ADIL ANNIE Cl TMP NI ERR haem RAD PRN: AE LENDS Bk apemnnredoman oes i ete Lic BU, Necdillal dice dokoedeacnoiine Svcs lay. ies 3 7 eae ahs oe Fy e anf “¢ >IT Aye ii ‘) nasa ee ode =e So amen ES 4 t ‘ * RAY WA RA SEAN OS OLOM S PARE AMMAR sia isdetiokoee Reredeiesk sks th bs anda heat aes me RM eS anh si eed t SEAR ES SEM KEE WAM Spe STN Rad aL Raa an . 2s 2 Soe j val ) : | BX 1068 .D472 +944 v.2 - Digby, Kenelm Henry, 1800- eel f nea 1880. Mores Catholici MORES CATHOLICI: OR, GES OF: FAIS oe vn ( Wirreas ATH, qa f | | / =) UUM ing iy hy / MR a), CINCINNATI: PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE. STEREOTYPED BY J. A. JAMES. 1841. ee re ah ae ae oe y ait A ati bet ia if : hee Ms ; ie | } Be Re) 5 “am ea ph ihe Mais vie cia i “pe % a 4 re SUMMARY: 2... PHESP HER D+-B.O OK, CHAPTER III. % How the meek possessed the beauties and advantages of the natural world—How all creatures were objects of their love—Great enterprises to aid material interests—Preser- vation of forests, love of agriculture—Men subjects, not citizens—Yet nature alone was felt to be not suflicient—How the Catholic religion sanctified it—The testimony of the moderns themselves—Oratories, images, Calvaries, and crosses, erected to sanctify the visible nature—Places of pilgrimage—Their origin and use—Isolated crosses—W hy they were venerated—The happiness of the meek in relation to the earth —------ p- 3. CHAPTER IV. How the earth supplied intellectual riches—Of poetry, and the advantage to be de- rived from it—Adopted by the holy Fathers, many of whom cultivated it—How it was favoured by the secular clergy and by monks—Cultivated by the people—Loved with enthusiasm by all classes—Meekness conduced to this—Poetry cultivated by the feudal nobles—Character of the poetry of the middle ages—Its power upon minds—Its religious tone—Shakspeare, Dante, Tasso, St. Avitus—The old French poets—Their merit— Their idea of the end and nature of poetry—Their own lives—Dramatic poetry—The TCR ae hte en he ate Bn Bee i oe en i oe ci aia a RE le p. 25. CHAPTER V. On what ground the riches of learning were possessed by Christians—How it was prized, and cultivated, and extended, by means of the Church—The learning of the clergy, secular and regular—The ancient libraries—The labour and spirit of the monks in writing books—Their attention to the vulgar tongue, to history, and to every branch of learning—The care with which manuscripts were preserved, and the enthusiasm with which the invention of printing was hailed—How great the love for Jearning—The learning of the laity—-General character of the learning of the middle ages—Summary of the literature of France from the fifth to the tenth century—Why the sciences are more cultivated by the moderns, who are naturally more averse to historical, religious, and moral studies—Glance at the modern learning—Yet in point of science, the books of the middle ages remarkable—The scholastic doctors as naturalists—The scholastic theology—General style of the writers of the middle age—Their Latinity—Influence of the Catholic religion on the study of heathen literature—The character of learning in application to secular objects—The study of medicine and of law-. ---~------- p. 51. CHAPTER VI. Rise and progress of the Christian schools—Monastic and secular, parochial and me- tropolitan—LEstablishment of universities—Their privileges and honours—The advanta- ges of the monastic schools—General character of the ecclesiastical schools—Their disci- 3 iv SUMMARY. pline—Their dignified and holy aspect—Manners of their students—Their zeal for learning—The mode of instruction—Object of the universities—Founded by religion for the poor—The evils attending them—Dignity and happiness of the ancient See life a mw we ee ne Ho ee ne nen ees teen ae a a a er mr rr ern p- ° CHAPTER VII. Friendship belonged to the meek—How it was promoted by the Catholic religion, by the principles and manners of the meck—The friendships of chivalry—T hose of the religious society—Spiritual friendship—Summary of the evidence that the meek possess- ed the earth-----------------.-----------------2-- none e centr nr p- 141. THE POURTH BO:.0.Ky CHAPTER I. The history of the ages of faith in relation to blessed mourning—Objectors remind- ed that religion does not obtrude melancholy themes upon men—The mourning of the world truly great in all ages; exemplified in the writings of ancient and modern times -2.-----------2------4----4----- 322-22 ee nen enn enn ene eees p. 155. CHAPTER IL. Joy and cheerfulness the pervading spirit of the ages of faith—The Catholic religion excludes melancholy—-Examples and sentiments of monks, pilgrims, the holy fathers, and of the poets of the world during the middle ages—Yet mourning belonged to the blessed race—What kind of mourning—The mourning of nature—The mourning of wisdom—The mourning of love--------.~-------~---------. iheananuia mes p. 161. CHAPTER III. The mourning of piety—The necessity for affliction in the spiritual life; how it was sanctified—The contrast to heathen sentiments; examples of the former, and of Christ- ians—Louis-Le-Gros—Pélisson—Piety mourned by reason of the contemplation of hea- ven, and the remembrance of sin; of a regard for humanity in general, and of a view of the evils which are in the world—The insensibility of the crowd—The desolations of heresy and of false Christians—Why Catholics must mourn more than other men from loving order and knowing truth—The mourning of converts, from the new view of his- tory which opens on them, and from the loss of former friends—The mourning caused by sympathy with all members of the city of God—The mourning from contemplating [ipa uesion OF Vitter ene themes once cee en eee eae CEL Ot aka. cele pine. CHAPTER IV. The mourning of penitents, that the spirit of self-sacrifice was unknown to the hea- thens—The advantages of abstinence discerned by the ancients—The Christian doc- trine of penance—The severe principles of early ages—What subsequent abuse was CONGUE sos cc ytee tensed c nme meneebe setae woke sus os) eee eae p. 194. SUMMARY. v CHAPTER V. The pilgrimages of penitents, and their mourning—The origin of their appointment by the Church—Opinion of the ancient saints—The advantages of travel recognized by the heathen philosophers—Grounds and utility of Christian pilgrimages—Examples of those of the middle ages—That of St. Paula—The sufferings and mournings of pilgrims— The journeys of our Lord—The holy and dignified character of the ordinary traveller in ages of faith; the difficulties he had to encounter—The penitential spirit of the Cru- saders—The manners prescribed to pilgrims—What assistance was afforded them on the way—Hospitals and inns—The protection afforded to travellers by the Holy See— Their entertainment recommended—The spirit of hospitality—The interest attached to the pilgrim: how far due—His character; his sentiments illustrated from the Chronicle of Nicole—The mourning which belonged to his observation of the world. ---- p- 205. CHAPTER VI. The mourning consequent upon death—The character of death had been changed by the resurrection of Christ—The aspect during ages of faith the same in youth as in old age—The mourning attached to sickness—The state of sickness also changed—The language addressed to the sick—The utility of sickness recognized by the heathen phi- Josophers—The Christian consolations for the sick—The manners of the sick in ages of faith—-The comforts afforded them by the Church ---.-------------------- p- 244. CHAPTER VII. The thought of death familiar to men in ages of faith—Why this was so—What grounds for mourning at the thought of death—The speedy judgment which follows it attested by visions—St. Augustin’s opinion respecting them—The mourning for death as a punishment, as having been endured by Christ, as the prelude to judgment—T errors of an evil death—The death of the saints—Examples from the chronicles of the middle ages; general remarks upon them; uniformity of observances; the reception of ashes; the use of the cross; aspect of the body; assumption of the religious habit—Moral cha- tacteristics of death in the middle ages; its foreknowledge and supernatural announce- ment; examples—The suddenness of many holy deaths—Doctrine of the ages of faith on this head—The stedfast hope and tranquillity of men in death—Their last words— Administration of the last sacrament—The dying frankly warned of their danger— Modern opinion on this head—Zeal in assisting the dying—Remarkable narratives con- nected with it—The mourning of survivors, and their consolations—The passing bell— The burial—What was the doctrine respecting its importance—Custom of the first Christians—The form of burial, monastic, episcopal, collegiate, royal, and secular— What mourning was allowed at funerals by the canons--------~-------.--- « p. 256. CHAPTER VIII. The comfort reserved for mourning survivors—Prayer for the dead; its origin; anni- versaries; the office of the dead—Doctrine of the Church; customs derived from it— AWTBR EI Rtaye cone Sas ao sh ole EER SRE REL Soe aod ealenuneue p: 302. CHAPTER IX. The zeal of mourners in erecting tombs over the dead—Customs of the first Christ- ians in choice of locality—The catacombs of Rome—What was thought respecting burial in holy ground, and why it was desirable—When the dead were first buried in churches—Variation of discipline—What the canons prescribed—Style of sepulchral inscriptions—Those in the primitive and middle ages—Examples; the symbols and imagery of their tombs—Cemeteries—Destruction of ancient monuments by political and heretical insanity in latter ages—Modern Cemeteries ---.----..