THE GIfT OF A,.( .2.5L..5:<)7 1 J >.7/^/|| Cornell University Library arV15734 Questions, of the s^^^^^^^^^ olin,anx Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924031386414 Cornell Catholic Union Library. QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. ■'AD tbott weold'st loam I wiQ make otou to t tU> riddle open my l^;>s, v • such Btralgb wot4s AftfttoB^shonld nae to eaob other wt^en mey talk. PBOUTTKBVt. Cornell Catholic Union Library. QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL 1. T. HEOKEH. BIXTH EDITION. NEW- YORK : THE CATFOLia PUBLICATION HOUSE, Entmbxd, aceordisg to Act of Congress, In the year 1856^ by D. APPLETON & COMPAirr, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for tbo Sonthem District of New Y«k. PREFACE. The age is out of joint. Men run to and fro to find the truth. The future lies hid in obscurity and thick darkness. The wide world seems afloat. The question, Has man a destiny, and what is it ? agitates the souls of all men. It would seem that God had never made known to man his destiny, or that man had missed the way that leads to it. Who will bring the light of truth once more to dawn upon the soul ? Truth that will give to man life, energy, and % purpose worthy of his noble and Godlike ca- 6 PREFACE. pacities ? One thing we can truly say of the following sheets ; they are not idle speculations. Our heart is in them, and our life's results. That they may be a means to answer life's problem to earnest souls, is our only ambition. With this, knowing that truth is never spoken in vain, we send them forth. CONTENTS, Titaa I. — Has Man a Dbstint 9 n. — What is Mast's Destiht 18 m. — Man's Dignity 30 IV. — Spboial Dbstint 34 V. OoNTICnjATION 43 VI. OoNTINT7ATI01f 65 VII.— Beook Faem 69 Vni. — ^Fetjitladds 73 IX. — The Beothbehood ob' the Holt Oboss 83 5. — ^Is theeb a Path 88 XI.— The Model Man 92 Xn. — The Model Life 102 XIII. — Idea of the Chtteoh 109 • XIV. — ^Peotestantism and the Ohueoh 127 XV. OoNTmUATION 187 XVI. — Peotestantism and Ohbistian Peefeo- noN 148 8 CONTENTS. PAei XVII. — The Ohheoh akd Komb 165 XVin.— Childhood 1T4 XIX.— OOITFESSIOIT 182 XX. — CownNTTATioisr 191 XXI.— EtroHABiST 207 XXn. EXTEEME IJlfOTIOir 213 XXin.— ExTEENAi. Teshmoitt 219 XXrV. — ^DrviNB Ltee akd Bomb 231 XXY.— POVEETT 238 XXVI. — Ohastitt 243 yx V LI ^MOETIFIOATIOII 249 XXVin. — Natdeb and the Ohitboh 260 XXIX.— ExHOETATioir. 274 XXX.— OoNOLUsioH ^ 290 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. fas llan » iuting. *' But what am I ? An infant in ttie night : An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry." Temmtson. EVERY man that is bom into life has for his task to find his destiny, or to make one. This he must accomplish, or be condemned to the greatest of all miseries, the misery of being " conscious of capacities without the propey objects to satisfy them." I* 10 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. The question that agitates the mind of man, as soon as the eye of reason opens, is that of his destiny. The idea of Grod, himself, and the world around him, strikes him at that moment, as separate and independent facts. The charm that surrounded his innocent childhood is hroken ; he enters upon a new sphere of life ; and, with feelings of surprise, he asks : " Who am 1?" "Whence did I come.?" "^hither do I tend ? " " Who is God ? " " What are my relations to God ? to man ? to the world around me ? " " Have I a destiny ? A work to do ? What is it ? And where ? or is all ruled by Fate ? or left to what men call Chance f " No When, — no Where, — no How, bnt that we are, And nought besides 1 " * These, and similar questions, are the first to spring up at the dawn of reason, in the minds of those who have no fixed notions of religion. Alas ! this is the condition, deny it who may, of the great mass of American youth. • MUnes. HAS MAN A DESTINT. 11 A shrewd observer of men, one who ranka high among onr poets, has stated this fact in his quaint way in the following lines : — " I saw men go np and down, In the country and the town, With this prayer upon their neck, — ' Judgment and a judge we seek.' Not to monarchs they repair, Nor to learned jurist's chair ; But they hurry to their peers. To their kinsfolk and their deara ; Louder than with speech they pray,— ' What am I ? Companion, say 1 ' " * These questions we cannot set aside if we would ; and, unanswered, they fasten upon the mind and consume the life of the heart, like the vultures that fed upon the vitals of the lock- bound Prometheus. Moreover, we would not set them aside if we had the power, for the highest prerogative of man's reason is, to know his destiny ; and his noble energies were not given to be wasted or misspent, but to be di- rected to the fulfilment of it. First of all, then, the question of our des- • Emerson. 12 QUESTIONS OF THE SOXTL. tiny must be met and settled, and that, too, satisfactorily to the intellect and heart. Till this is done, it is idle and nonsensical to tell man to act. You tell him to act, and he will reply : " But how can we act, when we see no purpose in our actions ? How can we act, when we see no end worth acting for ? Eather than act for such ends as men commonly do, we would let our shoulders fall from their sock- ets, and our arms with their bones be broken ! For:— ' We were not born To sink our finer feelings in the dust ; And better to the grave with feelings torn, So in our steps stride truth and honest trust In the great love of things, than to be slaves To forms, whose ringing sides each stroke we ^ve Stamps with a hollower want. Yes, to our graves Hurry, before we in the heaven's look live, Strangers to our best thoughts, and fearing men, And fearing death, and to be born again.' " * If you cannot act, then love. " But how can we love when a deeper insight tells us, that to love is only to be deceived ? To lova • W. E. Channing. HAS MAN A DESTINY. 13 till the inmost want of the soul is stilled, is but an act of self-deception, ending in greater pain and bitterer want. Mock us no longer by telling us to love. Can two voids make a fulness ? Can two wants give bliss ? Can two deficiencies make a whole and perfect result ? ' Madly and in vain do two hearts beat to mingle and be a whole.' " We would love, yes, this is precisely what we would do, but love what will answer to our whole nature, not merely to a part, and that part by no means the most noble. For he ' Who driaks of Oupid's nectar onp, Loveth downwards, and not up.' * And rather than this, our soul chooseth hanging and our bones death." Oh ! is it not a subject of despair for the soul, when we cannot find in ourselves, nor in any other, nor in all society, the light we need to solve life's mystery, the Destiny of Man ! If death could give us any clue, who would not make the venture, and say : — " Emerson, 14 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. " Lay thy loving wings In death npon me, — ^if that way alone Thy great Creation-thought thou wiU'st to me maka known." * Such is the utterance of the soul when it is moved by some unknown influence from the centre and basis of common life, and is seek- ing for another and a higher one, to rest upon. But what is this that torments tne soul ? Has life no purpose ? Has man no task to ac- complish ? Are we " But eddies of the dust, Uplifted by the blast and whirled Along the highway of the world A moment only, then to fall Back to a common level all. At the subsiding of the gust 1 " t Is all around us chaos as it seems, and are we brought forth from darkness into reason's light, only to doubt and perchance despair ? " And is this all that man can daim ? Is this our longing's final dm ! • MilneB. t LongfeHow, HAS MAN A DESTINY. 15 To be like all things round, — no more Than pebbles cast on time's great shore?"* Not always does doubt spring from deficiency, in earnest hearts it is but another form of faith and prayer. Listen to one who has felt keenly the nobler impulses of the soul, who has had brilliant dreams of life and drunk dry the cup of woe. " What you find to your sorrow, is the star of hope. Your doubts are ' The stamp and signet of a most perfect life.' There is in life a purpose ; one equal to aU the wants of the heart and the capacities of the soul ; a purpose that will give to the heart a perpetual freshness of youth, to the mind an ever in- creasing vision of beauty, and to the wiU a di- ?ine basis for action. And this purpose can be yours." Believe it ! or trust one who has been where you are, and who speaks to you now, not of day dreams, but of actualities, of hopes realized, and of aims accomplished ; one who can say, • sterling. 16 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL, " What once I dreamt not, now is true, More lovely sights around me rise." * Lo ! in the fields the yellow grain, tha ripen« ing fruit, the fuU-hlown rose, how ftdl of life ! how perfect ! how beautiful ! And shall man, the crowning piece of God's workmanship, walk with aimless feet ? Shall he be " Weighed npon with heaviness, And utterly consumed with sharp distress, While all things else have rest from weariness} "t No ; man has a destiny, and, to corrupt, to en- feeble, or to abandon those instincts, faculties, and activities, which God has given to him whereby to reach his destiny, this is the soul's suicide ; this, and this alone, is sio. Man has a destiny, and his only evil is to deviate from it ; and not to be able to act in accordance with his destiny, is the greatest of all miseries ; this is, in every sense of the word, to be damned ; this is the greatest torment of helL Man has a destiny, and man's highest • sterling f Tennyson. HAS MAN A DESTINY. 17 good, his life, his happiness, and true being's bliss, is in nothing else than in the fulfilment of his destiny ; it is in this, that his beatitude and heaven consist. Man has adgstiny, what is it ? n. Wi\ni U Han's itstinn. " Oh thon great Movement of the Unlversei Or CbaDge, or flight of Time, for ye are one ! That beoreat, silently, this visible scene Into night's shadow and the streaming rays Of starlight, whither art thou bearing me ? I feel the mighty current sweep me on, , ret know not whither." Bbvaht: IS it not high time that an answer to the question of Man's Destiny should he given, or attempted, when we see our sanitary institu- tions and asylums filled with victims whose minds have been overwrought with false excite- ment, or who have become dupes of a diabolical myiticism ? and the youths of our land balan- cing, like Hamlet or Werther, upon the chances WHAT IS MAN'S DESTINY. 19 of suicide to lift up the veil, and discover to them the meaning and mystery of life 1 But who will tell us " The fete of the man child, The meaning of man ? " * Perhaps the many-sided Goethe, he, from whom " the students of our country are to learn," so says his translator, " how to realize their lofty aspirations." Listen to his " Song of Life," which is after aU, in its main features, but hia own Curriculum Vitae : — " I've set my heart upon nothing you see ; Hurrah ! And so the world goes well with me. And who has the mind to be fellow of mine, Why, let him take hold and help me drain These mouldy lees of wine. " I set my heart first upon wealth, Hurrah I And bartered away my peace and health, But, ah 1 The slippery change went about like air, And when I had clutched me a handftd hero Away it went there. * Emerson. 20 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. " I set my heart upon woman next, Hurrah 1 For her sweet sake was oft perplexed, Bnt, ah ! The Fake one looked for a daintier lot, The Constant one wearied me ont and oat, The Best was not easily got. " I Bet my heart npon travels grand. Hurrah I And spumed our plain, old Fatherland ; But,ahl Fanght seemed to he just the thing it should, Most comfortless hed, and indifferent food. My tastes misunderstood. '* I set my heart upon sounding fame ; Hurrah I And, lo I Fm eclipsed hy some upstart's name ; But, ah I When in public life I loomed quite high. The folks that passed me would look awry; Their very worst friend was I. >♦ And then I set my heart upon war. Hurrah! We gained some battles with 6olat, Hurrah! We troubled the foe with sword and flame, (And some of our friends fared quite the same,) I lost a leg for fame. WHAT IS MAN'S DESTINY. 21 " Now Tve set my heart upon nothing you see ; Hurrah 1 And the whole, wide world belongs to me, Hurrah 1 The feast begins to run low no doubt, But at the old cask we'll have one good bont. Come, drink the lees all out." Such is the end of life, according to the many- sided Groethe, the Father of Modern Transcen- dentalism ; this great German, with his broad and deep experience. Thus, life is a round of sensual pleasures and defeated aims, and the idea of a deeper purpose is tossed off with a cup of wine and a hurrah ! Goethe's compeer, Schiller, was a man of a more earnest mould, and of whom also, the same translator remarks, the students of our country are to learn "lofty aspirations." Schiller makes life's purpose to he, freedom, political freedom. In " Don Carlos," Schiller has given us, as his biographer remarks, a representative of himself in the Marquis de Posa. The Marquis is the beau-ideal of a red-republican. In speak- ing to- the king of Spain, he says : 22 QT7BSTI0NS OF THE SOCL. "Be tons A pattern of the Everlasting and the True I Never, never, did a mortal hold so much, To use it so divinely. AH the kings Of Europe reverence the name of Spain ; Go on in front of all the kings of Europe I One movement of your pen, and new created Is the earth. Say hut, let there he freedom I " Having aided by his writings the tendencies that brought about the French Kevolution of '98, Schiller retired shrinking from its horrors to Jena, as professor of belles-lettres, working to " create beauty, and strew heavenly seeds through the world," as he expresses it, by his plays and poems. Both of these great men were unfaithful to man's true destiny, for they wasted and debased in their lives those energies which were given for a divine purpose. Shall we ask the German philosophers, or theii French transcribers, the meaning of man ? Our time would be better spent in asking the passers- by in our streets ; for they tell us, that the highest problem in philosophy is to establish what the commonest and most illiterate people hold as an undisputed fact ! WHAT IS MAN'S DESTINY. 23 In England we have one only who has spoken, but he is a blind worshipper of Grerman philosophism and French revolutions. He hag ventured to give a solution to man's destiny. " It is/' so says Mr. Thomas Oarlyle, for it is he who speaks, " to make some nook of God's creation a little fruitfuUer, better, more worthy of God ; to make some human hearts a little wiser, manfuUer, happier ; — ^more blessed, less accursed 1 This is work for a God !" Pre- cisely so ; but what he teUs us man ought to do, is precisely what man feels that he is unable to do, and what he feels needs to be done for him, — that is, to make him wiser, better, happier, more blessed ; " this is, in- deed, work for a God." But more of this here- after. Shall we look at home for some one to unrid- dle the meaning of man ? Perhaps our philo- sophers and poets of the East, the transcen- dentalists, wUl give us an answer. What says Mr. Emerson, the Corypheus of Transcendental- ism, to the problem of life ? " Alas ! the sprite that haunts us Deceives our rash desire ; 24 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUIi. It whispers of the glorious gods, And leaves ns in the mire. " We cannot leam the cipher That's writ upon the wall ; Stars help us hy a mystery Which we could never spelL " If but the hero knew it, The world would blush iu flame. The sage, teR he but the secret. Would hang his head in shame. " But our brothers have not read it, Not one has found the key ; And henceforth we are comforted — We are hut such as they 1" A very poor comfort that, we would say, which springs from the thought that we are all in the dark, and there" is no hope for even one to find his way out ; and this comes, above all, with ill grace from one, to whom, - if his own account be true, nature has made all things clear. " But thou, my Votary, weepest thou ? I taught thy heart beyond the reach Of ritual, Bible, or of speech ; WHAT IS MAN'S DESTINY. 25 Wrote on thy mind's transparent table As far as the incommunioable : Taught thee each private sign to raise, Lit by the super-solar blaze. Past utterance and past belief, And past the blasphemy of grief. The mysteries of nature's heart ; And though no muse can these impart, Throb thine with nature's throbbing breast. And all is clear from east to west." We are not a little surprised how one who has been taught so much, and to whom all things have been made so clear, should still be left in the " mire," in regard to the mystery of life. We are, we confess, a little suspicious, that that nature which taught this Votary "beyond the reach of ritual, bible, or of speech ! " was, no nature at all, but self. And the super-solar blaze he speaks of was a certain kind of light that usually leads men into "the mire," called "will-o'-the-wisp." But these men with a false imagination serve only to «nake things obscure which are clear. There is " Uo man born into the world whose work Is not born with him." * * Lowell. 26 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. A clear and definite work, and not a vagae, dreamy, doubtful future, which " Wastes down in feeling's empty strife, And dies in dreaming's sickly mood."* But where will you seek to find man's destiny ? Will you seek for it in nature ? What does nature teach you, who can " The bird language rightly speH, And what roses say so well ? " t The rose, the birds, the sea, the stars, the hea- vens, in tones of thunder teU you — ^"Mortal man, life's secret is not here." " Nature, our sweet mother, Can no balm impart, For she too is sick with all the self-same smart." X Nature is less than man. She cannot meet the inmost want of the soul ; though in her bosom dwell truth, peace, and love. " That type of perfect in his mind, In nature can he nowhere find." § • Sterling. f Emerson. J Milnes. § Tennyson. WHAT IS MAN'S DESTINY. 27 You may, if oft you commune witli nature, be led to exclaim with one of her votaries — " Oh, this bright spring morning makes me feel as if I would clasp the whole world in one em- brace of love ;" but you would be forced to add with this fair soul, if truthful to yourself, " And yet it brings with it a longing for some- thing, I do not know what it is ; what is it " ? Nature, like a child, gives all she has, and yet she cannot satisfy the want of man's heart. Could you read her aright, she proclaims her own insufficiency. She says to man, " Yours is a higher destiny ! " Man has a destiny, and where will you seek it ? In the world ? in the world's wealth ? in its praises ? in its pleasures ? in its hon- ors ? in its splendor ? in its power ? Having drunk to its dregs the cup which the world presents to your lips, you will find written at the bottom, " Fool, fool, thrice fool ! You have sought in vain — your hands are empty — youi life is bankrupt ! " " While in the bud it lay concealed, The world appeared a boundless scene, 28 QUESTIONS OF THE SOtJIi. What have the opening leaves revealed ? How little 1 and that little mean." * Man has a destiny, and will you seek it ic man ? In man's friendship, sympathy, or love ? But man answers to man j heart answers, to heart, "We, too, seek." " Have I a lover Who is nobte smd free S I would he were nobler Than to love me 1 " t Man is more than man ; and the love that man's heart can give only serves to make the heart's craving of love felt more intensely, and to increase its despair of love. Nature, the world, and man, teU the soul : " Be not deceived — ^waste not your time. There is in man something which no created thing, no creature, not the whole universe of things can satisfy ! " The end and ground of all seeking is God, and the soul finds no rest till it finds God, and • Schiller. f EmersoiL WHAT IS man's destiny. 29 reposes on that bosom, out of which its life was first breathed forth ! What else is the heart's deep sigh after happiness, " But the breath of God Still moving in us ? " ♦ III. ■ nn's pipits. " What a piece of work Is man I How noble In reason I How fai- Onite in faculties I in action how like an angel I in apprehension how like a god 1 " — Shakespsabe. COMB to it we must, if not before, at least at the moment of death, that God, and God alone, is all our best having, our repose, the complete and perfect answer to man's whole being. Shall we ask the intelligence of man what it demands ? Its answer is : " To know, to know the truth ; to know the whole truth ; the primal and infinite truth ; — to kaow God 1 " Shall we ask the heart of man the end of MAN'S DIGNITY. 31 all its desires ? It will answer : " To love, to love the good ; to love the supreme and in- finite good ; — to love God and all things else because of some reflect of God ! " Shall we ask the wiU of man its pui-pose ? It will re- ply : " To act ; to act in accordance with the primal truth for the Supreme Good ; to do God's wiU." The head, the heart, the hand of man with one voice proclaim that the end of man is to know, to love, to live for God ! This is God's own destiny. Man's destiny, therefore, is God- like. For God created man in his " own image and likeness ! " The destiny of the soul, then, is to come t& God ; to he one with God. To live, is to think for God, to love for God, to act for God. A truthful life is one in which all the thoughts of the mind, aU the aflfections of the heart, all the acts of the will, are directed to God. A truthful life is one in which all the faculties and energies of the soul tend to God. But God's happiness is one and the same with his life. Man, therefore, living the same life as God, participates in God's happiness. 32 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. and his life here is the beginning of his eternal beatitude hereafter. . What higher end can be conceived than that of God ; what more beautiful life can be imagined than that of God ; what more blissful can be thought of, than the happiness of God ? Say not that in making God "the limit where aU our wishes end," we isolate man from nature and humanity ? Is not God in nature ? in humanity ? in aU things ? If so, then to see God is to see and know all things eminently ; — to love God and be one with him, is to love and be one with aU things most in- timately ; — to do God's will, is to do every thing and serve, all things most effectually. With God and one with God, man, like God, embraces all, and is eminently practical ; with- out God, he is incomplete and his actions in- effectual. We may be told that this is all poetry, rhap Body, moonshine, smoke, and will, like " Ton wavering column, perish 1 " * » SchiUer. MAN'S DiaNITT. 33 To some these thoughts may appear so ; the world is wide, aad leaving such by the way, we say this is " A trutli too vast for spirits lost in sloth, By self-indulgence marr'd of noble growth, Who bear about, in impotence and shame. Their human reason's visionary name." * But to those who feel withia their hearts the strivings of a noble enterprise, we have a word of hope. Ye, whose thoughts make the world a solitude, and who feel a bliss by you not un- derstood, we have a word of hope. Ye, to whom God has given generous views of life and courage to act for Eternity ; to you we have a word of hope, and, with assurance, say : — " Tliese are not dreams for laughter. Now but shoots, these trees hereafter Shall with fruit refresh us." t * Sterling. f Qoethe. IV. ^puial itsting. " Conia I find a path to follow. Ah, ho'w glad I were, and blest I ^ SOEIUJEB. M^ 2f not only has a destiny, but each in- dividual of the race has a special destiny, a definite work to do ; and this work is a great, an important, a divine work. For, whatever God appoints, is great, — great in its purpose, im- portant in its accomplishment, divine in its re- sults. At the same time that God gave to each Boul a definite work to do, and marked out for it a special path in life, which, following faith- fully, it wUl attain its beatitude, he gave also to the soul the strength, courage, talent, grace to do SPECIAL DESTINY. 