expression which appeared in the first edition, were corrected in the subsequent issues of the work. Rene, an episode of the Ginie du Christianisme. Paris, 1807, in 12mo. In this fiction the writer depicts the advantages of religious seclusion, by showing the wretchedness of solitude where God is not the sustain- ing thought in the soul of man. Les Martyrs; ou, Le Triomphe de la Religion Chretienne. Paris, 1810, 3 vols, in 8vo. The subject and characters of this work are borrowed from antiquity, sacred and profane. The author proves what he advances in his Genius of Christianity — that religion, far more than mj'thology, ministers to poetic inspiration. The ex- piring civilization of paganism, Christianity emerging from the catacombs, the manners of the first Chris- tians and those of the barbarous tribes of Germanv furnish the author with a varied and interestiuo- theme VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 39 which he presents with all the attractions of the most cultivated style. liiniraire de Paris a Jerusalem, et de Jerusalem cl Paris, ^c. Paris, 1811, 3 vols, in 8vo. This work — one of the most interesting from the pen of the illustrious author — is characterized by beauty and fidelity of de- scription, grand and poetic allusions, a happy choice of anecdote, sound erudition, and a perfect acquaint- ance with antiquity. "With the publication of his travels in the East, Chateaubriand considered his lite- rary life brought to a close, as he soon after entered the career of politics, which continued until the down- fall of Charles X. in 1830.. During that period he published a large number of works, relating chiefly to the political questions of the day. The more important are those entitled De Buona- parte, des Bourbons, ^c, 1814 ; RSfiexions Politiques, 1814 ; Melanges de Politique, 1816; Be la Monarchie selon la Charte, 1816. This treatise may be considered as the political programme of the author, and is divided into two parts. In the first he exposes the principles of re- presentative government, the liberty of thought and of the press, &c. ; and in the second he urges the ne- cessity of guarding against revolutionarj^ license, and points out the rights of the clergy and the popular system of public instruction. In his Etudes Hisioriques, 2 vols. 8vo, 1826, he lays down three kinds of truth as forming the basis of all social order : — religious truth, which is found only in the Christian faith ; philoso- phical truth, or the freedom of the human mind in its efforts to discover and perfect intellectual, moral, and physical science ; political truth, or the union of order \ 40 NOTICE OF THE with liberty. From the alliance, separation, or colli- sion of these three principles, all the facts of history- have emanated. The world's inhabitants he divides into three classes : pagans, Christians, and barbarians ; ajid shows how, in the first centuries of our era, they existed together in a confused way, afterward com- mingled in the medieval age, and finally constituted the society which now covers a vast portion of the globe. During the same year (1826) the author pub- lished his Natchez, 2 vols. 8vo, containing his recollec- tions of America, and Aventures du dernier des Aben- eerages, in 8vo, — a romance not less charming than his Atala, and free from the objectionable character of that publication. The works that came from the author's pen after his retirement into private life, are, besides those mentioned above, Essai sur la Literature Anglaise, ^c, 2 vols. 8vo ; Le Paradis Perdu de Milton: traduction nouvelle, 2 vols. 8vo, 1836 ; Le Congres de Verone, 2 vols. 8vo, 1838 ; Vie de I'Ahbe de Eance, in 8vo, 1844, — rather a picture of the manners of the French court in the seventeenth century than a life of the distinguished Trappist. But the pen of the immortal writer still displays the vigorous and glowing style of his earlier productions, though certain passages criticized by the religious press show that it is not unexceptionable. The Memoires d' Outre- Tomhe, a posthumous work of the author, was published at Paris in ten, and has been reprinted in this country in five volumes. Cha- teaubriand here sketches with a bold hand the picture of his whole life ; a mixture of reverie and action, of misfortune and contest, of glory and humiliation. We see grouping around him all the prominent events of VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 41 contemporaneous history, which he explains and clears up. A remarkable variety exists in the subject-matter and in -the tone of this work. The gayest and most magnificent descriptions of nature often appear side by side with the keenest satire upon society, and the loftiest considerations of philosophy and morals are blended with the most simple narrative. The vanity of human things appears here with striking effect, and the sadness which they inspire becomes still more im- pressive under the touches of that impassioned elo- quence which describes them. At times we discover in the writer the ingenious wit, and the clear, ex- pressive, and eminently French prose, of Voltaire. These Memoires, however, are not faultless. The first part, in which he portrays the dreamy aspirations of his .youth, may prove dangerous to the incautious reader. Critics charge the author with an affectation of false simplicity, with the abuse of neology, and with a puerile vanity in speaking either in his own praise or otherwise. They pretend, also, that the work is overwrought, contains contradictions, and betrays sometimes in the same page the changing impressions of the author. But, whatever the defects of Chateaubriand's style, he is universally allowed by the French of all parties to be their first writer. " He is also," says Alison, " a pro- found scholar and an enlightened thinker. His know- ledge of history and classical literature is equalled only by his intimate acquaintance with the early annals of the Church and the fathers of the Catholic faith; while in his speeches delivered in the Chamber of Peers since the Restoration, will be found not only the 4* 42 NOTICE OF VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. most eloquent, but the most complete and satisfactory, dissertations on the political state of France during that period which are anywhere to be met with Few are aware that he is, without one single excep- tion, the most eloquent writer of the present age; that, independent of politics, he has produced many works on morals, religion, and history, destined for lasting endurance; that his writings combine the strongest love of rational freedom with the warmest inspiration of Christian devotion; that he is, as it were, the link between the feudal and the revolu- tionary ages, retaining from the former its generous and elevated feeling, and inhaling from the latter its acute and fearless investigation. The last pilgrim, with devout feelings, to the holy sepulchre, he was the first supporter of constitutional freedom in France, discarding thus from former times their bigoted fury, and from modern their infidel spirit, blending all that was noble in the ardor of the Crusades with all that is generous in the enthusiasm of freedom."* THE GENIUS OF CHEISTIANITY. DOGMAS AND TENETS. BOOK I. MYSTERIES AND SACRAMENTS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. EvEE since Christianity was first published to the world, it has been continually assailed by three kinds of enemies — ^heretics, sophists, and those apparently frivolous characters who destroy every thing with the shafts of ridicule. Numerous apologists have given victorious answers to subtleties and falsehoods, but they have not been so successful against derision. St. Ignatius of Antioch,* St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons,^ Tertullian, in his Prescriptions,^ which Bossuet calls divine, combated the inno- ^ Ignat. Epiat. ad Smym, He was a disciple of St. Jolm, and Bishop of Antioch about A. D. 70. ^In Hcereaes, Lib. vi. He was a disciple of St. Polycarp, who was taught Christianity by St. John. ■* Tertullian gave the name of Prescriptions to the excellent work he wrote against heretics, and the great argument of which is founded on the antiquity 43 44 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. vators of their time, whose extravagant expositions corrupted the simplicity of the faith. Calumny was first repulsed by Quadratus and Aristides, philo- sophers of Athens. We know, however, nothing of their apo- logies for Christianity, except a fragment of the former, which Eusebius has preserved. * Both he and St. Jerome speak of the work of Aristides as a master-piece of eloquence. The Pagans accused the first Christians of atheism, incest, and certain abominable feasts, at which they were said to partake of the flesh of a new-born infant. After Quadratus and Aris- tides, St. Justin pleaded the cause of the Christians. His_fityle is unadorned, and the circumstances attending his martyrdom prove that he shed his blood for religion with the same sincerity with which he had written in its defence.^ Athenagoras has shown more address in his apology, but he has neither the origi- nality of Justin nor the impetuosity of the author of the Aj)o- logetic.^ Tertullian is the unrefined Bossuet of Africa. St.The- ophilus, in his three books addressed to his friend Autolychus, displays imagination and learning;* and the Octavius of Minu- cius Felix exhibits the pleasing picture of a Christian and two idolaters conversing on religion and the nature of God, during a walk along the sea-shore.= and authority of the Church. It will always be an unanswerable refutation of all innovators that they came too late ; that the Church was already in posses- sion ; and, consequently, that her teaching constitutes the last appeaL Tertul- lian lived in the third century. T. ' This curious fragment carries us up to the time of our SaTiour himself- for Quadratus says, "None can doubt the truth of our Lord's miracles, because the persons healed and raised from the dead had been seen long after their cure- so that many were yet living in our own time." Emeb. Eccles. Hist lib iv K Justin surnamed the Martyr, was a Platonic philosopher before his con- version. He wrote two Defences of the Christians in the Greek language during a violent persecution in the reign of Antoninus, the successor of Adrian. He suffered martyrdom A. B. 167. K. = Athenagoras was a Greek philosopher of eminence, and flourished in the second century He wrote not only an apology, but a treatise on the rcsur- rection, both of which display talents and learning K of'th.'V?'°f"tTr ^ -''7 t ^''"°'''' "°^ °'"''" '^' -""=' l^^-^^d fathers 01 the Church at that period. T. s He flourished at the end of the first century, was Bishop of Antioch and r;:: arrey. '^^ '"' "^^^" "^''^^"'°" "^ ^' -"^-' apoiog";:tThe INTRODUCTION. 45 Arnobius, the rhetorician/ Lactantius/ Eusebius/ and St. Cy- prian,* also defended Christianity; but their efforts were not so much directed to the display of its beauty, as to the exposure of the absurdities of idolatry. Origen combated the sophists, and seems to have had the advantage over Celsus, his antagonist, in learning, argument and style. The Greek of Origen is remarkably smooth; it is, how- ever, interspersed with Hebrew and other foreign idioms, which is frequently the case with writers who are masters of various languages.' During the reign of the emperor Julian^ commenced a perse- cution, perhaps more dangerous than violence itself, which consisted in loading the Christians with disgrace and contempt. Julian began his hostility by plundering the churches; he then forbade the faithful to teach or to study the liberal arts and sciences.' Sensible, however, of the important advantages of the institutions of Christianity, the emperor determined to establish hospitals and monasteries, and, after the example of the gospel system, to combine morality with religion; he ordered a kind of sermons to be delivered in the Pagan temples. ' He was an Avian, and flourished in the third century. In an elaborate work against the Gentiles, he defends the Christians with ability. K. 2 He was a scholar of Arnohius. He completely exposed the absurdity of the Pagan superstitions. So eminent were his talents and learning, that Con- stantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, entrusted the education of hia son Crispus to his care. Such is the elegance of hi» Latin style, that he is called the Christian Cicero, K. 3 He was Bishop of Csesarea, and flourished in the fourth century. He is a Greek writer of profound and various learning. So copious and highly valuable are his works, that he is styled the Father of Ecclesiastical History. Constantine the Great honored him with his esteem and confidence: but he was unfortunately tinctured with Arianism. T. ■■ He was Bishop of Carthage in the third century, a Latin writer of great eloquence, and a martyr for the faith. * Origen flourished in the third century. He was a priest of Alexandria. His voluminous works, written in Greek, prove his piety, active zeal, great abilities, and extensive learning. K. 6 Julian flourished at the close of the fourth century. He became an apos- tate from Christianity, partly on account of his aversion to the family of Con- stantine, who had put several of his relatives to death, and partly on account of the seductive artifices of the Platonic philosophers, who abused his credu- lity and flattered his ambition. K. '.Suoc. iii. ch. 12. 46 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. The sophists, by whom Julian was surrounded, assailed the Christian rehgion with the utmost violence. The emperor him- self did not disdain to combat those whom he styled contemptible Galileans. The work which he wrote has not reached us; but St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, quotes several passages of it in his refutation, which has been preserved. When Julian is serious, St. Cyril proves too strong for him; but when the Em- peror has recourse to irony, the Patriarch loses his advantage. Julian's style is witty and animated; Cyril is sometimes passion- ate, obscure, and confused. From the time of Julian to that of Luther, the Church, flourishing in full vigor, had no occasion for apologists ; but when the western schism took place, with new enemies arose new defenders. It cannot be denied that at first the Protestants had the superiority, at least in regard to forms, as Montesquieu has remarked. Erasmus himself was weak when opposed to Luther, and Theodore Beza had a_captivating_in3iLaer of writing, in which his opponents were too often deficient. When Bossuet at length entered the lists, the victory remained not long undecided; the hydra of heresy was once more over- thrown. His Exposition de la Doctrine Catholique and His- ' toire des Variations, are two master-pieces, which will descend to posterity. It is natural for schism to lead to infidelity, and for heresy to engender atheism. Bayle and Spinosa arose after Calvin, and they found in Clarke and Leibnitz men of sufficient talents to refute their sophistry. Abbadie wrote an apology for religion, remarkable for method and sound argument. Unfortunately his style is feeble, though his ideas are not destitute of brilliancy. "If the ancient philosophers," observes Abbadie, "adored the Virtues, their worship was only a beautiful species of idolatry." While the Church was yet enjoying her triumph, Voltaire renewed the persecution of Julian. He possessed the baneful art of making infidelity fashionable among a capricious but amiable people. Every species of self-love was pressed into this insensate league. Religion was attacked with every kind of weapon, from the pamphlet to the folio, from the epigram to the sophism. No sooner did a religious book appear than the author was overwhelmed with ridicule, while works which Voltaire was the first to laugh at among his friends were extolled to the .skies. INTRODUCTION. 47 _Suo]i was Hs superiority over his disciples, that sometimes he could not forbear diverting himself with their irreligious enthu- siasm. Meanwhile the destructive system continued to spread throughout France. It was first adopted in those provincial aca- demies, each of which was a focus of bad taste and faction. Women of fashion and grave philosophers alike read lectures on " infidelity. It was at length concluded that Christianity was no better than a barbarous system, and that its fall could not happen too soon for the liberty of mankind, the promotion of knowledge, the improvement of the arts, and the general comfort of life. To say nothing of the abyss into which we were plunged by this aversion to the religion of the gospel, its immediate conse- quence was a return, more afiected than sincere, to that mytho- logy of Greece and Rome to which all the wonders of antiquity were ascribed.* People were not ashamed to regret that worship which had transformed mankind into a herd of madmen, mon- sters of indecency, or ferocious beasts. This could not fail to inspire contempt for the writers of the age of Louis XIV., who, however, had reached the high perfection which distinguished them, only by being religious. If no one ventured to oppose th^m face to face, on account of their firmly-established reputa- tion, they were, nevertheless, attacked in a thousand indirect ways. It was asserted that they were unbelievers in their hearts; or, at least, that they would have been much greater characters had they lived in our times. Every author blessed his good fortune for having been born in the glorious age of the Diderots and d'Alemberts, in that age when all the attainments of the human mind were ranged in alphabetical order in the Encyclopedie, that Babel of the sciences and of reason.^ Men distinguished for their intelligence and learning endea- vored to check this torrent; but their resistance was vain. Their voice was lost in the clamors of the crowd, and their victory was unknown to the frivolous people who directed public opinion in France, and upon whom, for that reason, it was highly necessary to make an impression.' ^ The age of Louis XIV., though it knew and admired antiquity more than we, wa3 a Christian age. 2 See note A at the end of the volume. ■^ The LettreB de quelques Juifa Portugais had a momentary success, but it 48 GENIUS OF CHEISTIANITY. Thus, tlie fatality whicli had given a triumph to the sophists duriug the reigiTof Julian, made them victorious in our times. The dp.fcndors of the Christians fell into an error which had before undone them : they did not perceive that the question was no longer to discuss this or that particular tenet, since the very foundation on which these tenets were built was rejected by their opponents. By starting from the mission of Jesus Christ, and descending from one consequence to another, they established the truths of faith on a solid basis ; but this mode of reasoning, which might have suited the seventeenth century extremely well, when the groundwork was not contested, proved of no use in our days. It was necessary to pursue a contrary method, and to ascend from the effect to the cause ; not to prove that the Chris- tian religion, is excellent because it comes from God, hut that it comes from God because it is excellent. They likewise committed another error in attaching import- ance to the serious refutation of the sophists ; a class of men whom it is utterly impossible to convince, because they are always in the wrong. They overlooked the fact that these people are never in earnest in their pretended search after truth ; that they esteem none but themselves ; that they are not even attached to their own system, except for the sake of the noise which it makes, I and are ever ready to forsake it on the first change of public opinion. For not having made this remark, much time and trouble were thrown away by those who undertook the vindication of Christianity. Their object shovild have been to reconcile to religion, not the sophists, but those whom they were leading astray. They had been seduced by being told that Christianity was the offspring of barbarism, an enemy of the arts and sciences, of reason and refinement ; a religion whose only tendency was to encourage bloodshed, to enslave mankind, to diminish their happiness, and to retard the progress of the human under- standing. It was, therefore, necessary to prove that, on the contrary, the Christian religion, of all the religions that ever existed, is the most humane, the most favorable to liberty and to the arts and waa soon lost sight of ia the irreligious storm that was gathering over France. INTRODUCTION. 49 sciences; that the modern world is iidebted to it for every im- provement, from agriculture to the abstract sciences — from the hospitals for the reception of the unfortunate to the temples reared by the Michael Angelos and embellished by the Ka- phaels. It was necessary to prove that nothing is more divine than its morality — nothing more lovely and more sublime than its tenets, its doctrine, and its worship; that it encourages genius, corrects the taste, develops the virtuous passions, imparts energy to^ the ideas, presents noble images to the writer, and perfect models to the artist; that there is no disgrace in being believers with Newton and Bossuet, with Pascal and Eacine. In a word, it was necessary to summon all the charms of the imagination, and all the interests of the heart, to the assistance of that reli- gion against which they had been set in array. The reader may now have a clear view of the object of our work. All other kinds of apologies are exhausted, and perhaps they would be useless at the present day. Who would now sit down to read a work professedly theological ? Possibly a few sincere Christians who are already convinced. But, it may be asked, may there not be some danger in considering religion in a merely human point of view? Why so? Does our religion shrink from the light ? Surely one great proof of its divine origin is, that it will bear the test of the fullest and severest i scrutiny of reason. Would you have us always open to the re- proach of enveloping our tenets in sacred obscurity, lest their falsehood should be detected ? Will Christianity be the less true for appearing the more beautiful ? Let us banish our weak apprehensions ; let us not, by an excess of religion, leave religion to perish. We no longer live in those times when you might say, " Believe without inquiring." People will inquire in spite of us; and our timid silence, in heightening the triumph of the infidel, will diminish the number of believers. It is time that the world should know to what all those charges of absurdity, vulgarity, and meanness, that are daily alleged against Christianity, may be reduced. It is time to demonstrate, that, instead of debasing the ideas, it encourages the soul to take the most daring flights, and is capable of enchanting the imagi- nation as divinely as the deities of Homer and Virgil. Our arguments will at least have this advantage, that they will be 5 D GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. 50 intelligible to the world at large, and will require nothing but common sense to determine their weight and strength In works of this kind authors neglect, perhaps rather too much, to speak the language of their readers. It is necessary to be a scholar with a scholar, and a poet with a poet. The Almighty does not forbid us to tread the flowery path, if it sei>ves to lead the wanderer once more to him ; nor is it always by the steep and rugged mountain that the lost sheep finds its way back to the fold. We think that this mode of considering Christianity displays associations of ideas which are but imperfectly known. Sublime in the antiquity of its recollections, which go back to the crea- tion of the world, inefi'able in its mysteries, adorable in its sacraments, interesting in its history, celestial in its morality, rich and attractive in its ceremonial, it is fraught with every species of beauty. Would you follow it in poetry? Tasso, Mil- ton, Corneille, Racine, Voltaire, will depict to you its miraculous effects. In the belles-lettres, in eloquence, history, and philoso- phy, what have not Bossuet, F^nelon, Massillon, Bourdaloue, Bacon, Pascal, Euler, Newton, Leibnitz, produced by its divine inspiration ! In the arts, what master-pieces ! If you examine it in its worship, what ideas are suggested by its antique Gothic churches, its admirable prayers, its impressive ceremonies ! Amono' its clergy, behold all those scholars who have handed down to you the languages and the works of Greece and Rome ; all those anchorets of Thebais ; all those asylums for the unfor- tunate; all those missionaries to China, to Canada, to Paraguay; not forgetting the military orders whence chivalry derived its origin. Every thing has been engaged in our cause — the man- ners of our ancestors, the pictures of days of yore, poetry, even romances themselves. We have called smiles from the cradle, and tears from the tomb. Sometimes, with the Maronite monk, we dwell on the summits of Carmel and Lebanon; at others we watch with the Daughter of Charity at the bedside of the sick. Here two American lovers summon us into the recesses of their deserts;^ there we listen to the sighs of the virgin in the solitude 9 , ' The author alludes to the very beautiful and pathetic tale of Atala, or The Love and Constancy of Two Savages in the Desert, which was at first introduced ' into the present work, but was afterward detached from it. T. NATURE OF MYSTERIES. 