--------- p. 308. vi SUMMARY. CHAPTER X. The argument recapitulated—The happiness of mourners—Objections drawn from history answered—The prosperity of the wicked shown to be their punishment—Con- Sistor oo = = ae Eee a A oe p- 323. THE FIFTH BOOK. CHAPTER I. The predominant passion of the ages of faith a thirst for justice—The wants of man’s nature—The necessity for having a Divine object felt and shown—The language of the ancient writers on this head ------------------------------------------ p- 330. CHAPTER II. The voice of the Church was the voice of desire—The sacred offices expressed the thirst for justice, and originated in that desire—Sketch of their history—The observance of the canonical hours—The divisions of time—The divisions of the office—The neces- sity for a uniform liturgy—-The mode of celebrating the Christian mysteries always es- sentially the same—The ecclesiastical offices considered in relation to beauty, justice, and truth—Origin and use of ceremony—The ceremonies of the Catholic Church— Objections against them considered—The moral value and beauty of the institution of the canonical hours—The opinion of the holy fathers respecting the night—The vigils— The night of the middle ages—The offices of the morning and day—The holy mass— Nones—Vespers—Complin - ------~----------------------+----------- p- 339. CHAPTER III. General observations respecting the sacred offices—Origin and explanation of the uni- versal adoption of the Latin tongue in the public offices of the Western Church—Re- marks on the language of the Catholic liturgy—Its symbolic character—The Christian use of symbolism, in relation to language and ceremonies—Admirable beauty of the offices—Their historic character—The litanies—Remarks on the objections brought against them—Grandeur and decorum observed in all parts of the Divine office—lts sublime poetry—The beauty and solemnity of what was also visible in the Church— Magnificence in that respect of the middle ages—The use of incense traced and explain- ed—The custom of having lights—An occasion of great splendour—The procession— Its origin and importance—Its symbolic character, described by St. Bernard --.- p. 367. CHAPTER IV. Importance of music in the estimation of the ancients, of the holy fathers, and of the scholastic theologians—History of Church music—That of the middle ages: its excel- lence and characteristics—Origin and use of organs—The aurea missa—Decline of @htorch Susie a Ste eee Se ea ee late p- 394. CHAPTER V. Opinion of the middle ages respecting the music of the Divine offices—Psalmody, the spirit of the Psalms, became the spirit of the age—The people joined with the clergy in singing the office—Provision every where to meet the love of the people for the Catholic offices—- Wisdom of this—The external behaviour of men in the churches regulated— W hy importance was attached to it—W hat devotions recommended—Beads—Books—The eu- logia—No one to enter armed—Reverence due to the sacred mysteries, and the rules which it dictated—A visit to a Catholic church—The approach ; the bells; the paradise and por- tal; the multitude within, and the variety of character which it comprised—Charm of this spectacle—General impressions vary with the hour—The suppliant crowd—The In- effable presence—Experience of the ages of faith in respect to it—The churches are only monuments of it—The effects described by St. Bonaventura, and verifiedin Tasso. 406, p ' ¥ “ag * Sta? Ca eee Ta ae oN. -* MORES CATHOLICI* AGES OF FAITH. THE THIRD BOOK. CHAPTER III. Bur it was not alone within towered cities, or the walls of vast basil- icas that religion gave to the meek the possession of the earth. Reli- gious men possessed the isles of Iona and Lindisfarne, and hermits wild rocks in the desert sea. For those who lived well, who gave their hearts to God, and placed their happiness in him, the whole world was but a temple, as Vauquelin, the Lord of Iveteaux, said in his address to princes.* ‘To a faithful man the whole world is full of riches,’’ as St. Bonaventura said, “ fideli homini totus mundus divitiarum est :-—for all things good and evil are made to serve him.” Whatever in crea- tion was beautiful, being referred to the glory of God, who alone is the origin and source of all things, was part of the inalienable inheritance of the meek, so that Louis of Blois says, “If you once possess God you possess all the rest. He comprises within himself all that delights our hearts and gives us pleasure. Being himself the model, the first type of all things, he is every thing: he is the increated essence of all that is; for without doubt, in his eternal science, he has had from all eternity the plan and idea of all that he has made; all that has received existence from him has been known to him always, has always lived, and will live for ever in his divine thoughts. We ourselves have in this manner been eternally present to the thought of God. In this sense we are in him from all eternity ; in this sense we are uncreated, because in him, in his thought, all things live eternally. Thus, in the essence of God are the models of all things which remain for ever with- out degenerating. Whereas in this material world, made for our sen- ses, we have only, as it were, the signs and emblems of real things. Now these signs and emblems pass with time, but the perfections of the Creator are everlastingly the same.”’{ «Seek whatever you wish,” says St. Augustin, ‘nevertheless you will find nothing dearer, nothing Pear nn me oN islet ced et ebomnaene * Gouget Bibliotheg. Frangaise, tom. xvi. 113. T Meditationes Vite Christi, c. xxi. + Institutio Spiritualis, cap. viii. 3 4 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, better than Him who made all things: seek him who made, and in him and from him you will have all things.”’* ‘* Observe,” says the holy Eucher in a letter to Valerian, “that what I say here is entirely in accordance with that attachment which we all have for life. Yes, it is in the interest of this love of life that I speak to you now on the part of God: for if you find such sweetness in it, all miserable and rapid as is this life which passes, ought you not to feel far more attached to that which will be eternally happy? ought you not to desire to perpet- uate that which gives you so much pleasure, to add a thousand new charms to a state which is already so agreeable to you? in a word, to render infinite and immortal this imperfect and transitory happiness, which, notwithstanding its deficiency, appears still worthy of all your affection ?”? We see, therefore, how the saints were disposed to enjoy and to sanction that present possession of the riches of the visible na- ture, which was promised from the mountain. It seemed to them as highly useful in the two first of the three conditions of the internal life, in correspondence to which the holy church proposed the recital of the gradual Psalms, on which foundation the great Bellarmin composed his book De ascensione mentis in Deum, which Cardinal Bona said should be read by all those who desire to understand the invisible things of God, by those which are made, and who greatly wish not so much to know as to use the mystic steps of spiritual ascension, for whom what serves to the ruin of others becomes an instrument of elevation, to whom the aspect of creatures is a ladder of ascent, not a stumbling- block of offence.t It seems then as if this seat of earth were to them like heaven; as if angels might repose there or wander with delight and love to haunt her sacred shades; their days are only a constant ecstacy, their soul a song of praise. ‘These are the meditative souls described by the poet, whom solitude and contemplation elevate irresistibly to- wards ideas of infinity, that is, towards religion: all whose thoughts turn to enthusiasm and prayer; whose whole existence is a mute hymn to the Deity and to hope ; who seek in themselves and in the creation which surrounds them steps on which they may ascend to God, ex- pressions and images to reveal him to themselves, and to reveal them- selves to him,t because God is clearer seen by reflection in his creatures than in his essence, as the sun in the morning was seen first by the Sidonian servant who looked towards the west when he beheld its light shining upon the mountains. Profound and astonishing are the medi- tations of holy men respecting the love with which these sanctified creatures may be regarded by a meek and faithful soul, living in deep discernment of goodness celestial, whose broad signature is on the uni- verse. For ‘‘ what is paradise ?”’ asks the author of Theologia Germa- nica, ‘‘ Paradise is whatever exists: for whatever exists is good and delightful and agreeable to God. ‘Therefore also it exists and may rightly be called paradise. Paradise is also said to be a vestibule or a suburb of the celestial kingdom. Thus also every thing that exists may well be called a suburb of eternity. For creatures are a demon- stration and a way which leads to God and to eternity. So all things * Tract. in Ps. XXXiv. + De Divina Psalmodia, 289. + De Lamartine Harmonics Poétiques et Religieuses, tom. i. AGES OF FAITH. 5 are a vestibule and suburb of eternity, and therefore may deservedly be styled paradise. In this paradise all things are allowed to man except- ing the fruit of one tree, and that is self-will, or the willing of any thing contrary to the eternal will.’”’