35 the work -well ; and more, to do it with a certain degree of facility and pleasure. Moments come to every soul when the iron hand of its destiny is laid upon it with an ir- resistible power. A higher power directs it, and it is an awful moment when the soul feels, for the first time, that it is under an influence that it cannot control, and all before it is dark : " My will is bondsman to the dark, I sit within a helmless bark." * When the world loses aU its charms, the sweet ties of human friendship are snapped asunder ; the heart's affections are torn up by their roots with a rirthless hand, and the soul, in throes of agony, cries out to its invisible antagonist, " 'Tis o'er." One thing it knows amidst its darkness, and that is, that to resist the power that leads it on, would be its death. One thing it is sure of, amidst its uncertainties, that the path in which it has entered wiU terminate in a plenitude of life ; and exclaims, f Tennyson. 36 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL, " How strangely Fate my feet is leading ; And, ah ! I feel it soon or late, Much more awaits me, aU unheeding." * Yielding at length with confidence to its invisible guide, it says ; " Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thon me on I The night is dark, and I am far from home — Lead Thou me on I Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see The distant scene, — one step enough for me. " I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou Shouldst lead me on. I loved to choose and see my path, hut now Lead Thou me on I I loved the garish day, and spite of fears, Pride ruled my will : rememher not past years. " So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it stiil Will lead me on. O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, HJl The night is gone ; And with the morn those angel faces smilb Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile. " f • Goethe. f -Dr Newman SPECIAL DESTINY. S7 And among those who have a marked des- tiny, there is a class of souls that cannot sat- isfy their natures with the common modes of life. A hidden principle leads them to seek a better and more spiritual life. The longing after the infinite predominates in these souls, and all other ties must be loosed and sacrificed, if need be, to its growth and full development. Many thoughts come to these souls which stretch far beyond the limits of man's reason ; noble hopes and aspirations, heroic deeds of sacrifice, and bright dreams of a holy life, awake them in their midnight slumbers, indi- cating a life beyond mere human strength. Such are the hidden ways of God's providencp in preparing that class of souls which he has chosen to do a great work, to live above the race and the common life of men, and to act upon society with a divine energy. Listen to thoughts which not unfrequently oc- cupy their minds, and absorb all their energies. " All ties that are not divine must be sev- ered. Not only Jesus's soul, but every soul that has a divine destiny, at some epoch of its life, asks from its depths, Who is my father ? my mother ? my brother P my sister ? my 38 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. friend ? What are thej to me ? "What am I to them ? Can they ' Eaise me when, by sorrow bound, And follow me to death's dark gate ? ' * I would be free, and stand alone in eternal relations with others, and all things around me. What must go at death, why not now ? Man should be master of necessity. We say it, — let him who can receive it, — there is no other truth in life than in living for eternity. ' " You talk to me of home, and I have nothing in my heart that answers to the meaning of the word. My home is eveiy where and nowhere — ^my home is in my own bosom, in my own conscicusness. The earth is my bed, a rock is my pillow, the heaven my canopy, the fruit of the trees and the water of the brook my meat and drink. " * I wander 'mid the dewy flowers, And from the superfluous wealth Of the wood bushes, pluck at will Wholesome and delicate food, And at the silvery fountain quench my thirst.' ♦ * SchiUer. f Goethe. SPECIAL DESTTNT. 39 " Oh, talk to me no longer of a home, it is mockery ; all that goes to make a home from me is gone, and gone for ever, " ' My peace is hence, My heart is lone, My rest for aye, And ever gone.' * " Talk not to me of home, — there is on earth no home." Questions, too, that strike at the very root of things, and the foundation of society, agitate these souls, to which they find no answer. Who wiU answer when they ask : '' Tell me, can he who accumulates more than he daily needs, be a true follower of Him who bade his disciples to pray only for their ' daily bread ? ' " Can he who amasses wealth be a faithful follower of Him who had nowhere to lay his head, who blessed the poor and cursed the rich, and taught his disciples not to take thought of the morrow for such was the manner of hea- thens ? Or can he who gains wealth by means • Goethe. 40 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. of the industry of his fellows, be a sincero believer in Him who made it a mark of disciple- ship, to love one's neighbor as one's self ? " Is that loving one's neighbor as one's self, the precept which he emphatically said is ' my precept,' when men make of their fellow-men, servants, drudges, slaves, and consider them unfit to sit with them at their tables, or mingle with them in their drawing-rooms ? " Why should not every sincere believer in Christianity renounce all his possessions, abandon the world, deny himself all sensual gratifications, and devote all his energies to the relief of the poor, the down-trodden, those in prison, and labor for the extinction of vice, crime and error, like the Divine Master ? " We tell the world that we despise its wealth, we detest its pleasures, we contemn its maxims, and are heedless of its opinions, whether of praise or blame. We say not this in a sour, crabbed, and angry spirit, but in pity, commis- eration, love. Yes, " ' Happy he, who hating none, Leaves the world's dull noise.' " * * Goethe. SPECIAL DESTINY. 41 Such thoughts come to those minds, and such questions occupy the hearts of those who have not altogether lost their primal rectitude and virginal purity. And they are so constituted and natured, that, until they are settled, no other thought, no other object, can divert their attention. There are those who will say that such thoughts are vain and visionary, and those questionings idle and dangerous ; that such a life is a dream, an impossihihty ; and add, that " Honest wills at first like thine, After the faint resistance of an hour, Yield themselves up half-willing prisoners. Soon to he won by golden-guileful tongues, To do blithe service in the cause of Sin." * We reply, that our " Faith is large in Time And that which shapes it to some perfect end." t And we would rather go and hide ourselves in the wild and savage forests, and live upon dry "oots and water, than profane a soul with its * Milues. t Tennyson. 4fi QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL, energies given for noble aims. and divine pnr- poses. Kather would we starve here, and die on the spot, than accept what our higher destiny condemns, for is it not better than to lose one's life, to save it dying ? " For this losing is true dying ; This is lordly man's down-lying." * No ; we hve, and we shall live, in spite of aU the powers of hell. And, even after death has spent itself upon us, we shall live fpr that which is eternal, true, divine ! " Here am I, here wUl I remain For ever to myself soothfast." * " Souls know no conquerors." T * Emerson, f Oiyaen. ** I yearn to breathe the airs of heavea That often meet me here. I muHO on joys that will not cease, Pure graces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace, Whose odors haunt my dreams." Tenntsos. rPiHEEE is no doubt that there always has J- been, and is now, a class of minds, and not a small class, of whom the description in the foregoing pages, is most truthful. It is no fancy of ours, but a fact of history, and of man's earliest history, that there are minds so gifted and divinely formed, that they cannot find their happiness in the gratification of sensual appe- 44 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. tites, nor in the common pursuits and aims of men. It is true that sin has depraved and corrupted man's nature, but not to such an ex- tent as to efface from his mind all idea of Grod. It is from the indistinct notion that man still retains of God, that the desire for beatitude springs up in the heart ; but he has lost the knowledge of the path which leads to his beati- tude, — ^to God. This, Mr. Emerson expresses, ^when he says : — " The flend that man harries Is love for the Best. * * * • Whose soul sees the perfect Which his eyes seek m vain." Plato mentions in his Eepublic this class of souls. He divides its citizens into three classes of men. The first of which he compares to iron, the second to silver, and the third to gold. The last he calls the priests of the Race. Plotinus in his treatise " On Intellectual Ideas and Being," gives us a description of the third class, spoken of by Plato. " The first class,'' he says, " is given to sensual pleasures, the second to social and other political virtues, the third SPECIAL DESTINY. 45 slass is composed of the race of divine men, who, tkrough a more excellent power, and with piercing eyeS;^^ acutely perceive supernal light, to the vision of which they raise themselves, above the clouds of darkness, as it were, of this lower world, and there abiding, despise every thing in the region of sense ; being no other- wise deUghted with its place, which is truly and properly their own, than he who, after many wanderings, is at length restored to his \awful and native land." Some of the most in- teresting chapters of history are those which give us an account of the several efforts that men have made to reahze this divine life. Let us take history, and open her pages, and Usten to what she has to teU us on this interesting topic of man's aspirations and efforts after a more spiritual life. Pythagoras, one of the most celebrated of ancient philosophers, being exiled from Samos, took refuge in Magna GrrEecia, and found an asylum in the city of Crotona. Preceded by a brilliant reputation, he was received with enthu- siasm, and, in a short time, the number of his disciples forced him to forget his native land. 46 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. The sage profited by these favorable circum* stances, to realize a project that he had con- ceived, it is said, during his travgls in Egypt. He reunited his most devoted disciples, and persuaded them that the best means of attain- ing perfection, consisted in submitting them- selves to a uniform and common rule of hfe, which determined their emploj'ments during every part of the day, and regulated also their intellectual occupations and physical exercises. Such was the origin of the famous Institution of Pythagoras. A vast building received the first disciples, and Pythagoras himself directed the whole es- tablishment. A life in common was practised in all its details and with aU its consequences. Clothing, food, instruction, pleasures, religious ceremonies, gymnastic exercises ; all were uni- form and alike ; only at the same table, no more than ten of the brethren were allowed to be seated, in ordei that their friendship might be more intimate, and their conversation less bois- terous. It is supposed by some writers, that they lived in separate cells, apart, like anchorites, upon SPECIAL DESTINY. 47 bread, vegetables, and a little honey ; flesh meat was severely prohibited ; and each one helped, from his own, private means, to support the community. Long and severe trials preceded admission into the Institution. Several years of painful toil and silence was the test required, to prove the constancy, discretion, and patience of the candidate. And yet it is matter of historical certainty, that in spite of these rigors, the 61ite of the youth pressed around the doors of the Institution for admission, and that a few years sufficed to endow the principal cities of Sicily and Greece proper, with establishments like that of Crotona, all of which were bound by the bonds of fraternity ; and all received with the same veneration, the rule of their Founder. It was not the intention of Pythagoras to submit the whole of society to the rules which he had framed for certain privileged souls, but to establish in every important city a commu- nity of such as were called to seek perfection, and by their intellectual gifts were qualified to 48 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. devote themselves to the study of religious and social questions. The Institution of Pythagoras had not a long duration. In his old age, the philosopher had the sorrow to see with his own eyes, the fall, one after the other, of the estahlishments which he had founded with so much effort, and v^'hich he believed destined to perpetuate the work. And, as a finale, Pythagoras himself was driven from Crotona, and assassinated at Meta- pontum about the year 500, before Christ. The same desire to live a higher and more spiritual life expressed itself in a striking man- ner among the Jews. At the time of the Machabees, 180 years before Jesus Christ, on the western coast of the Dead Sea, the Essenians, a sect of Jews, made the doctrine of community of goods and a life in common, a religious and social dogma. Lodged under the same roof, taking meals at the same table, clothed with the same dress ; they observed celibacy and lived in continence. Contemning riches, rejecting the use of the precious metals, given wholly to the medita- tion of rehgious truth, poor, subsisting by the SPECIAL DESTINY. 49 labor of their hands, the Essenians were con- tent with one meal a day, and that of bread and vegetables. To renounce pleasure, ambi- tion, glory ; to overcome the passions, to sub- jugate the senses, to raise one's self above the wants of the body ; to despise the advantages which others seek and admire ; such was, in the eyes of the Essenians, the ideal of human per- fection. They filled the void that death and disaffec- tion made in their ranks by infants, who had been committed to their care. Barely they admitted adults, and never, without having proved them by rude trials and a three years' novitiate. All had to obey, with entire sub- mission, their superior, who was elected by the community. Two centuries later and the Jewish sect, the Therapeutae, spread themselves in Asia Minor and in Egypt, especially in the environs of Alex- andria. Sprung from the Essenians, the Thera- yeutae increased the rigor of their primitive rule. They occupied separate cells, placed a short distance apart. They prayed twice a day at the rising and 3 50 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL, the setting sun. It was only after the going down of this orb that they allowed themselves to take the single repast of the day, and that composed of bread and salt, seasoned with hys- sop. Philo tells us that the Therapeutae re- nounced their families, their friends, their pos- sessions, and their country, to give themselves entirely to the exercise of prayer and contem- plation. Their only intellectual labor consisted in composing hymns, and finding out the sense of the mystic expressions and allegories that are contained in the books of Moses, the Prophets and Psalms. The account given by Philo con- cerning the community of Therapeutae is full of interest. " They separate themselves from the state of society around them. After having left their riches, their parents, their friends, they retire into some solitary place, not from hatred of their fellow-men, but in order to give themselves to a peaceful life, to the adoration of God and the contemplation of nature. " Their houses are surrounded with gardens, situated in healthy localities on the slppe of a hiU ; they choose their locations near enough SPECIAL DESTINY. 51 to each other not to be deprived of mutual succor ; and the hills offer them a protection against the rigors of the season. The interior of their houses is divided into little cells, into which each member is allowed to take nothina but the books of the law, the prophets, hymns, and other works of this nature. The Thera- peutse receive among them females advanced in age, who have lived in a state of celibacy. At the rising of the sun they say prayers to obtain the blessing of a happy day ; when the sun sets they pray again, that their Souls dis- charged of the weight of exterior things, may become more worthy to be elevated to the pure truth. The time from morning till night is filled by meditation on the books of the law ; they consider them as a living being, the pre- cepts of which serve the body, while the alle- gotifial, or interior meaning, serves the soul. The most ancient of their sect have left them many commentaries on the allegories. They endeavor to increase these in the same spirit, adding to them hymns of their own composi- tion, always in honor of God, and in solemn and serious rhythm. During six days the 52 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. Therapeutae do not leave their dwellings, but the seventh day they meet in a public assem- bly, to communicate their reflections. The women are separated from the common room, following the custom of the Jews, by a parti- tion, which permits them to hear all that is said, without being seen. The sobriety of the Therapeutas surpasses all that is related of the Pythagoreans ; they take every day and after the setting of the sun, but one meal, com- posed of bread, some roots and salt. They often remain many days without taking any food whatever. The most singular of their feasts is the one which happens every seventh year ; the fraternal banquet does not alter in its habitual solemnities, but women take part in it, and the festival is terminated by choirs' with a sacred dance. These choirs have for their ojyect to recall the ancient dance on the banks of the Red Sea, after the deliverance of the children of Israel. They form also a living image of the choirs and celestial har- monies." The Buddhists in India had their monas- teries filled with men who practised the most SPECIAL DESTINY. 53 severe penance, and lived a life of the tiost rigorous poverty. And even at the present day- oriental Asia is covered with monasteries, of which PP. Hue and Gabet have given a most in- teresting description, in their travels in Tartary and Thibet / What does all this prove, but that certain souls are so constituted that the common life and objects of men have no attractions for them ; they look for nobler modes of being and a more spiritual hfe, and say " Aris.e and fly The reeling Faun, the sensual feast. Move upward, working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die." * Zoroaster, Confucius, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, Zeno, Buddha, stand out as types of this class of souls. The history and increase of these privileged souls under the influence of Christianity, is a point that will be treated of hereafter. We have said that this class is a numerous one, and surely it was so among the civilized hea- * TeDnyson. 54 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. then nations ; and we add, that this class of persons is large, and larger here in the United States than in any other Protestant country. The reasons and proofs of this will be found in the next chapter. YI. " And 'tis the worst despair to know. By pangs within my bosom aching. How deep in each the root of woe. How many a heart is slowly breaking." Stbeltno. THEKE is a large class of persons in the United States who look for and seek a more spiritual and earnest life. There is scarcely an American family which will not testify to the truth of this statement, not only as a present fact but as a part of its history, by the efforts of some one or more of its members to realize such a life. One might almost say that this desire, after a more spiritual life, is one of the chief characteristics of the American people. 56 QUESTIONS Off THE SOUL. Foi, although we are proverbial for our thrifti- ness, especially the people of the Middle and Eastern States, yet we find few, if any, among our own population, who seek money for the purpose of hoarding it ; it is sought, almost always, as a means to something better and more noble. There are few among us who have not felt, at times, that life should be an uninter- rupted act of piety ; that our deeds, to be true, should be acts of worship ; that what is not directed to God, is lost, profane, if not sin- ful. We know it, and, speak not at random, when we say, that a large class of our people are earnest, serious-minded, and dissatisfied at heart with 'the life around them, and are unwilling " to decline on a range of lower feehngs." They are eager, anxious, restless to be freed, and to live a better and more spiritual life, and hence they grasp and catch at any enterprise, scheme, theory, or doctrine, however absurd, so long as it promises to discover to them the secrets of spiritual life, or to afford them the means to live it. But some of the reasons why this class of SPECIAL DEjJTINT. 57 Rouls is more numerous in this country than among any other Protestant people, may bo dis- tinctly stated. Our first reason may be called a political and economical one. To be freed from the cares and toils of the common duties of life is neces- sary to the development of the nobler powers of the soul. / Here in the United States, compe- tence is more easily acquired than in any other land, thanks to our political institutions and the advantages of our country ; hence, those vrho feel strongly called to live a higher life have the leisure so necessary to their growth and develop- ment. Many, in whom under less favorable circum- stances, all instinct of a diviner life would be stifled and trodden out, here come to a fuU consciousness of their nobler powers and true destiny. Another reason, and one which may be called geographical, is, the nature and state of our country. It is not enough to be freed from care and toil for the development of our secret pow- ers and aspirations after a purer and holier hfe ■ — more is needed— silence, solitude is needed. 