51 of the cloister. Homer takes his place by Milton, and Virgil beside Tasso ; the ruins of Athens and of Memphis form con- trasts with the ruins of Christian monuments, and the tombs of Ossian with our rural churchyards. At St. Dennis we visit the ashes of kings; and when our subject requires us to treat of the existence of God, we seek our proofs in the wonders of Nature alone. In short, we endeavor to strike the heart of the infidel in every possible way ; but we dare not flatter ourselves that we possess the miraculous rod of religion which caused living streams to burst from the flinty rock. Four parts, each divided into six books, compose the whole of our work. The first, treats of dogma and doctrine. The second and third comprehend the poetic of Christianity, or its con- nection with poetry, literature, and the arts. The fourth em- braces its worship, — that is to say, whatever relates to the ceremo- nies of the Church, and to the clergy, both secular and regular. We have frequently compared the precepts, doctrines, and worship of other religions with those of Christianity ; and, to gra- tify all classes of readers, we have also occasionally touched upon the historical and mystical part of the subject. Having thus stated the general plan of the work, we shall now enter upon that portion of it which treats of Dogma and Doctrine, and, as a preliminary step to the consideration of the Christian mysteries, we shall institute an inquiry into the nature of mysterious things in general CHAPTER n. OP THE NATURE OP MYSTERIES. There is nothing beautiful, pleasing, or grand in life, but that which is more or less mysterious. The most wonderful sen- timents are those which produce impressions difficult to be explained. Modesty, chaste love, virtuou.s friendship, are full of secrets. It would seem that half a word is sufficient for the mutual understanding of hearts that love, and that they are, as it were, disclosed to each other's view. Is not innocence, also. 52 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. which is nothing but a holy ignorance, the most inefiable of mys- teries? If infancy is so happy, it is owing to the absence of knowledge ; and if old age is so wretched, it is because it knows every thing; but, fortunately for the latter, when the mysteries of life are at an end, those of death commence. What we say here of the sentiments may be said also of the virtues : the most angelic are those which, emanating immedi- ately from God, such as charity, studiously conceal themselves, like their source, from mortal view. If we pass to the qualities of the mind, wo shall find that the pleasures of the understanding are in like manner secrets. Mys- tery is of a nature so divine, that the early inhabitants of Asia conversed only by symbols. What science do we continually apply, if not that which always leaves something to be conjec- tured, and which sets before our eyes an unbounded prospect ? If we wander in the desert, a kind of instinct impels us to avoid the plains, where we can embrace every object at a single glance; we repair to those forests, the cradle of religion, — those forests whose shades, whose sounds, and whose silence, are full of won- ders, — those solitudes, where the first fathers of the Church were fed by the raven and the bee, and where those holy men tasted such inexpressible delights, as to exclaim, " Enough, Lord ! I will be overpowered if thou dost not moderate thy divine com- munications." We do not pause at the foot of a modern monu- ment; but if, in a desert island, in the midst of the wide ocean, we come all at once to a statue of bronze, whose extended arm points to the regions of the setting sun, and whose base, covered with hieroglyphics, attests the united ravages of the billows and of time, what a fertile source of meditation is here opened to the traveller ! There is nothing in the universe but what is hidden, but what is unknown. Is not man himself an inexplicable mys- tery? Whence proceeds that flash of lightning which we call existence, and in what night is it about to be extinguished? The Almighty has stationed Birth and Death, under the form of veiled phantoms, at the two extremities of our career; the one produces the incomprehensible moment of life, which the other uses every exertion to destroy. Considering, then, the natural propensity of man to the mys- terious, it cannot appear surprising that the religions of all na- CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 53 tions should have had their impenetrable secrets. The Selli studied the miraculous words of the doves of Dodona ;' India, Persia, Ethiopia, Scythia, the Gauls, the Scandinavians, had their caverns, their holy mountains, their sacred oaks, where the Brahmins, the Magi, the Gymnosophists, or the Druids, pro- claimed the inexplicable oracle of the gods. Heaven forbid that we should have any intention to compare these mysteries with those of the true religion, or the inscrutable decrees of the Sovereign of the Universe with the changing ambiguities of gods, "the work of human hands. "^ We merely wished to remark that there is no religion without mysteries; these, with sacrifices, constitute the essential part of worship. God himself is the great secret of Nature. The Divinity was represented veiled in Egypt, and the sphinx was seated upon the threshold of the temples.' CHAPTER III. OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. The Trinity. We perceive at the first glance, that, in regard to mysteries, the Christian religion has a great advantage over the religions of antiquity. The mysteries of the latter bore no relation to man, and afforded, at the utmost, but a subject of reflection to the philosopher or of song to the poet. Our mysteries, on the oon- • They were an ancient people of Epirus, and lived near Dodona. At that place there was a celebrated temple of Jupiter. The oracles were said to be delivered from it by doves endowed with a hum.in voice. Herodotus relates that a priestess was brought hither from Egypt by the Phcenicians ; so the story of the doves might arise from the ambiguity of the Greek term rkXra, which signifies a dove, in the general language, but in the dialect of Epirus it means an aged woman. K. 2 Wisdom, ch. xiii. v. 10. ' The Sphinx, a monstrous creature of Egyptian invention, was the just em- blem of mystery, as, according to the Grecian mythology, she not only infested Boeotia with her depredations, but perplexed its inhabitants, not famed for their acuteness, with her enigmas. K. 5« 54 GENIUS OF CHKISTIANITY. trary, speak directly to tlie heart; they comprehend the secrets of our existence. The question here is not about a futile ar- rangement of numbers, but concerning the salvation and felicity of the human race. Is it possible for man, whom daily expe- rience so fully convinces of his ignorance and frailty, to reject the mysteries of Jesus Christ ? They are the mysteries of the un- fortunate ! The Trinity, which is the first mystery presented by the Christian faith, opens an immense field for philosophic ^ study, whether we consider it in the attributes of God, or examine the vestiges of this dogma, which was formerly difi'used throughout the East. It is a pitiful mode of reasoning to reject whatever we cannot comprehend. It would be easy to prove, beginning even with the most simple things in life, that we know absolutely nothing; shall we, then, pretend to penetrate into the depths of divine Wisdom? The Trinity was probably known to the Egyptians. The Greek inscription on the great obelisk in the Circus Major, at Home, was to this effect : — Mlyaq 0eot;, The Mighty God; deoyivr^Toc;, the Begotten of God ; najxfsyyr,';, the All-Resplendent, (Apollo, the Spirit.) Heraclides of Pontus, and Porphyry, record a celebrated oracle of Serapis: — Tviupvra dq Tpia Trajra, Kal ct's tv t6vTa. •'In the beginning was God, then the Word and the Spirit; all three produced together, and uniting in one." The Magi had a sort of Trinity, in their Metris, Oromasis, and Araminis; or Mitra, Oramases, and Arimane. Plato seems to allude to this incomprehensible dogma in seve- ral of his works. "Not only is it alleged," says Dacier, "that he had a knowledge of the Word, the eternal Son of God, but it is also asserted that he was acquainted with the Holy Ghost, and thus had some idea of the Most Holy Trinity; for he writes as follows to the younger Dionysius : — " ' I must give Arohedemus an explanation respecting what is infinitely more important and more divine, and what you are ex- tremely anxious to know, since you have sent him to me for the express purpose; for, from what he has told me, you are of opi- CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 55 nion that I have not sufficiently explained what I think of the nature of the first principle. I am obliged to write to you in enigmas, that, if my letter should he intercepted either by land or sea, those who read may not be able to understand it. All things are around their king; they exist for him, and he alone is the cause of good things — second for such as are second, and third for those that are third.'' "In the Epinomis, and elsewhere, he lays down as principles the first good, the word or the understanding, and the soul. The first good is God; the word, or the understanding, is the Son of this first good, by whom he was begotten like to himself; and the soul, which is the middle term between the Father and the Son, is the Holy Ghost."^ Plato had borrowed this doctrine of the Trinity from Timseus, the Locrian, who had received it from the Italian school. Mar- silius Fioinus, in one of his remarks on Plato, shows, after Jam- blichus, Porphyry, Plato, and Maximus of Tyre, that the Pytha- goreans were acquainted with the excellence of the number Three. Pythagoras intimates it in these words: Uporiiia to a-^TiliOL, xal ^TfiJ-a xai Tptd>^oXuv ; "Honor chiefly the habit, the judgment-seat, and the triobolus," (three oboli.) The doctrine of the Trinity is known in the East Indies and in Thibet. " On this subject," says Father Galamette, " the most remarkable and surprising thing that I have met with is a pas- sage in one of their books entitled Lamaastambam. It begins thus : ' The Lord, the good, the great God, in his mouth is the Word.' The term which they employ personifies the Word. It then treats of the Holy Ghost under the appellation of the Wind, or Perfect Spirit, and concludes with the Creation, which it attributes to one single God."^ "What I have learned," observes the same missionary in an- other place, "respecting the religion of Thibet, is as follows : They call God Konciosa, and seem to have some idea of the adorable Trinity, for sometimes they term him Koncikocick, the one God, ' This passage of Plato, which the author could not verify, from its having been incorrectly qxioted by Dacier, may be found in Plato Serrani, tome i. p. 312, letter the second to Dionysius. The letter is supposed to be genuine. K, 2 CEuvree de Platan, trad, par Dacier, tome 1. p. 194 3 Lettrea edif., tome siv. p. 9. 56 GENIUS OF CIIEISTIAKITY. and at ofhers Konciohmm, which is equivalent to the Triune God. They make use of a kind of ohaplet, over which they pronounce the words, om, ha, hum. When you ask what these mean, they reply that the first signifies intelligence, or arm, that is to say, power; that the second is the word; that the third is the heart, or love; and that these three words together signify God."» The English missionaries to Otaheite have found some notion of the Trinity among the natives of that island.'^ Nature herself seems to furnish a kind of physical proof of the Trinity, which is the archetype of the universe, or, if you wish, its divine frame-work. May not the external and material world bear some impress of that invisible and spiritual arch which sus- tains it, according to Plato's idea, who represented corporeal things as the shadows of the thoughts of God ? The number Three is the term by excellence in nature. It is not a product itself, but it produces all other fractions, which led Pythagoras to call it the motherless number.^ Some obscure tradition of the Trinity may be discovered even in the fables of polytheism. The Graces took it for their num- ber; it existed in Tartarus both for the life and death of man and for the infliction of celestial vengeance ; finally, three bro- ther gods" possessed among them the complete dominion of the universe. The philosophers divided the moral man into three parts; and the Fathers imagi.ied that they discovered the image of the spiritual Trinity in the human soul. ' Lctiree edif., torn. xii. p. 437. 2 " The three deities which they hold supreme are— 1. Tane, te Medooa, the Father. 2. Oromattow, God in the Son. 3. Taroa, the Bird, the Spirit." Appendix to the Miasionnry Voyage p 333 K 3 Hier Comm. in Pytlu The 3, a simple number itself, is the only one com- posed of simples, and that gives a simple number when decomposed We can form no complex number, the 2 excepted, without the 3. The form.ations of the 3 are beautiful, and embrace that powerful unity which is the first link in the chain of numbers, and is everywhere exhibited in the universe The an cents very frequently applied numbers in a metaphysical sense, and we should not be too hasty ,n condemning it as folly in Pythagoras, Plato, and the Egyptian priests, from whom they derived this science. * That is, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. K. CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 57 "If we impose silence on our senses," gays the great Bossuet, "and retire for a short time into the recesses of our soul, that is to say, into that part where the voice of truth is heard, we shall there perceive a sort of image of the Trinity whom we adore. Thought', which we feel produced as the offspring of our mind, as the son of our understanding, gives us some idea of the Son of God, conceived from all eternity in the intelligence of the celestial Father. For this reason this Son of God assumes the name of the Word, to intimate that he is produced in the hosom of the Father, not as bodies are generated, but as the inward voice that is heard within our souls there arises when we contem- plate truth. " But the fecundity of the mind does not stop at this inward voice, this intellectual thought, this image of the truth that is formed within us. We love both this inward voice and the intelligence which gives it birth ; and while we love them, we feel within us something which is not less precious to us than intelligence and thought, which is the fruit of both, which unites them and unites with them, and forms with them but one and the same existence. " Thus, as far as there can be any resemblance between God and man, is produced in God the eternal Love which springs from the Father who thinks, and from the Son who is his thought, to constitute with him and his thought one and the same nature, equally happy and equally perfect."' What a beautiful commentary is this on that passage of Gene- sis : " Let us make inan !" TertuUian, in his Apology, thus expresses himself on this great mystery of our religion : " God created the world by his word, his reason, and his, power. You philosophers admit that the Logos, the word and reason, is the Creator of the universe. The Christians merely add that the proper substance of the ivord and reason — that substance by which God produced all things — is spirit; that this word must have been pronounced by God ; that having been pronounced, it was generated by him ; that con- sequently it is the Son of God, and God by reason of the unity of substance. If the sun shoots forth a ray, its substance is not ' Bossuet, HiBi. Univ., sec. i. p. 243. 58 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. separated, but extended. Thus the "Word is spirit of a spirit, and God of God, like a light kindled at another light. Thus, whatever proceeds from God is God, and the two, with their spirit, form but one, differing in properties, not in number ; in order, not in nature : the Son having sprung from his prin- ciple without being separated from it. Now this ray of the Divinity descended into the womb of a virgin, invested itself with flesh, and became man united with God. This flesh, sup- ported by the spirit, was nourished; it grew, spoke, taught, acted; it was Christ." This proof of the Trinity may be comprehended by persons of the simplest capacity. It must be recollected that Tertullian was addressing men who persecuted Christ, and whom nothing would have more highly gratified than the means of attacking the doctrine, and even the persons, of his defenders. We shall pursue these proofs no farther, but leave them to those who have studied the principles of the Italic sect of philosophers and the higher department of Christian theology. As to the images that bring under our feeble senses the most sublime mystery of religion, it is difficult to conceive how the awful triangular fire, resting on a cloud, is unbecoming the dig- nity of poetry. Is Christianity less impressive than the heathen mythology, when it represents to us the Father under the form of an old man, the majestic ancestor of ages, or as a brilliant effusion of light ? Is there not something wonderful in the con- templation of the Holy Spirit, the sublime Spirit of Jehovah, under the emblem of gentleness, love, and innocence? Doth God decree the propagation of his word? The Spirit, then, ceases to be that Dove which overshadowed mankind with the wings of peace; he becomes a visible word, a tongue of fire, which speaks all the languages of the earth, and whose eloquence creates or overthrows empires. To delineate the divine Son, we need only borrow the words of the apostle who beheld him in his glorified state. He was seated on a throne, says Sf. John in the Apocaljfpse ; his face shone like the sun in his strength, and his feet like fine brass melted in a furnace. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword. In his right hand he held seven stars, and in his left a book sealed with seven REDEMPTION. 59 seals : his voice was as the sound of many waters. The seven spirits of God burned before him, like seven lamps ; and he went forth from his throne attended by lightnings, and voices, and thunders. CHAPTER IV. OF THE REDEMPTION. As the Trinity comprehends secrets of the metaphysical kind, so the redemption contains the wonders of man, and the inex- plicable history of his destination and his heart. Were we to pause a little in our meditations, with what profound astonish- ment would we contemplate those two great mysteries, which conceal in their shades the primary intentions of God and the system of the universe ! The Trinity, too stupendous for our feeble comprehension, confounds our thoughts, and we shrink back overpowered by its glory. But the affecting mystery of the redemption, in filling our eyes with tears, prevents them from being too much dazzled, and allows us to fix them at least for a moment upon the cross. We behold, in the first place, springing from this mysteiy, the doctrine of originaljinj^hich explains the whole nature of man. Unless we admit this truth, known by tradition to all nations, we become involved in impenetrable darkness. Without original sIq, how shall we account for the vicious propensity of our nature continually combated by a secret voice which whispers that we were formed for virtue ? Without a primitive fall, how shall we explain the aptitude of man for affliction — that sweat which fertilizes the rugged soil ; the tears, the sorrows, the misfortunes of the- righteous ; the triumphs, the unpunished success, of the wicked ? It was because they were unacquainted with this de- generacy, that the philosophers of antiquity fell into such strange errors, and invented the notion of reminiscence. To be con- vinced of the fatal truth whence springs the mystery of redemp- tion, we need no other proof than the malediction pronounced against Eve, — a malediction which is daily accomplished before 60 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. our eyes. How significant are the pangs, and at the same time the ioys, of a mother ! What mysterious intimations of man and his twofold destiny, predicted at once by the pains and pleasures of child-birth ! We cannot mistake the views of the Most High, when we behold the two great ends of man in the labor of his mother; and we are compelled to recognise a God even in a malediction. After all, we daily see the son punished for the father, and the crime of a villain recoiling upon a virtuous descendant, which proves but too clearly the doctrine of original sin. But a God of clemency and indulgence, knowing that we should all have perished in consequence of this fall, has interposed to save us. Frail and guilty mortals as we all are, let us ask, not our under- standings, but our hearts, how a God could die for man. If this perfect model of a dutiful son, if this pattern of faithful friends, if that agony in Gethsemane, that bitter cup, that bloody sweat, that tenderness of soul, that sublimity of mind, that cross, that veil rent in twain, that rock cleft asunder, that darkness of na- ture — in a word, if that God, expiring at length for sinners, cau neither enrapture our heart nor inflame our understanding, it is greatly to be feared that our works will never exhibit, like those of the poet, the " brilliant wonders" which attract a high and just admiration. " Images," it may perhaps be urged, " are not reasons ; and we live in an enlightened age, which admits nothing without proof." That we live in an enlightened age has been doubted by some; but we would not be surprised if we were met with the foregoing objection. When Christianity was attacked by serious argu- ments, they were answered by an Origen, a Clark, a Bossuet. Closely pressed by these formidable champions, their adversaries endeavored to extricate themselves by reproaching religion with those very metaphysical disputes in which they would involve us. They alleged, like Arius, Celsus, and Porphyry, that Christianity is but a tissue of subtleties, offering nothing to the imagination and the heart, and adopted only by madmen and simpletons. But if any one comes forward, and in reply to these reproaches en- deavors to show that the religion of the gospel is the religion of the soul, fraught with sensibility, its foes immediately exclaim, REDEMPTION. 61 " "Well, and what does that prove, except that you are more or less skilful in drawing a picture ?" Thus, when you attempt to work upon the feelings, they require axioms and corollaries. If, on the other hand, you begin to reason, they then want nothing but sentiments and images. It is difficult to close with such versatile enemies, who are never to be found at the post where they challenge you to fight them. We shall hazard a few words on the subject of the redemption, to show that the theology of the Christian religion is not so absurd as some have aifected to consider it. A universal tradition teaches us that man was created in a f more perfect state than that in which he at present exists, and j that there has been a fall. This tradition is confirmed by the t opinion of philosophers in every age and country, who have never i been able to reconcile their ideas on the subject of moral man, j without supposing a primitive state of perfection, from which \ human nature afterward fell by its own fault. j If man was created, he was created for some end : now, having been created perfect, the end for which he was destined could not be otherwise than perfect. But has the final cause of man been changed by his fall ? No ; since man has not been created anew, nor the human race exterminated to make room for another. Man, therefore, though he has become mortal and imperfect through his disobedience, is still destined to an immortal and perfect end. But how shall he attain this end in his present state of imperfection ? This he can no longer accomplish by his own energy, for the same reason that a sick man is incapable of raising himself to that elevation of ideas which is attainable by a person in health. There is, therefore, a disproportion between the power, and the weight to be raised by that power; here we already perceive the necessity of succor, or of a redemption. " This kind of reasoning," it may be said, "will apply to the first man ; but as for us, we are capable of attaining the ends of our existence. What injustice and absurdity, to imagine that we should all be punished for the fault of our first parent !" With- out undertaking to decide in this place whether God is right or wrong in making us sureties for one another, all that we know, and all that it is necessary for us to know at present, is, that such GENIUS OF CHEISTIANITY. 62 a law exists. We know that the innocent son universally suffers the punishment due to the guilty father; that this law is so in- terwoven in the principles of things as to hold good even m the physical order of the universe. When an infant comes into the world diseased from head to foot from its father's excesses, why do you not complain of the injustice of nature ? What has this little innocent done, that it should endure the punishment of another's vices ? Well, the diseases of the soul are perpetuated like those of the body, and man is punished in his remotest posterity for the fault which introduced into his nature the first leaven of sin. The fall, then, being attested by general tradition, and by the transmission or generation of evil, both moral and physical, and, on the other hand, the ends for which man was designed being now as perfect as before his disobedience, notwithstanding his own degeneracy, it follows that a redemption, or any expedient whatever to enable man to fulfil those ends, is a natural conse- quence of the state into which human nature has fallen. The necessity of redemption being once admitted, let us seek the order in which it may be found. This order may be con- sidered either in man, or above man. 1. In man. The supposition of a redemption implies that thejpric^e must be at least equivalent to the thing to.be redeemed. Now, how is it to be imagined that imperfect and mortal man , could have offered himself, in order to regain a perfect and im- t mortal end ? How could man, partaking himself of the primeval sin, have made satisfaction as well for the portion of guilt which belonged to himself, as for that which attached to the rest ; of the human family? Would not such self-devotion have re- ; quired a love and virtue superior to his nature ? Heaven seems purposely to have suffered four thousand years to elapse from ithe fall to the redemption, to allow men time to judge, of them- I selves, how very inadequate their degraded virtues were for such a sacrifice. We have no alternative, then, but the second supposition, namely, that the redemption could have proceeded only from a being superior to man. Let us examine if it could have been accomplished by any of the intermediate beings between him and Grod. REDEMPTION. 63 It was a beautiful idea of Milton^ to represent the Almiglity announcing the fall to the astonished heavens, and asking if any of the celestial powers was willing to devote himself for the sal- vation of mankind. All the divine hierarchy was mute; and among so many seraphim, thrones, dominations, angels, and arch- angels, none had the courage to make so great a sacrifice. No- thing can be more strictly true in theology than this idea of the poet's. What, indeed, could have inspired the angels with that unbounded love for man which the mystery of the cross supposes ? Moreover, how could the most exalted of created spirits have possessed strength sufficient for the stupendous task ? No angelic substance could, from the weakness of its nature, have taken up- on itself those sufferings which, in the language of Massillon, accumulated upon the head of Christ all the physical torments that might be supposed to attend the punishment of all the sins committed since the beginning of time, and all the moral anguish, all the remorse, which sinners must have experienced for crimes committed. If the Son of Man himself found the cup bitter, how could an angel have raised it to his lips? Oh, no; he never could have drunk it to the dregs, and the sacrifice could not have been consummated. We could not, then, have any other redeemer than one of the three persons existing from all eternity; and among these three persons of the Grodhead, it is obvious that the Son alone, from his very nature, was to accomplish the great work of salvation. Love which binds together all the parts of the universe, the 1 Say, heavenly powers, where shall we find such love Which of you will be mortal to redeem Man's mortal crime? and just, th' unjust to save? Dwells in all heaven charity so dear? He ask'd, but all the heavenly choir stood mute, And silence was in heaven ; on man's behalf Patron or intercessor none appear'd j Much less that durst upon his own head draw The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set. And now without redemption all mankind Must have been lost, adjudged to death and hell, By doom severe, had not the Son of God, In whom the fulness dwells of love divine, His dearest mediation thus renew'd. Paradise Lost, b. iii., 1. 