* Here arises a question. Since all things ought to be loved, ought sin to be loved? The answer is, that it ought not: for when it is said «all things,’ good is understood ; for all that exists is good inasmuch as it exists. The Devil, as far as he exists, is good. In this respect, there is no such thing as evil, or what is not good. But sin is to wish, to desire, or to love something con- trary to God, and to wish this is not to exist, therefore it is not good. In brief, nothing is good unless inasmuch as it is in God; but all things, as far as they exist, are in God, and indeed much more than in them- selves; therefore all things, as far as they exist, are good. If there were any thing which was not in essence in God it would not be good ; and to wish and desire any thing, which is against God is not in God, for God cannot wish or desire any thing against God or otherwise than God, therefore that is evil and not good, and also clearly it does not exist.’’t Let us remark here, that in this manner the desolations intro- duced by heresy were unable to disturb the possessions of the meek; for all that existed in heresy was good and catholic; its negations cor- responding with all evil, did not exist, for they were against God; but all that remained could have been used by Catholics and was used by them: heresy therefore is truly nothing, excepting in the form of speech. St. Anselm pursues the same argument. «Sin and evil,’’ he says, ‘‘are said to be nothing; for God made all things, and all things made subsist, and all substance is good in itself. Therefore, what is called evil is nothing but the absence of good; heresy is nothing but the absence of Catholicism, as blindness is the want of sight, and darkness the absence of light.’’t This restored harmony between the soul of man and nature, is one of the mysteries of the Catholic religion, respecting which Baader makes divine reflections. ‘When God the original and positive centre of man dwelt within him, man knew centrally all nature; but since through sin nature has been transposed and materialized, deprived of its primitive spirituality, and that God dwells in man only in an exter- nal manner, man no longer knows things centrally but views them from aside, and from a part of the circumference.’”? The effect of faith and meekness consequent upon it, is to restore man to his centre, and to reconcile him with the universal order; for as St. Thomas says of light, that it meets with nothing contrary to it in nature, since darkness is only the absence of it in places to which it has not penetrated, so in nature there is no opposition to God, nor to the will of those who are united to him. ‘'The saints, therefore, have a devout love for nature, because it is in the divine order; and they have a human affection for it, because, as Frederick Schlegel says, they can at present perceive in it certain indications, as it were, pointings and winks, which it is impos- sible to overlook, denoting a sympathy with the desires and hopes of their own hearts. In general nature is only the silent echo and earthly SASSER peemenpemememmmmmmine cee nie Le en * Theologia Germanica, cap. xlvii. ft Id, cap. xlv. { S. Anselmi Epist. lib. ii. 8. Elucidarii. lib. ii. A2 6 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, repetition of the divine revelation; and yet it is not without ground and meaning, when it is said in allusion to the great day of universal deliv- erance, that nature like a groaning creature sighs for it with an unutter- able longing.* ‘‘ Do the elements perceive God ?”’ asks the disciple in the dialogue Elucidarium, ascribed to St. Anselm, to whom the master replies, ‘‘God never made any thing which was insensible. For things that are inanimate to us indeed are insensible and dead, but to God all things live and all things perceive their Creator.”t Not without reason then may it be affirmed that the meek of faithful ages loved and pos- sessed the joys of nature in all her variety of creatures, of hours, and of seasons. Truly to their perfect spirits sweet was the breath of morn; sweet her rising, with charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun “ When first on this delightful land he spread His orient beams; on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Glistening with dew :” to them, indeed, the heavens were a ceaseless hymn, and each hour was amorning. The tribe of lowly ones may have left for the silent clois- ter, raftered halls of state, and the paths to the forest glade where knights were wont to hold their tournaments, yet not the more ceased they to wander where the muses haunt, clear spring or shady grove, or sunny hill, smit with the love of sacred song. It is related in an ancient life of St. Maur, from an old manuscript, that St. Babolein, the first abbot of the abbey des Fossés used to recite the Psalms every night on certain great stones in the river Marne.t Such was his em- ployment all through the night, while Philomela wept, and renewed her piteous song from bough to bough. Peter the venerable mentions too, a certain holy Carthusian monk, who used often to spend the night in the open air in order to contemplate the sky and the works of the Creator.|| Daniel’s fountain near Malmesbury, was so called from the holy Bishop Daniel, who was fond of spending whole nights at its side while singing the praise of God. Gervais, the excellent Archbishop of Rheims, a holy, learned, and prudent prelate, had so loved forest wan- derings in his youth, that he placed before the gate of his palace a brazen stag, with an inscription, stating that he did so, in order to be reminded of his native woods. They loved the clear fountains, and the asphodel meadow, and the countless forms and tones of that admirable nature which each returning spring seemed more fair than ever; it filled their eyes with pleasant tears to trace the goodness of their God in these his lower works, and they no longer wondered that the Samaritan woman should have recognised, and confessed the Messiah at the foun- tain whom the Jewish people knew not in the temple.§ What a deep sense of the loveliness of this beautiful earth is shown by the Capuchin friar Lombez, where he reproves the complaints of earthly sadness, and traces expressions of horror for the world to a root of dangerous melan- choly.{ ‘*If,’’ saith he, «‘amidst so many riches and beauties we are in a hard exile, as we are in fact, the dignity of our souls must be very * Philosophie der Leben, 93. + Lib. i. cap. 5. t Lebeuf, Hist. du Diocése de Paris, tom. v. 161. || S. Petri Ven. de Miraculis, lib. ii. c. 29. § S. Hieronym. Epist. xcv. q ‘T'raité de la joie de ame. AGES OF FAITH, 7 great, and our true country wondrous fair, and the love of God for us surpassing all conception, since he banishes us to such an admirable world, a place so adorned with all kinds of loveliness.”’* Even the austere Carthusian order, bred in the ancient forest, the deep stable of wild beasts, rejects not the possession of nature’s softer beauties. Wit- ness Calci’s holy pile, with its lovely cloister, and its separate gardens, so fair and odoriferous with orange trees and every sweet flower, with its enchanting groves of olives clothing those surrounding Apennines, which are seen through long vistas of arches. The Hexameron of St. Basil, a kind of course on natural history, was preached during the fast of Lent both morning and evening ; the scientific part is defective, but one of the greatest modern writers admits that the details are charming. The history of plants and animals gives rise to moral instructions, a common practice of the middle ages, as when those cones of the pine which cover the mountain side, composed of a multitude of grains which are kept in close union by a resinous cement, are said by father Elzear of Archer to be an emblem of religion which consists in the union of many persons connected by charity; or as when father Diego de Stella compares the pleasures of the world to those reeds which when they shoot out first in the spring of the year, do with their fresh green colour delight the eyes for a while, but if you do break them, and look within them, you shall find nothing there but emptiness and hollowness ; or again, as when Dante compares the dropping away of earthly pleasures to the fall of the light autumnal leaves, “ One still another following, till the bough, Strews all its honours on the earth beneath; ”’ or as when Albert the Great shows in his eighth book on animals, that in their instinct we should recognise the divine wisdom, since in what- ever degree possessed by some, it is still but the universal instinct, and not greater in one than in another, excepting that it may be more de- veloped in some by certain circumstances. All creatures were objects of their love, so that even the authors of fable conceive a case of one who condemned himself to a voluntary penance for having killed a faithful dog. ‘The multitude of dogs without masters which are found in Lisbon, is attributed to the sensitiveness of the Portuguese, and their unwillingness to deprive any animal unnecessarily of life.t Monteil, in describing the virtue of the French curates, takes care to show that one point of their charge to rustics and peasants was to be kind to their animals.t He quotes one question in an ancient tract De Institutione Confessorum, from the chapter concerning husbandmen and rustics, in which the demand occurs ‘si boves nimis fatigavit unde de- struantur.’’ «The sorrows of beasts,’ says Frederick Schlegel, and he expresses but the sentiments of men in the ages of faith, ‘are cer- tainly a theme for the meditation of men, and I could not agree to the justice of regarding it as a subject unworthy of reflection, or of per- mitting sympathy with them to be banished from the human breast.’?|j And yet to plead in behalf of that sympathy would now be often con- sidered as indication of a weak or defective intelligence; and rather * Traité de la joie de ame, chap. viii, + Letters on Portugal to Orosius, ii. + Hist. des Frangais, tom. iii. 384. || Philosophie des Lebans. 