58 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. Our country presents tkese to us with a lavish hand, and on the grandest scale, in her deep for- ests, her vast prairies, in her unexplored regions and Uncultivated lands ; these, with our sparse population, force a great part of our people to silence and into solitude. And these conditions give quiet and tranquillity to the mind, qualities which conduce, and so to spectk, provoke man to the meditation and contemplation of his own nature, his destiny, and of God. For solitude gives hirth to our nohler impulses, and nature rightly viewed leads upwards step by step, as it were, to our common Author, in whom all secrets are opened to our view. Such, and many such souls there are, who, "hold with divine affections" and "fiUed with mighty hopes," have endieavored to realize a bettei, purer and holier life, in our days and in our land. Among many such noble attempts, we shall give an account of two or three, as types and representatives of the tendencies of that class of men who would live and conse- crate their lives to divine purposes vn, "To make some nook of God's creation a little fhiitfuller, better, mor« worthy of God ; to make some human hearts a little wiser, manfaller, happier ;— more blessed, less accursed I This is work for a God." Carlylb, THIS thought has occupied the souls of many, and several generous and heroic efforts have been made to realize and accomphsh such a work. We have thought it best and more in- teresting to the reader, to let those who were engaged in these movements speak for them- selves. Let us first give an idea of the location of Brook Farm, that what follows may be better understood. Brook Farm was situated at West Koxburjr, 60 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. about eight miles from the city of Boston. Th£ place is one of great natural beauty, and the whole landscape is so rich and varied as to at- tract the notice even of casual visitors. The farm consisted of about two hundred acres of land, oi as good quality as any in the neighborhood o/ Boston. Such was, in a few words, the locality of Brook Farm. " No man amongst us," says a writer, in speaking of the founder of Brook Farm, "is better acquainted with the various plans of world-reform which have been projected, from Plato's Eepublic to Fourier's Phalanx ; but this establishment seems to be the result, not of his theorizing, but of a simple want of his, as a man and a Christian. Ee felt him- self unable, in the existing social organization, to practise always according to his conceptions of Christianity. He could not maintain with his brethren those relations of love and equality which ^he felt were also needful to him for his own intellectual and moral growth and well- being. Moved by this feeling, he sought to create around him the circumstances which would respond to it, enable him to worship BROOKFAKM. 61 God and love his brother ; and to love his brother in a truly Christian manner. A few men and women, of like views and feelings, grouped themselves around him, not as their master, but as their friend and brother ; and the community of Brook Farm was established. The views and feelings, and wants of these men and women, are those of the gi'eat mass of all Christian communities ; — the desire to realize the Christian Ideal." * Another writer, speaking of those who were engaged in the movement at Brook Farm, says ; " They considered the possibility of mak- ing such industrial, social, and educational ar- rangements, as would simply promote economy, combine leisure for study with healthful and honest toil, avert collisions of caste, equalize refinements, awaken generous affections, diffuse courtesy, and sweeten and sanctify life as a whole." t A visitor to the community says : " There are seventeen associates ; by means of the Farm they are able to pay the interest of the debt on the * O. A. Brownson. f Wm. H. Channing. 62 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. Farm, and to feed themselves, although there are seventy people already .there, and the numbei will be one hundred in the course of the summer. They prefer to sacrifice man's convenience to endangering the social and ideal character of their company. Every body works and studies, and so the children work and study from imita- tion, and in spirit. Teachers, scholars, aU work. As all eat together, they change their dress for their meals ; and so after tea, they are all ready for grouping in the parlors, or in the library, or in the music-room ; or they can go to their private rooms, or into the woods." The writer concludes the account, from which the foregoing are but fragments, by saying, " I do not seem to myself to have told you a moiety of the good which I saw. I have only indicated some of it. But is it not enough to justify me in sa>ying they have succeeded ? It seems to me, if their highest objects were appreciated, they would challenge some of that devotedness which makes the Sisters of Charity throw large fortunes into their institutions, and give themselves body and soul to its duties. Only in America, I think, could such a community have so succeeded as BROOK FAKM. 63 I have described, composed of persons coming by chanoe, as it were, from all circumstances of life, and united only by a common idea. It is 1 i'uly a most religious life. They have succeeded, because they are the children of a government, the ideal of ■which is the same as their own, al- though, as a mass, we are unconscious of it ; so little do we understand our high vocation, and act up to it." That they were actuated by noble hopes, a Christian spirit, and feelings of self-sacrifice, the following, from one who was deeply and wholly 'devoted to this remarkable enterprise, fully shows. He says : " In the city I should pine like an imprisoned bird, and I fear I should grow blind to the visions of loveliness and glory which the future promises to hu- manity. I long for action which in future shall reahze the prophecies, fulfil the Apoca- lypse, bring the New Jerusalem down from hea- ven to earth, and collect the faithful into a true and holy brotherhood. To attain this consum- mation so devoutly to be wished, I would eat no flesh, I would drink no wine while the world lasted ; I would become a devoted ascetic. 64 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. But to what end is all speculation, all dreaming, all qiiestiouiDg, but to advance humanity, to bring forward the manifestation of the Sons of God ? Oh, for men who feel this idea burning into_ their bones ! When shall we see them ; and, without them, what will be phalanxes, groups and series, attractive industry and all the sublime words of modern reform ? Oh that you would come as one _of us, to work in the faith of a divine idea, to toil in loneliness and .tears, for the sake of the kingdom which God may build up by our hands. All here, that is, aU our old central members, feel more and more the spirit of devotedness, the thirst to do or die, for the cause we have at heart. We do not distrust Providence. " We are willing to traverse the wilderness for forty years ; we ask no grapes of Eschol for ourselves, we do not claim a fair abode in the promised land ; but what can we do with rai- ment wearing old, and shoes burstiog on our feet ? '• After such a gush of warm, genuine, heroic Enthusiasm, let us turn our step towards one who was engaged also in thfj enterprise, and with him close our account. BROOK FARM. 65 " If ever men might lawfully dream f.wakej Bndgive utterance to their wildest visions without dread of laughter or scorn, on the part of the audience, — yes, and speak of earthly happiness for themselves and mankind as an object to be hopefully striven for, and probably attained, — we, who made that little semicircle around the fire, were those very men. We had left the rusty iron framework of society behind us, we had broken through many hindrances that are powerful enough to keep most people on the weary treadmill of the established system, even while they feel its irksomeness almost as intoler- able as we did. We had stept down from the pulpit, we had flung aside the pen ; we had shut up the ledger ; we had thrown off that sweet, bewitching, enervating indolence, which is bet- ter, after all, than most of the enjoyments with- in mortal grasp. It was our purpose — a gen- erous one, certainly, and absurd no doubt, in full proportion with its generosity, — to give what- ever we had heretofore attained, for the sake of showing mankind a life governed by other than false and cruel principles, on which human society has 5.11 along been based. 66 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUl. " And, first of all, we had divorced ourselves from pride, and were striving to supply its place with famihar love. We meant to lessen the laboring man's great burthen of toil by perform- ing our due share of it at the cost of our own thews and sinews. We sought our profit by mutual aid, instead of wresting it by the strong hand from our enemy, or filching it craftily, from those less shrewd than ourselves, if indeed there were any such in New England, or win- ning it by selfish competition with a neighbor ; in one or another of which fashions, every son of woman both perpetrates and suffers his share of the common evil, whether he choose it or no. And, as the basis of our institution, we proposed to offer up the earnest toil of our bodies, as a prayer, no less than an effort, for the advance- ment of our race. " Therefore if we built splendid castles (pha- lansteries they might be more fitly called), and pictured beautiful scenes, among the fervid coals of the hearth around which we were clustering, and if all went to rack with the crumbling embers, and have never since arisen oat of the ashes, let us take to. ourselves no BBOOKFAEM. 67 shame. In my own behalf, I rejoice that I could once think better of the world's improva- bility than it deserved. It is a mistake into which men seldom fall twice in a lifetime ; or, if so, the rarer and higher is the nature that can thus magnanimously persist in error. "In the interval of my seclusion, thqre had been a number of recruits to our little army of saints and martyrs. They were mostly in- dividuals who had gone through such an ex- perience as to disgust them with ordinary pur- suits, but who were not yet so old, nor had suffered so deeply, as to lose their faith in the better time to come. On comparing their minds one with another, they often discovered that this idea of a community had been growing up, in silent and unknown sympathy, for years. Thoughtful, strongly-lined faces were among them ; sombre brows, but eyes that did not require spectacles, unless prematurely dimmed by the student's lamplight, and hair that seldom showed a thread of silver. Age, wedded to the past, incrusted over with a stony layer of habits, and retaining nothing fluid in its possibilities, would have been absurdly 68 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. out of place in an enterprise lite this. Touth, too, in its early dawn was hardly more adapted to our purpose ; for it would behold the morn- ing radiance of its own spirit, beaming over the very same spots of withered grass and barren sand whence most of us had seen it vanish. We hafi very young people with us, it is true, — ■ downy lads and rosy girls in their first teens, and children of all heights above one's knee ; but these had been chiefly sent hither for educa- tion, which it was one of the objects and methods of our institution to supply. Then we had boarders from town and elsewhere who lived with us in a familiar way, sympathized more or less in our theories, and sometimes shared in our labors. " On the whole it was such a society as has sel- dom met together, nor perhaps could it be reason- ably expected to hold together long. Peisons of marked individuality — crooked sticks, as some of us might be called — -are not exactly the easiest to bind up into a fagot. But, so long as our union should subsist, a man of in- tellect and feeling, with a free nature in him, might have sought far and near without find- BEOOKFARM. 69 ing so many points of attraction as would allure liim hitherward. We were of all creeds and opinions, and generally tolerant of all, on every imaginable subject. Our bond, it seems to me, was not affirmative, but negative. We had individually found one thing or another to quarrel with in our past life, and were pretty well agreed as to the inexpediency of lumber- ing along with the old system any further. As to what should be substituted, there was much less unanimity. We did not greatly care — at least I never did — for the written constitution under which our millennium had commenced. My hope was, that between theory and prac- tice, a true and available mode of life might be struck out. " While our enterprise lay all in theory, we had pleased ourselves with delectable visions of the spirituahzation of labor. It was to be our form of prayer and ceremonial worship. Each stroke of the hoe was to uncover some aromatic root of wisdom, heretofore hidden from the sun. Pausing in the field to let the wind exhale the moisture from our foreheads, we were to look upwards and catch glimpses 70 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. into the far-off soul of truth. It is very trua that, sometimes, casually gazing around me, out of the midst of my toil, I used to discern a richer picturesqueness in the visible scene of earth and sky. But this was all. The clods of earth, which we so constantly belabored and turned over and over, were never etherealized into thought. Our thoughts, on the contrary, were fast becoming cloddish. Our labor sym- bolized nothing, and left us mentally sluggish in the dusk of evening. Intellectual activity is incompatible with any large amount of bodily exercise. The yeoman and the scholar — -the yeoman and the man of finest moral culture,, though not the man of sturdiest sense and in- tegrity — are two distinct individuals, and can never be melted or welded into one substance. " The bond of our community was such, that the members had the privilege of building cottages for their o^n residence within our pre- cincts, thus laying a hearth-stone and fencing in a home, private and peculiar to all desirable extent, while yet the inhabitants should continue to share all the advantages of associative life. " Often, however, in these years that are dark- BROOK FAEM. 7] ening around me, I remember our scheme of noble and unselfish life ; and how fair in thai first summer appeared the prospect that i1 might endure for generations, and be perfectedj as the ages rolled away, into the system of a people and a world ! Were my former asso- ciates now there — were there only three oi four of those true-hearted men still laboring in the sun, — I sometimes fancy that I should direct my world-weary footsteps thitherward, and entreat them to receive me, for old friendship's sake. More and more I feel that we had struck upon what ought to be a truth. Posterity may dig it up, and profit by it. The experiment, so far as its original projectors were concerned, proved, long ago, a failure ; first lapsing into Fourierism, and dying, as it well deserved, for this infidelity to its own higher spirit. Where once we toiled with our whole hopeful hearts, the town-paupers, aged, nerveless, and disconsolate, creep sluggishly a-field. Alas, what faith is re- quired to bear lap against such results of generous effort." * • Hawthorne. 72 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. Alas, too, we repeat, that such should be the results 6f so many generous efforts and self- sacrifices, " Employed In forming models to improve the scheme Of man's existence, and recast the world." * • Wordswortli I r tt i U a n !tr s . ••■When will the hundred snmmera die? And thonght and time be born again, . And newer knowledge, drawing nigh, ' BriDg truth that sways the hearts of men ? " BEFOEE we introduce the reader to the family at Fruitlands, we must inform hinj that, though the individuals composing it sym- pathized with the undertaking at Brook Farm, yet in many points they disagreed, and were dissimilar. The Fruitlanders took a more as- cetic, spiritual, and religious view of Ufe. To put the reader in current of their thought, we will make a few extracts from some of their writings. 74 QUESTIONS OF THE 8001 " I am an organized being ; I made not myself, I am unable to improve myself; there may be, there must be, an organizing power. This power I would discover, but I make not my own faculties, and I am not moved to seek it ; faith I want, but I make not faith, and where am I to obtain it ? How is it to come to me ? I perceive ; this very intuition of regenerative, or higher, purer life, is the basis of all the rest. " This intuition we will cherish, as a loving, tender mother the first-born of her conception. It is a holy inspiration, coming down from heaven, to elevate the human propepsities, from the animal degradation to the intellec- tual and moral regions. To none others than those who have the inborn idea, can the ap- peal for improvement be fairly or rationally ad- dressed. But all are conscious of it, though not in an equal degree, and therefore aU may be addressed. Where the inspiration is not, hu- manity is not. " If men- could be brought to the discern- ment of the loss they sustain by alienation from God, how readily would they submit to FETTITLANDS. 75 every thing that is called privation, until they were again placed in that true relationship,- that should . bring them at one with their heavenly Parent, from whom alone they can ever receive love, or peace, or joy. " In holding at a greater distance and at a lighter estimate the objects about and below him, there comes to man a higher and higher sense of his true destiny ; and the clearer in- tuition of his high destiny enables man to hold in a lighter and easier manner, the objects about him and below him." " Those who would inherit the glory of a new and heavenly life must first bear the cross to every lust and appetite, and evil propensity, even although this cross should require, as it did in the case of Jesus of Nazareth, the surren- der of life itself" " A weU-fed man is never a central thinker." "Here, then, we take our stand, and call upon all the friends of purity, virtue, and truth, to aid us to hold fast to the faithful practice of abstinence from all self-generating, lust-in- creasing habits of life. An undeviating cehbacy for the kingdom of heaven's sake, is the first 76 QCESTIOVS OP THE SOUL. indispensable step in a purely virtuous associa-* tive life. In this faith and practice we write and work for love's sake, in which we confide for all protection, inspiration, and enlovening, now and for ever." " Sacred socialism acts to remove want, not to supply it. Want is a disease that must be removed. Self-denial must be insisted on. " It is not from physical socialism that man win recover his religious vitality." The reader will be now better able to under- stand and appreciate the attempt made by this class of men to realize their idea of life, at Fruitlands. Fruitlands, as the place was called, because fmit was to be the principal staple of daily food, and to be cultivated on the farm, was situated in the county of Middlesex, three miles from the village of Harvard, and about forty from the city of Boston. The spot was weU chosen, it was retired, breathing quiet and tran- quillity. No neighboring dwelling obstructed the view of nature, and it lay some distance even from a bypath road, in a delightful soli- tude. The house, somewhat dilapidated, was FEUIT LANDS 77 situated on the slope of a slowly ascending hill ; stretched before it was a small valley undergoing cultivation with fi'Ads of corn, and wheat, and meadow. In the distance loomed up on high " Cheshire's haughty hill," Monadnoc. Such was the spot chosen by men inspired to live a holier Kfe, to bring Eden once more upon this poor planet of ours. Let them speak. " I have no belief," said the Father of this family to one who postulated to enter their circle, " in associations of human beings for the purpose of making themselves happy by means of improved outward arrangements alone ; as the foundations of happiness are within, and are spread to us as we are preharmonized or consociated with the Universal spirit. This is the one condition needful for happy association amongst men. And this condition is attained by the surrender of all individual or self-giati- fications — a complete willingness to be moulded by the Divinity.. This, as men now are, of course involves self-renunciation and retrench- ment ; and in enumerating the hindrances which debar us from happiness, we shall be drawn to 78 QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL. consider, in the first place, our selves ; and to entertain practically, the question, Are we pre- ' pared for the giving up of all, and taking refuge in Love as an unfailing Providence ? A faith and reliance as large as this, seems needful to assure us against disappointment. The entrance to Paradise is still through the strait gate and narrow way of self-denia;]. Eden's avemie is still guarded by the fiery-sworded chenlbim, and humility and charity are the credentials for admission. " Our purposes, as far as we know them at present, are — ^to live independently of foreign aids, by being sufficiently elevated to procure all articles for subsistence in the production of the spot, under a regimen of healthful labor and recreation ; with benignity towards all creatmcs human and inferior ; with beauty and refinement in all economies ; and the purest charity through- out our demeanor. We are not without hope that Providence wiM use us progressively, for beneficial eflFeots, in the great work of human regeneration and the restoration of the highest life on earth." These men were impressed with the reh'gioiis- FKUITLANDB. 79 ness of their enterprise. Listen to one wlio •speaks of their way of doing. When the first load of hay was driven into the barn, one of the family, as the first fork was about to be plunged into it, took off his hat, and said : " I take off my hat. not that I reverence the barn more than any other place, but because this iis the first fruit o^ our labor ; I am conscious that wbkt prompts my speech is felt by others as well as myself." And then a few moments were given to silence, that holy thoughts might be awakened on the occasion. Fruitlands started into existence some years later than Bro<^fi: Farm, yet before the latter enterprise was abandop«H 4: Then where flee we for refuge but to Thee, And thine obedienoe ? " XVllL "Sweet chlldbood, shadow of celestial Love, TrainM to look np, and hold a parentis hand. And ever lift the eyes to One above ; Which knows not yet, while it obeys, command, Hopes all, and all believes." Baptistbt. WHAT says Eome to childhood ? Kome says every thing. The Church of Rome is the church of childhood. Lead chil- dren into her precincts, and you wiU soon dis- cover that she pours through every avenue of the mind of childhood treasures of wisdom. The altar, the crucifix, the robed priests, the sur- pliced acolytes, the pic*^ures and the statues of CHILDHOOD. 175 holy saints, the stained windows, the oi^an, the bells, — all combine together to give to the child's picturesque-loving mind, a beiter and more sub- lime idea of religion than years of reading aiud preaching can do. " These metMnks Toneli children as akin to the unseen, The infinite and wild that speak of heaven, The image hid in chambers of the heart Which pants for the ideal, in a soul Fresh from the hands of God." * Thus the Catholic Church, like her divine Master, draws from the mouth of babes and euckhngs her most perfect praise. " From the embraces of the CathoUc Church," says an eloquent writer, " the true mother au- gust, even in her most sorrowful moments drop- ping a tender tear, no child left to its own sweet nature has ever yet been seen to recoil ; for not only the spirit of those who represent her, like genius, loves to caress little things, and sing the songs of children, to talk not always of kings and magnates, — ' arma virumque cano,' — but • Baptistry. !76 BOMB. much oftener sweetly and wisely of what is humble, and to appearance puerile. But before a child's awakening intelligence Catholicity stands fall in view, invested with infinite charms." And how naturally does Catholicity perpetu- ate and develope in the heart, the virtues of chUdhood, by supplying to youth the blessing of a spiritual guide and father. When reason opens its eye, the priest is there to keep it steadily fixed upon its true object — God. In the father confessor, he sees the type of Jesus Christ, as the divine friend, brother, and guide. Thus, youth is never interrupted, but continued and ennobled as age advances : — " Light are their steps who in life's earliest dawn The mountain-tops of Heavenly life ascend, Brushing the dew-drops from the spangled lawn ; ITor ever from the straighter path descend. Fixing their eyes upon their journey's end ; Sweetest, best thoughts are theirs, such as hav- striven With childhood, and with dawning conscience blend, To flee all other love but that of Heaven, Ere weigh'd to earth with sin, and much to he forgiven." • • Baptistry, CHILDHOOD. 