213. K. 64 GENIUS OF CHEISTIANITY. Mean which unites the extremes, Vivifying Principle of nature, he alone was capable of reconciling God with man. This second Adam came; — man according to the flesh, by his birth of Mary; a man of sanctity by his gospel; a man divine by his union with the Godhead. He was horn of a virgin, that he might be free from original sin and a victim without spot and without blemish. He received life in a stable, in the lowest of human conditions, because we had fallen through pride. Here commences the depth of the mystery; man feels an awfuLemotipn, and the_sc£iie_cl2ges. Thus, the end for which we were destined before the disobedi- ence of our first parents is still pointed out to us, but the way to secure it is no longer the same. Adam, in a state of innocence, would have reached it by flowery paths : Adam, in his fallen condition, must cross precipices to attain it. Nature has under- gone a change since the fall of our first parents, and redemption was designed, not to produce a new creation, but to purchase final salvation for the old. Every thing, therefore, has remained de- generate with man; and this sovereign of the universe, who, created immortal, was destined to be exalted, without any change of existence, to the felicity of the celestial powers, cannot now enjoy the presence of God till, in the language of St. Chrysostom, he has passed through the deserts of the tomb. His soul has been rescued from final destruction by the redemption; but his body, combining with the frailty natural to matter the weakness consequent on sin, undergoes the primitive sentence in its utmost extent: he falls, he sinks^ he passes into dissolution. Thus God, after the fall of our first parents, yielding to the entreaties of his Son, and unwilling to destroy the whole of his work, invented death, as a demi-annihilation, to fill the sinner with horror of that complete dissolution to which, but for the wonders of celestial love, he would have been inevitably doomed. We venture to presume, that, if there be any thing clear in metaphysics, it is this chain of reasoning. There is here no wresting of words; there are no divisions and subdivisions, no obscure or barbarous terms. Christianity is not made up of such. things as the sarcasms of infidelity would fain have us imagine. To the poor in spirit the gospel has been preached, and by the poor in spirit it has been heard: it is the plainest book that exists. Its doctrine has not its seat in the head, but in the REDEMPTION. 65 heart ; it teaches not the art of disputation, but the way to lead a virtuous life. Nevertheless, it is not without its secrets. What is truly ineffable in the Scripture is the continual mixture of the profoundest mysteries and the utmost simplicity — characters whence spring the_j^thetic and the sublime. We should no longer be surpris§d,~tKen7' that the work of Jesus Christ speaks so eloquently. Such, moreover, are the truths of our re- ligion, notwithstanding their freedom from scientific parade, that the admission of one single point immediately compels you to admit all the rest. Nay, more : if you hope to escape by deny- ing the principle, — as, for instance, original sin, — you will soon, driven from consequence to consequence, be obliged to precipi- tate yourself into the abyss of atheism. The moment you acknow- ledge a God, the Christian religion presents itself, in spite of you, with all its doctrines, as Clarke and Pascal, have observed. This, in our opinion, is one of the strongest evidences in favor of Christianity. In short, we must not be astonished if he who causes millions of worlds to roll without confusion over our heads, has infused such harmony into the principles of a religion instituted by him- self; we need not be astonished at his making the charms and the glories of its mysteries revolve in the circle of the most con- vincing logic, as he commands those planets to revolve in their orbits to bring us flowers and storms in their respective seasons. We can scarcely conceive the reason of the aversion" shown by the present age for Christianity. If it be true, as some philoso- - phers have thought, that some religion or other is necessary for mankind, what system would you adopt instead of the faith of our forefathers ? Long shall we remember the days when men of blood pretended to erect altars to the, VirtueSj on the ruins of Christianity.* With one hand they reared scaffolds; with the other, on the fronts of our temples they inscribed Eternity to Grod and Death to man; and those temples, where once was found that God who is acknowledged by the whole universe, and where devotion to Mary consoled so many afflicted hearts, — those temples were dedicated to Truth, which no man knows, and to Reason, which never dried a tear. ' The author alludes to the disastrous tyranny exercised by Eobespierre over the deluded French people. K. 6* E 65 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. CHAPTEK V. or THE INCARNATION. The Incarnation exhibits to us the Sovereign of Heaven among shepherds; him who hurls the thunderbolt, wrapped in swaddling-clothes; him whom the heavens cannot contain, con- fined in the womb of a virgin. Oh, how antiquity would have expatiated in praise of this wonder! What pictures would a Homer or a Virgil have left us of the Son of God in a manger, of the songs of the shepherds, of the Magi conducted by a star, of the angels descending in the desert, of a virgin mother ador- ing her new-born infant, and of all this mixture of innocence, enchantment, and grandeur ! Setting aside what is direct and sacred in our mysteries, we would still discover under their veils the most beautiful truths_in nature. These secrets of heaven, apart from~ their mystical character, are perhaps the prototype of the moral and physical laws of the world. The hypothesis is well worthy the glory of God, and would enable us to discern why he has been pleased to manifest himself in these mysteries rather than in any other mode. Jesus Christ, for instance, (or the moral world,) in taking our nature upon him, teaches us the prodigy of the phy- sical creation, and represents the universe framed in the bosom of celestial love. The parables and the figures of this mystery then become engraved upon every object around us. Strength, in fact, universally proceeds from grace; the river issues from the spring; the lion is first nourished with milk like that which is sucked by the lamb ; and lastly, among mankind, the Almighty has promised ineffable glory to those who practise the humblest virtues. They who see nothing in the chaste Queen of angels but an obscure mystery are much to be pitied. What touching thoughts are suggested by that mortal woman, become the immortal mother of a Saviour-God ! What might not be said of Mary, who is at once a virgin and a mother, the two most glorious cha- racters of woman! — of that youthful daughter of ancient Israel, BAPTISM. ' 67 who presents terself for the relief of human suffering, and sacri- fices a son for the salvation of her paternal race ! This tender mediatrix between us and the Eternal, with a heart full of com- passion for our miseries, forces us to confide in her maternal aid, and disarms the vengeance of Heaven. What an enchant- ing dogma, that allays the terror of a God by causing beauty to intervene between our nothingness and his Infinite Majesty ! The anthems of the Church represent the Blessed Mary seated upon a pure-white throne, more dazzling than the snow. We there behold her arrayed in splendor, as a mystical rose, or as the morning-star, harbinger of the Sun of grace : the brightest an- gels wait upon her, while celestial harps and voices form a ravishing concert around her. In that daughter of humanity we behold the refuge of sinners, the comforter of the afflicted, who, all good, all compassionate, all indulgent, averts from us the anger of the Lord. Mary is the refuge of innocence, of weakness, and of misfor- tune. The faithful clients that crowd our churches to lay their homage at her feet are poor mariners who have escaped ship- wreck under her protection, aged soldiers whom she has saved from death in the fierce hour of battle, young women whose bitter griefs she has assuaged. The mother carries her babe be- fore her image, and this little one, though it knows not as yet the God of Heaven, already knows that divine mother who holds an infant in her arms. CHAPTEE VI. OF THE SACEAMENTS. Baptism. If the mysteries overwhelm the mind by their greatness, we experience a different kind of astonishment, but perhaps not less profound, when we contemplate the sacraments of the Church. The whole knowledge of man, in his civil and moral relations, is implied in these institutions. gg GEXIUS OF CHKISTLVXITT. Baptism is the first of the sacraments which religion confere upon man, and, in the language of the apostle, clothes him with Jesus Christ. This sacred rite reminds us of the corruption in which we were born, of the pangs that gave us birth, of the tribulations which await us in this worid. It teaches us that our sins-will recoil upon our children, and that we are all sureties for each other — an awful lesson, which alone would suffice, if duly pondered, to establish the empire of virtue among men. Behold the new convert standing amid the waves of Jordan ! the hermit of the rock pours the lustral water upon his head; while the patriarchal river, the camels on its banks, the temple of Jerusalem, and the cedars of Libanus, seem to be arrested by the solemn rite. Or, rather, behold the infant child before the sacred font! A joyous family surround him; in his behalf they renounce sin, and give him the name of his grandfather, which is thus renewed by love from generation to generation. Already the father hastens to take the child in his arms, and to carry it home to his impatient wife, who is counting under her curtains each sound of the baptismal bell. The relatives assemble; tears of tenderness and of religion bedew every eye; the new name of the pretty infant, the ancient appellative of its ancestor, passes from mouth to mouth; and every one, mingling the recollections of the past with present joys, discovers the fancied resemblance of the good old man in the child that revives his memory. Such are the scenes exhibited by the sacrament of baptism; but Ee- ligion, ever moral and ever serious, even when the most cheerful smile irradiates her countenance, shows us also the son of a king, in his purple mantle, renouncing the pomps of Satan at the same font where the poor man's child appears in tatters, to abjure those vanities of the world which it will never know.^ We find in St. Ambrose a curious description of the manner in which the sacrament of baptism was administered in the first ages of the Church.^ Holy Saturday was the day appointed for the ceremony. It commenced with touching the nostrils and ^ That is, the outward pomp of this world ; but the poor as well as the ricli must renounce all inordinate aspiration after the vain show of this world. T. 2 Ambr., de Mysi. Tertullian, Origen, St. Jerome, and St. Augustin, speak less in detail of this ceremony than St Ambrose. The triple immersion and the touching of the nostrils, to which we allude here, are mentioned in the six books on the Sacraments which are falsely attributed to this father. BAPTISM. 69 opening the ears of the catechumen, the pereon officiating at the same time pronouncing the word ephpheta, which signifies, le opened. He was then conducted into the holy of holies. In the presence of the deacon, the priest, and the bishop, he re- nounced the works of the Devil. He turned toward the west, the image of darkness, to abjure the world; and toward the east, the emblem of light, to denote his alliance with Jesus Christ. The bishop then blessed the water, which, according to St. Ambrose, indicated all the mysteries of the Scripture, — the Creation, the Deluge, the Passage of the Eed Sea, the Cloud, the Waters of Mara, Naaman, and the Pool of Bethsaida. The water having been consecrated by the sign of the cross, the cate- chumen was immersed in it three times, in honor of the Trinity, and to teach him that three things bear witness in baptism — water, blood, and the Holy Spirit. On leaving the holy of holies, the bishop anointed the head of the regenerated man, to signify that he was now consecrated as one of the chosen race and priestly nation of the Lord. His feet were then washed, and he was dressed in white garments, as a type of innocence, after which he received, by the sacrament of confirmation, the spirit of di- vine fear, of wisdom and intelligence, of counsel and strength, of knowledge and piety. The bishop then pronounced, with a loud voice, the words of the apostle, "God the Father hath marked thee with his seal. Jesus Christ our Lord hath confirmed thee, and given to thy heart the earnest of the Holy Ghost." The new Christian then proceeded to the altar to receive the bread of angels, saying, " I will go to the altar of the Lord, of God who rejoices my youth." At the sight of the altar, covered with vessels of gold and silver, with lights, flowers, and silks, the new convert exclaimed, with the prophet, " Thou hast spread a table for me; it is the Lord who feeds me; I shall know no want, for he hath placed me in an abundant pasture." The ceremony concluded with the celebration of the mass. How august must have been the solemnity, at which an Ambrose gave to the inno- cent poor that place at the table of the Lord which he refused to a guilty emperor 1' ^ Theodosius, by whose command great numbers of tbe inhabitants of Thes- Balonica were put to death for an insurrection. For this sanguinary deed, St. Ambrose, then bishop of Milan, refused to admit him into the Church until he 70 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. If there be not, in this first act of the life of a Christian, a di- vine combination of theology and morality, of mystery and sim- plicity, never will there be in religion any thing divine. But, considered in a higher relation, and as a type of the mys- tery of our redemption, baptism is a bath which restores to the soul its primeval vigor. We cannot recall to mind without deep regret the beauty of those ancient times, when the. forests were not silent enough, nor the caverns sufiiciently solitary, for the be- lievers who repaired thither to meditate on the mysteries of reli- gion. Those primitive Christians, witnesses of the renovation of the world, were occupied with thoughts of a very different kind from those which now bend us down to the earth, — us Christians who have grown old in years, but not in faith. In those times, wis- dom had her seat amid rocks and in the lion's den, and kings went forth to consult the anchorite of the mountain. Days too soon passed away ! There is no, longer a St. John in the desert, nor will there be poured out again upon the new convert those waters of the Jordan which carried off all his stains to the bosom of the ocean. Baptism is followed by confession; and the Church, with a prudence peculiar to her, has fixed the time for the reception of this sacrament at the age when a person becomes capable of sin, which is that of seven years. All men, not excepting philosophers themselves, whatever may have been their opinions on other subjects, have considered the sacrament of penance as one of the strongest barriers against vice, and as a master-piece of wisdom. "How many restitutions and reparations," says Rousseau, "does not confession produce among Catholics !"i According to Voltaire, "confession is a most excel- lent expedient, a bridle to guilt, invented in the remotest anti- quity : it was practised at the celebration of all the ancient mys- teries. We have imitated and sanctified this wise custom, which has a great influence in prevailing on hearts burning with resent- ment to forgive one another."^ had performed a canonical penance. The emperor having remonstrated, and cited the e.xample of King David, who had committed murder and adultery, the Saint answered, "As you have imitated him in his crime, imitate him in his penance." Upon which Theodosius humhly submitted. T. ' ^miL, tome iii. p. 201, note. . 2 Quest. Encyclop., tome iii. p. 234, under the head Om-i de Campagne, sect. ii. THE HOLY COMMUNION. 71 Without this salutary institution, the sinner would sink into despair. Into what bosom could he unburden his heart ? Into that of a friend ? Ah ! who can rely upon the friendship of men ? Will he make the desert his confidant ? The desert would inces- santly reverberate in the guilty ear the sound of those trumpets which Nero fancied he heard around the tomb of his mother.* When nature and our fellow-creatures show no mercy, how de- lightful is it to find the Almighty ready to forgive! To the Christian religion alone belongs the merit of having made two sisters of Innocence and Repentance. CHAPTEE VII. OP THE HOLY COMMUNION. At the age of twelve years, and in the gay season of spring, the youth is admitted for the first time to a union with his God. After having wept with the mountains of Sion over the death of the world's Redeemer, after having commemorated the darkness which covered the earth on that tragic occasion, Christendom throws aside her mourning; the bells commence their merry peals, the images of the saints are unveiled, and the domes of the churches re-echo with the song of joy — with the ancient alle- luia of Abraham and of Jacob. Tender virgins clothed in white, and boys bedecked with foliage, march along a path strewed with the first flowers of the year, and advance toward the temple of religion, chanting new canticles, and followed by their overjoyed parents. Soon the heavenly victim descends upon the altar for the refreshment of those youthful hearts. The bread of angels is laid upon the tongue as yet unsullied by falsehood, while the priest, partakes, under the species of wine, of the blood of the im- maculate Lamb. In this solemn ceremony, God perpetuates the memory of a bloody sacrifice by the most peaceful symbols. With the immea- surable heights of these mysteries are blended the recollections ' Tacit., Hist. 7 GEXIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. of tbe most pleasing scenes. Nature seems to revive with her Creator, and the angel of spring opens for her the doors of the tomh, like the spirit of light who rolled away the stone from the glorious sepulchre. The age of the tender communicants and that of the infant year mingle their youth, their harmonies, and their innocence. The hread and wine announce the approaching maturity of the products of the fields, and bring before us a pic- ture of agricultural life. In fine, God descends into the souls of these young believers to bring forth his chosen fruits, as he de- scends at this season into the bosom of the earth to make it pro- duce its flowers and its riches. But, you will ask, what signifies that mystic communion, in which reason submits to an ahsurdity, without any advantage to the moral man? To this objection I will first give a general an- swer, which will apply to all Christian rites : that they exert the highest moral influence, because they were practised by our fathers, because our mothers were Christians over our cradle, and because the chants of religion were heard around the coffins of our ancestors and breathed a prayer of peace over their ashes. Supposing, however, that the Holy Communion were but a puerile ceremony, those persons must be extremely blind who can- not perceive that a solemnity, which must be preceded by a con- fession of one's whole life, and can take place only after a long series of virtuous actions, is, from its nature, highly favorable to morality. It is so to such a degree, that, were a man to partake worthily but once a month of the sacrament of the Eucharist, that man must of necessity be the most virtuous person upon earth. Transfer this reasoning from the individual to society in general, from one person to a whole nation, and you will find that the Holy Communion constitutes a complete system of legislation. "Here then are people," says Voltaire, an authority which will not be suspected, "who partake of the communion amid an august ceremony, by the light of a hundred tapers, after solemn music which has enchantr.d their senses, at the foot of an altar resplendent with gold. The imagination is subdued and the soul powerfully affected. We scarcely breathe; we forget all earthly considerations : we are united with God and he is incor- porated with us. Who durst, who could, after this, be guilty of a single crime, or only conceive the idea of one? It would THE HOLY COMMUNION. 73 indeed be impossible to devise a mystery capable of keeping men more effectually within tbe bounds of virtue."^ The Eucharist was instituted at the last supper of Christ with his disciples; and we call to our aid the pencil of the artist, to express the beauty of the picture in which he is represented pro- nouncing the words, This is my hody. Pour things here require attention. First, In the material bread and wine we behold the conse- cration of the food of man, which comes from God, and which we receive from his bounty. Were there nothing more in the Communion than this offering of the productions of the earth to him who dispenses them, that alone would qualify it to be com- pared with the most excellent religious customs of Greece. Secondly, The Eucharist reminds us of the Passover of the Is- raelites, which carries us back to the time of the Pharaohs; it announces the abolition of bloody sacrifices; it represents also the calling of Abraham, and the first covenant between God and man. Every thing grand in antiquity, in history, in legislation, in the sacred types, is therefore comprised in the communion of the Christian. Thirdly, The Eucharist announces the reunion of mankind into one great family. It inculcates the cessation of enmities, natural equality, and the commencement of a new law, which will make no distinction of Jew or Gentile, but invites all the children of Adam to sit down at the same table. Pourthly, The great wonder of the Holy Eucharist is the real presence of Christ under the consecrated species. Here the soul must transport itself for a moment to that intellectual world which was open to man before the fall. When the Almighty had created him to his likeness, and ani- mated him with the breath of life, he made a covenant with him. Adam and his Creator conversed together in the solitude of the garden. The covenant was necessarily broken by the disobedi- ence of the father of men. The Almighty could no longer com- municate with death, or spirituality with matter. Now, be- tween two things of different properties there cannot be a point * Questions sur V Encyclopedicj tome iv. "Were we to express ourselves as forcibly as Voltaire here does, we would be looked upon as a fanatic. 7 74 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. of contact except by means of something intermediate. The first effort which divine love made to draw us nearer to itself, was m the calling of Abraham and the institution of sacrifices— types announcing to the world the coming of the Messiah. ^ The Sa- viour, when he restored us to the ends of our creation, as we have observed on the subject of the redemption, reinstated us in our privileges, and the highest of those privileges undoubtedly was to communicate with our Blaker. But this communication could no longer take place immediately, as in the terrestrial para- dise: in the first place, because our origin remained polluted; and in the second, because the body, now an heir of death, is too weak to survive a direct communication with God. A medium was therefore required, and this medium the Son has furnished. He hath given himself to man in the Eucharist; he hath become the sublime way by which we are again united with Him from ' whom our souls have emanated. But if the Son had remained in his primitive essence, it is evi- dent that the same separation would have continued to exist here below between God and man; since there can be no union be- tween purity and guilt, between an eternal reality and thedream of human life. But the Word condescended to assume our na- ture and to become like us. On the one hand he is united to his Father by his spirituality, and on the other, to our flesh by his humanity. He is therefore the required medium of approxi- mation between the guilty child and the compassionate Father. Represented by the symbol of bread, he is a sensible object to the corporeal eye, while he continues an intellectual object to the eye of the soul ; and if he has chosen bread for this purpose, it is be- cause the material which composes it is a noble and pure emblem of the divine nourishment. If this sublime and mysterious theology, a few outlines only of which we are attempting to trace, should displease any of our readers, let them but remark how luminous are our metaphysics when compared with the system of Pythagoras, Plato, Timseus, Aristotle, and Epicurus. Here they meet with none of those abstract ideas for which it is necessary to create a language unin- telligible to the mass of mankind. To sum up what we have said on this subject, we see, in the first place, that the Holy Communion displays a beautiful ceremo- CELIBACY UNDER ITS MORAL ASPECT. 75 nial ; that it inculcates morality, because purity of heart is essen- tial in those who partake of it ; that it is an offering of the pro- duce of the earth to the Creator, and that it commemorates the sublime and affecting history of the Sou of man. Combined with the recollection of the Passover and of the first covenant, it is lost in the remoteness of time; it reproduces the earliest ideas of man, in his religious and political character, and denotes the original equality of the human race. Finally, it comprises the mystical history of the family of Adam, their fall, their restora- tion, and their reunion with God. CHAPTER Vni. CONFIRMATION, HOLT ORDERS, AND MATRIMONY. * Gdihacy considered under its Moral Aspect. In considering the period of life which religion has fixed for the nuptials of man and his Creator, we find a subject of per- petual wonder. At the time when the fire of the passions is about to be kindled in the heart, and the mind is sufiioiently capable of knowing God, he becomes the ruling spirit of the youth, pervading all the faculties of his soul in its now restless and expanded state. But dangers multiply as he advances ; a stranger cast without experience upon the perilous ways of the world, he has need of additional helps. At this crisis religion does not forget her child: she has her reinforcements in reserve. Confirmation will support his trembling steps, like the staff in the hands of the traveller, or like those sceptres which passed from race to race among the royal families of antiquity, and on which Evander and Nestor, pastors of men, reclined while judging their people. Let it be observed that all the morality of life is implied in the sacrament of Confirmation; because whoever has the courage to confess God will necessarily practise virtue, as the commission of crime is nothing but the denial of the Creator. 