8 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, would he seem of sound and perfect nature who would be willing to partake of that amusement of the Roman epicures which Seneca de- seribes, of watching the mullet expiring in the channel on the table, in order to observe how its golden and red colours faded, so alive are men to every barbarous joy! The notion of religion as compatible with natural savage cruelty and hardness of heart was unknown in the middle ages. St. Pius V. prohibited the bull-fights as inconsistent with piety. The monk Frodoard, speaking of St. Remi, in his History of the Church of Rheims, says, that ‘his sanctity moved not only rational creatures but even tamed those that are without reason, and that one day as he was giving a familiar repast to some intimate friends and re- joicing to see them happy, some sparrows came down and began to eat crumbs out of his hand;’’* he relates also that St. Basle, who lived as an anchorite on the mountain near Rheims, having saved a poor beast that had fled from the forest, pursued by a hunter whose dogs seemed to forget all their ferocity on approaching his little cell, it used to be remarked by all hunters in that forest ever afterwards that any beast who could gain the heights in that forest was safe, for that then the dogs would lose their ardour and the hunters their courage.t St. Mein- rad, the hermit of Einsiedelin, in the ninth century, after the example of St. John the apostle of charity, had tamed two ravens which showed their fidelity at his death, by pursuing his murderers to Zurich with horrible cries, which led to their detection.t{ The same affection for animals is expressly ascribed to St. Anselm, St. Francis, and many other great servants of God. St. Francis used often to say his canoni- cal hours with the birds, near their leafy houses. St. Bonaventura de- scribes the rapturous joys of contemplative devotion by a divine irra- diation in the mind as exerting an influence even externally upon the body, and filling the soul with a desire to embrace every creature of God, sometimes impelling the body to motion, and at others to rest from excess of sweetness. ‘Then whatever the mind beholds it consi- ders it as abounding with a certain divine sweetness.||_ The master of the sentences declares it to have been the opinion of the holy fathers, that no creature would have been poisonous, or hurtful to man if he had not sinned.§ In the ages of faith men believed that the friends of God would be protected from the evil which nature had contracted; they evinced an affection even for inanimate creatures which were not exclu- ded from the sphere of their benevolence. St. Severinus repented hav- ing uttered an imprecation on the tree whose branches had wounded him as he hastened to serve a church, and alighting from his horse, he prostrated himself at its roots and besought God to spare it. St. Gre- gory of Tours, says, that this noble saint used to gather flowers in the season when lilies unfolded their beauteous forms, and that he used to fasten them on the walls of his church.§ On the external walls of churches, these humble plants were carved in stone, as we read of Melrose. * Lib. i. cap. xi. t Id. lib. ii. cap. 3. { Tschudi Einsiedlische Chronik. || Stimul. Divini Amoris, pars iii. cap. 6. § Petr. Lombard. Sentent, lib. ii. Distinct. 15. § De Gloria Confessorum, 50. AGES OF FAITH. 9 “Spreading herbs and flowerets bright, Glistened with the dew of night ; Nor herb, nor floweret glistened there, But was carved in the cloister arches as fair.” The holy vestments used in the abbey of Lindisfarne were adorned with figures of the wild animals that lived upon the neighbouring shore. Books of hours used to contain lessons in agriculture attached to the calendar; these appear in the Heures de Rouen in gothic letters and in many others. ‘The miniatures of the ecclesiastical calendar represented the rural labours of each season, which are also sculptured along with the signs of the zodiac on the front of the cathedral of Cremona, built in 1274: and on the brazen gates of Loretto, the rustic youth beholds an image of his own occupations in the noble figure of Adam, breaking the ground in pursuance of the primal sentence. Nor was it only in spec- ulation that nature was enjoyed; the undertakings of men in the mid- dle ages, in favour of material interests, were as arduous as our own, though generally for a nobler end. Dante does not disdain to borrow a similitude from the Flemings, ‘and their mound, ’twixt Ghent and Bruges to chase back the ocean, fearing his tumultuous tide that drives towards them, and from the Paduans and theirs along the Brenta to defend their towns and castles, ere the genial warmth be felt on Chia- rentana’s top.’’ But mightier tasks than these were accomplished by the Teutonic order in Prussia, of which the greatest was the Cyclopian bank of the grand master Meinhard, in the thirteenth century, between Elbing and Marienburg, to prevent the inundations caused by the Nogat and the Weichsel, by means of which a vast portion of land was reclaimed and made subservient to human wants. During six years thousands of men and thousands of waggons were employed day after day till 1294, when the amazing work was finished. ‘The wanderer in our day stands rivetted with astonishment at the spectacle, and admits that the name of Meinhard must be immortal. ‘His magnificent works proclaim how excellent he was,’’ says the old chronicle, ‘for he dared to undertake a thing which other men would not have had courage to imagine.”’* In ages when the ideal of justice was believed to be St. Louis seated after hearing mass at the foot of an oak in the forest of Vincennes, making his friends sit around him, and then giving audience to all who had business to transact with him, it is not strange that inde- pendent of motives of public economy the beauties and interests of nature should have become even an object of legislative care. The wisdom of the middle ages provided by a multitude of minute statutes and practices for the preservation of forests and secured their perpetuity. To protect the celebrated pine forest near Ravenna, many sovereign pontiffs issued briefs, testifying the utmost watchfulness in its regard; as in the Virgilian ‘line alluding to the provision of the early Roman laws,t the woods were deemed worthy of consular solicitude. The simple manners which prevailed among all classes of society kept men familiar too with the humble charms of the animal world. The 2; vpce- fic Was a personage belonging to our Christian annals. The blessed confessor Paschalis, when a youth, tended the flocks in the fields, and * Voigt, iv. 34. + Petrus Crinitus de Honest. Discuss. iv. Vor. I1.—2 10 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, he ever loved that kind of life, as being favourable to the exercise of humility and the preservation of innocence. ‘The occupations of agri- culture form part of the work entitled the innocent pleasures by Platina of Rome. ‘The sons of kings used to be familiar with their flocks upon the mountains, beauteous with wild flowers, as the Pass of Storek and the Leitern See, which looks on Engelberg’s holy pile. Charlemagne, every morning after mass, used to pass in review the poultry of the lower court. We read of many nobles in the middle ages who beliey- ed, as Poggius says, that a country life and the woods, conduce more to the attainment of nobility than cities, and who would have approved of no passage in Cicero’s Orations more than that in which he asks, «* What cupidity could be in Roscius, who always lived in the country, and was occupied in agriculture,—a life greatly removed from cupidity, and con- nected with duty.”’* Men were then subjects, but not citizens,—a term which the modern sophists have adopted, without troubling themselves to reflect upon its meaning. In the heathen time, city-states really ex- isted, as in the Athenian and every similar democracy, where each citi- zen was in some way settled in the city, and had the right of possessing a house there. Even in Homer’s time, every thing that concerned the government of a state was connected with the city, and the military families and the nobles dwelt in it.t Hence, itis viewed in Homer as a disgrace or a misfortune for a noble to live among the bondsmen in the country, which was abandoned to labourers of the soil. Hence the distinction between the term an Athenian and inhabitant of Attica. Even Plato used the former as a more honourable appellation than the latter, though Miller remarks, that even in Athens, there was among the people a constant struggle of feeling between the turbulent working of the democracy and the peaceful inclination to their ancient country life. ‘The Christian state left men free to choose the latter, which reli- gion sanctified, and the term of citizen could thenceforth only be appli- ed in its natural and classical signification, to denote those who had a corporal residence in cities.t The country was no longer left exclu- sively to the rustic labourers: the priests of holy Church spread them- selves over it; the nobles were attached to their ancient forest life; and we read of many who in youth, or in seasons of recollection, from a de- sire of greater innocence, would have deigned, like Apollo, to dwell beneath the roof of Admetus, mixing with his menial train, driving along his flocks, whether they roved through the winding valley or rested in the upland grove. So clear and powerful is Nature’s voice, that even Socrates, after all his arguments to prove the superiority of the city to the country, was no sooner seated peaceably in the cool shade of the plane-tree, on the banks of the Ilissus, than he confessed that he felt the sweet influence of that retreat. ‘‘O dear Phedrus,”’ he exclaims, ‘do I seem to you, as to myself, to be experiencing a divine impression?” and his companion replies, ‘‘'Truly, O Socrates, contrary to custom, a certain flow of eloquence seems to have borne you away.”’ And he re- sumes,—‘* Hear me then in silence ; for in fact this place seems to be di- vine.”’|| ‘This loving familiarity with nature was inseparable from men in * Pro C, Roscio, Amer. t Od. xxiv. 414, + An instance is cited by Voigt, Geschichte Preussens. iii. 484. | Plato, Phedrus. AGES OF FAITH. 