177 When the time comes to choose a path in life, then it is that the young man and maiden find in the father-confessor what no friend, no confi- dant, no father or mother, can supply. They find in him one who is free from all selfish inter- ests and private views ; one who looks ouly for the true happiness and final good of the soul ; one to whom they can discover all their hopes and fears, aspirations, and doubts ; in a word, what is inmost in their souls, and that, with per- fect confidence and trust. That painful expe- rience, and dangerous crisis in life, when the soul questions Grod, its destiny, and even its own existence, is something unknown to those who are born Gathohcs. Their life springs up, flows on, and is spent as naturally as that of the flower, and at the end " fulfilment meets de- sire." They alone can say : " Oh, how beauti- ful is my life ! How happy will be my end ! " " Thrice happy they, who as they draw more near More clearly can discern their being's end, Gird up their loins with hope, and year and year Unto their stable home stUl steadier wend ; And from the sinuons road wiU still ascend Unto the straiter path, while the calm ray 8* 178 ROME, Lightens them step by step, nor ever bend Their firm resolve from that their steadfast way, Until they are absorbed in the Eternal Day I " * From the same source spring that innocence, peace, and cheerfulness which is pictured on the face of Catholic youth. " Ere sin hath brush'd away the morning bloom, When streaks of pm-ple morn the cheek iUmne, And light the drops of the baptismal dew ! It is a precious sight which angels view In trembling joy and hope." * And this sight we look for elsewhere in vain. The faces of our people bear traces of inward weariness, of restlessness, of deep questioning and doubt. How many among us, for want of a true friend and guide, have mistaken their path and vocation in life, and thus are lost to them- selves, lost to society and humanity. And the unrest and misery, consequent upon this failure, or mistake, they attribute to false social organi- zations. Whereas had they been in the bosom of God's Church, their minds would have been di- • Baptistry. CHILDHOOD. 17^ rected to their proper objects, and they would have found a place for their activity. In a word, they would have clearly seen their true destiny, and found themselves in the path which leads to it, from their earliest childhood. How deeply is felt the want of true guidance and spiritual direction outside of the divine so- ciety of the Church of God. How many seek in vain, in their friends, what the Church alone in her consecrated priests can supply. Many pressed with the want, make even strangers their confidants, and yet find no light, no peace, no answer. Some yield to despair of ever find- ing it ; others, in the hope of discovering an an- swer, have entered upon a false and diabolical mysticism ; others, again, to drown the feelings of their higher nature, which only seem, like fiends, to harry their bosoms, have yielded up their souls to a voluptuous unconcern. Not one has gone on steadily in the path of a divine life. Those who have not gone back, stand, as it were, upon enchanted ground ; they seem to themselves to advance, but it is only a change ; they seem to announce new truths, but it is only a tame repetition ; they appear to live, but 180 SOME. it is a life without freshness or hope. They are encircled and imprisoned by self. There is no other progress in life than heaven- ward. But to progress towards God, two things are necessary. First, the knowledge of the way to God. Secondly, a divine' guide. The Church affords both. The first in her dogmas ; the second, in her spiritual directors. As regards the necessity of direction, let it be known, .once for all, that without a special ap- plication of the divine law to all our actions, it is impossible ever to free the soul from self, unite it to God, and gain a divine life. The end of direction, therefore, is to assist the soul in applying the divine law to all its actions, and thus free it from all hindrances to its union with God. The end of direction is not to mark out a way for the soul to walk in, but to show it the way God has marked out for it ; it is to assist the soul in following the lead of God. The direction of souls to God is the most sub- lime of all sciences, — " ars artium regimen ani- marum." The knowledge of this art is nowhere found but in the Catholic Church, and her priest- hood alone are in perfect possession of it. CHILDHOOD. 181 Thus does the Catholic Church by her conse- crated priests answer the need of guidance, which every soul feels, and feels as the greatest of all needs, when it Would earnestly give itself to God. " Oh, Eome ! my country 1 City of the soTil ! The orphans of the heart must turn to thee." * * tspna. XIX. " Am 1 mad, that I Bhonld cherish that which bears bat bitter fro):? I will pluck it from my bosom, though my life be at the root" Tbnitybdk. WHAT says Kome to him who has deviated from the path that leads to his true des- tiny — the sinner ? The Church of Eome has sounded the very depths of the sinner's heart, and offers for its wounds and miseries, a complete and satisfactory remedy in the sacrament of penance, where the guilt-stained soul is "Wash'd As pure, as sin in baptism." ■■ * Shakspeare. CONFESSION. 183 The Church of Rome opens her arms like her divine founder to all who have missed the path of virtue, in seeking happiness ; and conscious of that divine power which he promised when he said : " Whose sins you shall forgive, they_ are forgiven them," * she can say in his own words : " Come unto me ye that labor and are burthened," ye that have sought happiness and have found naught but disappointment, and in your misery exclaim : — " Alas ! I have no hope nor health, Nor peace within, nor calm around ; " t " Come unto me, and I will refresh you " with life, with hope, with peace, and with rest. Ah ! let no one proudly say that* he has no need of this mother's love, care, and heavenly gifts. 'Tis not so ; for what is it that takes from thee " Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep ? " J but sin, which lies concealed, like poison, in the recesses of thy heart, and, there corrupting, * Matt, xxviii + Shelley. i Shakspenro. 184 HOME. makes thy sou] sick ? 'Tis not so. The stings of remorse in thy lonely hours, the pains and tor- tures of the soul on thy death-bed, give the lie to thy Ups ; for, " Though thy slumber may be deep, Yet thy spirit shall not sleep ; There are shades that wiH not vanish, There are thoughts thou canst not banish." * 'Tis not so, or else thou art either an angel or a demon ; for to sin, is a part of human fraUty ; to seek to free the soul from its burthen, by confession, is the natural instinct of man ; but to conceal and harbor sin in one's bosom, is the part of a demon. You need no confession ! Why, then, do you make the wide world the witness and confidant of your crimes, your misdeeds, and your shame- ful weaknesses ? For what else is the great mass of our modern popular literature but an examen of conscience, publicly made by the author, before his readers, and the whole wide world ? And so deeply are his vices rooted in • Byron. CONFESSION. 185 his heart, that not satisfied with presenting them under the attractive disguise of imagery^ they must be spread out to cater to the tastes of his readers, in all their filthy and disgusting details. Why, no one whose conscience is not blinded by sin, can take up a volume of the popular lit- erature of our times, and read a page of it, without detecting some inordinate passion, or deadly sin, rankling in the heart of its author. It may be said, that it is not the man, but the author, who speaks in its pages. We say, it is the man himself. Let us look at Germany. The great author of that country, and one of whom it may be said that he has left his impress on modern literature, more than any other writer, is Goethe. In his " Sorrows of Werther," he advocates, and defends suicide. Now, what does he himself tell us in his Autobiography ? Lis- ten. " I had," he says, " a costly and highly polished dagger. I laid this every night beside my bed ; and before I put out the light, I tried if I could succeed in forcing the sharp point a couple of inches into my bosom." In his work called " Elective Affinities," we have the doc- 1S6 ROME. trine laid down, and exemplified, that man is a creature subject to certain occult affinities, which he is irresistibly forced to obey. And in " Wil- helm Meister," we have this most subtle and li- centious philosophy displayed in a most seductive form. Who are the heroes, and what are the characters, who figure in these scenes, but the echoes of his own Kfe and acts ? In France, from the time of Bousseau's " Confessions," in which he makes no attempt to conceal, but rather glories in his criminalities and baseness ; down to George Sand, the popular literature is one gross attack upon social virtue and morahty, and upon all that is held sacred, holy, and divine. What have we in England ? Byron, who has the distinguished honor of being the father of the modern satanic school of poets, — if this be not robbing Milton of his glory, — Byron, who would have us believe him when he says : — " "Whate'er I may have been, or am, doth rest between Heaven and myself — I shall not choose a mortal To be my mediator : " CONFESS/ON. 187 and in the meanwhile blazons his licentiousness on every page of his writings, and makes the whole world the confidant of his crimes and miseries ! The nuraber of infidel and licentious books written by English authors, and read by English people, presents no flattering picture of the boasted progress of the English nation in civilization. We risk nothing in saying that one may take up almost any of our modern poets, who would in their simplicity have us believe that their niission is divine, and we should not find one that is not infected • with idolatry of women and of self, and it requires no great powers of discrimination to tell in what this eventually terminates. Even those among ourselves who pride them- selves on their moral culture and delicate sense of propriety, often publish things, not concern- ing themselves alone, but their friends, which shock a rightly instructed conscience, and which had been much better hidden and forgotten under the seals of sacramental confession ; as, for example, the authors of Margaret Fuller's life. We say to such, you have no means to relieve 188 ROME. your consciences, so you make your confessions to your friends, to strangers, and even publish tbem to the world. You cannot help it, and we know it, for confession is the natural effort of the conscience to relieve itself of the burthen of sin, and its cry after help. The wretched man who is distracted by remorse or by chagrin has need of a friend, a confidant, who will lis- ten to him and sometimes direct him. But how much easier, how much better would it be for society, even in a temporal view, leaving aside for a- moment the eternal interests of the soul, if instead of making one like yourselves, or the public, your confidant, you would kneel to one who had the divine power to relieve your con- science of sin, and the science and skill to cure your soul of its ravages. " One bred apart from worldly noise, To study souls, their cures, and their diseases." * How many crimes would have been imknown in society, if such men as Goethe, Schiller, Rousseau, Byron, Shelley. Bulwer, had sought • Dryden. CONFESSION. 189 relief for their consciences in the divine sacra- ment of penance, instead of flooding society with the details of their secret vices and miseries, and thus feeding men's passions until they ripen into crime. In confirmation of the truth of this statement, listen to what Groethe says of "the Sorrows of Werther," which was the exciting cause of so many suicides in Germany. " I felt," says he in his Autobiography, " after having published Werther, once more happy and free, and entitled to a new life, as if I had made a general confes- sion." Sucli are the means to which men are forced to resort, in order to relieve their con- sciences and hearts, when a false religion offers them no help, or when they are too ignorant or too proud to accept the easy, efficacious, and diviue remedy which the true Church affords. They rid their hearts of the passions and miseries with which they are filled, by infecting the innocent and unsuspecting ; they gain to their own minds a so-called peace and freedom, by corrupting the pure and virtuous. An admirable method this to purify the heart and conscience of sin ? These very men, too, and their admirers would 190 EOME. have us believe that they are called to aid hu- manity in her progressive destiny ! How natural, how manly, how divine is the Catholic economy of purifying and restoring peace to the guilty conscience ! " Attainable by all, Peace in ourselves, and union with our God, For bim to whom I speak an easy road Lies open.** "WOEDBWOKTH. " TTAVE you ever examined at bottom the J-X meaning of that word Confessor ? that divine friend, in whom friendship is raised to a Sacrament, and who is found in every church, seated, waiting for you ? this man, this stranger, to whom you open the book of your conscience, in whom you have more confidence than in the whole world besides ? " Perhaps not ; then let as do it now in few and simple words. 192 KOME. First, he is a man like any one of us ; bom with the same passions, suffering from the same temptations, and not exempt from human weak- nesses ; one "who can have compassion on them that are ignorant and that err, because he himself also is compassed with infirmity." * One who would have committed, if the grace of Grod had not kept him, the same sins of which we have been guilty. He knows all this, and is conscious of it all ; ne sympathizes, therefore, witli the sinner, whom he regards as his fallen brother or sister ; he is touched at his misery and distress, and feels for him a tender and deep friendship. But he is more than a man, he is a priest , one " ordained for men in the things that apper- tain to God." * One to whom Christ intrusted the power to pardon sin, when he said : " Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them." The thought that he has the divine power to re -lieve the sinner of the burthen and misery con- sequent upon sin, increases his sympathy ten- fold ; it gives birth to a high, noble, divine af- fection, an affection surpassing all human sym- pathies, and unknown and unexperienced ui * Hebrews v. CONFESSION. 193 other breasts than in those of the priests of God. It is more than the interest of a friend. It ia more than the interest of a father. It is some- thing communicated to his heart of the interest felt for souls by Christ, the soul's Creator and Redeemer. Moreover it is not to be forgotten that this man, this priest, is also a judge ; a judge of consciences. When Christ gave to him the power to forgive sins, he added : " Whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." When- 3ver, therefore, the sinner comes to the confessor, there is a question to be decided ; shall his sins be forgiven, or shall they be retained.? This question the confessor must decide, and, there- fore, he is a judge to acquit or condemn. He must acquit those who are sincerely penitent, he must condemn those who are not. Would it not be a saciilegious use of his power to pronounce absolution over a sinner who shows no sorrow for his sins, nor resolution to amend his life ? Let our great English poet introduce us to this court of conscience, where, it would seem, he was not himself a stranger, and show us how its judgments were passed. 9 194 no MB. " Friar. Bepent yon, fair one, of the sin yon carry ! Julietta, I do ; and bear the shame most patiently. Friar. Ill teach you how yon shall arraign yom conscience, And try your penitence, if it be Bonnd, Or hollowly put on. Julietta. I'U gladly learn." To this man, with more than human sym- pathies ; to the priest, with more than human power, the penitent sinner approaches, anxious to obtain the pardon of his sins, the relief of his sorrows. Should any fear or lingering doubt hinder him from acknowledging his misdeeds, the priest, in gentle voice and friendly accents, encourages him and says : " Thy woes impart, Tell aU thy sorrows, aU thy sin ; We cannot heal the throbbing heart, TiU we discover the wound within." * Unlike oljher tribunals, here the judge is not the accuser, but the sinner's- friend. Here the sinner is his own accuser, and the judge seeks only to pardon, ^pncouraged by such thoughts, the siiin^r unfolds his conscience, discovers hia • Orabbe. CONFESSION. 195 sins, and opens to view the hidden wounds of his heart. And this calls forth the exercise of a new function of the office of the confessor, that is, the office of a spiritual physician. The confessor, as spiritual physician, must seet and find out the fatal sources of sin, and furnish the means to close them. He must prescribe such remedies, as are needed, to cure the soul of the sad effects which sin has left in the heart, and endeavor to restore it to perfect health, and give to the penitent such rules of life as will place him out of danger of falling again. In one word, he has the same duties to discharge for the soul, as the bodily physician has for the body. He is also called by the endearing name of " father," because it is a part of his duty to per- form the office of a spiritual father to those who come to him with their spiritual needs. No love is more disinterested, liberal, prudent, patient, indefatigable, than that of a father. The duty of a priest, as spiritual father, is to advise, counsel, encourage, console, and when called to do so, to correct, reprqve, and admonish the penitent, his spiritual child. 196 ROME. St. Francis de Sales, when he saw that a penitent had some difficulty in opening his con- science, was accustomed to say to him : " Am I not your father ? " and he would repeat this till he was answered, " yes ! " and thus he won his confidence. Speaking of a young man whom he had received into the Church, and whose con- fession of twenty years he had heard, he says : " I was beside myself with joy ; how many kisses of peace did I not bestow on him," and then in the afifection of his heart exclaims : " Oh, there is no one but I and the good God who love sinners." Such is the paternal feeling of the priest's iieart. It is to such a man, who is at the same time priest, confessor, judge, spiritual physician, and father, representing Christ in his chief character- istics, that the penitent acknowledges his sins, and receives from his lips the remedies 'for his spiritual maladies, and the counsel he needs to overcome the difficulties that beset his path. Now the moment for the priest to pronounce the words of absolution arrives, and bowed down with sorrow, the penitent sees the consecrated hands lifted up to heaven and hears the words, CONFESSION. 197 " Absolve te," which, by a divine efficacy, free him from the bonds and miseries of sin, renew the image of God in his soul, and fill his heart with such peace and joy, that even nature, as if participating in his happiness, smiles and seems clothed again with primal innocence. Such is the answer of the Catholic Church to the sinner. An answer perfectly adapted to the wants of man's heart, and at the same time a complete, efficacious, a divine remedy for all its diseases and miseries. While a false religion can only "Smile on — nor venture to nninask • Man's heart, and view tlie hell that's there."* She in her perfect adaptation to the wants of the sinner's heart, in her unceasing and success- ful efforts to rescue it from the slavery of sin, in her practical treatment of it, shows most plainly and conclusively that the spirit which actuated him who came to save sinners, actuates her, — ^that she is a perfect copy of the Saviour of sinners, and the physician of souls. • Byron, 198 ROME. It seems to us that we hear the voice of one weighed down with the burden of guilt and woe, Baying : " Ah ! could I only believe this, I should be perfectly happy, I would ask no more ! " We answer : Why should you nttt be happy ? Is God not able to make you happy ? Did he give wants to the heart of man, which ar6 be- yond his power to satisfy ? " No ; but 1 aini a sinner ! " But cannot God forgive your sins, and if he chooses, commission his apostles to exercise the same power ? Of course God can. If so, teU me then what fact in sacred Scriptures is more plain than the commission of Jesus Christ to his apostles, and consequently to his priesthood, to forgive and retain sins ? Could you only believe it ! why, not to believe it, is to contradict the Gospels, to deny Jesus Christ, and to attempt to get to heaven by some other way than that which Christianity opens for sin- ners. Could you believe it ! why, not to believe it and yet hope to get to heaven, requires a greater amount of faith than to believe it. Could you beheve this, you would be happy ! Indeed you would, for of aU the pains of the Boul, the greatest is the relnorse of a guilty con- CONFESSION. 199 science, and by sacramental confession, man ia delivered from the pains of remorse, and the soul is restored to " A peace above all earthly dignities, A still and quiet conscience." * And once more we seem to see heaven's bright door stand wide open. Say not that it is degrading to our manhood to confess otir misdeeds to a fellow-man. This action, so far from being degrading, is the very means of raising man from the degradation into ^hich he has fallen by sinning. This is an action which springs from the firm resolve to be no longer the slave of the lower appetites, but to triumph over them, and be their master. Is this not to assert one's manhood, and the dig- nity of human nature ? It is, and more ; for it wins for one the approving smiles of the whole court of heaven. " Wretched is he," says an eloquent writer, " who is ignorant of the sublime duty of confes- sion ! Still more wretched who, to shun tha * SlrnkspearcL 200 KOMK, common herd, as he believes, feels himself called upon to regard it with scorn ! Is it not a truth, that even when we know what is required of us to be good, that self-knowledge is a dead letter to us ? Beading and reflection are insufficient to impel us to it ; it is only the living speech of a man gifted with power which can here be of avail. The soul is shaken to its centre, the im- pressions it receives are more profound and last- ing. In the brother who speaks to you there is a life, a living and breathing spirit ; — one which you can always consult, and which you will vainly seek for, either in books or in your own thoughts." * Sacramental confession degrading. ! Why, it is a necessity of our nature, and one of the deepest and most urgent necessities. Sacra- mental confession degrading ! Why, not only is it the efficacious means of raising man up from degradation, but do you not know, it is for want of it that some of the most gifted- minds have made shipwreck of all religious faith, and yielded themselves up to the sensual gratification of the most degrading passions. * Silvio Pellica CONFESSION. 