76 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANIIT. The same wise spirit has been displayed in placing the sacra- ments of Holy Orders and Matrimony immediately after that of Confirmation. The child has now become a man, and religion, that watched over him with tender solicitude in the state of na- ture, will not abandon him in the social sphere. How profound are the views of the Christian legislator ! He has established only two social sacraments, if we may be allowed this expression, because, in reality, there are but two states in life — celibacy and marriage. Thus, without regard to the civil distinctions invented by our short-sighted reason, Jesus Christ divided society into two classes, and decreed for them, not political, but moral laws, acting in this respect in accordance with all antiquity. The old sages of the East, who have acquired such a wide-spread fame, did not call men together at random to hatch Utopian constitutions. They were venerable solitaries, who had travelled much, and who cele- brated with the lyre the remembrance of the gods. Laden with the rich treasure of information derived from their intercourse with foreign nations, and still richer by the virtues which they practised, those excellent men appeared before the multitude with the lute in hand, their hoary locks encircled with a golden crown, and, seating themselves under the shade of the plane- tree, they delivered their lessons to an enchanted crowd. What were the institutions of an Amphion, a Cadmus, an Orpheus ? They consisted in delightful music called Imo, in the dance, the hymn, the consecrated tree ; they were exhibited in youth under the guidance of old age, in matrimonial faith plighted near a grave. Keligion and God were everywhere. Such are the scenes which Christianity also exhibits, but with much stronger claims to our admiration. Principles, however, are always a subject of disagreement among men, and the wisest institutions have met with opposition. Thus, in modern times, the vow of celibacy which accompanies the reception of Holy Orders has been denounced in no mea- sured terms. Some, availing themselves of every means of as- sailing religion, have imagined that they placed her in opposition to herself by contrasting her present discipline with the ancient practice of the Church, which, according to them, permitted the marriage of the clergy. Others have been content with making the chastity of the priesthood the object of their raillery. Let CELIBACY UNDER ITS MORAL ASPECT. 77 us examine, first, the views of tliose who have assailed it with seriousness and on the ground of morality. By the seventh canon of the second Council of Lateran,* held in 1139, the celibacy of the clergy was definitely established, in accordance with the regulations of previous synods, as those of Lateran in 1123, Tresis in 909, Tribur in 895, Toledo in 633, and Chalcedon in 451.^ Baronius shows that clerical celibacy was in force generally from the sixth century.^ The first Council of Tours excommunicated any priest, deacon, or sub-deacon, who returned to his wife after the reception of Holy Orders. From the time of St. Paul, virginity was considered the more perfect state for a Christian. But, were we to admit that marriage was allowed among the clergy in the early ages of the Church, which cannot be shown either from history or from ecclesiastical legislation, it would not follow that it would be expedient at the present day. Such an innovation would be at variance witTi the manners of our times, and, moreover, would lead to the total subversion of ecclesiastical discipline. In the primitive days of religion, a period of combats and triumphs, the followers of Christianity, comparatively few in number and adorned with every virtue, lived fraternally together, and shared the same joys and the same tribulations at the table of the Lord. We may conceive, therefore, that a minister of religion might, strictly speaking, have been permitted to have a family amid this perfect society, which was already the domestic circle for him. His own children, forming a part of his flock, would not have diverted him from the attentions due to the re- mainder of his charge, nor would they have exposed him to betray the confidence of the sinner, since in those days there were no crimes to be concealed, the confession of them being made pub- licly in those basilics of the dead where the faithful assembled to pray over the ashes of the martyrs. The Christians of that age had received from heaven a spirit which we have lost. They • This was the tenth general council, at whioli one thousand bishops were present. T. 2 The fourth general council, numhering between five and six hundred bishops. T. 3 Baron., An. 88, No. 18. 7* 78 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. formed not so muoli a popular assembly as a community of Levites and religious women. Baptism had made them all priests and confessors of Jesus Christ. St. Justin the philosopher, in his first Apology, has given us an admirable description of the Christian life in those times. " "We are accused," he says, " of disturbing the tranquillity of the state, while we are taught by one of the principal articles of our faith that nothing is hidden to the eye of God, and that he will one day take a strict account of our good and evil deeds. But, powerful Emperor, the very punishments which you have de- creed against us only tend to confirm us in our religion, because all this persecution was predicted by our Master, the son of the sovereign God, Father and Lord of the universe. "On Sunday, those who reside in the town and country meet together. The Scriptures are read, after which one of the an- cients* exhorts the people to imitate the beautiful examples that have been placed before them. The assembly then rises; prayer is again offered up, and water, bread, and wine being presented, the ofiioiating minister gives thanks, the others answering Amen. A portion of the consecrated elements is now distributed, and the rest is conveyed by the deacons to those who are absent. A col- lection is taken ; the rich giving according to their disposition. These alms are placed in the hands of the minister, for the as- sistance of widows, orphans, sick persons, prisoners, poor people, strangers ; in short, all who are in need, and the care of whom devolves especially upon the minister. We assemble on Sunday, because on that day God created the world, and the same day his Son arose to life again, to confirm his disciples in the doctrine which we have exposed to you. "If you find this doctrine good, show your respect for it; if not, reject it. But do not condemn to punishment those who commit no crime ; for we declare to you that, if you continue to act unjustly, you will not escape the judgment of God. For the rest, whatever be our faith, we desire only that the will of God be done. We might have claimed your favorable regard in con- ' That is, a priest. In the first ages, the word npmSvTepo; or ancient was very treqnently used to signify a bishop or priest, set apart by ordination for the ministry of the Church : it was afterwards employed solely to designate the priestly order. T. CELIBACY UNDER ITS MORAL ASPECT. sequence of the letter of your' father, Cassar Adrian, of illustrious and glorious memory; but we have preferred to rely solely upon the justice of our cause."' The Apology of Justin was well calculated to take the world by surprise ; for it proclaimed a golden age in the midst of a cor- rupt generation, and pointed out a new people in the catacombs of an ancient empire. The Christian life must have appeared the more admirable in the public eye, as such perfection had never before been known, harmonizing with nature and the laws, and on the other hand forming a remarkable contrast with the rest of society. It is also invested with an interest which is not to be found in the fabulous excellence of antiquity, because the latter is always depicted in a state of happiness, while the former presents itself through the charms of adversity. It is not amid the foliage of the woods or at the side of the fountain that virtue exerts her greatest power, but under the shade of the prison-wall or amid rivers of blood and tears. How divine does religion appear to us when, in the recess of the catacomb or in the silent darkness of the tomb, we behold a pastor who is surrounded by ' danger, celebrating, by the feeble glare of his lamp and in pre- sence of his little flock, the mysteries of a persecute'd God ! We have deemed it necessary to establish incontestably this high moral character of the first Christians, in order to show that, if the marriage of the clergy was considered unbecoming in that age of purity, it would be altogether impossible to introduce it at the present day. When the number of Christians increased, and morality was weakened with the difiusion of mankiod, how could the priest devote himself at the same time to his family and to the Church? How could he have continued chaste with a spouse who had ceased to be so ? If our opponents object the prac- tice of Protestant countries, we will observe that it has been ne- cessary in those countries to abolish a great portion of the external worship of religion ; that a Protestant minister appears in the church scarcely two or three times a week ; that almost all spi- ritual relations have ceased between him and his flock, and that very often he is a mere man of the world.' As to certain Puri- ' Justin, Apolog., edit. Marc, fol. 1742. See note B. ' " It was no trivial misfortune," says Dr. King, " for the cause of Christianity in England, that at the period of our separation from popery the clergy were 80 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. tanical sects that affect an evangelical simplicity, and wisli to have a relip:ion without a worship, we hope that they will be passed over in silence. Finally, in those countries where the marriage of the clergy is allowed, the confession of sin, which is the most admirable of moral institutions, has been, and must necessarily have been, discontinued. It cannot be supposed that the Chris- tian would confide the secrets of his heart to a man who has already made a woman the depositary of his own ; and he would, with reason, fear to make a confidant of him who has proved faithless to God, and has repudiated the Creator to espouse the creature. We will now answer the objection drawn from the general law of population. It seems to us that one of the first natural laws that required abrogation at the commencement of the Christian era, was that which encouraged population beyond a certain limit. The age of Jesus Christ was not that of Abraham. The latter appeared at a time when innocence prevailed and the earth was but sparsely inhabited. Jesus Christ, on the contrary, came into the midst of a world that was corrupt and thickly settled. Con- tinence, therefore, may be allowed to woman. The second Eve, in curing the evils that had fallen upon the first, has brought down virginity from heaven, to give us an idea of the purity and joy which preceded the primeval pangs of maternity. The Legislator of the Christian world was born of a virgin, and died a virgin. Did he not wish thereby to teach us, in a political and natural point of view, that the earth had received its complement of inhabitants, and that the ratio of generation, allowed to marry j for, as might have been foreseen, our ecclesiastics since that time have occupied themselves solely with their wives and their children. The dignitaries of the Church could easily provide for their families with the aid of their large revenues ; but the inferior clergy, unable with their slender incomes to establish their children in the world, soon spread over the kingdom swarms of mendicants As a member of the republic of letters, I have often desired the re-enactment of the canons that prohibited marriage among the clergy. To episcopal celibacy we are indebted for all tho magnificent grants that distinguish our two universities : but since the period of the Keformation those two seats of learning have had few benefactors among the members of the hierarchy. If the rich donations of Laud and Sheldon have an eternal claim to our gratitude, it must be remembered that these two prelates were never married," &c. — Political and Literary Anecdotes, &c., Edinburgh Review, July, 1819. T. CELIBACY UNDER ITS MORAL ASPECT. 81 far from being extended, should be restricted ? In support of this opinion, we may remark that states never perish from a want, but from an excess, of population. The barbarians of the North spread devastation over the globe when their forests became overcrowded ; and Switzerland has been compelled to transfer a portion of her industrious inhabitants to other countries, as she pours forth her abundant streams to render them productive. Though the number of laborers has been greatly diminished in France, the cultivation of the soil vpas never more flourishing than at the present time. Alas ! we resemble a swarm of insects buzzing around a cup of wormwood into which a few drops of honey have accidentally fallen ; we devour each other as soon as our numbers begin to crowd the spot that we occupy ! By a still greater misfortune, the more we increase, the more land we re- quire to satisfy our wants ; and as this space is always diminish- ing, while the passions are extending their sway, the most fright- ful revolutions must, sooner or later, be the consequence.^ Theories, however, have little weight in the presence of facts. Europe is far from being a desert, though the Catholic clergy within her borders have taken the vow of celibacy. Even mo- nasteries are favorable to society, by the good management of the religious, who distribute their commodities at home, and thus afford abundant relief to the poor. Where but in the neighbor- hood of some rich abbey, did we once behold in France the com- .fortably dressed husbandman, and laboring people whose joyful countenances betokened their happy condition ? Large possessions always produce this effect in the hands of wise and resident proprietors ; and such precisely was the character of our monastic domains. But this subject would lead us too far. We shall return to it in treating of the religious orders. We will remark, how- ever, that the clergy have been favorable to the increase of popu- lation, by preaching concord and union between man and wife, checking the progress of libertinism, and visiting with the de- nunciations of the Church the crimes which the people of the cities directed to the diminution of children. There can be no doubt that every great nation has need of men who, separated from the rest of mankind, invested with some I Note C. F 82 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. august character, and free from the encumbrances of wife, children, and other worldly affairs, may labor effectually for the advance- ment of knowledge, the improvement of morals, and the relief of human suffering. What wonders have not our priests and religious accomplished in these three respects for the good of society? But place them in charge of a family: would not the learning and charity which they have consecrated to their country be turned to the profit of their relatives ? Happy, indeed, if by this change their virtue were not transformed into vice ! Having disposed of the objections which moralists urge against clerical celibacy, we shall endeavor to answer those of the poets ; but for this purpose it will be necessary to employ other argu- ments, to adduce other authorities, and to write in a different style. CHAPTEK IX. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED — ^HOLY ORDERS. Most of the sages of antiquity led a life of celibacy ; and the Gymnosophists, the Brahmins, and the Druids, held chastity in the highest honor. Even among savage tribes it is invested with a heavenly character; because in all ages and countries there has prevailed but one opinion respecting the excellence of vir- ginity. Among the ancients, priests and priestesses, who were supposed to commune intimately with heaven, were obliged to live as solitaries, and the least violation of their vows was visited with a signal punishment. They offered in sacrifice only the heifer that had never been a mother. The loftiest and most attractive characters in mythology were virgins. Such were Venus, Urania, and Minerva, goddesses of genius and wisdom, and Friendship, who was represented as a young maiden. Vir- ginity herself was personified as the moon, and paraded her mys- terious modesty amid the refreshing atmosphere of night. Virginity is not less amiable, considered in its various other relations. In the three departments of nature, it is the source of grace and the perfection of beauty. The poets whom we are HOLY ORDERS. 83 now seeking to convince will readily admit wtat we say. Do tliey not themselves introduce everywhere the idea of virginity, as lending a charm to their descriptions and representations ? Do they not find it in the forest-scene, in the vernal rose, in the winter's snow ? and do they not thus station it at the two extre- mities of life — on the lips of childhood and the gray locks of aged man? Do they not also blend it with the mysteries of the tomb, telling us of antiquity that consecrated to the manes seed- less trees, because death is barren, or because in the next life there is no distinction of sex, and the soul is an immortal virgin ? Finally, do they not tell us that the irrational animals which ap- proach the nearest to human intelligence are those devoted to chastity? Do we not seem, in fact, to recognise in the bee-hive the model of those monasteries, where vestals are busily engaged in extracting a celestial honey from the flowers of virtue ? In the fine arts, virginity is again the charm, and the Muses owe to it their perpetual youth. But it displays its excellence chiefly in man. St. Ambrose has composed three treatises on virginity, in which he has scattered with a profuse hand the ornaments of style, — his object, as he informs us, being to gain the attention of virgins by the sweetness of his words.' He terms virginity an exemption from every stain, and shows that the tranquillity which attends it is far superior to the cares of matrimonial life. He addresses the virgin in these words : "The modesty which tinges your cheeks renders you exceedingly beau- tiful. Retired far from the sight of men, like the rose in some solitary spot, your charms form not the subject of their false surmises. Nevertheless, you are still a competitor for the prize of beauty; not that indeed which falls under the eye, but the beauty of virtue — that beauty which no sickness can disfigure, no age can diminish, and not death itself can take away. God alone is the umpire in this rivalry of virgins, because he loves the beautiful soul, even in a body that is deformed A virgin is the gift of heaven and the joy of her family. She exercises under the paternal roof the priesthood of chastity; she is a victim daily immolated for her mother at the altar of filial piety."» » De Virgin., lib. ii. ch. 1. ^ ibid., lib. i. ch. 5. 84 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. In man, virginity assumes the character of sublimity. When, in the fierce rebellion of the passions, it resists the invitation to evil, it becomes a celestial virtue. "A chaste heart," says St. Bernard, "is by virtue what an angel is by nature. There is more felicity in the purity of the angel, but there is more courage in that of the man." In the religious, virginity transforms itself into humanity : witness the fathers of the Kedemption and the orders of Hospitallers, consecrated to the relief of human misery. The learned man it inspires with the love of study; the hermit with that of contemplation : in all it is a powerful principle, whose beneficial influence is always felt in the labors of the mind, and hence it is the most excellent quality of life, since it imparts fresh vigor to the soul, which is the nobler part of our nature. But if chastity is necessary in any state, it is chiefly so in the ', service of the divinity. "God," as Plato observes, "is the true 1 standard of things, and we should make every effort to resemble i him." He who ministers at his altar is more strictly obliged to this than others. "The question here," says St. Chrysostom, "is not the government of an empire or the command of an army, but the performance of functions that require an angelic virtue. The soul of the priest should be purer than the rays of the sun." " The Christian minister," adds St. Jerome, " is the interpreter between God and man." The priest, therefore, must be a divine personage. An air of holiness and mystery should surround him. Ketired within the sacred gloom of the temple, let him be heard without being perceived by those without. Let his voice, solemn, grave, and religious, announce the prophetic word or chant the hymn of peace in the holy recesses of the tabernacle. Let his visits among men be transient; and if he appear amid the bustle of the world, let it be only to render a service to the unhappy." It is on these conditions that the priest will enjoy the respect and confidence of his people. But he will soon forfeit both if he be seen in the halls of the rich, if he be encumbered with a wife if he be too familiar in society, if he betray faults which are condemned in the world, or if he lead those around him to sus- pect for a moment that he is a man like other men. Chastity in old age is something superhuman. Priam, ancient as mount Ida and hoary as the oak of Gargarus, surrounded in his palace by his fifty sons, presents a noble type of paternity; MATRIMONY. 85 but Plato, without wife and children, seated on the steps of a temple at the extremity of a cape lashed by the waves, and there lecturing to his disciples on the existence of God, exhibits a far more elevated character. He belongs not to the earth ; he seems to be one of those spirits or higher intelligences of whom he speaks in his writings. Thus, virginity, ascending from the last link in the chain of beings up to man, soon passes from man to the angels, and from the angels to God, in whom it is absorbed. God reigns in a glory- unique, inimitable in the eternal firmament, as the sun, his image, shines with unequalled splendor in the visible heavens. We may conclude, that poets and men even of the most refined taste can make no reasonable objection to the celibacy of the priesthood, since virginity is among the cherished recollections of the past, is one of the charms of friendship, is associated with the solemn thought of the tomb, with the innocence of child- hood, with the enchantment of youth, with the charity of the religious, with the sanctity of the priest and of old age, and with the divinity in the angels and in God himself. CHAPTER X. SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED — MATRIMONY. Europe owes also to Christianity the few good laws which it possesses. There is not, perhaps, a single contingency in civil affairs for which provision has not been made by the canon law, the fruit of the experience of fifteen centuries and of the genius of the Innocents and the Gregories. The wisest emperors and kings, as Charlemagne and Alfred the Great, were of opinion that they could not do better than to introduce into the civil code a part of this ecclesiastical code, which contains the essence of • the Levitical law, the gospel, and the Roman jurisprudence. What an edifice is the Church of Christ ! How vast ! how wonderful ! In elevating marriage to the dignity of a sacrament, Jesus 85 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. Christ has shown us, in the first place, the great symbol of his union with the Church. When we consider that matrimony is the axis on which the whole social economy revolves, can we suppose it to he ever sufficiently sacred, or too highly admire the wisdom of him who has stamped it with the seal of religion ? The Church has made every provision for so important a step in life. She has determined the degrees of relationship within which matrimony is allowable. The canon law/ which determines the degree of consanguinity by the number of generations from the parent stock, has forbidden marriage within the fourth gene- ration ; while the civil law, following a double mode of computa- tion, formerly prohibited it only within the second degree. Such was the Arcadian law, as inserted in the Institutes of Justinian.^ But the Church, with her accustomed wisdom, has been governed in this by the gradual improvement of popular manners.^ In the first ages of Christianity, marriage was forbidden within the seventh degree of consanguinity; and some Councils, as that of Toledo in the sixth century, prohibited without exception all alliances between members of the same family.* The spirit that dictated these laws is worthy of the pure reli- gion which we profess. The pagan world was far from imitating this chastity of the Christian people. At Eome, marriage was permitted between cousins-german ; and Claudius, in order to marry Agrippina, enacted a law which allowed an uncle to form an alliance with his niece.' By the laws of Solon, a brother could marry his sister by the mother's side.^ ' Concil. Lat., an. 1205 2 De Nj,p(.^^ yj, jq 3 Concil. Duziac, an. 814. The canon law was necessarily modified according to the manners of the different nations — Goths, Vandals, English, Franks, Bur- gundians — who entered successively into the Church. •> Can. 5. s Suet., in Claud. It should be observed that this law did not become gene- ral, as we learn from the Fragments of Ulpian, tit. 5 and 6, and that it wa5 re- pealed by the code of Theodosius, as well as that relating to cousins-german. In the Christian Church the pope has the power to dispense from the canon • law, according to circumstances : a very wise provision, since no law can be so universally applicable as to comprehend every case. As to the regulation under the Old Testament regarding marriage between brothers and sisters, it belonged to the general law of population, which, as we have observed, was abolished at the coming of Christ, when the different races of men bad received their com- plement. ^ Plut.j in Sol. MATRIMONY. 87 The Church, however, did not confine her precautions to the above-mentioned legislation. For some time she followed the Levitical law in regard to those who were related by affinity; but subsequently she numbered among the nullifying impediments of marriage, all the degrees of affinity corresponding to the degrees of consanguinity within which marriage is prohibited.