11 whose hearts resided so deep a tone of the eternal melodies; but so also was the conviction which experience had given to St. Augustin, that it was not nature alone, or the beauties and delights of earth, that could ever satisfy the soul of man: ‘that which it seeks is the true and supreme joy, which, as St. Bernard says, is derived, not from the creature but from the Creator ; which, when received, no one can take from it; to which, in comparison, all gladness is affliction, all tranquillity pain, all sweetness bitterness, all that can delight, vexation.” The pretended revelations of nature, independent of that tradition by which society ex- ists, are but the empty boast of a vain philosophy. Left in the pres- ence of nature alone, uninformed and unsanctified, man degenerates rap- idly into a savage state. Without religious worship, which is the real- izing of the abstract idea of the divinity, that idea would soon be effaced from his thoughts ; and, as Lord Bacon says, ‘‘No light of nature ex- tendeth to declare the will and true worship of God.* However con- ducive to the physical enjoyments of man, experience shows that a life in the country, without the constant resources of the Catholic religion and its rites, becomes in the end completely a Pagan life, natural in its motives as well as in its pursuits and pleasures. Without an altar, not the shade of the lofty groves, not the soft meadows, not the stream de- scending from the rocks, and clearer than crystal, winding through the plain, can sanctify the soul of man. Left in the presence of nature alone, it faints and becomes like earth without the dew of heaven ; it is oppressed by the contemplation of that vast immensity ; it loses its tran- quillity and its joy. Man in himself can find no rest or peace: and how should he find repose in the works of nature, when these are them- selves for ever restless? The fire mounts in a perpetual course, always flickering and impatient; the air is agitated with conflicting winds, and susceptible of the least impulse; the water hurries on, and knows no peace; and even this ponderous and solid earth, with its rocks and mountains, endures an unceasing process of degradation, and is ever on the change. Besides, how should spirits of human kind find content in nature, when, as the Stagyrite proclaims, nature is in most things only the slave of man?’’t But in his Creator has the creature present rest, and in the pledge of grace revealed supernaturally from on high, has he eternal peace, immortal felicity. We must leave the laurels, and the fountains, and the swans, and all the harmonies which resound along the margin of rivers, and we must enter the streets with the multitude, in quest of that temple of peace where the Lamb of God is offered up for sinners. Abandoned to nature, the man who is endowed with a delicate and sentimental soul, is found to breathe only the vague desires of the modern poet, whose ideal may be seen in that Burns, of whom we read that ‘he has no religion; his heart indeed is alive with a trembling adoration, but there is no temple in his understanding: he lives in darkness and in the shadow of doubt: his religion at best is an anxious wish—like that of Rabelais, a great Perhaps.” The error of the modern poets consists in their not viewing the visible world in union with the mysteries of faith, and in supposing that a mere description of — eeeSsSsaesesesese * Advancement of Learning. ft Aristot. Metaphysic. Lib, i. 2. + Edinburgh Review, 1828. 12 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, its external form can satisfy even the thirst after poetic beauty, which is inherent in our nature. Dante is blamed by them for mixing scholastic theology with his song; but it is precisely this very mixture which gives that charm to it which attracts and captivates the thoughtful heart. The same error is committed with regard to life ; and while spirituality and faith, with all their beauteous expressions and sublime affecting symbols, have been effaced, instead of increasing, proud and sensual men have forfeited the possession of the present good. The earth is infected by its inhabitants and its joy is passed away. Observe the character of those cantons of Switzerland where the Catholic religion is unfelt, and men are left in presence of nature alone, without an object or a sound to recall the images of faith, What overpowering melancholy reigns in those valleys, notwithstanding all that dressing, fattening, har- rowing, and distillation of the earth, in hopes of gain! What a silence is there, excepting when interrupted by the fall of avalanches, the roar of torrents, and the eternal sighing of the winds! What a moral blight has attended the political demarcation of the territory! There are in- deed, here and there, some immense enterprises for the sake of profit and pleasure, some unsightly buildings, the fruit of careful speculations to afford luxury and ease to the distempered inhabitants of licentious cities, who come here in the summer season, in hopes of enjoying some vague dream of Arcadian life, united with the solid advantages of the Epicurean form: but no where do you see the beautiful chapel or the venerable cross; no where any thing to realize a tender or a sublime idea; no sacred sentences, no devout image, to exalt men to the spiit- ual life. You pass as on the borders of those Berne Lakes, whole vil- Jages without a church ; and upon the sloping lawns you can only hope to find some ruins of a convent, or the tower of some ancient church, which you will find converted into a barn or a magazine. Yet even amidst the devastated valleys, covered with sand and rocks and the bare trunks of broken pines, ploughed up with the rains and burnt by the fire of the summer’s day, which now present that pale and horrid aspect of a fearful nakedness, the Catholic religion would have planted her peaceful and her beauteous trophies. hat religion has left the stamp of her genius and the imperishable monuments of her faith in the deserts of the East, and on the wildest rock of Alps or Pyrenees, amidst the lions under the fires of the tropic, as well as amidst the bears and ice- bergs of the pole. Where is there a garden of more rich and beauteous variety than in the very valleys surrounding the tracks over which heresy has passed? Even to the mere poetic soul, what a delightful accompaniment to the silent hymn of nature is that chiming of angelic bells which rises at evening and at noon, and at the sweet hour of prime, from all sides of a Catholic valley?—bells that may well be termed of the angel, that are not rung, as in other lands, by base hands, through love of sordid gain, to celebrate some occasion of sensual joy, temporal and vain, soon to change to mourning as vain, but by pious hands, through the devout intention of inspiring men with thoughts of prayer. How inspiring is it to hear the great bells of the abbey of En- gelberg at the fourth hour of the morning, awakening the echoes, amidst the rocks and eternal snows of Titlis, and piercing the vast forests of the surrounding Alp! What consolation to the weary pilgrim, when AGES OF FAITH. 13 stopping to shelter from the storm under some covered bank which charity has erected by the mountain’s side, he beholds, even there, some poor prints, representing in successive stages, the sacred passion of our Lord, and dictating some seraphic aspiration! How sweet and cheering,—and in a philosophic point of view, how important,—is all this, and how it cherishes and strengthens our young affections! But as the swimmer in the blue flood of the arrowy Rhone sees the pale line of snow-fed waters issuing from the devasted bed of the Arve, and no sooner plies his right arm to be borne up that new channel, and en- ters its sullen wave, than instantly a sudden cold and deathlike chill strikes through his whole body; so is the full glow of youthful devo- tion checked and chilled when we pass from Sarnen to the Scheidek, or from Soleure and Freyburg to the shores of the Leman Lake. Pro- testantism knows no neighbourhood: it goes on repeating its old and barbarous invectives, like those sullen waters of the Arve, which pass down with the Rhone in the same channel without blending into it, without losing their chilling aspect or acquiring the least portion of its warmth or of its purity. And would you know how the loss of the joys of the Catholic faith is felt by those of the moderns themselves, who seem to have a finer and more spiritual nature? Hear these lines, that are enough to make the blood weep from one’s heart :— “Alas! our young affections run to waste, Or water but the desert; whence arise The weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes; Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies, And trees whose gems are poison; such the plants Which spring beneath her steps as passion flies O’er the world’s wilderness, and vainly pants For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants.” * ‘The ancients tried all the means which imagination could propose or wealth and power execute, in order to enjoy. Nature, and avail themselves of her possession. ‘I'he Emperor Adrian, after visiting the provinces of his empire, wished to concentrate, at his country villa of Tivoli, what- ever had most struck his attention. ‘There he built the Lyceum, the Academy, the Prytanea, as they were at Athens. There he formed the valley of Tempe, like that in Thessaly ; there he constructed the Canope, like that near Alexandria. All this was not sufficient: he con- ceived the design of representing there the Elysian fields: but at this stage he was attacked by the mortal illness of which he died at Baia. ‘The poor insatiate moderns too, in vain attempt to satisfy themselves with the beauty of parks, and the imitation of nature, in lakes and gar- dens, interspersed with objects of heathen art and the plants of eastern clime, the cypress and her spire :— (3 Show the plants divine and strange That every hour their blossoms change, Ten thousand lovely hues! With budding, fading, faded flowers, They stand the wonder of the bowers From morn to evening dews.”’ i OE a * Byron. B 14 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, Then comes the complaint of Gilbert, lamenting that the hopes of ge- nius, the joy and triumph of nature, should be at an end. « Unhappy guest at the banquet of life, I appear for one day and die! I die: and on my grave no one will scatter flowers. Farewell, fields that I love! and thou, sweet verdure! and thou, smiling solitude of woods! Sky, beauteous canopy for man! admirable Nature! for the last time fare- well!”’