201 We have & striking example of this truth in the life of Goethe. Goethe was brought up a Lutheran, and perhaps it would be well to state here, that the Lutherans retained more of the Catholic Church than any other Protestant sect ; and, among other things, confession. It was, however, soon regarded among them rather as a pious practice than a sacrament of penance. Goethe, after giving, in a few words, an ac- count of his early religious instruction, says . " But I found my good-will and my aspirations in this important matter, still more badly para- lyzed by dry, spiritless, beaten paths, when I would approach the confessional. I was, indeed, conscious within myself of many failings, but yet of no gross faults ; and that very conscious- ness diminished them, since it directed my at- tention to the moral strength which lay in me, and which, with resolution and perseverance, was at last to become indeed master of the old Adam. We were taught that we were much better than the Catholics, for this very reason : that we were not obliged to acknowledge any thing in particu- lar in the confessional, and that it would never be at aU proper, even when we wished to do so, 9» 202 ROME. This last did not seem right to me ; for I had the strangest religious doubts, which I would gladly have had cleared up on such an occasion. Now, since this should not be done, I composed a confession for myself, which, inasmuch as it well expressed my state of mind, would have made an intelligent man acquainted, in general terms, with that which I was forbidden to tell him in detail. But when I entered the ancient choir of the Barefoot Friars, approached the quaint latticed closets where their reverences used to be found for this purpose ; wtea the sexton opened me the door, and I saw myself shut up in the narrow place, face to face with my ghostly grandsire, and he bade de welcome with his feeble nasal voice, all the clearness of my mind and heart vanished at oQce ; the Welly committed confession speech would Hot ■ pass my lips. In my embarrassment, I opened the book which I had in hand, and read from it the first short form I sa^, which was so general that any body might have spoken it with quite a safe conscience. I received absolution, and vrtthdrew, neither hot nor cold ; Went the next day with my frieilds to the table of the Lord, and for a CONFESSION. 203 couple of days behaved myself as was becoming in one after so holy an act." * We are somewhat inclined, after reading this, to take back a part of the blame we laid upon Goethe for pubhshing to the world his confession in his writings, and lay it at the door of that false religion in which he had the misfortune to be brought up, and which failed to afford that relief which his conscience demanded. But we have not heard the whole of this sad history. Being deprived of the means of open- ing his conscience, and obtaining the direction of which he, at that time, stood so much in need, he became a prey to religious scruples. " In the sequel," he continues, " however, there came over me that evil, which (by reason of our religion's being comphcated through its many dogmas, founded on texts of Scripture, which admit of various interpretations) attacks scrupulous men in such a manner that it draws after it a hypochondriacal condition, and this raises their fixed ideas to the highest pitch. I have known many men who^ with quite a sensible manner of thinking and hving, could * Autobiography. 204 BOMB. not get rid of meditating about the sin against the Holy Ghost, and of apprehension lest they nad committed it. A similar trouble threatened me on the subject of the Communion. The text that one who unworthily partakes of the sacrament, ' eateth and drinketh damnation to himself,' had, very early already, made a deep Impression upon me. Every fearful thing that I had read in the histories of the middle ages of the judgments of God, of those most strange ordeals by red hot iron, flaming fire, by the water that caused to swell ; and even what the Bible teUs us, of the draught which agrees well with the innocent, but makes the guilty to swell and burst, — all this my imagination pictured to itself ; and I applied to my own case whatever was most frightful ; since false vows, hypocrisy, perjury, blasphemy, all seemed to weigh dowD the unworthy one at this most holy act, which was so much the more horrible as no one could dare to pronounce himself worthy ; and the for- giveness of sins, by which every thing was at last to be done away, was found limited by so many conditions, that one could not, with cer- tainty, dare to take the liberty of appropriating it to himself. CONFESSION. 205 " These gloomy scruples troubled me to such a degree, and the explanations which they would represent as sufficient, seemed to me so bald and feeble, that the bugbear only gained fear- ful consequence thereby ; and as soon as I had reached Leipzig, I tried to cut myself loose alto- gether from my connection with the Church. How oppressive, then, must Gellert's exhorta- tions have been to me ! whom, with his other- wise laconic style, which he was compelled to adopt to repel our obtrusiveness, I was unwilling to trouble with such singular questions, — the more so, as in my calmer hours I was ashamed of them myself; and this strange anguish of conscience, together with Church and altar, I at last left completely behind me." That is to say, finding Protestantism inade- quate to satisfy the religious wants of his soul, he abandons his conscience, his God, and what- ever of Christianity remained in his heart. Thus did this great and most highly gifted soul make shipwreck of the Christian faith, and become, in after life, bankrupt in morals, for want of sacramental confession. Let us conclude this chapter with the remarks 206 ROME. of a celebrated writer, and one of tlie most original and boldest tbinkers of tbe last century, on sacramental confession. " In this," be says, " as in all things else, the Church has only re- vealed to man the knowledge of himself; she has taken possession of his inclinations, of his lasting and universal convictions, laid bare to the light those ancient foundations, has cleansed them from every stain, from every alien mixture. She has honored them with tbe impress of the Divinity ; and on this natural basis, she has erected tbe supernatural theory of Penance and Sacramental Confession." * * Count De Maistre. XXI •Oh, show Thyself to me, Or take me up to Thee t He did ; Ke caCae. Oh, my Kedeemer dear, After all this, canst Thou be strange? " So many years baptized, and not appear,— As if Thy love conld fail, or change I Oh, show Thyself to me, Or take me up to Thee 1 " Heebbbx, y\ ' HAT says Kome to the deep craving of T 1 man's heart for love and union with God ? The Catholic Church has a fuUj adequate^ and satisfiictory answer to this inquiry ; — an answer that no one can appreciate, unless he already has the highest conception of love. 208 ROME. Love is never satisfied with loving, and is not content until the object loved is wholly in its possession. Love aims always at union. On the other hand, the object loved is never at rest till it has given itself wholly to i^ lover. God's love, therefore, for man, cannot be satisfied, until man wholly surrenders himself to God's love ; nor can man's love for God be satisfied, until God gives himself entirely to man's love. God must not only give himself wholly to man, to satisfy his love, but he must give him- self in such a way as fitly to be received by man. The Catholic Church presents to man the Blessed Sacrament as the answer qf the deep cry of the soul after love. She tells us, that in Holy Communion is received God entire — the body and blood, the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ confirmed this : when instituting the Blessed Sacrament, he said, " Take ye and eat ; this is my body. Drink ye aU of this ; for this is my blood." * "He that eateth me, the same also shall live by me." f " He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him." f * Matt, xxvi f John vi EUCHARIST 209 Besides this, there is another reason why G-od should give himself to man. It is this ; what- ever is received as food, must in some way par- take of the life it goes to support and sustain ; otherwise, starvation and death follow. This is a law of all attraction and life. Now, in the Christian soul, there is a divine life ; a divine food, therefore, is necessary for its support, growth, and perfection. The Catholic Church tells us that we receive this divine food in Holy Communion. Jesus Christ again confirms what she teaches. He says : " Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall have no life in you." " I live by the Father, so he that eat- eth me, the same also shall live by me." ■•■'■■ Thus, the Catholic Saviour is not an abstract Saviour, nor a dead Saviour, separated from us by nineteen centuries, but a real, living, personal Saviour, dwelling in the midst of us, even in our very hearts — our heart's life ! Let those, therefore, who look for, or dream of " a Church of the Future," first learn what the existing and present Church is, and teaches ; * John, 210 HOME. let them venture to believe her teachings, and dare to obey them. It is a want, qn their part, of truthfulness and true courage, to look or ask for what is greater or better, before they know what the present is, and have practised the good it demands. Until they have done this, they have no right to ask or claim more. Until this is done, they have no right to utter a word of complaint. Until this is donoj their place is that of an humble disciple ; their duty, that of a faithful servant. When these dreamers of a "New Teach- er," or a "Future Church," shall have the heroism to venture to beheve what the simplest of two hundred and fifty millions of Catho- lics believes, then, and not until then, wUl they be rightly entitled to speak of the Future. Poor dreamers ! God has done more for man, and loved him more, than you, in your highest flights of imagination, ever thought of; and know it, too, that in the heart of that poor Catholic girl'in your kitchen, there dwells a he- roism of faith and love, of which your heart never had even a faint conception. K there be aught better or greater to be ex- EUCHARIST. 211 pected iii the future, it will come by those who fulfil all the conditions of the existing Church, and not through men who are too blind to see, or too cowardly to acknowledge her claims, and obey her divine truths. The real presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Communion, connected as it is with the great Sacrifice of the Mass, is the central mystery of the Catholic faith. It is the complete, full, and adequate expression of Grod's love to man. God cannot do more. Grod cannot give more. G-od cannot love mgre. If it, were not for this, to look for a fuller manifestation of Grod and his love to man, might be admitted ; but now to think or dream of such a thing, is a mark of foUy. ' When we consider that God is really and truly present on the altars of the Catholic Church, — that he is the guest of the Catholic heart, its life and its nourishment, — is it to be wondered at that this Church has given birth to so many heroes, saints, and martyrs, and still continues to do so ? Oh, life becomes great, noble, divine, under the influence, and in the participation of so great mysteries ! Is it not, 212 ROME. we ask, a sufficient evidence of the divinity of the Catholic faith, that it elevates the human heart to the belief, that it receives, in the sacra- ment of Holy Communion, Almighty God ? Is not this an audacity of faith and love, which none but God himself can inspire, sustain, and perpetuate in poor, weak human hearts ? In the Catholic Church, the words of the poet can be with truth repeated : — " Here feel as sons of God baptized, Witli hearts exalted and surprised." * Rome gives God to man, and can man's heart ask more ? Is not this the completion of all man's wants, the end of man's supreme desire ? * Goethe. xxn. " "Tis not the stoic's lessons got by rote. The pomp of words and pedant dissertations, Tliat can sustain thee in that hour of terror ; Books have taught cowards to talk nobly of It, But when the trial comes they stand aghast. Hast thou considered what may happen after it? How thy account may stand, and what to answer." Eowa WHAT says Eome to man in the last mo- ments of life — at the hour of death ? It is then that the Catholic Church shows in- disputably that her origin is not human but di- vine, for she meets all the wants of the heart at that moment when all human aid fails. 214 EOJIE. Before death approaches, the Church relieves the conscience by " Sacramental Confession." " They in her holy ear distil Thoughts which the darkest bosoms fill, That so from this our lower air They thence may upward pass in prayer." * Then the soul is strengthened with the " Holy Viaticum ; " — the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the Conqueror of death. And when death is near, she imparts for this new journey a fresh vigor, by anointing all the avenues of the soul, the senses, with " Extreme Unction." According to the injunc- tion of the apostle, who says, "Is any sick among you, let him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil, in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick man ; and the Lord will lift him up, and if he be in sin, his sins shall be forgiven him." f Thus, with a clean and free conscience, the soul strengthened in all its faculties by the pre- sence of its Saviour, and by Holy JJnction pre- • Baptistry. ■(• Japies v. EXTREME UNCTION. 215 pared, as if by a coat of mail, to meet its foes, the dying man feels a blissful assurance of a happy eternity ; giving a reality to the wish — " I woiild that thns, when I shall see The hour of death draw near to me, Hope, hlossoming within my heart, May look to he^Ten as I depart." * Death, that ugly mobster, "with most grim and griesley visage," comes. The soul now struggles with him ; its agony commences, and at this moment the priest kneels, and invokes the saints and angels who reign in heaven, es- pecially the Queen of Heaven, the Dear Mother of our Blessed Lord : — " Mother of Christ I hear thon thy people's cry, Star of the deep, and Portal of the sky I Mother of Him, who thee from nothing piade, Sinking wei strive, and call to thee for aid." ****** " Come then our advopate, turn on ns those pitying eyes of thine ; And our long exile past. Show us at last Jesus, of thy pure womb the fruit divine, * Bryant. 216 ROME. O Virgin Mary, Mother blest ( O sweetest, gentlest, holiest ! " * The last act of life approaches, and at thia momeat the priest commands the soul in the following words : "Go forth, Christian soul, from this world, in the name of God the Father Almighty, who created thee ; in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who suffered for thee ; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who sanctified thee ; and let thy place be this day in peace, and thy abode in the holy Sion." But aught that is not pure, pure as Adam, when first he came from the hands of God, in the garden of paradise, cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven. If, therefore, there is aught of stain of sin on the soul, that has not been purified by sorrow and penance, it must undergo its purifi- cation before entering the realms of bhss, and the society of angels. Once more, the Holy Church comes to the re- ief of the soul, in the place of purification, by its suffrages, and accompanies it by its prayers, till it is become all pure and bright, and pre- pared to stand before Him, who is purity, love, * Lyra Catholica- EXTREME UNCTION. 217 light itself, and to gaze upon Him, " whose face is as the sun shineth in his power." * Thus, the Catholic Church, the Bride of Christ, the true Mother of our souls, receives the infant at its birth by Holy Baptism, yea, even before baptism, in preparing its birth by the sanctification of the marriage of its parents ; and by her guidance through all the vicissitudes of life, and the helps of her holy sacraments, she leads it to the grave, and ceases not her hold upon her child beyond the grave, tiU she sees it safe and secure, a citizen of heaven, in its true home, in the bosom of God. She realizes the very ideal of a true and loving mother of souls. Though the soul has reached heaven, the bond of sympathy between it and the Church is not broken ; it still continues to be her child, — yea, more hers now than ever, for the triumphant Church in Heaven, the militant Church upon Earth, and the suffering Church in the place of Purification, are one, and united closely in symr pathy as one body. " Bond of strange union ; when we kneel With saints on earth, and saints on high Bonnd in mysterious sympathy." t • Apoe. T. f Cathedral. 10 218 ROME. Such are the answers of the Catholic Church to the deep wants of man's heart ; and in these answers, the heart finds full satisfaction, supreme repose, and perfect bliss. And we, on our part, have no fear, ihat the system of religion which satisfies fully the wants of the heart, is not strong enough to stand the severest tests of the most rigid logic. For, the affections of the heart are also guides to truth, and as unerring, when pure, ds the logic of the understanding. xxm. ^xtunal futiraonj. " Art thou afear^d To be the same in thine own act and valor Ab thou art in desire." Shakspbabb. THE foregoing description of the Church naay appear to some as a mere sketch of fancy, or the fruit of an overheated imagination, having no truth, except in the brain, of the writer. For such, we will let others speak, of whom no sus- picion of this kind can arise in the reader's mind. Let a gifted writer, whose only misfortune is that his will is not equal to his perception of truth, describe how the Catholic Church appears 220 ROME. to him, even though he is deprived of the sight of that which " is within," which, after all, con- stitutes her real beauty : — " How sublime is this thought of a spiritual organization, living from age to age through wide-spread nations, with a visible manifestation on the earth in outward forms as its body, and a moral union with the hosts of the just, orderly related in the eternal world, as its mind, and the Living God as its soul. How touching to the best feeling is the love with which this mighty mother takes to its nursing care each infant gen- eration, and by holy rites assimilates the young as they mature into itself, and transmits a puri- fying influence by constant inspiration through all occupations and interests. The Church, so represented, stands in the position of a perpetual mediator, for ever bringing up her children to the Lord, that he may take them in his arms and bless them. And the effects which have through eighteen centuries been wrought by this guar- dianship, prove how wisely adapted such minis- tration is to the wants of man. Truly, the Church has been a quickening centre of modern civilization, a fountain of law and art, of manners EXTERNAL TESTIMONY. 221 and policy. It would not be easy to estimate how much of our actual freedom and humanity, of our cultivation and prosperity, we owe to her foresight and just acknowledgment of rights and duties. It is easy to ascribe to the cunning and love of power of priests the wonderful sovereignty which this spiritual dictator has exerted ; but it is proof of surprising superficiality, that these critics do not recognize, that only sincere enthu- siasm and truth, however adulterated by errors, can give such a hold upon human will. The Christian Church has been unquestionably the most dignified institution which the earth has seen. The priesthood through all times and peo- ple has exerted an astonishing sway ; and the universaUty of the fact is evidence of the neces- sity of such spiritual organizations as the con- science of nations. All government is, by the divine authority which originates and preserves it, a theocracy. But no hierarchy has ever ex- isted which, in the depth and extent of its in- fluence, can be compared with the Catholic Church, Beautiful have been its abbeys in lonely sohtudes, clearing the forests, smoothing the mountains, nurseries of agricultural skiU amidst 222 ROME. the desolating wars of barbarous ages, sanctu- aries for the suffering. Beautiful its learned cloisters, with students' lamps shining late 'in the dark night as a beacon to wandering pil- grims, to merchants with loaded trains, to home- less exiles — their sUent bands of high-browed, pallid scholars, watching the form of science in the tomb of ignorance, where she lay entranced. Beautiful its peaceful armies of charity, subduing evil with works of love in the crowded alleys and dens of cities, amid the pestilences of disease and the fouler pestilence of crime, and carrying the sign of sacrifice through nations more barren of virtues than the deserts which harbored them." ■■•■• We wiU now introduce to the reader another, and more gifted writer, the great Goethe, and let this prince of modern literature give to us, in his own language, the impression that the Catholic Church made upon his many-sided genius. Speaking of the need he felt of a father-con- fessor, or rather a spiritual director, in his youth, he adds : " I cannot on this occasion forbear re- » W. H. Chaiming. EXTERNAL TESTIMONY. 