^ She also provided for a case which had escaped the notice of all pre- vious jurisprudence — that of a man guilty of illicit intercourse with a woman. According to the discipline of the Church, this man cannot marry any woman who is related within the second degree to the object of his unlawful love." This law, which had existed to a certain extent in the early ages of Christianity,' be- came a settled point by a decree of the Council of Trent, and was considered so wise an enactment that the French code, though it rejected the Council as a whole, willingly adopted this particular canon. The numerous impediments to marriage between relatives which the Church has established, besides being founded on moral and spiritual considerations, have a beneficial tendency in a political point of view, by encouraging the division of property, and pre- venting all the wealth of a state from accumulating, in a long series of years, in the hands of a few individuals. The Church has retained the ceremony of betrothing, which may be traced to a remote antiquity. We are informed by Aulus Gellius that it was known among the people of Latium :* it was adopted by the Romans,' and was customary among the Greeks. It was honored under the old covenant ; and in the new, Joseph was betrothed to Mary. The intention of this custom is to allow the bride and bridegroom time to become acquainted with each other previously to their union. ^ In our rural hamlets, the ceremony of betrothing was still wit- nessed with its ancient graces.' On a beautiful morning in the month of August, a young peasant repaired to the farm-house of ' Cone. Lat. ^ Ibid., ch. 4, sess. 24. ^ Cone. Ano., cap. ult., an. 304. * Noot. Att, lib. iv. cap. 4. ^ Lib. ii. ff. do Spons. ® St. Augustine, speaking of tbis usage, says that tbe bride is not given to her lord immediately after the betrothing, " lest he be inclined to think less of one who has not been the object of his prolonged aspirations." ' The author uses the past tense, alluding to customs before the French Ke- Tolution. T. GENIDS OF CHRISTIANITY. his future father-in-law, to join his intended bride. Two musi- cians, reminding you of the minstrels of old, led the way, playing tunes of the days of chivalry, or the hymns of pilgrims. De- parted ages, issuing from their Gothic tombs, seemed to accom- pany the village youth with their ancient manners and their ancient recollections. The priest pronounced the accustomed benediction over the bride, who deposited upon the altar a distaff adorned with ribbons. The company then returned to the farm- house; the lord and lady of the manor, the clergyman of the parish, and the village justice, placed themselves, with the young couple, the husbandmen and the matrons, round a table, upon which were served up the Eumcean boar and the fatted calf of the patriarchs. The festivities concluded with a dance in the neighboring barn ; the daughter of the lord of the manor took the bridegroom for her partner, while the spectators were seated upon the newly-harvested sheaves, forcibly reminded of the daughters of Jethro, the reapers of Booz, and the nuptials of Jacob and Kachel. The betrothing is followed by the publication of the bans. This excellent custom, unknown to antiquity, is altogether of ecclesias- tical institution. It dates from a period anterior to the fourteenth century, as it is mentioned in a decretal of Innocent III., who enacted it as a general law at the Council of Lateran. It was re- newed by the Tridentine Synod, and has since been established in France. The design of this practice is to prevent clandestine unions, and to discover the impediments to marriage that may exist between the contracting parties. I But at length the Christian marriage approaches. It comes attended by a very different ceremonial from that which accom- ' panied the betrothing. Its pace is grave and solemn ; its rites are silent and august. Man is apprised that he now enters upon > a new career. The words of the nuptial blessing— words which God himself pronounced over the first couple in the world— fill the husband with profound awe, while they announce to him that he is performing the most important act of life ; that, like Adam, he IS about to become the head of a family, and to take upon him- self the whole burden of humanity. The wife receives a caution equally impressive. The image of pleasure vanishes before that of her duties. A voice seems to issue from the altar, and to ad- MATRIMONY. gg dress her in these words : "Knowest thou, Eve, what thou art doing ? Knowest thou that there is no longer any liberty for thee but that of the tomb ? Knowest thou what it is to bear in thy mortal womb an immortal being, formed in the image of God?" Among the ancients, the hymeneal rites were a ceremony replete with licentiousness and clamorous mirth, which suggested none of the serious reflections that marriage inspires. Christianity alone has restored its dignity. (^^ '' '-• - \ Religion also, discovering before philosophy the proportion in which the two sexes are born, first decreed that a man should have but one wife, and that their union should be indissoluble till death. Divorce is unknown in the Catholic Church, except among some minor nations of lUyria, who were formerly subject to the Venetian government, and who follow the Greek rite.' If the passions of men have revolted against this law, — if they have not perceived the confusion which divorce introduces into the family, by disturbing the order of succession, by alienating the paternal affections, by corrupting the heart and converting marriage into a civil prostitution, — we cannot hope that the few words which we have to offer will produce any effect. Without entering deeply into the subject, we shall merely observe, that if by divorce you think to promote the happiness of the married couple, (and this is now the main argument,) you lie under a strange mistake. That man who has not been the comfort of a first wife, — who could not attach himself to the virginal heart and first maternity of his lawful spouse, — who has not been able to bend his passions to the domestic yoke, or to confine his heart to the nuptial couch, — that man will never- confer felicity on a second wife. Neither will he himself be a gainer by the exchange. What he takes for differ- ences of temper between himself and the wife to whom he is ' By a departure from the tradition and practice of the Church, and a pre- ference for the concessions of the civil code, it had become the custom in these countries not only to allow divorce a yneusa et thoro in cases of adultery, but also to permit the parties to marry again. The Council of Trent was on the point of condemning those who hold that marriage is dissolved quoad vin- culum by the crime of adultery; but, for reasons of expediency, the canon on this subject was so framed as not to stigmatize them with the note of heresy. See Tournely, De Matr., p. 394 ; Archbp. Kenrick, Theol. Sogm., vol. iv. p. 120 ; Biblioth. Sacrie, tome xvi. art. Manage; Waterworth's Canona and Decrees of Coune. of Trent, p. 228, Ac. T. 8« 90 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. united, is but the impulse of an inconstant disposition and the restlessness of desire. Habit and length of time are more neces- sary to happiness, and even to love, than may be imagined. A man is not happy in the object of his attachment till he has passed many daj-s, and, above all, many days of adversity, in her company. They ought to be acquainted with the most secret recesses of each other's soul; the mysterious veil with which husband and wife were covered in the primitive Church, must be lifted up in all its folds for them, while to the eye of others it remains impenetrable. What ! for the slightest pretence or ca- price must I be liable to lose my partner and my children, and renounce the pleasing hope of passing my old age in the bosom of my family? Let me not be told that this apprehension will oblige ipe to be a better husband. No ; we become attached to that good only of which we are certain, and set but little value on a possession of which we are likely to be deprived. Let us not give to matrimony the wings of lawless love; let us not transform a sacred reality into a fleeting phantom. There is something which will again destroy your happiness in youi tran- cient connections : you will be pursued by remorse. You will be continually comparing one wife with another, her whom vou have lost with her whom you have found ; and, believe me, the balance will always be in favor of the former. Thus has God formed the heart of man. This disturbance of one sentiment by another will poison all your pleasures. When you fondly caress your new child, you will think of that which you have forsaken. If you press your wife to your heart, your heart will tell you that it is not the bosom of the first. Every -thing tends to unity in man. He is not happy if he divides his affections; and like God, in whose image he was created, his soul inces- santly seeks to concentrate in one point the past, the present, and the future. These are the remarks which we had to offer on the sacraments of Holy Orders and Matrimony. As to the images which they suggest to the mind, we deem it unnecessary to present them. Where is the imagination that cannot picture to itself the priest bidding adieu to the joys of life, that he may devote himself to the cause of humanity; or the maiden consecrating herself to the silence of retirement, that she may find the silent repose of her EXTREME UNCTION. 91 heart ; or the betrothed couple appearing at the altar of religion, to vow to each other an undying love ? The wife of a Christian is not a mere mortal. She is an extra- ordinary, a mysterious, an angelic being ; she is flesh of her hus- band's flesh and bone of his bone. By his union with her he only takes back a portion of his substance. His soul, as well as his body, is imperfect without his wife. He possesses strength, she has beauty. He opposes the enemy in arms, he cultivates the soil of his country; but he enters not into domestic details; he has need of a wife to prepare his repast and his bed. He encoun- ters afflictions, and the partner of his nights is there to soothe them ; his days are clouded by adversity, but on his couch he meets with a chaste embrace and forgets all his sorrows. With- out woman he would be rude, unpolished, solitary. Woman sus- pends around him the flowers of life, like those honeysuckles of the forest which adorn the trunk of the oak with their perfumed garlands. Finally, the Christian husband and his wife live and die together ; together they rear the issue of their union ; toge- ther they return to dust, and together they again meet beyond the confines of the tomb, to part no more. CHAPTER XI. EXTREME UNCTION. But it is in sight of that tomb, silent vestibule of another world, that Christianity displays all its sublimity. If most of the ancient religions consecrated the ashes of the dead, none evei thought of preparing the soul for that unknown country "from whose bourn no traveller returns." Come and witness the most interesting spectacle that earth can exhibit. Come and see the faithful Christian expire. He has ceased to be a creature of this world : he no longer belongs to his native' country: all connection between him and society is at an end. For him the calculations of time have closed, and he has already begun to date from the great era of eternity. A priest, GENIUS OF CHKISTIANITY. 92 seated at his pillow, administers consolation. This minister of God cheers the dying man with the bright prospect of immortal- ity and that sublime scene which all antiquity exhibited but once in the last moments of its most eminent philosopher, is daily renewed on the humble pallet of the meanest Christian that expires ! . At length the decisive moment arrives. A sacrament opened to this just man the gates of the world ; a sacrament is about to close them. Religion rooked him in the cradle of life; and now her sweet song and maternal hand will lull him to sleep m the cradle of death. She prepares the baptism of this second birth : but mark, she employs not water; she anoints him with oil, em- blem of celestial incorruptibility. The liberating sacrament gra- dually loosens the Christian's bonds. His soul, nearly set free from the body, is almost visible in his countenance. Already he hears the concerts of the seraphim : already he prepares to speed his flight to those heavenly regions where Hope, the daughter of Vrrtue and of Death, invites him. Meanwhile, the angel of peace, descending toward this righteous man, touches with a golden sceptre his weary eyes, and closes them deliciously to the hght. He dies ; yet his last sigh was inaudible. He expires ;, yet, long after he is no more, his friends keep silent watch around his couch, under the impression that he only slumbers : so gently did this Christian pass from earth. BOOK II. VIRTUES AND MORAL LAWS. CHAPTER I. VICES AND VIRTUES ACCORDING TO RELIGION. Most of the ancient philosophers have marked the distinction between vices and virtues ; but how far superior in this respect also is the wisdom of religion to the wisdom of men ! Let us first consider pride alone, which the Church ranks as the principal among the vices. Pride was the sin of Satan, the first sin that polluted this terrestrial globe. Pride is so com- pletely the root of evil, that it is intermingled with all the other infirmities of our nature. It beams in the smile of envy, it bursts forth in the debaucheries of the libertine, it counts the gold of avarice, it sparkles in the eyes of anger, it is the companion of graceful effeminacy. Pride occasioned the fall of Adam ; pride armed Cain against his innocent brother ; it was pride that erected Babel and over- threw Babylon. Through pride Athens became involved in the common ruin of Greece ; pride destroyed the throne of Cyrus, divided the empire of Alexander, and crushed Rome itself under the weight of the universe. In the particular circumstances of life, pride produces still more baneful effects. It has the presumption to attack even the Deity himself Upon inquiring into the causes of atheism, we are led to this melancholy observation : that most of those who rebel against Heaven imagine that they find something wrong in the constitu- tion of society or the order of nature ; excepting, however, the young who are seduced by the world, or writers whose only object is to attract notice. But how happens it that they who are deprived of the inconsiderable advantages which a capricious fortune gives or takes away, have not the sense to seek the re- 94 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. mcdy of this trifling evil in drawing near to Grod ? He is the great fountainhead of blessing. So truly is he the quintessence itself of beauty, that his name alone, pronounced with love, is sufficient to impart something divine to the man who is the least favored by nature, as has been remarked in the case of Socrates. Let atheism be for those who, not having courage enough to rise superior to the trials of their lot, display in their blasphemies naught but the first vice of man. If the Church has assigned to pride the first place in the scale of human depravity, she has shown no less wisdom in the classi- fication of the six other capital vices. It must not be supposed that the order of their arrangement is arbitrary : we need only examine it to perceive that religion, with an admirable discrimi- nation, passes from those vices which attack society in general to such as recoil upon the head of the guilty individual alone. Thus for instance, envy, luxury, avarice and anger, immediately follow pride, because they are vices which suppose a foreign object and exist only in the midst of society; whereas gluttony and idle- ness, which come last, are solitary and base inclinations, that find in themselves their principal gratification. In the estimate and classification of the virtues, we behold the same profound knowledge of human nature. Before the coming of Jesus Christ the human soul was a chaos; the Word spoke, and order instantly pervaded the intellectuaf world, as the same fiat had once produced the beautiful arrangement of the physical world : this was the moral creation of the universe. The virtues like pure fires, ascended into the heavens : some, like brilliant suns, attracted every eye by their glorious radiance ; others, more modest luminaries, appeared only under the veil of night, which, however, could not conceal their lustre. From that moment an admirable balance between strength and weakness was esta- blished; religion hurled all her thunderbolts at Pride, that vice which feeds upon the virtues : she detected it in the inmost re- cesses of the heart, she pursued it in all its changes; the sacra- ments, in holy array, were marshalled against it; and Humility clothed in sackcloth, her waist begirt with a cord, her feet bare' her head covered with ashes, her downcast eyes swimmin- in tears, became one of the primary virtues of the believer FAITH. 95 CHAPTEE II. OF FAITH. And what were the virtues so highly recommended by the sages of Greece ? Fortitude, temperance, and prudence. None but Jesus Christ could teach the world that faith, hope and charity, are virtues alike adapted to the ignorance and the wretch- edness of man. It was undoubtedly a stupendous wisdom that pointed out faith to us as the source of all the virtues. There is no power but in conviction. If a train of reasoning is strong, a poem divine, a picture beautiful, it is because the understanding or the eye, to whose judgment they are submitted, is convinced of a certain truth hidden in this reasoning, this poem, this picture. What wonders a small band of troops persuaded of the abilities of their leader is capable of achieving ! Thirty-five thousand Greeks fol- low Alexander to the conquest of the world; Lacedsemon com- mits her destiny to the hands of Lycurgus, and Lacedsemon becomes the wisest of cities ; Babylon believes that she is formed for greatness, and greatness crowns her confidence; an oracle gives the empire of the universe to the Romans, and the Romans obtain the empire of the universe; Columbus alone, among all his contemporaries, persists in believing the existence of a new world, and a new world rises from the bosom of the deep. Friendship, patriotism, love, every noble sentiment, is likewise a species of faith. Because they had faith, a Codrus, a Pylades, a Regulus, an Arria, performed prodigies. For the same reason, they who believe nothing, who treat all the convictions of the soul as illusions, who consider every noble action as insanity, and look with pity upon the warm imagination and tender sensibility of genius — for the same reason such hearts will never achieve any thing great or generous : they have faith only in matter and in death, and they are already insensible as the one, and cold and icy as the other. 96 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. In the language of ancient chivalry, to pledge one's faith was synonymous witli all the prodigies of honor. Roland, Duguesclin, Bayard, were faithful knights; and the fields of Roncevaux, of Auray, of Bresse, the descendants of the Moors, of the English, and of the Lombards, still tell what men they were who plighted their faith and homage to their God, their lady, and their coun- try. Shall we mention the martyrs, "who," to use the words of St. Ambrose, "without armies, without legions, vanquished ty- rants, assuaged the fury of lions, took from the fire its vehemence and from the sword its edge" ?' Considered in this point of view, faith is so formidable a power, that if it were applied to evil pur- poses it would convulse the world. There is nothing that a man who is under the influence of a profound conviction, and who submits his reason implicitly to the direction of another, is not capable of performing. This proves that the most eminent vir- tues, when separated from God and taken in their merely moral relations, border on the greatest vices. Had philosophers made this observation, they would not have taken so much pains to fix the limits between good and evil. There was no necessity for the Christian lawgiver, like Aristotle, to contrive a scale for the pur- pose of ingeniously placing a virtue between two vices ; he has completely removed the difficulty, by inculcating that virtues are not virtues unless they flow back toward their source — that is to say, toward the Deity. Of this truth we shall be thoroughly convinced, if we consider faith in reference to human affairs, but a faith which is the off- spring of religion. From faith proceed all the virtues of society, since it is true, according to the unanimous acknowledgment of wise men, that the doctrine which commands the belief in a God who will reward and punish is the main pillar both of morals and of civil government. Finally, if we employ faith for its higher and specific objects, — if we direct it entirely toward the Creator, — if we make it the intellectual eye, by which to discover the wonders of the holy city and the empire of real existence, — if it serve for wings to our soul, to raise us above the calamities of life, — we will admit that the Scriptures have not too highly extolled this virtue, when ' Ambi-os., de Off., c. .35. HOPE AND CHARITY. 97 they speak of the prodigies which may be performed by its means. Faith, celestial comforter, thou dost more than remove mountains : thou takest away the heavy burdens by which the heart of man is grievously oppressed !' CHAPTEE III. OP HOPE AND CHARITY. Hope, the second theological virtue, is almost as powerful as faith. Desire is the parent of power; whoever strongly desires is sure to obtain. " Seek," says Jesus Christ, " and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." In the same sense Py- thagoras observed that "Power dwelleth with necessity;" for necessity implies privation, and privation is accompanied with desire. Desire or hope is genius. It possesses that energy which produces, and that thirst which is never appeased. Is a man disappointed in his plans ? it is because he did not desire with ardor; because he was not animated with that love which sooner or later grasps the object to which it aspires; that love which in the Deity embraces all things and enjoys all, by means of a boundless hope, ever gratified and ever reviving. There is, however, an essential difference between faith and hope considered as a power. Faith has its focus out of ourselves; it arises from an external object. Hope, on the contrary, springs up within us, and operates externally. The former is instilled into us, the latter is produced by our own desire; the former is obedience, the latter is love. But as faith more readily produces the other virtues, as it flows immediately from God, and is there- fore superior to hope, which is only a part of man, the Church necessarily assigned to it the highest rank. The peculiar characteristic of hope is that which places it in relation with our sorrows. That religion which made a virtue of hope was most assuredly revealed by heaven. This nurse of the anfortunate, taking her station by man like a mother beside her ' See note D. G 98 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. suffering child, rocks bim in her arms, presses him to her bosom, and refreshes him with a beverage which soothes all his woes. She watches by his solitary pillow; she lulls him to sleep with her magic strains. Is it not surprising to see hope, which is so delightful a companion and seems to be a natural emotion of the soul, transformed for the Christian into a virtue which is an es- sential part of his duty? Let him do what he will, he is obliged to drink copiously from this enchanted cup, at which thousands of poor creatures would esteem themselves happy to moisten their lips for a single moment. Nay, more, (and this is the most mar- vellous circumstance of all,) he will be rewarded for having hojied, or, in other words, /or having made himself happy. The Christian, whose life is a continual warfare, is treated by religion in his defeat like those vanquished generals whom the Koman senate received in triumph, for this reason alone, that they had not despaired of the final safety of the commonwealth. But if the ancients ascribed something marvellous to the man who never despaired, what would they have thought of the Christian, who, in his astonishing language, talks not of entertaining hope, but of practising it ? What shall we now say of that charity which is the daughter of Jesus Christ ? The proper signification of charity is grace and joy. Religion, aiming at the reformation of the hviman heart, and wishing to make its affections and feelings subservient to virtue, has invented a new passion. In order to express it, she has not employed the word love, which is too common ; or the word friendship, which ceases at the tomb ; or the word pity, which is too much akin to pride : but she has found the term caritas, CHARITY, which embraces all the three, and which at the same time is allied to something celestial. By means of this, she purifies our inclinations and directs them toward the Creator; by this she inculcates that admirable truth, that men ou^ht to love each other in God, who will thus spiritualize their love, di- vesting it of all earthly alloy and leaving it in its immortal purity. By this she inculcates the stupendous truth that mortals ought to love each other, if I may so express myself, through God, who spiritualizes their love, and separates from it whatever belongs not to its immortal essence. But if charity is a Christian virtue, an immediate emanation THE MORAL LAWS, OK THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 99 from the Almighty and his "Word, it is also in close alliance with nature. It is in this continual harmony between heaven and earth, between God and man, that we discover the character of true religion. The moral and political institutions of antiquity are often in contradiction to the sentiments of the human soul. Christianity, on the contrary, ever in unison with the heart, en- joins not solitary and abstract virtues, but such as are derived from our wants and are useful to mankind. It has placed charity as an abundant fountain in the desert of life. "Charity," says the apostle, " is patient, is kind ; charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, be- lieveth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."* CHAPTER IV. OF THE MORAL LAWS, OR THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. It is a reflection not a little mortifying to our pride, that all the maxims of human wisdom may be comprehended in a few pages : and even in those pages how many errors may be found ! The laws of Minos and Lycurgus have remained standing after the fall of the nations for which they were designed, only as the pyramids of the desert, the immortal palaces of death. Laws of the Second Zoroaster. Time, boundless and uncreated, is the creator of all things. The word was his daughter, who gave birth to Orsmus, the good deity, and Arimhan, the god of evil. Invoke the celestial bull, the father of grass and of man. The most meritorious work that a man can perform is to cul- tivate his land with care. Pray with purity of thought, word, and action.^ * 1 Cor. xiiL ^ Zend-avesta. 100 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. Teact thy child at the age of five years the distinction between good and evil.' Let the ungrateful be punished.^ The child who has thrice disobeyed his father shall die. The law declares the woman who contracts a second marriage to be impure. The impostor shall be scourged with rods. Despise the liar. At the end and the beginning of the year keep a festival of ten days. Indian Laws. The universe is Vishnu. Whatever has been, is he; whatever is, is he; whatever will be, is he. Let men be equal. Love virtue for its own sake ; renounce the fruit of thy works. Mortal, be wise, and thou shalt be strong as ten thousand elephants. The soul is God. Confess the faults of thy children to the sun and to men, and purify thyself in the waters of the Ganges.' Egyptian Laios. Cnef, the universal God, is unknown darkness, impenetrable obscurity. Osiris is the good, and Typhon the evil deity. Honor thy parents. Follow the profession of thy father. Be virtuous; the judges of the lake will, after thy death, pass sentence on thy actions. Wash thy body twice each day and twice each night. Live upon little. Reveal no secrets.* Laws of Minos. Swear not by the Gods. Young man, examine not the law. ' Xenoph., Cyrop. ; Plat, de Leg., lib. ii. 2 Xenoph., Cynp. 3 Prec. of the Bram. j Hist, of Ind. ; Diod. Sic, &c. < Herod., lib. ii. ; Plat, de Leg. ; Plut., de la. et Os. THE MORAL LAWS, OR THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 101 The law declares him infamous who has no friend. The adultress shall be crowned with wool, and sold. Let your repasts be public, your life frugal, and your dances martial.