* And even before they learn to contemplate this separation, af- ter all their pains, there is, even amidst these beauteous bowers, the “‘ Something still that prompts the eternal sigh !” For, even to the mere poetic imagination, nature alone cannot suftice ; and in Paradise itself, man could not be happy if God or his angels did not visit him. They look around from their fairy halls, and inhale the ambrosial aspect; but do they not sometimes lament that, when evening sinks o’er the earth, so beautiful and soft, there sounds no deep bell in the distant tower, no faint dying-day hymns steal aloft from cloistered cells, to make the forest leaves seem stirred with prayer? Their own poet represents his hunter looking from the steep promontory upon the lake, and exclaiming, ‘*‘ What a scene were here, could we but see the turrets of a convent gray on yonder meadow !’’— “ For when the midnight moon should lave Her forehead in the silver wave, How solemn on the ear would come The holy matin’s distant hum: While the deep peal’s commanding tone Should wake in yonder islet lone A sainted hermit from his cell, To drop a bead with every knell.” Sweet is the breath of morning: but when so sweet as during those early walks between paintings of the sacred Passion, to the first mass of the Capuchins, whose convent crowns the towering rock, or is em- bosomed in the odoriferous grove ? The youth of green savannahs spake And many an endless, endless lake, With all its fairy crowds Of islands, that together lie, As quietly as spots of sky Among the evening clouds.” Lovely is this painting of your Wordsworth, but would it acquire no fresh charm from thinking of those convents, which might cover them, as in those islands of the Adriatic gulf, seen from the towers of Venice, and from the music of those bells, which would sound along its shore, for the angelus or the benediction? might not the vesper hymn suggest a sweeter image than occurs in the Virgilian line, which speaks of the hour in which begins the first rest of wretched mortals?+ Contemplate again the seasons of the year; see what a charm descends upon the en- amelled garden, from its reference to the altar; for why, cries the tender poet, ‘*O flowers, raise ye your full chalices to the light of morning, why in the damp shade exhale those first perfumes which the day breathes? Ah, close them still, flowers that I love; guard them for the * Ade, written eight days before his death. { Mneid, ii. . AGES OF FAITH. 15 incense of the holy places, for the ornament of the sanctuary. The sky inundates you with tears, the eye of the morn makes you fruitful; you are the incense of the world, which it sends up to God.”’* Sweet is it to recline, composed in placid peace, upon the shady lawn, when violet and hyacinth, with rich inlay, embroider the ground, more coloured than with store of costliest emblems, and to hearken to the verse of some wild minstrel, who sings by the clear stream which flows through the meadow, on a summer’s day; but sweeter still to hear the litanees and hymns of holy church rise from the midst of waving corn, when her annual rogations implore a blessing on the first fruits of the earth, and when the cross and banner of her bright processions glitter through the darksome foliage.t Nor are thy reviving Sports, innocent and playful youth, insensible to the universal influence of the church’s sea- son. Well I know how dear to the bold swimmer is the plunge into the clear blue flood of the impetuous Rhone, which hurries him along amidst froth and waves, sporting as in a bed of waters, or the fall from those projecting rocks, which stand at the entrance of the Gulf of Lecco, under that noble promontory on which stood the Tragedia of Pliny ; but there is to him even a sweeter moment, when winter first departs, and he hastens to the remembered pool, along the embowered banks of the bright stream which first hears the sweet bird that harbin- gers the spring, and there gathers those budding osiers, which each re- turning year our mother Church puts into his hands to serve as palms, to be borne on that day of mystic triumph, when she celebrates the en- trance of the Son of God into Jerusalem. ‘These are the resources of a northern clime; but yet, methinks, even thy stately forests, noble Va- lencia, where innumerable old and lofty palm trees shade the shore of Alicant, would lose half their interest to the Christian eye, if their branches were not yearly thinned for that solemn festival, and sent in offering to the eternal city. In a country stripped and dismantled by the modern philosophy, one lives only in visible presence of what pass- es, like the leaves of the trees, or the flowers of the field; and the youthful race, which is the most susceptible of the charms of nature, like summer flies, is sought for in vain, when autumnal rains have cool- ed the rivers, and despoiled the bowers of their foliage. Without very extraordinary grace the progress of seasons and of years is felt by the noblest dispositions, which are the most apt for every change, with an emotion of deeper and deeper melancholy ; but in a Catholic land one consorts continually with things that never die; and as one grows older, one only feels as if endowed with higher and higher privileges, which are to be crowned at length in the last supernal state, to which death is but the momentary passage. This mutual influence of nature and faith, multiplying and expressing each other’s joys, was profoundly felt by the meek possessors of the earth during the middle ages, and hence arose a number of beautiful monuments, the mouldering ruins of which still adorn our country, * De la Martine. ‘¢ The benediction of the new fruits of the earth used to be celebrated on the feast of the Ascension, that of orchards on the festival of St. James the Apostle, and that of the new grapes on the day of St. Xystus. [*] [*] Martene, tom. iv. 16 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, though their origin and object may have been long forgotten. Histori- ans record the profusion of oratories which were destroyed in England when the new religion was first established. These little chapels, em- bowered amidst the pale ivy or the myrtles that love the shore, were common in the days when above all things the woods were dear to men, and the divine muse was beloved everywhere, found to be sweet amidst the woods, and sweet upon the waves, combining all the fabled charms of Orpheus and Arion. Petrarch beautifully moralizes upon the fountain of Vaucluse, and declares that it is his resolution to raise an altar there in the garden which hangs over the water. ‘It shall. not,’ he continues, ‘‘be dedicated, like those of Seneca, to the gods of the rivers, or the nymphs of the fountains, but in honour of the Virgin Mother of that God who has destroyed the altars and demolished the temples of all other gods.”” ‘The month of May was called the month of Mary, when men would devoutly repeat her office as they walked in some garden, bright with the sweet hue of eastern sapphire that was spread over the serene aspect of the pure air, at the rising of the sun, and beheld the swans majestically resting on the limpid waters. The waters too were claimed, and images of saints and hermits, and mitred fathers, were seen, stretching the hand of benediction over them, as at the Balbian promontory on the Lariun lake. The course across the Lagunes, for eighteen miles from Venice to the Camaldolese convent on the isle of St. Clement, is marked by an image of our Lady, with a lamp burning, which seems almost to touch the sea, over which it casts so far its placid beam. In the midst of the lake of Garda is a point, mentioned by Dante, where the bishops of Trent, Verona, and Brescia, would have the right of giving their benediction; and I have heard the sweet and solemn sound of litanee or sacred hymns rise from boats of pilgrims, bearing cross and holy banners, across Lugano’s lake, when boat used to respond to boat while onward hastening. Wherever a wild and broken rock projected, or a beauteous hill rose from a river’s bank, there was sure to be some spot dear to piety, which scholars and poets would unite to celebrate, like that of Mount Valerian on the Seine, which forms the subject of an elegant Latin history by Briezac. As the morning sun first visits the mountain heights, so does the great and admirable sun of justice make his grace to shine first at the door of the solitary hermit, and of those who live retired upon the points of rocks. When St. Vincent of Paul was ordained priest, he re- paired to a chapel situated on a mountain in the midst of a wood, near the river T'arne, and there he said his first mass. The presbytery of St. Vit of Mont-Meillan, being on the side of a hill, commanded a most beautiful view over the country. The curate, in the year 1695, thought this garden was too beautiful to be left without rendering service to re- ligion. Accordingly he had the piety to convert it into a Calvary, with grottos and cells for prayer; so that a crowd of devout people used to come there on Sundays and festivals from the neighbouring parishes.* Marchangy makes his traveller of the fourteenth century remark, that as he mounted the heights of Fourvicres at Lyons, the view became so enchanting, that he was almost certain to find at the summit of the * Lebuf, Hist. du Diocése de Paris, tom, v. 544. AGES OF FAITH. 