223 calling somewhat of my earlier youth, in order to make it clear that the great affairs of religion, as embodied in the Church, must be carried on with order and close coherence, if they are to bring forth the expected fruit. The Protestant service has too little fulness and consistency to be able to hold the common people together ; hence, it easily happens that members secede from it, and either form little communities of their own, or they quietly carry on their citizen life side by side, withoiit ecclesiastical connection. Thus, for a long time, complaints have been made that the church-goers are diminishing from year to year, and, in just the same ratio, the persons who partake of the Lord's table. As to both, but especially the latter, the cause lies very near ; but who dares to speak it out ? We will make the attempt. " In moral and religious, as well as in physical and political matters, man cannot do any thing well extempore ; he needs a sequence, from which results habit ; he cannot represent to himself what he is to love and to perform, as a einglc or isolated act, and in order to repeat any thing willingly, it must not have become strange 224 ROME, to him by discontinuance. If the Protestant worship lacks fulness in general, so, when it is investigated in detaD, it will be found that the Protestant has too few sacraments, that he has indeed only ond in which he is himself an actor, — the Lord's Supper ; for Baptism he sees only when it is performed on others, and therefore derives no benefit from it. The Sacraments are the highest in religion, the symbols to our out- ward sense of an extraordinary divine favor and grace. In the Lord's Supper earthly lips receive the embodiment of a Divine Being, and under the form of earthly nourishment, are partakers of a heavenly. This sense is just the same in all Christian Churches ; it is now the Sacrament, with more or less submission in the mystery, with more or less accommodation as to what is understood to be received ; it always remains a great and holy thing, which in r^aUty takes the place of the possible or the impossible, the place of that which man can neither attain to, nor do without. But such a sacrament should not stand alone ; no Christian can partake of it with the true joy for which it is given, if the symbolical or sacramental s&qse 1'=' po^ fostered EXTERNAL TESTIMONY. ' 225 within him. He must be accustomed to regard the inner religion of the heart and that of the external Church as perfectly one, as the great universal sacrament, which again divides itself into so many others, and communicates to these parts its holiness, indestructibleness, and eternity. " Here a youthful pair give their hands to one another, not for a passing salutation, or for the dance ; the priest pronounces his blessing upon the act, and the bond is indissoluble. It is not long ere these wedded ones bring a third, made in their likeness, to the threshold of the altar ; it is cleansed with consecrated water, and so in- corporated into the Church that it cannot forfeit ■ this benefit, but through the most monstrous apostasy. The chUd in this life practises him- self in earthly things of his own accord, in hea- venly things he must be instructed. Does it prove on examination that this has been fully done. He is next received into the bosom of the Church as an actual citizen, as a professor in truth, and of his own free will, not without out- ward tokens of the weightiness of this matter. Now is he first decidedly a Christian, now for the first time he knows his advantages, as also 10« 226 ROME. his duties. But, meanwhile, many a strange thing has happened to him as a man ; through instruction and affliction he has come to know how critical appears the state of his inner self, and he will yet constantly question within him- self of doctrines and transgressions ; but punish- ment shall no longer find place. For here, in the infinite confusion in which he cannot hut get entangled, amidst the conflicting claims of Na- ture and Keligion, an admirable means of infor- mation is given him, by confiding his deeds and misdeeds, his infirmities and doubts, to a worthy man, appointed expressly for that purpose, who knows how to calm, to warn, to strengthen him ; to chasten him by symbolical punishments, as it were ; and at last, through a complete washing away of his guilt, to bless him, and give him back the tablet of his manhood, pure and cleansed. Thus prepared beforehand, and pure- ly calmed to rest by many sacramental acts, which, on closer examination, branch forth again into minuter sacramental traits, he kneels down to receive the host ; and yet more to enhance the mystery of this high act, he sees the chalice only in the distance ; it is no common meat and EXTERNAL TESTIMONY. 227 drink that satisfies him, it is a heavenly feast, which makes him thirst after heavenly drink " Yet let not the youth helieve that this is all he has to do ; let not even the man believe it ! In earthly relations we are accustomed at last to depend on ourselves, and, even there, knowledge, understanding, and character, will not always suffice ; in heavenly things, on the contrary, we are never done learning. That higher feeling within us which, on frequent examination, finds itself not once truly at home, is even oppressed by so much from without besides, that our own power hardly administers all that is necessary for counsel, consolation, and help. But, to this end, a remedy is found to be instituted for our whole life, and an intelligent, pious man is con- tinually on the look-out to show the right way to the wanderers, and to relieve the distressed. " And what has now been so well tried through the whole life, shall show forth all its heahng power with tenfold activity at the gate of Death. According to a trustful custom, in which he has been guided from his youth up, the dying man receives with fervor those symbolical, significant assurances, and where every earthly warranty 228 ROME. fails, there, by a heavenly one, he is assured of a blessed existence to all eternity. He feels himself perfectly convinced that neither a hostile element nor a malignant spirit can hinder him from clothing himself with a glorified body, so that, when in immediate relation with the God- head, he may partake of the boundless happiness which flows forth from Him. " In conclusion, then, in order that the whole may be made holy, the feet also are anointed and blessed. They are to feel, in case of possible re- covery, an aversion to touching this earthly, hard, impenetrable soil. A wonderful nimbleness shall be imparted to them, by which they spurn from under them this hollow earth which attracted them before. And so, through a resplendent circle of equally holy acts, whose beauty we have only briefly hinted at, the cradle and the grave, let them lie perchance never so far asunder, are bound together within one never-ending round. "But all these spiritual wonders spring not, like other fruits, from the natural soil, where they can neither be sown, nor planted, nor cherished. We must supplicate for them from another region, a thing which cannot be done by •EXTERNAL TESTIMONY. 229 al] persons, nor at all times. Here the highest of these symbols meet us, according to ancient, pious tradition. We are told that one man may be endowed with grace, blessed and sanctified, above another. But lest this should appear as a natural gift, this great grace, bound up as it is with a heavy duty, must be communicated to others by one who has authority ; and the great- est good that a man can attain must be received and perpetuated on earth by spiritual heirship, yet without his being able to wrestle it out, or seize upon its possession, of himself. In the very ordination of the priest, every thing is compre- hended which is necessary for the effectual so- lemnizing of these holy acts, by which the many receive grace, without any other act being need- ful on their part but that of faith and implicit confidence. And so the priest steps forth into the line of his predecessors and successors, into the circle of those anointed with him, represent- ing Him, the great Source of blessings, so much the more gloriously, as it is not the priest whom we reverence, but his office ; it is not his nod to which we bow the knee, but to the blessing which he imparts, and which seems the more holy, and 230 ROME, to come the more immediately from heaven, in- asmuch as the earthly instrument cannot at all weaken or invalidate it by its own sinful, yea, wicked nature." * After this impressive description of the beauty and harmony that reign in the Catholic Church, Goethe casts back a glance upon that unsuccess- ful attempt of the ^ sixteenth century to have Christianity independent of the Church of Christ, and exclaims : — "How is not this truly spiritual connection Bhattered to pieces in Protestantism ! Since some of the above-mentioned ' symbols are de- clared apocryphal, and only a few canoiiical ; and how, by their indifference to one of these, wiU they prepare us for the high dignity of thb other ? " • Autobiography XXIV. iiijiiu 'giU oil %mt, * The feelings which the heart has raised to birtb, That holy mother never will disclaim ; 8he is no hireling minister of earth ; They are no bastard forgers of her name." , MiLNlS. SUCH are the answers of the Catholic Cliurch to man's wants, moral and intellectual, of the heart and of the head. But one may reply : " These, after all, though intended for all men, still do not meet the wants of all, and especially of that class of souls, who would realize in daily conduct the life of Christ, in all its purity, love- liness and beauty. What says the OathoKc Church to this class of souls ? for we repudiate 232 DIVINE LIFE. all Christianity that does not hold up to men the life of Christ as a model, and teach the possibility of obtaining it. No, it is not enough to have found repose of miad and peace of heart ; one needs also to find his place, and the work-task he is to accomplish, according to the divine plan of Grod in the universe. Does Catholicity meet the special wants of this class of souls ? Does it offer to them a place, and the means and oppor- tunity, for the fulfilment of their destiny ? " We confess, at the outset, that our difficulty here is not to show that she does this, but to show what she does to meet these souls ; so far does her actuality surpass the boldest visions of those who, outside of her sphere, have attempted to live a divine life. Their brightest dreams are but faint and feeble copies of a life realized in her bosom for centuries, and they are not even that. But let us go to facts and things, for we cannot stop to speculate, when so vast a field of realities lies before us, surpassing our highest speculations. From the earliest times, there have been in the Church a large class of men and women who have devoted themselves entirely to God, and conse- OBEDIENCE. 233 crated their lives to his service, and that of their fellow-men ; souls, with all their energies hent upon living a spiritual and divine life. The religious orders in the Catholic Church date their existence from the first Christian com- munity mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, at that time when " the multitude of helievers had but one heart and one soul ; neither did any one say that aught of the things which he pos- sessed was his own, hut all things were common unto them Neither was there any one needy among them, for as many as were owners of lands, or houses, sold them, and brought the price of the things they sold, laid it down at the feet of the apostles, and distribution was made to every one according to his need." * Here we have a picture of the religious com- munity, and the religious orders of the Catholic Church profess nothing else than to be a perpet- uation of this primitive community of Cliristians. Shall we go on, step by step, and show how they copy most faithfully the Divine Models ? Justice requires it, for having tested Protestant- ism in this manner, let us put the same test to * Acts ii 234 DIVIITE LIFE. Eome ; Eome, the seat of Antichrist ; Eome, that would crush in our souls all freedom of thought ; Rome, that would extinguish in our hearts every spark of generous, noble and divine aspiration after a pure and holy life. "What does Eome, then, say to the practice of religious obedience ? Eome replies : " Jesus obeyed. Christians must obey — all Christians must copy their divine model, the God-Man." But to those who would practise heroic obe- dience, to those who feel within them the inspi- ration to follow closely the footsteps of Him who was the way to life, she offers the opportunity of making their whole hves, like that of Jesus Christ, an uninterrupted act of religious obedi- ence. She opens to such her religious orders, where, by their vows, they promise to obey, ac- cording to their holy rules, their superiors, until death. An act of sublime faith, of supreme courage ; an act which frees them by one blow from all that separates man's wUl from God' will — self ; an act which makes man a competi- tor with the angels who always do God's will ; an act which gives to every thing they do a divine OBEDIENCE. 235 character, an eternal reward. And say not, ye blind, that it is diminishing one's liberty to determine by a supreme act of the will to serve God alone, and never to be a slave to self; say not that it is degrading to man to submit him- self to the guidance of another, of whom Jesus Christ hath said, " He that heareth you, heareth me." » " Unjustly thou depraveat it with the name Of servitude, to serve whom God ordains." t Such language betrays an ignorance of what constitutes true liberty, and the repudiation of the Christian faith. Here, then, in submission, man can find, if Mr. Carlyle and his followers did but know it, the satisfaction of what he calls "this prime want of man, — true guidance for loveful obedience." But we know their reply : — " Nothing but gloom and darkness there." We repeat the answer of the poet : — " Shrewd Sir Philistine sees things so, Well may he narrow and captious grow, Who all his life on the outside passes." • Luke X. t Milfaa. 236 DIVINE LIFE. Tes, tlie darkness is on the side of those who cannot see that an act of perfect religious obedi- ence opens to us all the avenues of divine life ; that to renounce our private judgment for a divine authority, is an act, that opens to us the source and fulness of Hght. But they who have not been ilfumined by the faith, though they think themselves free, are slaves to the greatest of all tyrants — pride, and the degraded servants of the most base of all masters — self. These men have no higher idea of freedom than independence, whereas Christians have a true idea of freedom — obedience to Grod ; " Obedience, such as holds the hosts on high ; And pure heaven-soothing order." * For in submission to God alone, can we find an unlimited activity of aU our faculties, and a full and perfect development of our whole nature. Religious obedience in the Catholic Church is nothing else than the Divine Law reduced to practice, and reduced to practice in a complete and perfect manner. To those, therefore, who * The Cathedral. OBEDIENCE. 237 would gain heroic virtue, she says : " Follow Jesus Christ, the way to truth and life, by the road of perfect obedience." It is in these monasteries and convents, the schools of heroic Christian virtue, that is found not only that obedience, which all, as Catholics, are bound to practise, to the dogmas and pre- cepts of God, and the laws of the Church j but also the discipline to bring all the thoughts of the mind and affections of the heart into accord- ance with the Christian ideal — Christ's life. Interior direction is found in these asylums. Masters of the spiritual life are found there, to whom interior life is familiar, and who can serve as guides on account of their example, as well as by their infused knowledge and acquired science. Here the soul can find a master, a guide, and a friend, to sympathize with, console, and lead it on to the heights of Christian perfection ; and it is for such guides that many hearts are aching, many souls are yearning, and suffering the most painful of all deprivations. XXV. " bliBsfol poverty 1 Nature, too partial, to thy lot assigns Health, freedom, innocence, and down? {eaoe, Her real goodfi." Fkntoit. WHAT says the Catholic Church to those who would free themselves from all mate- rial obstacles hy voluntary poverty, Hke that of Jesus Christ ? Love is of such a nature that it is not at rest until it has established a kind of equality be- tween the lovers. Can one love Jesus ,Christ and not desire to express in his life the life of Jesus ? POVERTY. 239 Who can read the words that fell from the lips of the Grod-man, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head," * and not be touched with sympathy and feel an im- pulse to be like him. What says the Catholic Church to this ? Her reply is that of a true spouse of the poor and lowly Jesus : " My child, imitate that divine model, embrace holy poverty ; become poor for His sake who was rich, and became poor for love of you ; do as He did, depend on that Providence that clothes the lilies of the valley, and feeds the birds of the air ; you have my approbation, the confirmation of my authority, and the protection of my love and affection." Such is the language of the true Spouse of Christ. Hence there have been at all times, in her bosom, some of the Faithful who have prac- tised the most sublime and heroic poverty, this being one of the three vows of all religious, both men and women. A type of these was St. Francis of Assisi, who, after hearing the priest read the Gospel, " Gro, sell whatsoever • Matt viii. 240 DIVINE LIFE. thou hast, and give it to the poor, and thou Bhalt have treasures in heaven ; and come, fol- low me ; '' * immediately gave away all the money he had, whereupon his father being dis- pleased with him, brought him to the Bishop's palace, and St. Francis, in the presence of the Bishop, stripped himself of his dress, and gave that also to his father, and the Bishop having thrown a garment about him, he exclaimed in an ecstasy of joy : "Listen and understand : until now, I have called Peter Bernardone my father ; henceforth, I can say boldly, Our Father, who art in heaven, in whom I have placed my trea- sure, my faith, and my hope." So enraptured was he with poverty, that he never ventured to mention it, except by the title of "holy" poverty, or his " Lady," his " noble " or his " dearest Lady." He always wore a coarse peasant's garb, lived upon common fare, and would accept nothing for his own. In a short period he had a multitude of disciples, and in a chapter, called ten years after the order was established, there were present more than five • Matt X. POVERTY. 241 thousand who had embraced St. Francis's holy rule of poverty. And later, St. Oajetan established an order of religious men who literally trusted in Divine Providence like the birds of the air ; for not only were they forbidden to hold ary property, either in private or in common, like the Francis- cans, but they were not even allowed to beg, and ha^ to depend entirely upon the voluntary contributions of the faithful ; neither were they allowed to keep, in their convent, provisions for the next day. Thus have these men followed Jesus in poverty, and thus thousands and thou- sands of religious men and women still persevere in following him, and will do so to the end of time. In spite of all this, there are men who pro- fess to be the true followers of Jesus, the preachers of that Grospel whicfi teaches poverty, who would have us believe that the practice of this virtue, as Jesus practised it, is absurd, visionary, impossible. What does this prove ? It proves either that Jesus Cbrist was a fanatic and visionary, or that they are false teachers of the Gospel, blind leaders of the blind. What 11 242 DIVINE LIFE, does it proTe ? It proves that when movements are made among them to realize this sublime virtue, in spite of their influence and their op- position, men wHl soon learn to see that Popery, after all, is Christianity, that they have been grossly imposed upon, and be led to say : " And now witMn Thy calm and holy grove I fain would hasten on the road of Heaven ; Guide me to haunts of lowly penury, ^ That I may cast aside my worldly wealth. And gird my loina with holier hope." * XXVI oO that the Ta«ant eye woald learn to look On very beanty, and the heart embrace True lorelinesB." Hood. IT7HAT says the Catholic Church to the most ' ' sublime and angehc virtue of chastity ? Her answer is clear and explicit : " Virginity is the queen of all virtues, and most pleasing to Him who Kved and died a virgin — Jesus Christ." " O that the yotmg soal took Its virgin passion from the glorious face Of fair religion, and addressed its strife To win the riches of eternal life 1 " * *Hood. 244 DIVINE LIFE Such is her language. But he who does not know what it is to have his whole soul turned hea- venward, and feels not the love of " the Immortal Bridegroom who binds the soul with more than bridal ties," knows not what this virtue is. He cannot understand how a chaste life is possible. Grace is a pure and divine excitement, tend- ing to draw and unite the soul to God, and when once it has penetrated the roots of man's passions, and gained the mastery of his affec- tions, it withdraws him from aU sensual and human pleasure to find the purest and highest source of love and bliss in God. Hence, it finds the purest of all delights in the abnegation of sensual enjoyments and material pleasures. There are souls who have felt this, even among those who are ignorant of the true faith, — one writer beautifully says : " Happy, inexpressibly happy, is the will that gives itself as a chaste bride to the Eternal." Even Milton, whom one would least suspect of extolling chastity, after his advocation of the dissolution of the marriage tie, says : " So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity, That when a soul is found sincerely so, A thon^^d liv'ried angels lackey her, CHASTITT. 245 Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt , And in clear stream and solemn vision Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, Till oft converse with heavenly habitants, Begins to cast a beam on the outward shape, The unspotted temple of the mind, And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, Tm all be made immortal." * And a writer of note of our own day tells us in one of our journals, that " we shall not decline <;elibacy as the great fact of the time." f Do you wish to know from whence springs that spiritual might by which men like St. Bernard, when called from his solitude by the Sovereign Pontiff of the Church, made the whole earth tremble with his voice, and enkindled in the hearts of men, for succeeding generations, the fire of divine love ? It was from chastity. — " Thy heart has been strengthened because thou hast loved chastity." | Would you wish to know from whence springs the devotion of the Catholic priesthood in times of great calam- ities and epidemics, their fearlessness in attend- ing the sick bed of the poorest and humblest • Comua. f Margaret Fuller. J Judith xv. 246 DIVINE LIFE. at a moment's warning, and at the risk of con- tagion ? It springs from the chaste sonl, where burns uninterruptedly that fire which Christ came on earth to kindle, the fire of divine love. , It would be useless, at this day, to attempt to show that a priesthood, unconsecrated by the vow of chastity, would be no priesthood at all ; that soon it would degenerate into the common and ordinary life, not respected, and unable to demand respect. But not only do we speak of the priesthood when we speak of this virtue, but we must speak of the thousand and ten thousand vu-gins, of both sexes, devoted to God and the good of their feUow-men, " Who angel-wise have chosen And kept, hte Paul, a virgin conrse, content To go where Jesus went." * As the Brothers of St. John of God, Christian Brothers, Sisters of Charity, of Mercy, &c., who never would or could be so without this holy vow ; for this exempts them from the yoke • Lyra Apos. CHASTITY. 