^ [We shall not quote here the laws of Lycurgus, because they are partly but a repetition of those of Minos.] Laws of Solon. The son who neglects to bury his father, and he who defends him not, shall die. The adulterer shall not enter the temples. The magistrate who is intoxicated shall drink hemlock. The cowardly soldier shall be punished with death. It shall be lawful to kill the citizen who remains neutral in civil dissensions. Let him who wishes to die acquaint the Archon, and die. He who is guilty of sacrilege shall suffer death. Wife, be the guide of thy blind husband. The immoral man shall be disqualified for governing." Primitive Laws of Rome. Honor small fortune. Let men be both husbandmen and soldiers. Keep wine for the aged. The husbandman who eats his ox shall be sentenced to die.' Laws of the Gauls, or Druids. The universe is eternal, the soul immortal. Honor nature. Defend, thy mother, thy country, the earth. Admit woman into thy councils. Honor the stranger, and set apart his portion out of thy har- vest. The man who has lost his honor shall be buried in mud. Erect no temples, and commit the history of the past to thy memory alone. Man, thou art free ; own no property. ' Arist., Pol.; Plat, de leg. ^VlnL, in Y it. Sol.; Tit. Liv. 3 Plut., in Num. ; Tit. Liv. ;^02 OZSICS OF CHKISTIAMTT. Honor the aged, and let not the young bear witness against them. The brave man shall be rewarded after death, and the coward punished.* j i Lav:s of Pythagoras. ij Honor the immortal Gods as established by the law. ij Honor thy parents. i Do that which will not wound thy memory. Close not thine eyes to sleep, till thou hast thrice examined in thy soul the actions of the day. Ask thyself : Where have I been ? What have I done ? What ought I to have done ? Then, after a holy.Kfe, when thy body shaU return to the ele- ments, thou shalt become immortal and incorruptible ; thou shalt no longer be liable to death.' Such is nearly all that has been preserved of the so highly vaunted wisdom of antiquity ! Here, God is represented as pro- found darkness ; doubtless from excess of light, like the dimness that obstructs the sight when you endeavor to look at the sun : there, the man who has no friend is declared infamous, a denun- ciation which includes all the unfortunate: again, suicide is authorized by law : and lastly, some of these sages seem totally to forget the existence of a Supreme Being. Moreover, how many vague, incoherent, commonplace ideas are found in most of these sentences 1 The sages of the Portico and of the Academy alternately proclaim such contradictory maxims, that we may prove from the same book that its author believed and did not believe in God ; that he acknowledged and did not acknowledge a positive virtue; that liberty is the greatest of blessings and despotism the best of governments. ' Tacit, de mor. Germ. ; Strab. ; Caesar, Com. ; Edda, 4o. 2 To these Tables might be added an extract from Plato's Sepuilic, or rather from the twelve books of his laws, which we consider his best work, on account of the exquisite picture of the three old men who converse together on their way to the fountain, and the good sense which pervades this dialogue. Bat these precepts were not reduced to practice ; we shall therefore refrain from any notice of them. As to the Koran, all that it contsius, either holy or just, is borrowed almost rerfeatim from our sacred Scriptures; the rest is a Rabbin- ical compilation. ' THE MORAL iAWS, OR THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 103 If, amid these conflicting sentiments, we were to discover a code of moral laws, without contradictions, without errors, which would remove all our doubts, and teach us what we ought to think of God and in what relation we really stand with men, — if this code were delivered with a tone of authority and a simplicity of language never before known, — should we not conclude that these laws have emanated from heaven alone ? These divine precepts we possess j and what a subject do they present for the medita- tion of the sage and for the fancy of the poet ! Behold Moses as he descends from the burning mountain. In his hands he car- ries two tables of stone; brilliant rays encircle his brow; his face beams with divine glory; the terrors of Jehovah go before him; in the horizon are seen the mountains of Libanus, crowned with their eternal snows, and their stately cedars disappearing in the clouds. Prostrate at the foot of Sinai, the posterity of Jacob cover their faces, lest they behold God and die. At length the thunders cease, and a voice proclaims : — Hearken, Israel, unto me, Jehovah, thy Gods,^ who have brought thee out of the land of Mizraim, out of the house of bondage. 1. Thou shalt have no other Gods before my face. 2. Thou shalt not make any idol with thy hands, nor any image of that which is in the astonishing waters above, nor on the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not bow before the images, and thou shalt not serve them ; for I, I am Jehovah, thy Gods, the strong God, the jealous God, visit- ing the iniquity of the fathers, the iniquity of those who hate me, 1 We translate the Decalogue verbatim from the Hebrew, on account of the expression tJiy Gods, which is not rendered in any version. {Elohe is the plu- ral masculine of Elohim, God, Judge ; we frequently meet with it thus in the plural in the Bible, while the verb, the pronoun, and the adjective remain in the singular. In Gen. i. we read Elohe bara, the Gods created, (sing.) and it is impossible to understand Hny other than three persons ; for if two had been meant, Elohim would have been in the dual. We shall make another remark, not less important, respecting the word Adamali, which likewise occurs in the Decalogue. Adam signifies red earth, and ah, the expletive, expresses some- thing /ortier, beyond. God makes use of it in promising long days on the earth and beyond to such children as honor their father and mother. Thus the Trinity and the immortality of the soul are implied in the Decalogue by Elohe, thy Gods, or several divine existents in unity, Jehovah ; and Adam-ah, earth and beyond.) See note E. 104 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. upon tbe cliiMreii to the third and fourtli generation, and show- ing mercy a thousand times to those who love me and who keep my commandments. 3. Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah, thy Gods, in vain ; for he will not hold him guiltless who taketh his name in vain. 4. Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do thy work ; but the seventh day of Jehovah, % Gods, thou shalt not do any work, neither thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy camel, nor thy guest lefore thy doors; for in six days Jeho- vah made the marvellous waters above,* the earth and the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day : wherefore Jehovah blessed and hallowed it. 5. Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long on the earth and heyond the earth which Jehovah, thy Gods, hath given thee. 6. Thou shalt not kill. 7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 8. Thou shalt not steal. 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor thy neigh- bor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's. Such are the laws which the great Creator has engraved, not only upon the marble of Sinai, but also upon the heart of man. What strikes us, in the first place, is that character of univer- sality which distinguishes this divine code from all human codes that precede it. Here we have the law of all nations, of all cli- mates, of all times. Pythagoras and Zoroaster addressed the Greeks and the Modes ; Jehovah speaks to all mankind. In him we recognise that Almighty Father who watches over the uni- verse, and who dispenses alike from his bounteous hand the grain of corn that feeds the insect and the sun that enlightens it. ^ This translation is far from giving any idea of the magnificence of the ori- ginal. Skaviajim is a kind of exclamation of wonder, like the voice of a whole nation, which, on viewing the firmament, would cry out with one accord '*Be- liold thoae miraculous waters suspended in the expanse ahove us.' — those orbs of crystal and of diamond /" How is it possible to render in our language, in the translation of a law, this poetical idea conveyed in a word of three syllables '! The mukal laws, or the ten commandments. 105 In the next place, nothing can be more admirable than these moral laws of the Hebrews, for their simplicity and justice. The pagans enjoined upon men to honor the authors of their days : So- lon decrees death as the punishment of the wicked son. What does the divine law say on this subject ? It promises life to filial piety. This commandment is founded on the very constitution of our nature. God makes a precept of filial love, but he has not enjoined paternal affection. He knew that the son, in whom are centred all the thoughts and hopes of the father, would often be but too fondly cherished by his parent : but he imposed the duty of love upon the son, because he knew the fickleness and the pride of youth. In the Decalogue, as in the other works of the Almighty, we behold majesty and grace of expression combined with the in- trinsic power of divine wisdom. The Brahmin expresses but very imperfectly the three persons of the Deity; the name of Jehovah embraces them in a single word, composed of three tenses of the verb to he united by a sublime combination : havah, he was ; hovah, being, or he is ; and je, which, when placed be- fore the three radical letters of a verb in Hebrew, indicates the future, he will be. Finally, the legislators of antiquity have marked in their codes the epochs of the festivals of nations ; but Israel's sabbath or day of rest is the sabbath of God himself. The Hebrew, as well as the Gentile, his heir, in the hours of his humble occupation, has nothing less before his eyes than the successive creation of the universe. Did Greece, though so highly poetical, ever refer the labors of the husbandman or the artisan to those splendid moments in which God created the light, marked out the course of the sun, and animated the heart of man ? Laws of God, how little do you resemble those of human insti- tution ! Eternal as the principle whence you emanated, in vain do ages roll away ; ye are proof against the lapse of time, against persecution, and against the corruption of nations. This reli- gious legislation, organized in the bosom of political legislations, and nevertheless independent of their fate, is an astonishing pro- digy. While forms of government pass away or are newly- modelled, while power is transferred from hand to hand, a few Christians continue, amid the changes of life, to adore the same 106 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. God, to submit to the same laws, without thinking themselves released from their ties by revolution, adversity, and example. What religion of antiquity did not lose its moral influence with the loss of its priests and its sacrifices ? Where are now the mysteries of Trophonius's cave and the secrets of the Eleusinian Ceres ? Did not Apollo fall with Delphi, Baal with Babylon, Serapis with Thebes, Jupiter with the Capitol ? It can be said of Christianity alone, that it has often witnessed the destruction of its temples, without being affected by their fall. There were not always edifices erected in honor of Jesus Christ; but every place is a temple for the living God : the receptacle of the dead, the cavern of the mountain, and above all, the heart of the right- eous. Jesus Christ had not always altars of porphyry, pulpits of cedar and ivory, and happy ones of this world for his servants : a stone in the desert is sufficient for the celebration of his mys- teries, a tree for the proclamation of his laws, and a bed of thorns for the practice of his virtues. BOOK III. THE TEUTHS OP THE SCRIPTURES, THE FALL OP MAN. CHAPTER I. THE SrPEKIORITT OF THE HISTORY OF MOSES OVER ALL OTHER COSMOGONIES. There are truths which no one calls in question, though it is impossible to furnish any direct proofs of them. The rebellion and fall of Lucifer, the creation of the world, the primeval hap- piness and transgression of man, belong to the number of these truths. It is not to be supposed that an absurd falsehood could have become a universal tradition. Open the books of the second Zoroaster, the dialogues of Plato, and those of Lucian, the moral treatises of Plutarch, the annals of the Chinese, the Bible of the Hebrews, the Edda of the Scandinavians ; go among the negroes of Africa, or the learned priests of India ;^ they will all recapitulate the crimes of the evil deity ; they will all tell you of the too short period of man's felicity, and the long calamities ■which followed the loss of his innocence. Voltaire somewhere asserts that we possess a most wretched copy of the different popular traditions respecting the origin of the world, and the physical and moral elements which compose it. Did he prefer, then, the cosmogony of the Egyptians, the great winged egg of the Theban priests ?" Hear what is related by the most ancient historian after Moses : — "The principle of the universe was a gloomy and tempestuous atmosphere, — a wind produced by this gloomy atmosphere and a turbulent chaos. This principle was unbounded, and for a long time had neither limit nor form. But when this wind became enamored of its own principles, a mixture was the result, and this mixture was called desire or love. ^•>: J ' See note P. 2 Herod., lib. ii. j Diod. Sio.- 107 108 GENIUS OF CHEISTIANITY. "This mixture being complete was the beginning of all things; but the wind knew not his own offspring, the mixture. With the wind, her father, this mixture produced mud, and hence sprang all the generations of the universe. "• If we pass to the Greek philosophers, we find Thales, the foun- der of the Ionic sect, asserting water to be the universal prin- ciple.'' Plato contended that the Deity had arranged the world, but had not had the power to create it.' God, said he, formed the universe, after the model existing from all eternity in him- self* Visible objects are but shadows of the ideas of God, which are the only real substances.^ God, moreover, infused into all beings a breath of his life, and formed of them a third principle, which is both spirit and matter, and which we call the soul of the icorld.^ Aristotle reasoned like Plato respecting the origin of the uni- verse; but he conceived the beautiful system of the chain of beings, and, ascending from action to action, he proved that there must exist somewhere a primary principle of motion.' Zeno maintained that the world was arranged by its own energy ; that nature is the system which embraces all things, and consists of two principles, the one active, the other passive, not existing separately, but in combination ; that these two principles are subject to a third, which is fatality ; that God, matter, and fatality, form but one being; that they compose at once the wheels, the springs, the laws, of the machine, and obey as parts the laws which they dictate as the lohole." According to the philosophy of Epicurus, the universe has ex- isted from all eternity. There are but two things in nature, — matter and space.' Bodies are formed by the aggregation of in- finitely minute particles of matter or atoms, which have an inter- nal principle of motion, that is, gravity. Their revolution would ^ Sanch., ap. Extseh,, Pra^par. Evant/., lib. i. c. 10. 2 Cic, de Nat. Dear., lib. i. D. 25. 3 Tim., p. 28 ; Diog. Laert., lib. iii. ; Plut., de Gen. Anim., p. 78. < Plat, Tim., p. 29. ' i,i^ Rep., lib. vii. ' 6 /rf.^ ,•„ ^im., p. 34. ' Arist., de Gen. An., lib. ii. c. 3 ; Met., lib. .xi. c. 5 ; De Ccel, lib. xi. o. 3. ' Laert., lib. v. ; Stob., Eccl. Pliys., c. xiv. ; Senec, Conaol., c. xxix. • Cic. de Nat. Deor. ; Anton., lib. vii. 9 Lucret.j lib. ii. ; Laert., lib. x. SUPERIORITY OF THE HISTORY OF MOSES. 109 be made in a vertical plane, if they did not, in consequence of a particular law, describe an ellipsis in the regions of space.' Epicurus invented this oblique movement for the purpose of avoiding the system of tbe fatalists, which would be reproduced by the perpendicular motion of the atom. But the hypothesis is absurd ; for if the declination of the atom is a law, it is so from necessity 3 and how can a necessitated cause produce a free effect? But to proceed. From the fortuitous concourse of these atoms originated the heavens and the earth, the planets and the stars, vegetables, minerals, and animals, including man ; and when the productive virtue of the globe was exhausted, the living races were per- petuated by means of generation.' The members of the different animals, formed by accident, had no particular destination. The concave ear was not scoopedjjut for the purpose of hearing, nor was the convex eye rounuedin order to see ; but, as these organs chanced to be adapted to those different uses, the animals em- ployed them mechanically, and in preference to the other senses.^ After this statement of the cosmogonies of the philosophers, it would be superfluous to notice those of the poets. Who has not heard of Deucalion and Pyrrha, of the golden and of the iron ages ? As to the traditions current among other nations of the earth, we will simply remark that in the East Indies an elephant supports the globe ; in Peru, tbe sun made all things ; in Canada, the great hare is the father of the world; in Greenland, man sprang from a shell-fish;* lastly, Scandinavia records the birth of Askus and Emla : Odin gives them a soul, Hsener reason, and Lasdur blood and beauty.* ' Loc. ciU ' Lucret, lib. v. et x. ; Cic, de Nat. Dear., lib. i. c. 8, 9. 3 Lucret., lib. It., t. * See Hesiod; Ovid; Hist, of Hindostan; Herrera, Histor. de las Ind. ; Charlevoix, Hist, de la Nouv. Fr. ; P. Lafitau, Moeurs des Ind. ; Travels in Greenland, by a Missionary. s Askum et Emlam, omni conatu destitutes, Animam nee possidebant, rationem nee babebant, Nee sanguinem nee sermonem, nee faciem venustam: Animam dedit Odinus, rationem dedit Hajnerus ; Lsedur sanguinem addiditet faciem venustam. Bartholis, Ant. Dan, 10 110 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. In these various cosmogonies we find childish tales on the one hand and philosophical abstractions on the other ; and were we oblio-ed to choose between them, it would be better to adopt the former. In order to distinguish, among a number of paintings, the ori- ginal from the copy, we must look for that which, in its ensemble or in the perfection of its parts, exhibits the genius of the master. Now, this is precisely what we find in the book of Genesis, which is the original of the representations met with in popular tradi- tions. What can be more natural, and at the same time more mao-nificent, — what more easy of conception, or more consonant with human reason, — than the Creator descending into the realms of ancient night and producing light by the operation of a word? The sun, in an instant, takes his station in the heavens, in the centre of an immense dome of azure ; he throws his invisible net- work over the planets, and detains them about him as his cap- tives ; the seas and forests commence their undulations on the globe, and their voices are heard for the first time proclaiming to the universe that marriage in which God himself is the priest, the earth is the nuptial couch, and mankind is the progeny.* CHAPTER n. THE FALL OP MAN — THE SEEPENT — A HEBREW 'WORD. We are again struck with astonishment in contemplating that other truth announced in the Scriptures : — man dying in conse- quence of having poisoned himself from the tree of life! — man lost for having tasted the fruit of knowledge, for having learned ^ The Aaialic Eesearches confirm the truth of the book of Genesis. They divide mythology into three branches, one of which extended throughout In- dia, the second over Greece, and the third among the savages of North Ame- rica. They also show that this same mythology was derived from a still moro ancient tradition, which is that of Moses. Modern travellers in India every- where find traces of the facts recorded in Scripture. The authenticity of these traditions, after having been long contested, has now ceased to be a matter of doubt. THE FALL OP MAN. m too mucli of good and evil, for having ceased to resemble the child of the gospel ! If we suppose any other prohibition of the Deity, relative to any propensity of the soul whatever, where is the profound wisdom in the command of the Most High? It would seem to be unworthy of the Divinity, and no moral would result from the disobedience of Adam. But observe how the whole history of thfe world springs from the law imposed on our first parents. God placed knowledge within his reach; he could not refuse it him, since man was created intelligent and free* but he cautioned him that if he was resolved on knowing too much, this knowledge would result in the death of himself and of his posterity. The secret of the political and moral existence of nations, and the profoundest mysteries of the human heart, are comprised in the tradition of this wonderful and fatal tree. Now let us contemplate the marvellous consequence of this prohibition of infinite wisdom. Man falls, and the demon of pride occasions his fall. But pride borrows the voice of love to seduce him, and it is for the sake of a woman that Adam aspires to an equality with God — a profound illustration of the two prin- cipal passions of the heart, vanity and love. Bossuet, in his Ele- vations to God, in which we often perceive the author of the Funeral Orations, observes, in treating of the mystery of the serpent, that "the angels conversed with man in such forms as. God permitted, and under the figure of animals. Eve therefore was not surprised to hear the serpent speak, any more than she was to see God himself appear under a sensible form." "Why," adds the same writer, " did God cause the proud spirit to appear in that form in preference to any other? Though it is not abso- lutely necessary for us to know this, yet Scripture intimates the reason, when it observes that the serpent was the most subtle of all animals; that is to say, the one which most aptly represented Satan in his malice, his artifices, and afterward in his punish- ment." The present age rejects with disdain whatever savors of the marvellous; but the serpent has frequently been the subject of our observations, and, if we may venture to say it, we seem to recognise in that animal the pernicious spirit and artful malice which are ascribed to it in the Scriptures. Every thing is mys- terious, secret, astonishing, in this incomprehensible reptile. His ^ 112 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. movements differ from those of all other animals. It is impossi- ble to say where his locomotive principle lies, for he has neither fins, nor feet, nor wings; and yet he flits like a shadow, he van- ishes as by magic, he reappears and is gone again, likp a light azure vapor, or the gleams of a sabre in the dark. Now he curls himself into a circle and projects a tongue of fire; now, standing erect upon the extremity of his tail, he moves along in a perpen- dicular attitude, as by enchantment. He rolls himself into a ball, rises and falls in a spiral line, gives to his rings the undulations of a wave, twines round the branches of trees, glides under the grass of the meadow, or skims along the surface of water. His colors are not more determinate than his movements. They change with each new point of view, and like his motions, they possess the false splendor and deceitful variety of the seducer. Still more astonishing in other respects, he knows, like the murderer, how to throw aside his garment stained with blood, lest it should lead to his detection. By a singular faculty, the female can introduce into her body the little monsters to which she has f given birth.i The serpent passes whole months in sleep. He frecpents tombs, inhabits secret retreats, produces poisons which cSiiiTKra, or checquer the body of his victim with the colors- with which he is himself marked. In one place, he lifts two menacing heads; in another, he sounds a rattle. He hisses like the mountain eagle, or bellows like a bull. He naturally enters into the moral or religious ideas of men, as if irTonsequence of the influence which he exercised over^eir destiny. An object of horror or adoration, they either view him with an im- placable hatred, or bow down before his genius. Falsehood ap- peals to him, prudence calls him to her aid, envy bears him in her bosom, and eloquence on her wand. In hell he arms the scourges of the furies; in heaven eternity is typified by his imao-e. As this part of the description is so yery extraordinary, it may apnear to want confirmation "Mr. de Beauvois, as related in the American "Phflosophi- cal Transactions, declared himself an eye-witness of such a fact as is above stated. He saw a large rattlesnake, which he had disturbed in his walks onen her jaws, and instantly five small ones, which were lying by her, rushed into her mouth. He retired and watched her, and in a quarter of an hour saw her a.ain discharge them. The common viper does the same." See SMs Oe„e,Jzo. olotjy, vol. HI. pp. 324, 374. K. THE FALL OF MAN. 113 He possesses, moreover, the art of seducing innocence. His eyes fascinate the birds of the air, and beneath the fern of the crib the ewe gives up to him her milk. But he may himself be charmed by the harmony of sweet sounds, and to subdue him the , ., shepherd needs no other weapon than his pipe. }\<- V*'^- rfcl <> ^^* "^' In the month of July, 1791, we were travelling in Upper Canada with several families of savages belonging to the nation | of the Onpndagos. One day, while we were encamped in a spa- , cious plain on t^e bank of the Genesee River, we saw a rattlesnake. There was a Canadian in our party who could play on the flute, and to divert us he advanced toward the serpent with his new species of weapon. On the approach of his enemy, the haughty reptile curls himself into a spiral line, flattens his head, inflates his cheeks, contracts his lips, displays his envenomed fangs and his bloody throat. His double tongue glows like two flames of fire; his eyes are burning coals; his body, swollen with rage, rises and falls like the bellows of a forge; his dilated skin as- sumes a dull and scaly appearance ; and his tail, which sends forth an ominous sound, vibrates with such rapidity as to resemble a light vapor. The Canadian now begins to play on his flute. The serpent starts with surprise and draws back his head. In proportion as he is struck with the magic sound, his eyes lose their fierceness, the oscillations of his tail diminish, and the noise which it emits grows weaker, and gradually dies, away. The spiral folds of the charmed serpent, diverging from the perpendicular, expand, and one after the other sink to the ground in concentric circles. The tints of azure, green, white, and gold, recover their brilliancy on his quivering skin, and, slightly turning his head, he remains mo- tionless in the attitude of attention and pleasure. At this moment the Canadian advanced a few steps, producing with his flute sweet and simple notes. The reptile immediately lowers his variegated neck, opens a passage with his head through the slender grass, and begins to creep after the musician, halting when he halts, and again following him when he resumes his march. In this way he was led beyond the limits of our camp, attended by a great number of spectators, both savages and Europeans, who could scarcely believe their eyes. After wit- nessing this wonderful effect of melody, the assembly unani- 10» H 114 GENIUS OF CHEISTIANITY. mously decided that the marvellous serpent shovdd be permitted to escape.' To this kind of inference, drawn from the habits of the serpent in favor of the truths of Scripture, we shall add another, deduced from a Hebrew word. Is it not very remarkable, and at the same time extremely philosophical, that, in Hebrew, the generic term for man should signify fever or pain? The root of Enosh, man, is the verb anash, to be dangerously ill. This appellation was not given to our first parent by the Almighty : he called him simply Adam, red earth or slime. It was not till after the fall that Adam's posterity assumed the name of JEnosh, or man, which was so perfectly adapted to his afilictions, and most eloquently reminded him both of his guilt and its punishment. Perhaps Adam, when he witnessed the pangs of his wife, and took into his arms Cain, his first-born son, lifting him toward heaven, exclaimed, in the acuteness of his feelings, Enosh, Oh, anguish ! a doleful exclamation that may have led afterward to the designation of the human race. CHAPTER in. PRIMITIVE CONSTITUTION OE MAN — NEW PROOF OF ORIGINAL SIN. We indicated certain moral evidences of original sin in treat- ing of baptism and the redemption; but a matter of such impoi-t- ance deserves more than a passing notice. "The knot of our condition," says Pascal, "has its twists and folds in this abyss. ' In India the Cobra de Capello, or hooded snake, is carried about as a show in a basket, and so managed as to exhibit when shown a kind of dancino- mo- tion, raising itself up on its lower part, and alternately moving its head and body from side to side to the sound of some musical instrument which is played during the time. Shaw*8 Zoology, Tol. iii. p. 411. The terpentes, the most formidable of reptiles, as they make a most distin- guished figure in natural history, so they are frequently the subject of descrip- tion with naturalists and poets. But it would be difScult to find, either in BufFon or Shaw, in Virgil, or OTen in Luoan, who is enamored of the subject, any thing superior to this vivid picture of our author, K. PRIMITIVE CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 115 SO that man is more inconceivable without this mystery than this mystery is inconceivable to man."