17 mountain some place of pilgrimage. ‘+ For I have remarked,” he adds, ‘‘in the course of my travels that religion never fails to invite tender or suffering souls to places, whose natural beauty attests the power of the Creator.””* The fields and level shores were, indeed, associated with religious mysteries: for, that standing of Jesus by the lake of Genesa- reth when the multitude pressed upon him, that seeing of the two boats and the occupation of the fishermen, that walk through the corn with the disciples on the Sabbath, of which men had heard from infancy al- ways in the same sweet season of the summer,}t made such an impres- sion, that they could never enjoy the beauties of nature, or the recrea- tions of a country life without thinking of their blessed Redeemer; but mountains were especially dear to religion from the remembrance of that mount whose name has given an universal and beloved fame to the pale verdure of the olive, from that of Thabor, and Sinai, and Ephreim, which fed the holy Samuel. It was on mountains that God manifested him- self to the Hebrews of old, and it was on them that the tremendous mysteries of human redemption were accomplished. Mountain heights, enclosing on their brown and mossy moors the spot where earliest wild flowers grow, were dear to village children, but so were they also to the eye of faith, as symbolical of a religious life; for mountains are the abodes of the most noble animals, the lion and the eagle; the source of the mightiest and purest streams; the soil congenial to the loftiest trees, the cedar and the pine; the places most secure to helpless inno- cence, in consequence of their distance from the haunts of men; the spots which are the first and last to enjoy the golden light of day, and which afford the farthest prospect over this world of woe.t During the ages of faith in reference to the holy inclosures on their summits, it might with truth be said, that the mountains distilled sweetness, and the hills flowed with milk and honey; for there was heard at many seasons of every year a voice of the multitude on the mountains, as if of a peo- ple gathering, a voice of the sound of kings and of the nations assem- bling. ‘Then used each man to say joyfully to his neighbour, «Come, and let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths ; because a law hath gone forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”’ The blessed John of the Cross distinguishes three kinds of holy pla- ces, that is, places where God is accustomed to excite the will to devo- tion. ‘The first are certain spots rendered agreeable by the extensive- ness and variety of the view, by the verdure of trees and plants, by sol- itude and silence. The end in employing such places is to elevate the heart to God. Almost every Christian city, and even village, was adorned and consoled by some place of this kind, on which a Calvary was erected, where devout persons went at all times to pray; and where at intervals, as on the festivals of the holy cross in May and in September, the whole population would assemble then in peaceful pil- grimage, to assist at the divine offices cclebrated in an adjoining chapel, * Tristan, tom. v. 333. ¢ Fourth Sunday after Pentecost. + Le Sacré Mont d’Olivet ou le Paradis de la Religion du Seraphique Pere St. Francais, p. 10. Vou. IL.—32 B2 18 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, and to hear some man of God discourse upon the love of Jesus. Such was the Mont Valerien near the city of Paris, where hermits had resided since the eleventh century, whose sweet solitude even kings protected, for in the year 1683 there was a royal decree frobidding any one to keep a hostelerie upon that mountain nearer than the village of Suréne.* In the house of the missionaries on the summit, it was the custom to admit laymen who desired to make retreats. ‘The Cardinal de Noailles came there every year for that purpose, and the Cardinal Boromeo used in like manner to retire to the Calvary on Monte Varale, where were represented the mysteries of the Passion. Here were fields of roses, which embalmed the air with their sweet fragrance; and when the mul- titude assembled, such peace and joy beamed from every countenance, that one might have thought that the reign of universal order was alrea- dy come. One of the first acts of the sophists who wrought the last revolution, was to throw down the crosses and desecrate the sanctuary, that all men might know them by their fruits. The second kind, con- tinues the blessed Friar, are particular places, whether solitary or not, in which God is known to have had extraordinary intercourse with just men, thither sending his winged messengers on errands of supernal grace, so that these persons continue ever after attached to them, though it is not the place but the soul which draws down the grace of God. Thus Abraham raised an altar on the spot where God had appeared to him; and in passing by it on his return from Egypt, he again worship- ped there; and Jacob also made an altar of stone in the place where the Lord appeared to him. Such are the famous church of the Portiuncula and the seraphic mountain of Alvernia in Italy, exhibiting those won- drously split rocks, which a pious tradition ascribes to the earthquake at the death of Christ, and clothed with that deep and solemn wood, which so often beheld the secret wanderings and heard the infinite sighs of the fervent servants of God, Francis and Anthony, where the former, while praying at day-break on its rocky side, received the stigmata which his limbs two years did carry. Such, too, is that high mountain called Cruachan Ailge, in Ireland, so memorable for having been the place where St. Patrick spent a Lent in great abstinence and solitary medita- tion. The places where hermits had lived or where holy men used to preach, were often called ever afterwards the holy place. ‘Thus, in the diocese of Paris, there is a lieu-saint, so called from St. Quentin having lived there a recluse. ‘There is another lieu-saint in the diocese of Cou- tances near Valogne, where holy solitaries lived under the first race of kings. In Germany there is Heiligenstad, where Dagobert I. had a vision of saints.t That tower of Ader, where St. Jerome says the an- gel appeared to the shepherds that were watching their flocks by night would be a place of the same order. The third kind of places are those which God has destined, by an especial choice, for his service. Such were Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb.t The Carmelite friar Nicholas, who describes his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the year 1487, visited these holy mountains, to which he could travel only by night, through the midst of horrible deserts. Arriving at length within view of the con- * Lebeuf, Hist. du Diocése de Paris, tom. vii. 129. + Lebeuf, tom. xiii. 188. + B. John of the Cross, ascent of Mount Carmel, lib. iii. c. 41. AGES OF FAITH. 19 vent of St. Catharine, he says that every one wept for joy. The monks received them with great charity, but the pilgrims were only disposed for prayer. After mass matins were sung, after which every one retired to rest for the remainder of the day. The pilgrims disposed themselves to visit the holy places of the mountain by confession and devout prayer. On Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb, he says, there were many holy cha- pels to honour the spots which are consecrated by events of the sacred history. He describes his ascent and the views from the summit, and no book of modern travels will convey the same impression of reality as this holy man’s simple relation. In few words he makes you behold the two mountains of Sinai and Horeb, and the holy places and the dread- ful wilderness, and the Red Sea with its desert islands and the horrible mountains of ‘Thebaid.* The moderns have lost the idea of holy pla- ces, and are often disposed to condemn and ridicule those who have re- tained it. Had they been with Moses upon Horeb, they would have imagined some figure that would dispense their making bare the feet. Let us pause a moment, therefore, to hear the sentiments of men in ages of faith respecting the origin and influence of that idea. In the first place, they needed not the discourse of Milton to teach them as a gene- ral precept, —— “that God attributes to place No sanctity, if none be thither brought By men who there frequent, or therein dwell.’’} This was a Catholic maxim, which he had gathered, as many things besides, from the writings of the olden time. St. Bernard had said, ‘‘ Let no one flatter or congratulate himself respecting a place, because it is said, this place is holy, non enim locus homines, sed homines lo- cum sanctificant ;’’ to which words the pilgrim brother Nicholas alludes, saying, ‘‘ Le canon dit, ’homme fait le sainct lieu, et non le lieu fait la Saincte personne.”’{ ‘* Neither do holy places,’’ says Walafried Strabo, abbot of Fulda, ‘* profit those who lay aside holiness, nor do horrid pla- ces injure those who are protected by the grace of God. The angels fell in heaven, whereas Moses was preserved in the waters, Daniel among the lions, and the three children in the fire.’’|| St. Peter the venerable, abbot of Cluni, writing to the monks of Mount Thabor, ex- horting them to be especially devout and fervent, from the consideration, not only of their being Christians and monks, but also because they in- habit a holy place, desires them to remember well that a holy place can never save them.§ ‘‘ As for these places of pilgrimage, and the extra- ordinary graces which are vouchsafed to those who visit them,”’ says the blessed John of the Cross, ‘ the reason of their existence is to give occasion for more ardent fervour and opportunity for men to awaken their piety. It is for this end that miracles are wrought in those places where the faithful assemble to offer up their vows to heaven, in sight of the sacred images. Their faith in God, their confidence in his good- ness, their singular devotion for the saints whom these celebrated ima- ges represent, and their continual prayers, sustained by the intercession * Le grant voyage de Hierusalem, Paris, 1517. t Paradise Lost, xi. + Le grant voyage a Hierusalem, f. eviii. | De rebus Ecclesiasticis, cap. xiii. § Epist. lib, ii, 44. 