247 and burdens of matrimony. They have no spouse to please but God, no children to take care of but humanity ; — oh ! is this not a noble destiny, to give one's virgin strength to heaven and to gentle deeds of love ! Let one of our great modern reformers have as much devotion for his world-happiness schemes, as a simple Sister of Charity, and we should then have some fear of his success. Oh, is not this a great religion which inspires the timid maiden with the boldness to pretend to have Grod alone for her spouse, and all hu- manity for her sympathies ! Such is the no- bility of the soul when inspired by Catholic faith,, and true to her vocation she says : " No love will serve that is not eternal, and as large as the universe." Here is woman's dignity, and as a modern thinker has said, "No mar- ried woman can represent the female world, for she belongs to her husband. The idea of woman must be represented by a Virgin." Deprived, as many are, of the graces and the epiritual strength imparted through the channels of the sacraments, we are not surprised that they cannot understand how one can practise 248 DIVINE LIFE. such heroic virtue ; nor can we, for the same reason, blame them that they are hkewise unahle to conceive the possibility of rejecting the basis and limits of common life, and gaining a per- manent and divine basis of action. But this has been done. How can they refuse to believe in the fact that the greatest saints have pro- fessed such a life ; a Vincent de Paul, a Oe Sales, a Francis, a Bernard, a Gregory, an Au- gustine, an Ambrose, a Jerome ; and that the precursor of our Lord, his blessed Mother, and He himself, have practised this virtue, and what is more, have encouraged others to do so too, this is what surprises us ! Yes, it is in the bosom of the Catholic Church alone, that the bright dreams of youth, of love, of purity, and of Christian holiness of life, can find their reali- zation. It is from thee, holy Church we " Leam virgin innocence, le,am mercy mild, Unlearn ambition, unlearn carefulness. O life, where state of angels is fulfilled, And saints, who little have, and need stiU less ; A state which nothing hath, yet all things doth possess 1 " ' * Baptistry. xxvn. "The women of old Eome were satisfied "With wftter for their beverage. Daniel fed On pulse, and wisdom gain'd. The primal ag^ Was beautiful as gold, and hunger then Made acorns tasteful ; thirst, each rivulet Eun nectar. Honey and locnsta were the food, Whereof the Baptist in the wilderness Fed, and that eminence of glory reacb'd, That greatness, which the Evangelist records." Dante. WHAT says the Catholic Church to self- denial and mortification ? In this, as in all other things, she is a perfect copy of Him who was the example of a perfect life. All her children must do penance, ab- stain, and fast, Every year she imitates the 11» 250 DIVINE LIFE. forty days' fast of our Lord in the desert, by the season of Lent. Every Friday is a day of ab- stinence in remembrance of the sufferings of Christ for us, on that day. At each of the four seasons of the year, she has three days of fast to draw down God's blessing upon nature, and avert the curse brought on it by self-indulgence ; in one word, the daily life of a Catholic is, if rightly considered, one of abstinence and self- denial : for Jesus Christ said, not to religious alone, but to all ; " If any man will follow me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." * This is the common life of a faithful Catholic ; and now what shall we say of those who, by a special grace, practise morti- fication in an heroic degree in her schools of vir- tue and discipline — the monasteries and con- vents ? Shall we attempt to defend this demand of the heart for ascetic life ? But this is not our purpose here. We are bound only to show that the Catholic Church meets this want. Look only on Jesus Christ ; and if we are not willing to suffer with him, we have no iheart, or no room for him in it. * Mark viii. MORTIFICATION. 251 " To Calvary's awful monnt thy cross to bear. After Thee, and with Thee, and share Thy load ; — Divine Prerogative ! " * But the fact that the Catholic Church meets these wants is so palpable, that it needs no proofs ; we arc only put on our defence. There are men from whom we should look foi better things, who are still bound by such low and human views of life, that they cannot con- ceive of the philosophy of asceticism, and totally misapprehend its purpose. They tell us : " As- ceticism looks very stupid by the side of earnest charity," and that " we must put away asceti- cism ; " and why ? — " Because the Keligion of the Present calls us to work for Universal Ke- storation, Universal" Eeconciliation, the At-One- Ment of God and Man and Nature." f Now, we opine that Jesus Christ knew better than any votaries of Fourierism the wants of man's na- ture, and the means, too, of bringing man to his true destiny. To put the language of these gentlemen into plain English, is to say : " Away with the cross — the crucified One. His example » Baptistry f ^- H. Chanuing. 252 DIVINE LIFE. is not needed for this age ; the religion of the nineteenth century teaches ns to obey our in- stincts, to seek pleasure, to act out and gratify ourselves. We need not be told to deny our- selves, we do not want to hear of the cross, nor behold that crucifix, which reminds us of suffer- ing and pain." If asceticism looks very stupid by the side of earnest charity, we would beg these gentlemen to point out to us, if even in rare cases, — indeed, if even in one case, — they have found earnest charity, except by the side of asceticism .? They certainly will not deny the earnest charity of the different rehgious orders in the Catholic Church ; her missionaries, her brotherhoods, for the con- version of the heathen, the care of schools, for the sick and insane, &c. ; or the earnest charity of the Sisters of Charity, Mercy, the G-ood Shep- herd, Visitation, &c. This fact they cannot deny ; and it is strange that they have never been struck with it, and surmised that there might be some secret connection between " as- ceticism" and "earnest charity." But the reason given for putting away asceti- cism, namely, " because the religion of the MORTIFICATION. 253 present calls us to work for Universal Eestora- tion, Universal Reconciliation, At-One-Ment of God and Man and Nature," evinces such a total darkness on this subject, that it is evident those who offer it are blinded by some gross error. Pray, then, what did the religion of the past — we allow the distinction to be made between the past and present to please these persons — what did the religion of the past call men to work for, if it was not for this very thing ? And how was it accomplished ? Precisely by ascetic discipline. "And they, I ween, who sleep below Had more of wisdom than we know ; With alms and prayers and penitence, They sternly oonquer'd things of sense." * The end to be gained is union — union with God. But God is pure, is purity itself ; man is impure, — hence, the need of purification. Again, God is unity — One ; man is degraded and dis- tracted, — hence, the need of his being rectified and detached from all exterior objects. What • Baptistry. 254 DIVINE LIFE. else has asceticism for its object than the puri- fying and rectifying the passions and powers of the soul, in order to prepajre it for union with G-od? We have heard of persons wishing for the end, without being willing to use the means to gain the end. This is, indeed, folly ; but the height of folly and absurdity is, to wish for the . end, and to deny and repudiate the means to attain it. Do not these men know that the souls which have obtained the highest degree of union with God, are precisely those who prac- tised in the highest degree the asceticism which they condemn ? " Faith .ilone can interpret life, and the heart That aches and bleeds with the stigma Of pain, alone bears the likeness of Christ, And can comprehend its dart enigma." * But it is not for ourselves alone that we are called to work, — ^it is for " Universal Bestora- tion." Grant it, and permit us to ask, if it is not selfishness that limits and binds man's activity ? And hence, the sources of life, and * Longfellow. MORTIFICATION. 255 the key to its secrets, lie, not in the indulgence of seK, but in the denial of self ; in mortifica- tion and prayer. Penance increases, intensifies, and centralizes man's power ; and it wiU be found that those who hav^ been most active in man's restoration, were men who made the sen- sual appetite subservient- to the loftier soul, by heroic penance. A St. Gregory, who had the whole government of the world on his shoulders, at the most critical period of the progress of so- ciety ; a St. Bernard, who was more powerful than kings, who adjusted their quarrels, and awoke all Europe to the defence of Christianity against the Turks ; and, in a word, her several orders of religious men and women. " 'Tis suf- fering that worketh might." But we go farther, and say, that asceticism is a pressing need of the heart. It was an ex- quisitely painful reality within them that drove men to great, and even frightful austerities. For instance, the Trappists ; who one half of the year allow themselves but two meals a day, and the other half, but one repast, which they take at half past two, p. m., except during Lent, and then at four. Their fare consists principally of 256 DIVINE LIFE a thin soup made of peas, or a dish of beans sea- soned with salt, and moistened with water. A pear for each, or a small quantity of some other fruit, forms their dessert. The Trappist knows neither meat, fish, butter, nor eggs. He rises every morning at two o'clock, on Sundays at one, and on great festivals at midnight ; prayer and manual labor occupy all his hours until eight o'clock in the evening, the hour of retiring to rest. The Trappist eats less, and labors more, than the workmen of our cities, or the inhabi- tants of our country districts ; and he does this voluntarily, for the love of God and his neigh- bor. What is this but saying that he is more a man than other men ? " Thus bravely live heroic men, A consecrated band ; Life is to them a battle-field, Their hearts a holy land."* By such as these the germ of power was fed and strengthened, which afterwards showed itself in the practice of supernatural virtues, in uninter- * Tuckerman. MORTIFICATION. 257 rupted acts of heroism, in splendid miracles, and in a prodigious activity. On reading the lives of the saints, we find that those to whom God has given the greatest and most miraculous gifts, were just those who practised the greatest aus- terities, and the most perfect poverty, thus giving to their lives the broad seal of his approbation. These are no mere assertions, but facts. Eead the lives of St, Bernard, St. Dominic, the three St. Francises — of Assisi, of Paula and Xavier ; they surpass all imagination ; and know it, too, that he who has something to say, or to do, in his age, wiU be led irresistibly into solitude, and to the practice of self-denial. When the soul feels an intense desire for union with God, not a sentimental and puerile, or merely poetic affection or affectation, it cannot but practise penance ; that is, remove the hin- drances to its union with God. Divine love, when once it has taken its root in the heart, can- not suffer any obstruction ; it consumes all other affections, cuts off all ties, and turns all the cur- rents of our being to God. For with a distracted attention, the soul can never attain a perfect union with God. Hence arises a most perfect 258 DIVINE LIFE. asceticism ; for no creature, no material thing, no image, no thought, or affection, can give us an adequate idea of God, or be an adequate means of union with God. Nothing created, however good, true or beautiful,, can unite the soul to the uncreated good, the true, the beauti- ful. Before the soul, therefore, can be wholly united to God, it must recall its energies from all created objects to its centre, and there, by an act of perfect love, lose itself in God. This is the secret of the doctrine of seLf-denial, mortifi- cation, abstinence, &c. And it is in these monasteries, under wise and experienced masters of the spiritual life, in silence and solitude, that the discipline of as- ceticism is practised, and the restoration of man, and his reconciliation and union with God, is effected. Out of these schools of Christian vir- tue go forth the apostles of nations, the regener- ators of society, and the heroes and martyrs of faith and love. " Thrice happy they, who earthly stores have sold, Dearer sublunar joys, domestic ties, And form themselves into one holy fold To Imitate on earth the happy skies, MORTIFICATION. 259 With vigil, prayer, and sacred litanies ; Their souls to Heavenly contemplation given, WhUe 'earthly hope within them buried lies, Their sole employ to purge the evil leaven, And lender their cleans'd souls a fit abode for Heaven." * Bsptbtry. xxvm. " All natm-al objects have An ecbo la the heart And maintain With the mysterious mind and breathing mould A co-existence and community. This flesh doth thrill, And has connection by some unseen chain With its original source and kindred substance." A Hunt. "VTATUEE must also find reunion with God -i- ' through man ; hut what is asceticism, say the advocates of these world-schemes of plea^- sure, but the denial, repudiation, and contempt of nature ? This piece of information is, of course, in keeping with the rest. Uninstructed in the knowledge of the divine order of things, these men see not that the an- NATURE AND THE CHUEOH. 261 tagonism they imagine between Christian ascet- icism and nature, exists only in their own minds. Man is the high-priest and king of nature, and in him are concealed aU the signets of her life. She suffered by man's fall : — " Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe." * She must also profit by his restoration. " For we know that every creature groaneth, and travaileth in pain, even till now. Because the creature also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the liberty of the children of God." f Therefore there can be no union with God in which nature has not her share. This is seen in the lives of the Catholic saints, every one of whom was a master of ascet- icism. From the earliest ages we read of the power of the hermit Fathers over nature, and of their familiarity with her. St. Athanasius remarks, in the life of St. Anthony, that wild animals causing great damage in a field which he cultivated, he took one gently, and said to • Milton. f Eom. viii. 262 DIVISE LIFE all the others, while speaking to the one he had caught, " Why do you injure me, who never did you any harm ? Gro, and in the name of the Lord, never come here any more." The holy doctor adds, that from that time they were never again seen "there, as if they had been afraid of disobeying him. The lives of those men who peopled the deserts and were companions of the birds and beasts of the forests are filled with facts regarding the ex- ercise of their powers Over nature. St. Francis was on the friendliest terms with all creatures. • Once when the people would not hear him preach,, he preached to the swallows, and they opened their beaks and clapped their wings for joy. And on returning to his companions he reproached, himself, for not having preached before to the little birds which heard with so much respect the word of God. One day, as. he was about to take his collation with brother Leo, he felt himself interiorly consoled on hearing a nightingale sing. He begged Leo to sing the praises of Grod, alter- nately with the bird ; the latter having excused himself, alleging the badness of his voice, he himself responded to the bird, and continued to NATtTHE AND THE CH0BCH. 263 do SO till night, when he was obliged to give over, acknowledging that the little bird had beaten him. He made it come upon his hand, and praised it for having sung so well, fed it, and it was only after he had desired it to leave him, and given it his blessing, that the nightingale flew away. On the banks of the lake of Eieti, a large fish which had been just caught, was presented to him, he held it for some time in his hand, and then put it back in the water. The fish re- mained in the same place, playing in the water before him, as if out of regard for him it could not leave him, and did not disappear till it had received the Saint's leave, together with his blessing. In a word, St. Francis and nature understood each other most perfectly. He was on such familiar terms with her that he called the birds, the beasts, the elements by the name of brother and sister. He composed a Psalm in the man- ner of the Benedicite to give to her inarticulate worship an intellectual sign. The Franciscan chronicles are filled with the most charming anecdotes of the reverent and familiar under- 254 DIVINE LIFE. standing that existed between nature and the saints of this order, which was effected by their great simplicity, humility and love of poverty. Let us cite another example, one from the life of the Blessed Henry Suso, of the order of St. Dominic, who practised unheard of austerities, and who stands at the head of the ascetic writers of Germany of the fourteenth century. " It is impossible to describe," so says his co- telnporary biographer," the sensible devotion with which Blessed Henry was accustomed to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and the divine fire of love with which his soul was inflamed, es- pecially when reciting these words of the preface : ' SUESTJM COEDA ! ' ' GrKATIAS AGAMUS DOMINO Deo nostro ! ' ' Lift up your hearts ! ' ' Let us render thanks to the Lord our Grod.' Once he fell into an ecstasy on these words, and under the influence of this extraordinary grace, pronounced them with so much ardor, that his assistants perceived the state he was in, and asked him what were the thoughts with which his mind was at that moment occupied. The saint re- plied : ' There are three thoughts which in a special manner agitate and inflame my heart | NATUKE AND TUE CHUBCH. 265 Bometimes one after the other, and at other times all at once.' " ' In the first place I contemplate in spirit my own entire being, my soul, my body, my powers and faculties ; and around me I behold all the creatures with which the Almighty has peopled heaven, earth and the elements ; the angels of heaven, the beast s of the forest, the inhabitants of the waters, the plants of the earth, the sand of the sea, the atoms which float on the air, in the beams of the sun, the flakes of the snow, the irops of rain, and the pearls of dew. I reflect that aU creatures, that all creatures even to the remotest extremities of the world obey Grod, and contribute as much as they can to that myste- rious harmony which rises up unceasingly to praise and bless the Creator. I imagine myself, then, in the midst of this concert, like the di- rector of a choir, and I apply all my faculties to beat the tune for the music. I invite, I excite by the most lively sentiments of my heart, the deepest emotions of my soul to chant joyously with me, ' Sursum Coeda ! Habbmus ad Dom- tNUM. G-KATiAS agamus Domino Deo nosteo ! ' Lift up your hearts ! We have hfted them up tq 12 266 DIVINE LIFE. the Lord. Let us render thanks to the Lord oui God.'" Such is the part that nature plays in Catholic devotion, and especially in that of Catholic Saints. Let us give one more instance of this kind, and one still more striking. Of St. Eose of Lima, her biographer relates, that when she entered the garden, all the plants, flowers, and trees would be in motion ; and to show that they understood the love which inflamed her heart, they entwined around each other in fond em- brace, and, in order that she might satisfy her devotion in decorating the altars of the Church, flowers would bloom for her at any and at all seasons of the year. In the evening she opened her windows, to let all the insects into her cell for shelter, for they never gave her any annoy- ance ; and in the morning, she would let them forth again. Such was the power of the Saints over nature. There existed no longer any hos- tility between them and the world, because they had overcome sin, and restored their souls to their original purity. They were at peace with the animal kingdom and the elements, as well as with men and themselves. In a word, all that NATUKE AND THE CHURCH. 267 the poets sing of the fabled power of Orpheus and Amphion of old, has its fulfilment in the lives of the Catholic Saints. They were the true friends of nature, her deliverers, her interpreters, — her kings and priests ; and God, man, and natui-e were one in them, as in Adam in paradise before the curse. This is the asceticism that the Catholic Church teaches ; and why should she not, when all na- ture contributes to her most sacred functions, and takes an essential part in her worship ? Nature contributes stone for her temples, for her altars, for the images of her Saints, the Queen of Heaven, and her Divine Founder and Spouse ; the choicest metals and gems for her sacred ves- sels ; gums and sweet smelling woods for her in- cense ; linen and silk for her vestments ; wax foi her lights ; and flowers, nature's sweetest and choicest gifts, to decorate her altars. Nature furnishes her gifts for still more sacred purposes ; — water and salt for " Holy Baptism," oils for " Extreme Unction " and " Ordination ; " the earth supplies her with wheat, and the juice of the vine, for the most sacred of all purposes, to become the Body and Blood of her Lord. Thus, 268 DIVIKE LIFE. " The gems in Ocean's breast, and living spars Deep laid in Earth's dark bowels far below, Do pave her wondrous pathway to the stars." * Unlike that faith, which shuts out from par- ticipation in her worship, nature, art and man, so far as he is a part of nature, the Catholic Church " casts all things in beauty's mould ; " and in putting them to her most sacred uses, she gives to nature a divine direction. It is through the medium of the Catholic Church that nature speaks to its Grod, and wor- ships its Creator. Oh, had nature the independent faculty of expressing herself, how would she praise that religion, which, so far from excluding her from its temples, gives her an indispensable part in all its worship, and makes her, by its Holy Sac- raments, the medium of heavenly influences, and the channel of divine graces ! What we fear is, that those who oppose Catholic asceticism, never had even a faint con- ception' of Catholicity, or knew what it is to live an interior life. They have not even learned its * Baptistry. NATURE AND THE CHURCH. 269 alphabet. Whatever they may say, whatever their language may seem to express, they have no other basis of life than human affection. In the last analysis, they fall back upon flesh and blood. They do not know that to live to God alone in the condition of our fallen nature^ self- denial and mortification are not a mere matter of choice, but an absolute and constant necessity ; they do not know that the greater the peace that is to be gained for the soul, the greater jnust be the combats to which it is delivered ; that the most severe and excessive pains open the way to the highest knowledge, and the purest joy. " Dearly bought tlie hidden treasure Finer feelings can bestow, Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure, Thrill the deepest notes of woe." * When Grod would prepare a soul for an ex- traordinary activity, he leads it into solitude, reduces it to silence, and speaks to the heart. St. Bernard acknowledged that he learned more in the woods than in books : " The trees and * Burns, « 270 DIVINE LIFE. rocks," he says, " will teacli thee what pro- fessors cannot. Do you think that you cannot suck honey from the rocks, and draw oil from the flint-stones ? Do not the mountains distil sweetness, the hills flow with milk and honey, and the valleys abound with rich harvests .P" Such was the language of this great saint ; and when St. Bonaventura was asked what books he read that taught him how to write with so much wisdom and unction, he pointed to his crucifix, the feet of which were all smooth from the abundance of kisses he had bestowed on them. This was the source of his seraphic eloquence. The great angelic doctor, St. Thomas, confesses, " that whatever he might know, he did not ob- tain it so much by his studies and labors, as from the divine bounty ; " and it is well known that he often solved the most difficult problems in philosophy and theology when elevated many yards into the air by the ardor of his devotion before the Blessed Sacrament. The Bernards, the Bonaventuras, and Thomases of these times, need a place for their life. Such souls as these — and there are many such among us — need soli- tude and freedom from common cares and solid- NATURE AND THE CHURCH. 