* It appears to us that the order of the universe furnishes a new proof of our primitive degeneracy. If we survey the world around us we shall remark that, by a general, and at the same time a par- ticular law, all the integral parts, all the springs of action, whether internal or external, all the qualities of beings, have a perfect con- formity with one another. Thus the heavenly bodies accomplish their revolutions in an admirable unity, and each body, steadily pursuing its course, describes the orbit peculiar to itself. One single globe imparts light and heat. These two qualities are not divided between two spheres; the sun combines them in his orb as God, whose image he is, unites the fertilizing principle with the principle which illumines. The same law obtains among animals. Their ideas, if we may be allowed the expression, invariably accord with their feelings, their reason with their passions. Hence it is that they are not susceptible of any increase or diminution of intelligence. The reader may easily pursue this law of conformities in the vegeta- ble and mineral kingdoms. By what incomprehensible destiny does man alone form an ex- ception to this law, so necessary for the order, the preservation, the peace and the welfare, of beings ? As obvious as this har- mony of qualities and movements appears in the rest of nature, so striking is their discordance in man. There is a perpetual collision between his understanding and his will, between his reason and his heart. When he attains the highest degree of civilization, he is at the lowest point in the scale of morality; when free, he is barbarous ; when refined, he is bound with fet- ters. Does he excel in the sciences ? his imagination expires. Does he become a poet ? he loses the faculty of profound thought. His heart gains at the expense of his head, and his head at the expense of his heart. He is impoverished in ideas in proportion as he abounds in feeling; his feelings become more confined in proportion as his ideas are enlarged. Strength renders him cold and harsh, while weakness makes him kind and gracious. A virtue invariably brings him a vice along with it ; and a vice. 116 GENIUS or CHRISTIANITY. ■■ / when it leaves him, as invariably deprives him of a virtue. Na- tions, collectively considered, exhibit the like vicissitudes; they alternately lose and recover the light of wisdom. It might be said that the Genius of man, with a torch in his hand, is inces- santly flying around the globe, amid the night that envelops us, appearing to the four quarters of the world like the nocturnal luminary, which, continually on the increase and the wane, at each step diminishes for one country the resplendence which she augments for another. It is, therefore, highly reasonable to suppose that man, in his primitive constitution, resembled the rest of the creation, and that this constitution consisted in the perfect harmony of the j feelings and the faculty of thought, of the imagination and the understanding. Of this we shall perhaps be convinced, if we observe that this union is still necessary in order to enjoy even a shadow of that felicity which we have lost. Thus we are furnished with a clue to original sin by the mere chain of reason- ing and the probabilities of analogy; since man, in the state in which we behold him, is not, we may presume, the primitive man. He stands in contradiction to nature ; disorderly when all things else are regular ; with a double character when every thing around him is simple. Mysterious, variable, inexplicable, he is manifestly in the state of a being which some accident has over- thrown : he is a palace that has crumbled to pieces, and been rebuilt with its ruins, where you behold some parts of an imposin"- appearance and others extremely offensive to the eye ; magnificent colonnades which lead to nothing; lofty porticos and low ceil- ings ; strong lights and deep shades ; in a word, confusion and disorder pervading every quarter, and especially the sanctuary. Now, if the primitive constitution of man consisted in accord- ances such as we find established among other beings, nothino- more was necessary for the destruction of this order, or any such harmony in general, than to alter the equilibrium of the forces or qualities. In man this precious equilibrium was formed by the faculties of love and thought. Adam was at the same time the most enlightened and the best of men; the most powerful in thought and the most powerful in love. But whatever has been r created must necessarily have a progressive course. Instead of . \ waiting for new attainments in knowledge to be derived from the PRIMITIVE CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 117 revolution of ages, and to be accompanied by an accession of new feelings, Adam wanted to know every tting at once. Observe, too, what is very important : man had it in his power to destroy the harmony of his being in two ways, either by wanting to love too much, or to know too much. He transgressed in the second way; for we are, in fact, far more deeply tinctured with the pride of science than with the pride of love ; the latter would have deserved pity rather than punishment, and if Adam had been guilty of desiring to feel rather than to Icnow too much, man himself might, perhaps, have been able to expiate his transgres- sion, and the Son of God would not have been obliged to under- take so painful a sacrifice. But the case was different. Adam sought to embrace the universe, not with the sentiments of his heart, but with the power of thought, and, advancing to the tree of knowledge, he admitted into his mind a ray of light that over- powered it. The equilibrium was instantaneously destroyed, and confusion took possession of man. Instead of that illumination which he had promised himself, a thick darkness overcast his sight, and his guilt, like a veil, spread out between him and the universe. His whole soul was agitated and in commotion ; the passions rose up against the judgment, the judgment strove to annihilate the passions, and in this terrible storm the rock of death witnessed with joy the first of shipwrecks. Such was the accident that changed the harmonious and im- mortal constitution of man. From that day all the elements of his being have been scattered, and unable to come together again. The habit — we might almost say the love of the tomb — which matter has contracted destroys every plan of restoration in this world, because our lives are not long enough to confer success upon any efforts we could make to reach primeval perfection.* ' It is in tliis point that the system of perfecfcihility is totally defective. Its supporters do not perceive that, if the mind were continually making new ac- quisitions in knowledge, and the heart in sentiment or the moral virtues, man, in a given time, regaining the point whence he set out, would be, of necessity, immortal j for, every principle of division being done away in him, every prin- ciple of death would likewise cease. The longevity of the patriarchs, and the gift of prophecy among the Hebrews,*" must be ascribed to a restoration, more or less complete, of the equilibrium of human nature. Materialists therefore * That ia, the natural faculty of predicting. T. 118 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. But how could the world have contained so many generations if they had not been subject to death ? This is a mere affair of imagination. Are not the means in the hands of God infinite ? Who knows if men would have multiplied to that extent which we witness at the present day? Who knows whether the greater number of generations would not have remained in a virgin state/ or whether those millions of orbs which revolve over our heads were not reserved for us as delicious retreats, to which we would have been conveyed by attendant angels ? To go still farther : it is impossible to calculate the height to which the arts and sciences might have been carried by man in a state of perfection and living forever upon the earth. If at an early period he made himself master of the three elements, — if, in spite of the greatest difficulties, he now disputes with the birds the empire of the air, — what would he not have attempted in his immortal career ? The nature of the atmosphere, which at present forms an invincible obstacle to a change of planet, was, perhaps, different before the deluge. Be this as it may, it is not unworthy the power of God and the greatness of man to suppose, that the race of Adam was destined to traverse the regions of space, and to people all those suns which, deprived of their inhabitants by sin, have since been nothing more than resplendent deserts. who support the system o( pcrfectibiliti/ are inconsistent with themselves, since, in fact, this doctrine, so far from being that of materialism, leads to the most mystical 8piritualiti/, ' Such was the opinion of St. John Chrysostom. He supposes that God would have furnished a means of generation which is unknown to us. There stand, he says, before the throne of God, a multitude of angels who were born not by human agency. — De Virgin,, lib. ii. BOOK IV. CONTINUATION OF THE TRUTHS OF SCRIPTURE— OBJEC- TIONS AGAINST THE SYSTEM OF MOSES. CHAPTER I. CHRONOLOGY. Some learned men having inferred from the history of man or that of the earth that the world is of higher antiquity than that ascrihed to it in the Mosaic account, we have frequent quotations from Sanchoniatho, Porphyry, the Sanscrit books, and other sources, in support of this opinion. But have they who lay so much stress on these authorities always consulted them in their originals ? In the first place, it is rather presumptuous to intimate that Origen, Eusehius, Bossuet, Pascal, FSnelon, Bacon, Newton, Leibnitz, Huet, and many others, were either ignorant or weak men, or wrote in opposition to their real sentiments. They be- lieved in the truth of the Mosaic history, and it cannot be denied that these men possessed learning in comparison with which our imperfect erudition makes a very insignificant figure. But to begin with chronology : our modern scholars have made a mere sport of removing the insurmountable difficulties which confounded a Scaliger, a Petau, an Usher, a Grotius. They would laugh at our ignorance were we to inquire when the Olym- piads commenced ? how they agree with the modes of compu- tation by archons, by ephori, by ediles, by consuls, by reigns, by Pythian, Nemeean, and secular games ? how all the calendars of nations harmonize together ? in what manner we must proceed to make the ancient year of Romulus, consisting of ten months or 354 days, accord .with Numa's year of 355, or the Julian year of 365 ? by what means we shall avoid errors in referring these same 119 120 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. years to tlie common Attic year of 354 days, and to the embolis- mic year of 384 ?' These, however, are not the only perplexities in respect to years. The ancient Jewish year had hut 354 days ; sometimes twelve days were added at the end of the year, and sometimes a month of thirty days was introduced after the month Adar, to form a solar year. The modern Jewish year counts twelve months, and takes seven years of thirteen months in the space of nineteen years. The Syriac year also varies, and consists of 365 days. The Turkish or Arabic year has 354 days, and admits eleven intercalary months in twenty-nine years. The Egyptian year is divided into twelve months of thirty days, five days being added to the last. The Persian year, called Yezdegerdic, has a similar computation.'' Besides these various methods of counting time, all these years have neither the same beginning, nor the same hours, nor the same days, nor the same divisions. The civil year of the Jews (like all those of the Orientals) commences with the new moon of September, and their ecclesiastical year with the new moon of March. The Greeks reckon the first month of their year from the new moon following the summer solstice. The first month of the Persian year corresponds with our June ; and the Chinese and Indians begin theirs from the first moon in March. We find, moreover, astronomical and civil months, which are subdivided into lunar and solar, into synodical and periodical; we have months distributed into kalends, ides, decades, weeks; we find days of two kinds, artificial and natural, and commencing, the latter at sunrise, as among the ancient Babylonians, Syrians, and Persians, the former at sunset, as in China, in modern Italy, and of old among the Athenians, the Jews, and the barbarians of the north. The Arabs begin their days at noon ; the French, the Eng- lish, the Germans, the Spaniards, and the Portuguese, at midnight. ^ Embolismic means intercalary, or inserted. As the Greeks reckoned time by the lunar year of 35d days, in order to bring it to the solar year they added a thirteenth lunar month every two or three years. 2 The other Persian year, called Gelalean, which commenced in the year of the world 1089, is the most exact of civil years, as it makes the solstices and the equinoxes fall precisely on the same days. It is formed by means of an intercalation repeated six or seven times in four, and afterward once in five, years. CHRONOLOGY. 121 Lastly, the veiy hours are not without their perplexities in chro- nology, being divided into Babylonian, Italian, and astronomical ; and were we to be still more particular, we should no longer reckon sixty minutes in a European hour, but one thousand and eighty scruples in that of Chaldsea and Arabia. Chronology has been termed the torch of history;* would to God we had no other to throw a light upon the crimes of men ! But what would be our embarrassment if, in pursuing this sub- ject, we entered upon the different periods, eras, or epochs I The Victorian period, which embraces 532 years, is formed by the multiplication of the solar and lunar cycles. The same cycles, multiplied by that of the indiction, produce the 7980 years of the Julian period. The period of Constantinople comprehends an equal number of years with the Julian period, but does not begin at the same epoch. As to eras, they reckon in some places by the year of the creation," in others by olympiads,^ by the foundation of Kome,' by the birth of Christ, by the epoch of Eusebius, by that of the Seleucidae,^ of Nabonassar,^ of the Mar- tyrs.' The Turks have their hegira,^ the Persians their yezde- gerdic.' The Julian, Gregorian, Iberian," and Actian*' eras, are also employed in computation. We shall say nothing concerning the Arundelian marbles, the medals and monuments of all sorts, which create additional confusion in chronology. Is there any candid person who will deny, after glancing at these pages, that so many arbitrary modes of calculating time are sufficient to make of history a frightful chaos ? The annals of the Jews, by the confession of scientific men themselves, are the only ones whose ' See note G. " This epocli is subdivided into the Greek, Jewish, Alexandrian, &o. 5 The Greek historians. * The Latin historians. ^ Followed by Josephus, the historian. ^ Followed by Ptolemy and some others. ' Followed by the first Christians till 532, and in modern times by the Christians of Abyssinia and Egypt. 8 The Orientals do not place it as we do. ' Thus named after a king of Persia who fell in a battle with the Saracens, in the year 632 of our era. "> Followed in the councils and on the ancient monuments of Spain. " Keoeived its name from the battle of Actium, and was adopted by Ptolemy, Josephus, Eusebius, and Censorius. H 122 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. chronology is simple, regular, and luminous. Why, then, im- pelled by an ardent zeal for impiety, should we puzzle ourselves with questions of computation as dry as they are inexplicable, when we possess the surest clue to guide us in history? This is a new evidence in favor of the holy Scriptures.* CHAPTER II. LOGOGRAPHY AND HISTORICAL FACTS. After the chronological objections against the Bible, come those which some writers have pretended to deduce from historical facts themselves. They inform us of a tradition among the priests of Thebes, which supposed the kingdom of Egypt to have existed eighteen thousand years; and they cite the list of its dynasties, which is still extant. Plutarch, who cannot be suspected of Christianity, will furnish us with part of the reply to this objection. " Though their year," says he, speaking of the Egyptians, " comprehended four months, according to some authors, yet at first it consisted of only one, and contained no more than the course of a single moon. In this way, making a year of a single month, the period which has elapsed from their origin appears extremely long, and they are reputed to be the most ancient people, though they settled in their country at a late period."* We learn, moreover, from Hero- dotus,^ Diodorus Sioulus,* Justin,' Strabo," and Jablonsky,' that • Sir Isaac Newton applied the principles of astronomy to rectify the errors of chronology. He ascertained that the computations of time in the Old Tes- tament coincided exactly with the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. By the aid of astronomy he corrected the whole disordered state of computing time in the profane writers, and confirmed the accuracy and truth of the Scripture chronology. Neither Cardinal Baronius, in his annals, nor Petavius, nor Sca- liger, in his emendations of Eusebius, great as were their labor and diligenoo, have found their way so well through the labyrinths of chronology, or settled its disputable and intricate points more satisfactorily in their bulky folios, than our author has done in the compass of this short chapter. K. 2 Plut., in Num. 2 Herodot., lib. ii. * Died., lib. i. ' Just., lib. i. ^ Strab., lib. .wii. ' Jablonsk., Panlh. Egypt., lib. ii. LOGOGKAPHY AND HISTORICAL FACTS. 123 tlie Egyptians find a pretended glory in referring tlieir origin to tte remotest antiquity, and, as it were, concealing their birth in the obscurity of ages. The number of their reigns can scarcely be a source of dif&- culty. It is well known that the Egyptian dynasties are com- posed of contemporary sovereigns ; besides, the same word in the Oriental languages may be read in five or six diflferent ways, and our ignorance has often made five or six persons out of one indi- vidual.' The same thing has happened in regard to the transla- tion of a single name. The Atlioth of the Egyptians is trans- lated in Eratosthenes by Epixoysv-r]^, which signifies, in Greek, the learned, as Athoth expresses the same thing in Coptic : but his- torians have not failed to make two kings of Athoth and Hermes or Hermogenes. But the Athoth of Manetho is again multiplied : in Plato, he is transformed into Thoth, and the text of Sanoho- niatho proves in fact that this is the primitive name, the letter A being one of those which are retrenched or added at pleasure in the Oriental languages. Thus the name of the man whom Africanus calls Pachnas, is rendered by Josephus Apachnas. Here, then, we have Thoth, Athoth, Hermes, or Hermogenes, or Mercury, five celebrated men, who occupy together nearly two centuries ; and yet these _;?«e kings were but one single Egyptian, who perhaps did not live sixty years.^ I For instance, the monogram of Fo-ln, a Chinese divinity, is precisely the same as that of Mencs, a divinity of Egypt. Moreover, it is well ascertained, that the Oriental characters are only general signs of ideas, which each one renders in his peculiar language, as he would the Arabic figures. Thus, the Italian calls duodecimo what the Englishman would express by the word twelve, and the Frenchman by the word douze. '^ Some persons, perhaps in other respects enlightened, have accused the Jews of having adulterated the names of history; but they should have known that it was the Greeks, and not the Jews, who were guilty of this alteration, espe- cially in regard to Oriental names. See Boch., Geog. Sacr., &c. Even at the present day, in the East, Tyre is called Asur, from Tour or Sur, The Athe- nians themselves would have pronounced it Tur or Tour ; for the y in modern language is epailon, or small u of the Greeks. In the same way, Darius may be derived from AsBuerua. Dropping the initial A, according to a preceding remark, we have Suerua. But the delta, or capital D in Greek, is much like the aamecJi, or capital S in Hebrew, and the latter was thus changed among the Greeks into the former. By an error in pronunciation, the change was more easily effected : for, as a Frenchman would pronounce the English th like z or da, or (, BO the Greek, having no letter like the Hebrew S, was inclined to pro- 124 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. What necessity is there, after all, to lay so much stress on logo- graphical disputes, when we need but open the volumes of his- tory to convince ourselves of the modern origin of men ? In vain shall we combine with imaginary ages, or conjure up ficti- tious shades of death ; all this will not prevent mankind from being but a creature of yesterday. The names of those who in- vented the arts are as familiar to us as those of a brother or a grandfather. It was Hypsuranius who built huts of reeds, the habitations of primeval innocence j Usoiis first clothed himself with the skins of beasts, and braved the billows on the trunk of a tree;' Tubalcaiu taught men the uses of iron;^ Noah or Bac- chus planted the vine ; Cain or Triptolemus fashioned the plough; Agrotes' or Ceres reaped the first harvest. History, medicine, geometry, the fine arts, and laws, are not of higher antiquity; and we are indebted for them to Herodotus, Hippocrates, Thales, Homer, Dsedalus, and Minos. As to the origin of kings and cities, their history has been transmitted to us by Moses, Plato, Justin, and some others, and we know when and why the various forms of government were established among different nations.* If we are astonished to find such grandeur and magnificence in the early cities of Asia, this difficulty is easily removed by an observation founded on the genius of the Eastern nations. In all ages, it has been the custom of these nations to build immense cities, which, however, afford no evidence respecting their civil- ization, and consequently their antiquity. The Arabs, who tra- vel over burning sands, where they are quite satisfied to enjoy a little shade under a tent of sheepskins, have erected almost under our eyes gigantic cities, which these citizens of the desert seem to have designed as the enclosures of solitude. The Chinese, also, who have made so little progress in the arts, have the most Bounce it as their D, as the Samech in Hebrew has in fact something of this sound, according to the Masoretie points. Hence Duerus for Suerus, and by a slight change of vowels, which are not important in etymology, we have Ba- riiu. They who wish to jest at the expense of religion, morals, the peace of nations, or the general happiness of mankind, should first be well assured that they will not incur, in the attempt, the charge of pitiful ignorance. ' Sanch., ap. Eus., Prccparat. Evang., lib. i. c. 10. ' •^O"-' '^- 3 Sanch., loc. cit. " See Pentat. of Moses; Plat., de Let/, et Tim.; Just., lib. ii., Berod; Plut., hi Thes., Num., Lycurg., Sot., &e. LOGOGRAPHY AND HISTORICAL FACTS. 125 extensive cities on the face of the globe, with walls, gardens, palaces, lakes, and artificial canals, like those of ancient Babylon.^ Finally, are we not ourselves a striking instance of the rapidity with which nations become civilized ? Scarcely twelve centuries ago our ancestors were as barbarous as the Hottentots, and now we surpass Greece in all the refinements of taste, luxury, and the arts. The general logic of languages cannot furnish any valid argu- ment in favor of the antiquity of mankind. The idioms of the primitive East, far from indicating a very ancient state of society, exhibit on the contrary a close proximity to that of nature. Their mechanism is simple in the highest degree; hyperbole, meta- phor, all the poetic figures, incessantly recur; but you will find in them scarcely any words for the expression of metaphysical ideas. It would be impossible to convey with perspicuity in the Hebrew language the theology of the Christian doctrine." Among the Greeks and the modern Arabs alone we meet with compound terms capable of expressing the abstractions of thought. Every- body knows that Aristotle was the first philosopher who invented categories, in which ideas are placed together by a forced ar- rangement, of whatever class or nature they may be.' Lastly, it is asserted that, before the Egyptians had erected those temples of which such beautiful ruins yet remain, the peo- ple already tended their flocks amid ruins left by some unknown nation : a circumstance which would presuppose a very high antiquity. To decide this question, it is necessary to ascertain precisely 1 See Path, du Hald., Hist, de la Ch. j Letir. Edif. ; Macartney's Emh. to China, &o. ^ This may be easily ascertained by reading the Fathers who haye written in Syriac, as St. Ephrem, deacon of Bdessa. ** If languages require so much time for their complete formation, why have the savages of Canada such subtle and such complicated dialects ? The verbs of the Huron language have all the inflexions of the Greek verbs. Lilie the latter, they distinguish by the characteristic, the augment, &c. They have three modes^ three genders, three numbers, and, moreover, a certain derange- ment of letters peculiar to the verbs of the Oriental languages. But, what is still more unaccountable, they bave a fourth personal pronoun, which is placed between the second and third person both in the singular and in the plural. There is nothing like this in any of the dead or living languages with which we have the slightest acquaintance. 