27l tudes. Without solitude, deep silence, and mor- tification, the delicate sources of the inmost life will never be opened, and brought to light and maturity. To such souls as are so happily constituted that they feel compelled to obey the command of our Lord, " Seek first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you ; " * to those who would follow in the footsteps of their Divine Master, and are bold enough to trust his promise, that in leaving father and mother, and all for his sake, they shall receive an hundred fold in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting ; to those who " will not life support By earth and its base metals, but by love, Wisdom and virtue," t the Catholic Church opens her religious or- ders, her monasteries, and convents. In these blessed abodes each will find all he ever sought, and more than he ever anticipated, or hoped. He will exclaim at the first glance : • Matt vL t Dantat 272 DIVINE LIFE. " Behold the dreams of my youth ! Oh, did I ever anticipate that it would be possible for me to see this day, to have this privi- lege ! Did I ever believe that such a life was possible upon the earth ! Behold the path lies open before me, which I have yearned for so long ! I am free ; all that I can desire is here, a roof to shelter me, a cell where I can be alone ; my bodily wants provided for. Hg^e I have lei- sure to read, to study, meditate, and pray ; here I have a guide and friend, brother and father, in my spiritual director ; companions with me in *he same holy aims ; and all that is demanded of me is to be true to these aims, and the hopes that God has awakened in my bosom ! How changed is all I Instead of opposition, dis- couragement, and contempt, I have sympathy, friendship, and love. Here I am told that my hopes are the inspirations of God, that my bright dreams of a pure and holy life, were divine favors. What a change I These things seemed once a dream, but they are not. Can I believe it ? All my wishes are realized. Here for the first time, and with open heart, I taste pure joy, and can say : — ■ NATURE AND THE CHUKCH. 273 ' Breathe now ; and let the hunger be appeased, That with great craving long hath held my soul, Finding no food on earth.' " * Such is the language of those who enter upon a religious life in the bosom of the Catholic Church ; md what is this but the fulfilment of the pro- mise of Christ, " Seek first the kingdom of God, and his justice ; and all these things shall be added unto you." "He that leaveth house or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my sake, shall receive an hundred fold now in this time ; and in the world to come life everlasting." f " Our world Hath need of such as thee and thy fair nuns. And these good fathers of the monastery. To teach youth, tend the poor, the sick, the sad, Eelume the extinguish'd lights «f ancient lore, Making each little cell a glorious lantern. To beam forth truth o%t our benighted age." t • Dante. f Mark x. X Darley. 12» XXIX. "Make a right dedication Of all thy strength, to keep From swelling that so ample heap Of lives abused, and virtue given for naught." W. E, CBAimaa, TT is thus that the Catholic Church opens her arms to those chosen souls who would dedi- cate themselves entire to the fulfilment of their high, noble, and divine destiny. She regards them as -her brightest ornaments, and the most precious jewels of her crown. The object of her religious orders is no other than to remove aU obstacles to the fulfilment of pur destiny, and to furnish us with all, and the EXHORTATION. 275 most speedy means to attain it. Duty and pleasure thus become one ; and this is paradise, so far as paradise can exist, in the present state of things. " Blest are they, whom grace Doth so illumine, that appetite in them Exhaleth no inordinate desire. Still hungering as the rule of temperance mUs.'' * What was attempted by those engaged in such movements as Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and other places of a similar character, the religious orders in the Catholic Church have always realized. Their most brilliant dreams do not present a fair picture of a religious life in the Catholic Church. Their hopes and highest aims were but glimmerings of the reality exist- ing in her bosom, and that for ages. It is a happy moment, indeed, when we find that tho inmost sentiments of our hearts, the lovely dreams of our youth, the desire of our manhood for self-sacrifice and heroism, are not only un- derstood, but fully appreciated, and all the tneans to their fulfilment are offered to us in P Dants 276 DIVINE LIFE. abundance. Happy are they who find out in their youth what all men discover at some period of life, that God, and God alone, can satisfy the inmost wants of the soul, and conse- crate themselves to his service with all the freshness and purity of their youthful energy. This is the most beautiful experiment in life, to pass from the service of the world to that of God ! — to give one's youth to heaven ! To those who seek for true greatness, and a permanent basis for action, a divine basis for life, — a basis that will give to the intellect ever brighter visions of truth, to the heart irresistible impulses to love and heroism, and to the arm an unfailing strength ; a life that will render them independent of all ties of kindred and friendship, and make them conquerors of the world, and masters of themselves ; it is here, in these schools of religious discipline, they will find it, and all the means to make such a life their own. Out of these schools came the Je- romes, Augustines, Gregories, Bernards, Fran- cises, the Vincent de Pauls, the Xaviers, and other great doctors and missionaries of the Church. Yes, the Catholic Church is the mother EXHORTATION. • 277 of great men, the nurse of heroes, and of an un- failing succession of saints and martyrs. It is the very nature of the Oathclic faith when it takes root in the heart to make men superior to nature, and true heroes. Men talk of greatness and of heroism, but in the Church there is a perennial source of great men and heroes. There is no other. Thomas Carlyle has talked of heroism and sham to satiety ; and, like the fable of the an- cients, he has gazed so long upon a sham hero, that at length he has finished by giving life to one in his own person. For the veriest of all shams is one who has talked till he has nothing more to say, and yet continues to talk " an infi- nite deal of nothing." " A tirade About flre-horses, jotnns, wind-bags, owls, Ohoctaws and borse-bair, shams and flunkeyism, Unwisdoms, Titbes, and Unveracities." Mr. Emerson, like his colleague, has done his work, and talked out. The work Mr. Emerson had to do, he has done, and done with a certain degree of earnest- 278 DIVINE LIFE. ness, fidelity, and even bravery. His task was to break through, and shake ofi' the false* and narrow dogmas, the hollow forms, and the hol- lower cant of Protestantism ; and, once more, to take a stand upon man's simple nature/ In accomplishing this task, Mr. Emerson has done some service to truth, though it be a nega- tive one. Truth may be gained by those who do not fully possess it, in two ways. First, by holding fast those fragments of revealed truth which they are in possession of, and in following them out to their relations with other truths, till they discover the whole, or the central source of them all ; and in this way the school of Dr. Newman came to the knowledge of the Catholic Church. Or, secondly, by renouncing all revealed truths, and placing one's self once more upon our native in- stincts and capacities, which will teach us by their wants, if we be not false, the necessity of the Catholic Church. The latter course was that of Mr. Emerson. So far as the going back to nature is concerned, Mr. Emerson did it for himself, and helped many others to the same end. Hence, the maxims that are every where scattered about, EXHOETATION. 279 and inculcated in his first writings, as, "obey thy instincts," " act out thyself," " be thyself," &c. But here his work stojjs. He has no fu- ture ; no aims but false ones. He says to man, " Obey thy instincts." Now if man were a bee, a cat, or a pig, this would answer quite well. But it is a large error to give as a rule of life to man, who has reason and free will, what is good and proper only for a beast. This is servility in its lowest form. Even when Mr. Emerson acknowledges reason and free-will, he acknowledges them, as the Fourierites, in subordination to what he calls instinct. Eeason is man's guide, and he has capacity for a still higher guidance ; bat this Mr. Emerson, with all rationalists, ignores. " Can man, no more than beast, aspire To know Ms being's awful Sire ? And, born and lost on Nature's breast, No blessing seek but there to rest ? " Not this our doom, thou God benign I "Whose rays on us unclouded shine : Thy breath sustains yon fiery dome ; But man is most thy favor'd home." * • Sterling. 280 DIVINE LIFE. But Mr. Emerson would answer man's wants by " self-culture." All that self-culture can do for man is to make him feel more keenly and painfully his wants and deficiencies, but it can do nothing to satisfy or supply them. This is openly and sadly confessed by one of the celebri- ties of the school of Transcendentalists — Mar- garet Fuller. One of her ' biographers says, that "Margaret's life had an aim ;" and adds, "This, after all, is the test question." Now, what was this aim ? Here it is ; he gives it in her own words, in italics : " Early I knew," she writes, " that the only object in life is to grow." A great aim that ! A melon, a pumpkin, or a squash, could say the same, if they could only speak. If the good man only knew it, this is no aim at all. This votary of self-culture pro- claims it in her own words, and that at a mo- ment when there was a field opened to her to speak, if she had any thing to say, in the col- umns of a periodical. " But, in truth," she confesses, " I have not much to say, for since I had leisure to look at myself, I find that so far from being an origiaal genius, I have not yet learned to think to any depth, and that the ut- EXHORTATION. 281 most I have done in life has been to form my character to a certain degree of consistency, cul- tivate my tastes, and learn tc tell the truth with a little better grace than I did at first." A confession not unlike that which Goethe puts into the mouth of Faust : — " I feel it, I have heaped upon my brain The gather'd treasures of man's thought la vain, And when at length from studious toil I rest, No power, no love, springs up within my breast, A hair's breadth is not added to my height I am no more the infinite." That this self-culture, to which she devoted so many years, can give no peace to the heart, nor answer any of its wants, nor furnish any aim in life, the next writer in her biography shows. " The very restlessness of Margaret's intellect," he says, " was the confession that her heart had found no home." Listen how aimless self-cul- ture leaves the soul. "What a heaven" — it is Margaret who speaks — " it must be to have the happiness of accomplishing something, and to feel the glow of action without exhausted weari- ness ! Surely the race would have worn itself out by corrosion, if men in all ages had suffered 282 DIVINE LIFE. as we now do from the consciousness of an unat- tained Ideal." Thus, self-culture, while it ren- ders man a little more accomplished, utterly fails to supply his wants ; on the contrary, it only adds to man's misery, by making him more painfully conscious of his wants. Still, this is all that Mr. Emerson has to offer to the youth of our land. Man's destiny to him is a riddle, and the future is wrapped up in darkness. When he attempts to utter a word of hope, it is but the echo of a flat Pantheism. Mr. Emerson has accomplished his task, in clearing the ground from all rubbish, and now the time has come when the seeds of truth should be planted. The tide of life must be turned from a fruitless negation to a fruitful af- firmation. Mr. Emerson's maxims must be converted. Substitute humility to obey, for " self-reliance ; " — courage to believe, for " trust thyself ; "-^deny thyself, for " act out thyself ; " — master thy instincts, for "obey thy instincts ;" — self-sacrifice, for "self-culture;" — surrender thyself to God, for " be thyself" For the end of man is not in himself, nor in his instincts, nor in his soul, but in God. All greatness lies in the .direction of God. EXHORTATION. 283 Some of this class of men have the strength to repel the appeals of truth ; these we do not envy: others have a certain kind of sanctity, which is, if it be permitted to speak so, diaboli- cal, which the enemy of mankind employs to draw souls into error, and to fasten them there. And not a few plume themselves on not feeling the wants of their truer nature ; these are like the incurable patient, who rejoices at the cessa- tion of pain, because he is ignorant of the fact, that he has ceased to feel ; and the hope and satisfaction that beam on his countenance aug- ment a hundred fold the grief of his surrounding friends, who are aware of his condition. To those who look for true greatness, for gen- uine heroism, we hold up the God-Man, Jesus Christ, as the example, the source and end of all strivings, the crown of our humanity, and the final scope of all our energies. " Jrom his sweet lute flow forj;h Immortal harmonies, of power to still AU passions born of earth-, And di-aw the ardent will. Its destiny of goodness to fulfil." * • From the Spanish, by Bryant. * 284 DIVINE LIFE. The greatest man and hero is he who is tho truest and most perfect Christian. Talk of heroism and the worship of heroism ! What are the vaunted heroes of the world com- pared with the heroes of Christianity, whose lives were one uninterrupted stream of heroic actions ? What hero of ancient or modem times can compare with a St. Francis of Assisi ? a St. Francis Xavier ? or Bori^, the recent mar- tyr in Cochin China ? Not one. What is your worship of heroism compared with the boldness of the Catholic Church ? It is mockery. She places these heroic children of her bosom upon her altars, and there points them out to more than two hundred millions of her faithful, as their friends to be loved, their models to be imitated, and their intercessors to be in- voked ! What is all your talk, compared with this religious enthusiasm and love for these God- like men burning in so many pious hearts of all nations, and' (Conditions in life, from the lisping babe, the tender maiden, the generous youth, to the gray-headed old roan ? How mean and shallow doe^ the sham appear in the presence of the living reality 1 EXHORTATION. 285 We do not, however, yield up a11 our hopes for this class of men ; at least, for some of them. Their independent spirit and indifference tc all human respect, the generous efforts and sacrifices which they have made to realize their aspirations, excite our admiration, win our love, and command our respect. Though imsuccess- ful, stiU. all aspiration after a purer and better hfe is not extinct in their bosoms. They still feel ; — they feel wants which have never been met and satisfied. We see before us these men, gifted, brave, and in earnest ; more ready to obey truth, though it should cost their self-love somewhat, than to yield to what they know to' be false. Oh, could we say a word that would reach their hearts, we should be all too happy ! Once we were their companion and bosom friend ; — but we are changed. Changed, not in our aspirations, not in our heart's affections, not in our purposes in life ; — no, these are not changed, but exalted, purified, and enlarged ! Our change was this ; to pass from a natural to supernatural basis of life, thus giving to our nature a new and extraordinary participation in the Divine Nature, and bringing up our being 286 DIVINE LIFE, to the archetype of man, existing in the Divine Mind. For Jesus Christ did net come down ■from heaven to contradict or destroy man's nature, but to rectify and restore it, and to give to man a new, superior, divine mode of life and activity. Jesus Christ became man in order to enrich men with the gift of his own Divinity. This was our change, and it was one of the happiest moments of our life, when we discovered for the first time, that it was not required of us, either to abandon our reason, or drown it in a false excitement of feeling, to be a religious man. That to become Catholic, so far from being con- trary to reason, was a supreme act of reason. It was a joy to us, to find that instead of being required to play the whining hypocrite, or the bUnd fanatic, and thus renounce our manhood in order to become a Christian, we were called upon to make an act which all the faculties of our being spontaneously united in making. That after having made this act, we could look up and the heavens appeared to smile upon us more cheerfully, the stars to shine more brightly, and the earth seemed clothed with greater beauty. That instead of our sympathies being EXHORTATION. 287 cut off from our fellow-men, and our willingness to make sacrifices for their well-being dimin- ished, we found ourselves prepared to put into execution what before was only upon our lips, and ready to make sacrifices which before we had scarcely imagined. This, we repeat, was our change. But alas, our companions remain the same ! They are still in the self-same place where at the setting out they were. They are still seek- ing for life, still looking for peace, and vainly striving to realize their truer destiny. " They cry for strength, remaining weak, And seem to find, but stUl to seek." * They are conscious of energies which were never brought into action ; they have capacities, the objects of which they scarcely have even dreamt of ; and in their souls lie buried sources of life that till now remain unsealed. Oh, could we but give them a glimpse of the soul under the immediate influence of divine grace, could we give to their hearts, only for a • Tennyson. ♦288 DIVINE LIFE. moment, a taste of the divine love which Jesus Christ came to enkindle upon earth, could we get them to understand the possibility of the soul being filled with a pure, divine, and inex- haustible energy ; then we should have given them some conception of the meaning and neces- sity of the Church, and accomplished the wish nearest to our heart. But our brightest hopes regard the youth of our country, who have no instilled misconceptions of the truth, and who, when it is seen, have the loy- alty to acknowledge, and the courage to embrace it. These have only to see the Catholic Church as she is, and they will exclaim : "Is this Catho- licity, the Catholic Church ! This is the reali- zation of the silent hope, which we in solitude so fondly cherished, the bright dream that breaks upon our midnight slumbers, the object of aU our striving, and the yearnings of our heart ! We are Catholic ; and at heart never were aught . else. The truths we hold are but grains of sand from her temple ; the impulses of our hearts are but drops of love from this boundless ocean spread before us." All men, so far as their nature is not perverted, EXHOETATION. 289 are Catholics ; and if they but knew their real wants, they would have to do violence to them- selves not to enter the Catholic Church. " For truth hath such a face and such a mien. As to be loved, need only to be seen." * For what else is the Church, but God made mani- fest to the hearts and minds of men ; — his Body. To see the Catholic Church, therefore, is to have the brightest and fullest vision of the First-True, the First-Good, and the First-Beauti- ful ; it is to have the brightest vision of Heaven that man can have upon earth, — ^it is to see God I • Drydffiv 13 XXX. (S; on 1 1 tt n n . * Am I not brave and strong f Am I not kei* To flght and conquer ? Have I not around A world of comrades, bound to the same canse, AH brave as I— all led by the same chief, All pledged to victory f " MILNB9. MAN has a destiny, — ^his end is God, — ^his life is divine. Jesus Christ is the comple- ment of man, — ^the restorer of the race. The Catholic Church is the manifestation of Jesus Christ, — the organ by which Jesus Christ per- petuates his life upon earth, and the organ of man's restoration, and nature's restoration through man. CONCLUSION. 291 Tho Catholic Chijj'ch affords to man the op- portunity of becoming Christian without vio- lating the laws of his reason, without stifling the dictates of his conscience. She alone is ahle to guide man to his destiny, — she is ade- quate to all the wants of the human heart,- — and in her religious orders she opens a path- way to those nobler souls who seek a perfect life. This Church is here in the midst of us, but strange as it may seem, it is concealed from the minds of the American people, by ignorance, misrepresentation, and calumny, as effectually as if it were once more buried in the Catacombs. But will the Bride of Christ always remain thus hidden ? We think not. There are already some who have caught glimpses of her true character ; abd we may hope that the day is not far distant when sons and daughters of our own people wiU vie with the early Christians in devotion, self-sacrifice, and saintly Uves, and, if need be, in the testimony of their blood for the truth. * Indeed, it is an anomaly well worthy the at- tention of a reflecting mind, how a people^ con- 292 CONCLUSION. stituted as we are, a practical and independent people, can stiU retain a purely speculative re- ligion, like Protestantism ; , a religion without faith, without an altar, without a sacrifice, with- out a priesthood, without a sacrament, without authority, without any bond of union, — a re- ligion utterly unpractical, and destitute even of material grandeur ! America presents to the mind, at the present epoch, one of the most interesting questions, and one too, of the greatest moment for the future destiny of man ; the question. Whether the Catholic Church will succeed in Christian- izing the American people as she has Christian- ized all European nations, so that the Cross of Christ will accompany the stars and stripes in our future ? We say that this question is fraught with great interest for the future of humanity. Our people are young, fresh, and filled with the idea of great enterprises ; the people who, of all others, if once Catholic, can give a new, noble, and glorious realization to Christianity ; a development which wUl go even beyond the past in achievements of zeal, in the abundance CONCLUSION. 293 of saints, as well as ia art, science, and material greatness. The Catholic Church alone is able to give unity to a people, composed of such con- flicting elements as ours, and to form them into a great nation. The Church is the ever youthful hride of Christ. She is as pure, as bright, as fresh, as on the day of her birth. She can never fail. In her bosom are the inexhaustible sources of inspi- ration, strength, courage, holiness. " Majesty, Power, Glory, Strength, and Beanty, all are aisled In tMs eternal ark of worship undefiled." * Youth of America ! Here is opened to you a new, a noble, a divine career. Here is a God- like enterprise. An enterprise worthy of your energies, and glorious for your country. "Tyre of the West I Whose eagle wings thine own green world o'erspreadL Touohing two oceans • — ♦ * * * • Byron, 294 CONCLUSION. O while thon yet hast roonit fair frnitfnl laBd, Ere war and want have stain'd thy virgin sod, Mark thee a place on high, a glorious stand, Whence Imth her sign m&y make o'er forest, laka md Strand."* f I^a Apoo. Cornell Catholic Union Library. VBM BNSw ^rgs 'r^x<.-'^Vy>i