11» J26 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. who were the pastoral tribes, and whence they came. Bruce, the British traveller, who finds every thing in Ethiopia, derives their origin from that country. The Ethiopians, however, so far from being able to send colonies abroad, were themselves at that period a recently-established people. " The Ethiopians," says Eusebius, " rising from the banks of the river Indus, settled near Egypt." Manetho, in his sixth dynasty, calls the shepherds Phcenician strangers. Eusebius places their arrival in Egypt during the reign of Amenophis, whence we must draw these two inferences :— 1. That Egypt was not then barbarous, since Inachus the Egyp- tian, about this period, introduced the sciences into Greece; 2. That Egypt was not covered with ruins, since Thebes was then built, and since Amenophis was the father of Sesostris, who raised the glory of the Egyptians to its highest pitch. According to Josephus the historian, it was Thetmosis who compelled the shep- herds to abandon altogether the banks of the Nile.* But what new arguments would have been urged against the Scripture, had its adversaries been acquainted with another his- torical prodigy, which also belongs to the class of ruins, — alas ! like every thing connected with the history of mankind ! Within these few years, extraordinary monuments have been discovered in North America, on the banks of the Muskingum, the Miami, the Wabash, the Ohio, and particularly the Scioto, where they occupy a space upward of twenty leagues in length. They con- sist of ramparts of earth, with ditches, slopes, moons, half-moons, and prodigious cones, which serve for sepulchres. It has been asked, what people could have left these remains ? But, so far, the question has not been answered.'' Man is suspended in the present, between the past and the future, as on a rock between two gulfs: behind, before, all around, is darkness; and scarcely ' Maneth., ad. Joseph, et Afric. ; Herod., lib. ii. c. 100 ; Diod., lib. i. ; Pa. xlviii. ; Euseb., Ckron., lib. i. The invasion of these people, recorded by profane authors, explains a passage in Genesis relative to Jacob and his sons : " That ye may dwell in the land of Gessen, for the Egyptians have all shepherds in abomination." Gen. xlvi. 34. Hence, also, we obtain a clue to the Greek name of the Pharaoh under whom Israel entered Egypt, and that of the second Pharaoh, during whose reign his descendants quitted that country. The Scrip- ture, so far from contradicting profane histories, serves, on the contrary, to prove their authenticity. , 2 See note H. LOGOGRAPIIY AND HISTORICAL FACTS. 127 does he see the few phantoms which, rising up from the bottom of either abyss, float for a moment upon the surface, and then disappear. Whatever conjectures may be formed respecting these Ame- rican ruins, though they were accompanied with the visions of a primitive world, or the chimeras of an Atlantis, the civilized nation, whose plough, perhaps, turned up the plains where the Iroquois now pursues the bear, required no longer time for the consummation of its destiny, than that which swallowed up the empires of a Cyrus, an Alexander, and a Csesar. Fortunate at least is that nation which has not left behind a name in history, and whose possessions have fallen to no other heirs than the deer of the forest and the birds of the air ! No one will come intc these savage wilds to deny the Creator, and, with scales in his hand, to weigh the dust of departed humanity, with a view to prove the eternal duration of mankind. For my part, a solitary lover of nature and a simple confessor of the Deity, I once sat on those very ruins. A traveller without renown, I held converse with those relics, like myself, unknown The confused recollections of society, and the vague reveries of the desert, were blended in the recesses of my soul. Night had reached the middle of her course ; all was solemn and still — the moon, the woods, and the sepulchres, — save that at long intervals was heard the fall of some tree, which the axe of time laid low, in the depths of the forest. Thus every thing falls, every thing goes to ruin 1 We do not conceive ourselves obliged to speak seriously of the four jogues, or Indian ages, the first of which lasted three mil- lion two hundred thousand years ; the second, one million ; the third, one million six hundred thousand ; while the fourth, which is the present age, will comprehend four hundred thousand years ! If to all these difficulties of chronology, logography, and facts, we add the errors arising from the passions of the historian, or of men who are the partisans of his theories, — if, moreover, we take into account the errors of copyists, and a thousand accidents of time and place, — we shall be compelled to acknowledge that all the reasons drawn from history in favor of the antiquity of the globe, are as unsatisfactory in themselves as their research is use- less. Most assuredly, too, it is a poor way of establishing the 128 GENIUS OF CHBISTIANITY. duration of the world, to make human life the basis of the calcu- lation. Will you pretend to demonstrate the permanence and the reality of things by the rapid succession of momentary shadows ? Will you exhibit a heap of rubbish as the evidence of a society without beginning and without end ? Does it require many days to produce a pile of ruins ? The world would be old indeed were we to number its years by the wrecks which it presents to our view. CHAPTER III. ASTRONOMY. In the history of the firmament are sought the second proofs of the antiquity of the world and the errors of Scripture. Thus, the heavens, which declare the glory of God unto all men, and whose language is heard by all nations,* proclaim nothing to the infidel. Happily it is not that the celestial orbs are mute, but the athiest is deaf. Astronomy owes its origin to shepherds. In the wilds of the primitive creation, the first generations of men beheld their in- fant families and their numerous flocks sporting around them, and, happy to the very inmost of their souls, no useless foresight disturbed their repose. In the departure of the birds of autumn they remarked not the flight of years, neither did the fall of the leaves apprise them of any thing more than the return of winter. When the neighboring hill was stripped of all its herbage by their flocks, mounting their wagons covered with skins, with their children and their wives, they traversed the forests in quest of some distant river, where the coolness of the shade and the beauty of the wilderness invited them to fix their new habitation. But they wanted a compass to direct them through those track- less forests, and along those rivers which had never been explored; and they naturally trusted to the guidance of the stars, by whose appearances they steered their course. At once legislators and guides, they regulated the shearing of the sheep and the most ' Ps. xviii. ASTRONOMY. 129 distant migrations ; each family followed tlie course of a constel- lation ; each star shone as the leader of a flock. In proportion as these pastoral people applied to this study, they discovered new laws. In those days God was pleased to unfold the course of the sun to the tenants of the lowly cabin, and fable recorded that Apollo had descended among the shepherds. Small columns of brick were raised to perpetuate the remem- brance of observations. Never had the mightiest empire a more simple history. With the same tool with which he pierced his pipe, by the same altar on which he had sacrificed his firstling kid, the herdsman engraved upon a rook his immortal disco- veries. In other places he left similar witnesses of this pastoral astronomy ; he exchanged annals with the firmament ; and in the same manner as he had inscribed the records of the stars among his flocks, he wrote the records of his flocks among the constel- lations of the zodiac. The sun retired to rest only in the sheep- folds ; the bull announced by his bellowing the passage of the god of day, and the ram awaited his appearance to salute him in the name of his master. In the skies were discovered ears of corn, implements of agriculture, virgins, lambs, nay, even the shepherd's dog : the whole sphere was transformed, as it were, into a spacious rural mansion, inhabited by the Shepherd of men. These happy days passed away, but mankind retained a con- fused tradition of them in those accounts of the golden age, in which the reign of the stars was invariably blended with that of the pastoral life. India has still an astronomical and pastoral cha- racter, like Egypt of old. Withjcorruption, however, arose pro- perty;* with property mensuration, the second age of astronomy. But, by a destiny not a little remarkable, the simplest nations were still best acquainted with the system of the heavens ; the herdsman of the Ganges fell into errors less gross than the philo- sopher of Athens : as if the muse of astronomy had retained a secret partiality for the shepherds, the objects of her first attach- ment. ^ That is, the rights of property became objects of closer vigilance and more jealous care, as men grew more selfish. The right of property, being a neces- sary appendage of the social state, cannot be an evil opposed to the divine law, but rather a relation which that law sanctions and commands ; so that the vio- lation of the former implies the transgression of the latter. T. • I 130 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. During tliose protracted calamities whicli accompanied and succeeded the fall of the Roman empire, the sciences had no other asylum than the sanctuary of that Church which they now so ungratefully profane. Cherished in the silence of the con- vents, they owed their preservation to those same recluses whom, in our days, they affect to despise. A friar Bacon, a bishop Albert, a cardinal Cusa, resuscitated in their laborious vigils the genius of an Eudoxus, a Timocharis, an Hipparchus, and a Ptolemy. Patronized by the popes, who set an example to kings, the sciences at length spread abroad from those sacred retreats in which religion had gathered them under her protecting wings. Astronomy revived in every quarter. Gregory XIII. corrected the calendar; Copernicus reformed the system of the world; Tycho Brahe, from the top of his tower, renewed the memory of the ancient Babylonian observers ; Kepler determined the figure of the planetary orbits. But God bumbled again the pride of man by granting to the sports of innocence what he had refused to the investigations of philosophy; — the telescope was discovered by children. Galileo improved the new instrument; when, be- hold ! the paths of immensity were at once shortened, the genius of man brought down the heavens from their elevation, and the stars came to be measured by his hands. These numerous discoveries were but the forerunners of others still more important ; for man had approached too near the sanc- tuary of nature not to be soon admitted within its precincts. Nothing was now wanted but the proper methods of relieving his mind from the vast calculations which overwhelmed it. Descartes soon ventured to refer to the great Creator the physical laws of our globe ; and, by one of those strokes of genius of which only four or five instances are recorded in history, he effected a union between algebra and geometry in the same manner as speech is combined with thought. Newton had only to apply the materials which so many hands had prepared for him, but he did it like a perfect artist; and from the various plans upon which he might have reared the edifice of the spheres, he selected the noblest, the most sublime design — perhaps that of the Deity himself. The understanding at length ascertained the order which the eye ad- mired ; the golden balance which Homer and the Scriptures give to the Supreme Arbiter was again put into his hand ; the comet ASTRONOMY. 131 submitted; planet attracted planet across the regions of im- mensity; ocean felt the pressure' of two vast bodies floating mil- lions of leagues from its surface ; from the sun to the minutest atom all things continued in their places by an admirable equili- brium, and nothing in nature now wanted a counterpoise but the heart of man. Who could have thought it ? At the very time when so many new proofs of the greatness and wisdom of Providence were dis- covered, there were men who shut their eyes more closely than ever against the light. Not that those immortal geniuses, Co- pernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Leibnitz, and Newton, were athe- ists ; but their successors, by an unaccountable fatality, imagined that they held the Deity within their crucibles and telescopes, because they perceived in them some of the elements with which the universal mind had founded the system of worlds. When we recall the terrors of the F rench r evolution, when we consider that to the vanity of science we owe almost all our calamities, is it not enough to make us think that man was on the point of perishing once more, for having a second time raised his hand to the fruit of the tree of knowledge ? Let this afford us matter for reflection on the original crime : the ages of science have always bordered on the ages of destruction. Truly unfortunate, in our opinion, is the astronomer who can pass his nights in contemplating the stars without beholding in- scribed upon them the name of God. What I can he not see in such a variety of figures and characters the letters which compose that divine name ? Is not the problem of a Deity solved by the mysterious calculations of so many suns ? Does not the brilliant algebra of the heavens sufl&ce to bring to light the great Un- Jcnown ? The first astronomical objection alleged against the system of Moses is founded on the celestial sphere. " How can the world be so modern ?" exclaims the philosopher; "the very composition of the sphere implies millions of years." It must also be admitted that astronomy was one of the first sciences cultivated by men. Bailly proves that the patriarchs, before the time of Noah, were acquainted with the period of six hundred years, the year of 365 days, 5 hours, 51 minutes, 36 seconds, and likewise that they named the six days of the crea- 132 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. .:, tion after the planetary order.* If the primitive generations were already so conversant with the history of the heavens, is it not highly probable that the ages which have elapsed since the deluge have been more than sufficient to bring the science of as- tronomy to the state in which we find it at the present day? It is impossible to pronounce with certainty respecting the time necessary for the development of a science. From Copernicus to Newton, astronomy made greater progress in one century than it had previously done in the course of three thousand years. The sciences may be compared to regions diversified with plains and mountains. We proceed with rapid pace over the plain ; but when we reach the foot of the mountain a considerable time is lost in exploring its paths and in climbing the summit from which we descend into another plain. It must not then be con- cluded that astronomy was myriads of centuries in its infancy, because its middle age was protracted during four thousand years : such an idea would contradict all that we know of history and of the progress of the human mind. The second objection is deduced from the historical epochs, combined with the astronomical observations of nations, and in particular those of the Chaldeans and Indians. In regard to the former, it is well known that the seven hun- dred and twenty thousand years of which they boasted are re- ducible to nineteen hundred and three. ^ As to the observations of the Indians, those which are founded on incontestable facts date no farther back than the year 3102 before the Christian era. This we admit to be a very high de- gree of antiquity, but it comes at least within known limits. At this epoch the fourth jogue or Indian age commences. Bailly, combining the first three ages and adding them to the fourth, shows that the whole chronology of the Brahmins is comprised in the space of about seventy centuries, which exactly corresponds with the chronology of the Septuagint.^ He proves to demon- stration that the chronicles of the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Chinese, the Persians, and the Indians, coincide in a remarkable ^ Bail., Hist, de I'Agt. Arte. 2 The tables of these observations, drawn up at Babylon before the arrival of Alexander, were sent by Callisthenes to Aristotle. ^ See note I. NATUEAL HISTORY— THE DELUGE. 133 degree with the epochs of Scripture.* We quote Bailly the more williugly, as that philosopher fell a victim to the principles which we have undertaken to refute. When this unfortunate man, in speaking of Hypatia, — a young female astronomer, murdered by the inhabitants of Alexandria, — observed that the moderns at Uast spare life, though they shoio no mercy to reputation, little did he suspect that he would himself afford a lamentable proof of the fallacy of his assertion, and that in his own person the tragic story of Hypatia would be repeated. In short, all these endless series of generations and centuries, which are to be met with among different nations, spring from a weakness natural to the human heart. Man feels within himself a principle of immortality, and shrinks as it were with shame from the contemplation of his brief existence. He imagines that by piling tombs upon tombs he will hide from view this capital defect of his nature, and by adding nothing to nothing he will at length produce eternity. But he only betrays himself, and re- veals what he is so anxious to conceal ; for, the higher the funeral pyramid is reared, the more diminutive seems the living statue that surmounts it ; and life appears the more insignificant when the monstrous phantom of death lifts it up in its arms. CHAPTER IV. NATURAL HISTORY — THE DELUGE. Astronomy having been found insufficient to destroy the chronology of Scripture, natural history was summoned to its aid.'' Some writers speak of certain epochs in which the whole 1 Bail., Ast. Ind., disc, prelim., part ii. 2 Piiilosophers have laughed at Joshua, who commanded the sun to stand still. We would scarcely have thought it necessary to inform the present age that the sun, though the centre of our system, is not motionless. Others have excused Joshua by observing that he adopted the popular mode of expression. They might just as well have said that he spoke like Newton. If you wished to stop a watch, you would not break a small wheel, but the main-spring, the suspension of which would instantly arrest the movements of the whole machine. 12 134 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. universe grew young again ; others deny the great catastrophes of the globe, such as the universal deluge. " Rain," say they, " is nothing but the vapor of the ocean. Now, all the seas of the globe would not be sufficient to cover the earth to the height mentioned in Scripture." We might reply that this mode of reasoning is at variance with that very knowledge of which men boast so much nowadays, as modern chemistry teaches us that air may be converted into water. Were this the case, what a frightful deluge would be witnessed ! But, passing over, as we willingly do, those scientific arguments which explain every thing to the understanding without satisfying the heart, we shall con- fine ourselves to the remark, that, to submerge the terrestrial por- tion of the globe, it is sufficient for Ocean to overleap his bounds, carrying with him the waters of the fathomless gulf. Besides, ye presumptuous mortals, have ye penetrated into the treasures of the hailP are ye acquainted with all the reservoirs of that abyss whence the Lord will call forth death on the dreadful day of his vengeance ? Whether God, raising the bed of the sea, poured its turbulent waters over the land, or, changing the course of the sun, caused it to rise at the pole, portentous of evil, the fact is certain, that a destructive deluge has laid waste the earth. On this occasion the human race was nearly annihilated. All national quarrels were at an end, all revolutions ceased. Kings, people, hostile armies, suspended their sanguinary quarrels, and, seized with mortal fear, embraced one another. The temples were crowded with suppliants, who had all their lives, perhaps, denied the Deity; but the Deity denied them in his turn, and it was soon announced that all ocean was rushing in at the gates. In vain mothers fled with their infants to the summits of the moun- tains ; in vain the lover expected to find a refuge for his mistress in the same grot which had witnessed his vows ; in vain friends disputed with affrighted beasts the topmost branches of the oak; the bird himself, driven from bough to bough by the rising flood, tired his wings to no purpose over the shoreless plain of waters. The sun, which through sombre clouds shed a lurid light on naught but scenes of death, appeared dull and empurpled ; the NATURAL HISTORY— THE DELUGE. 135 volcanoes, disgorging vast masses of smoke, were extinguished, and one of the four elements, fire, perished together with light. The world was now covered with horrihle shades which sent forth the most terrific cries. Amid the humid darkness, the remnant of living creatures, the tiger and the lamb, the eagle and the dove, the reptile and the insect, man and woman, hastened together to the most elevated rook on the surface of the globe; but Ocean still pursued them, and, raising around them his stu- pendous and menacing waters, buried the last point of land be- neath his stormy wastes. God, having accomplished his vengeance, commanded the seas to retire within the abyss ; but he determined to impress on the globe everlasting traces of his wrath. The relics of the elephant of India were piled up in the regions of Siberia; the shell-fish of the Magellanic shores were fixed in the quarries of France ; whole beds of marine substances settled upon the summits of the Alps, of Taurus, and of the Cordilleras; and those mountains them- selves were the monuments which God left in the three worlds to commemorate his triumph over the wicked, as a monarch erects a trophy on the field where he has defeated his enemies. He was not satisfied, however, with these general attestations of his past indignation. Knowing how soon the remembrance of calamity is effaced from the mind of man, he spread memorials of it everywhere around him. The sun had now no other throne in the morning, no other couch at night, than the watery element, in which it seemed to be daily extinguished as at the time of the deluge. Often the clouds of heaven resembled waves heaped upon one another, sandy shores or whitened clifis. On land, the rocks discharged torrents of water. The light of the moon and the white vapors of evening at times gave to the valleys the ap- pearance of being covered with a sheet of water. In the most arid situations grew trees, whose bending branches hung heavily toward the earth, as if they had just risen from the bosom of the waves. Twice a day the sea was commanded to rise again in its bed, and to invade its deep resounding shores. The caverns of the moun- tains retained a hollow and mournful sound. The summits of the solitary woods presented an image of the rolling billows, and the ocean seemed to have left the roar of its waters in the recesses of the forest. 136 GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. CHAPTER V. YOUTH AND OLD AGE OF THE EARTH. We now come to the third objection relative to the modem origin of the globe. "The earth," it is said, "is an aged nurse, who betrays her antiquity in every thing. Examine her fossils, her marbles, her granites, her lavas, and you will discover in them a series of innumerable years, marked by circles, strata, or branches, as the age of a sei-pent is determined by his rattles, that of a horse by his teeth, or that of a stag by his antlers."' This difiSculty has been solved a hundred times by the follow- ing answer : God might have created, and doubtless did create, the world with all the marks of antiquity and completeness which it now exhibits. What, in fact, can be more probable than that the Author of nature originally produced both venerable forests and young plan- tations, and that the animals were created, some full of days, others adorned with the graces of infancy? The oaks, on spring- ing from the fruitful soil, doubtless bore at once the aged crows and the new progeny of doves. Worm, chrysalis, and butterfly— the insect crawled upon the grass, suspended its golden egg in the forest, or fluttered aloft in the air. The bee, though she had lived but a morning, already gathered her ambrosia from genera- tions of flowers. We may imagine that the ewe was not without her lamb, nor the linnet without her young; and that the flower- ing shrubs concealed among their buds nightingales, astonished at the warbling notes in which they expressed the tenderness of their first enjoyments. If the world had not been at the same time young and old, the grand, the serious, the moral, would have been banished from the face of nature ; for these are ideas essentially inherent in an- tique objects. Every scene would have lost its wonders. The rock in ruins would no longer have overhung the abyss with its pendent herbage. The forests, stripped of their accidents, would YOUTH AND OLD AGE OF THE EARTH. 137 no longer have exhibited the pleasing irregularity of trees curved in every direction, and of trunks bending over the currents of rivers. The inspired thoughts, the venerable sounds, the magic voices, the sacred awe of the forests, would have been wanting, together with the darksome bowers which serve for their retreats; and the solitudes of earth and heaven would have remained bare and unattractive without those columns of oaks which join them together. We may well suppose, that the very day the ocean poured its first waves upon the shores, they dashed against rocks already worn, over strands covered with fragments of shell-fish, and around barren capes which protected the sinking coasts against the ravages of the waters. Without this original antiquity, there would have been neither beauty nor magnificence in the work of the Almighty; and, what could not possibly be the case, nature, in a state of innocence, would have been less charming than she is in her present dege- nerate condition. A general infancy of plants, of animals, of ele- ments, would have spread an air of dulness and languor through- out the world, and stripped it of all poetical inspiration. But Grod was not so unskilful a designer of the groves of Eden as infidels pretend. Man, the lord of the earth, was ushered into life with the maturity of thirty years, that the majesty of his be- ing might accord with the antique grandeur of his new empire; and in like manner his partner, doubtless, shone in all the bloom- ing graces of female beauty when she was formed from Adam, that she might be in unison with the flowers and the birds, with innocence and love, and with all the youthful part of the universe. 12* BOOK V. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD DEiAIONSTRATED BY THE WORKS OF NATURE. CHAPTER I. OBJECT OS THIS BOOK. One of the principal doctrines of Ctristianity yet remains to be examined; that is, the state of rewards and punishments in another life. But we cannot enter upon this important subject without first speaking of the two pillars which support the edifice of all the religions in the world—