20 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, of the blessed, obtain from God these extraordinary prodigies, of which the whole glory returns to the Creator. We find that these operations generally occur in places where the painting or image is some simple and common work, and where the place itself is retired and solitary, far from the haunts of men, where simplicity and faith alone are favour- ed, where the length and difficulty of the journey may prove the devo- tion of the heart, and where the solitude of the place itself may deliver the pilgrims from the noise of the world, and favour their devotion, as when our Lord withdrew to deserts and to mountains for his prayer.’’* The zeal with which such places were visited by the early Christians may be learned from St. Augustin, where he says, ‘‘ Brethren, recall to mind how, on any festival of the martyrs, when any holy place is nam- ed for any certain day, the crowds flow in together, to celebrate the so- lemnity. How they excite one another; how they encourage one an- other, and say, Let us go; let us go; and when it is asked whither ? they reply to such a place, to such a holy place: they talk together, and as if catching fire from one another, they kindle into one flame, which impels them to that holy place which saintly meditation points out to them. Such is the holy love which makes men visit temporal places of sanctity. What then ought to be their ardour in hastening to heaven.’’t If men would only observe what passes within themselves with regard to human things, they might learn to understand the princi- ple of devotion to holy places, with regard to God: for instance, they esteem one chapter of a favourite book more highly than the rest, be- cause they remember having read it in presence of a friend who is now absent. If they have executed any work of art while conversing with him, they prize it more than all others on that account. What intense and subtle feeling connects itself with the most trifling circumstance which has any relation to the earthly affections of the heart! and so it is with those who love God in his saints. Their habits, the staff they used to bear, the chamber they used to inhabit, the rock on which they used to pray, the well from which they drank, the sepulchre where they repose, become precious and venerable and holy. From St. Gregory of Tours we can learn the usual mode in which such places were visited, for he says, ‘‘ On one occasion, as I was going about the city of Lyons to visit the holy places, the man who walked before us coming to the crypt of the blessed Helius, invited us to pray, saying, because a great priest rests in this place.’’{ Cold ungrateful men may argue or contemn, but reason will admit the wisdom of a de- votion which is founded in the deepest principles of our nature. Ah, why are men so undoubting and resolute to admit an excuse for omitting the memory of God; why so backward and forbidding, so full of scep- ticism and difficulties, when an occasion is offered of invoking him ? Never can I lose the remembrance of that evening of sweet peace, when with the holy monks of Vallombrosa I went the round of all their bles- sed spots, sanctified by the wondrous life and blissful death of the an- cient eremites of. that cloister, when the narrow cell which had shelter- ed one, the rocky bed on which another had expired, and every other * Ascent of Mount Carmel, lib. iii. ¢. 35. + Tractat. in Ps. cxxi. + De gloria Confessorum, 62. AGES OF FAITH. 21 revered memorial was visited with solemn litanee or hymn to Christ’s blessed mother, or offering of glory for everlasting to the triune God. Thus did we ascend that mount of Paradise, when each step they invit- ed me, thoughtless and obdurate, to turn from nature unto nature’s God. To Vallombrosa one repairs with recollections that centre upon the po- esy of Milton, and from it one returns with a mind refreshed, exalted, enraptured with a sense of that supernal music which can be known fully but where day endless shines. By the erection of stations in some retired spot, in the neighbourhood of every town, the church proposed to multiply places which, by the representation of our blessed Saviour’s sufferings, might move the hearts of her children to greater fervour, and serve as a perpetual instruction to the ignorant: and in connection with the great historical facts and awful mysteries of religion, these affecting memorials of piety contributed to the riches which the earth was found to yield to the meek in ages of faith. What was the idea of their in- stitution? at Jerusalem was their original. ‘There tradition has pre- served even many circumstances of the passion, which are not related in the Gospel. ‘The spot is shown where Mary met Jesus bearing the cross ; driven away by the guards, she took another road, and was found again further on, following the Saviour. It is Chateaubriand who thus speaks: ‘‘ Faith is not opposed to these traditions, which show to what a degree this wondrous and sublime history has been engraven on the memory of men. Eighteen centuries passed over, persecutions without end, unceasing revolutions, ruins piled up and still ever increasing, have not been able to efface or conceal the trace of this divine mother weep- ing for her son!’? ‘The Church was well aware of the impressions felt by those who visited these stations, and with her constant tender solici- tude she endeavoured to provide the same for all her children. Every town and village, therefore, furnished places where, in some degree, they might be experienced by those who had a devout heart and sincere contrition. ‘There, after the business of the day was over, when the angelus had tolled and the hour came when nature makes that awful pause and inclines the soul to meditation, the pious youth or holy ma- tron would steal softly from the crowd and repair thither, to shed the sweet undiscovered tear on the Mount of Olives, on the spot where Pi- late cried Ecce Homo! on the place where our Saviour sank under the cross, on that where he said unto the women, Weep not for me, and so on the rest. At Rome these were represented in the Colosseum, with- in that very inclosure where such multitudes of martyrs had followed Christ to the bitterness of his passion. On certain days the clergy, fol- lowed by a devout multitude, visited these places in procession, sung the litanee, recited prayers, and delivered a short instruction. Nor was this all. Innumerable crosses of stone or wood were erected by the public ways, in the heart of forests and amidst the wildest scenes of na- ture, on bridges, which heard amidst the eternal murmur of the streams, the chaunt of nocturns in the night, and on the craggy summit of islands, that lay far in the melancholy sea; that no place might be left without the symbol of human redemption, and the memorial of the passion of Jesus. Descending from the mountain of St. Bernard, under that fort of Bard, in a spot which seems made by Nature herself for the destruc- tion of an army, and where modern art now vies with her in appalling 22 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, frowns, with what delightful surprise does one discover the peaceful im- ages of heaven’s mercy, the Madonna and the cross!’ Time was when England too possessed them. In the vast fens surrounding Crowland, we read of there being immense crosses placed, as on the boundaries between Holland and Kesteven, Alderlound and Goggisland.* In the ancient groves, too, which never heard the woodman’s stroke, amidst the giant trunks’ projecting withered arms, like that forest which clothes the shore of Bolsena’s Lake, through which the pilgrim mounts to Mon- tefiascone, you would find the cross to sanctify the melancholy shade. Thus we read in the books of chivalrous fable, how the knight errants used to hang up their shields by the stone crosses in the forests. In poetry, as in nature, we sometimes come upon them suddenly with glad surprise. How impressive is that instance, amidst a battle-scene, in the lay of Marmion, when Clare looks round for water to slake his dying thirst as he lay wounded on the wild heath, near a stone cross: “Where shall she turn? Behold her mark A little fountain-cell, Where water, clear as diamond spark, In a stone basin fell ; Above, some half-worn letters say, Drink, weary pilgrim, drink and pray For the poor soul of Sybil Gray, Who built this cross and well.” Frequently, too, these were memorials also of historical events, to which piety gave an immortal remembrance, as at Ravenna, near which a simple Greek cross indicates the spot where formerly stood the superb basilica of St. Lorenzo, founded in the year 396, and destroyed in the sixteenth century. King Philip, carrying the body of St. Louis, his father, from Paris to the abbey of St. Denis, wherever he halted to re- pose crosses were erected on the spot, which stood till the revolution. On the similar occasion of the body of queen Eleanor, wife of Edward I., being conducted from the north to Westminster, those beautiful crosses were erected, of which the ruins may still be seen at Waltham and other places. At Rievaulx Abbey, when the body of St. Wilfred had been washed, and the water then poured out upon the earth, a wooden cross was erected on the spot. The first amongst the Christians who opposed the worship of the cross was Claudius, a Spaniard, in the ninth century, and in the same age the Paulicians, who appeared in the East. The Wickliffites called the images of the cross putrid trunks, less estimable than the trees of the wood, for the latter, said they, had life, but these were dead, a pas- sage which shows how profoundly these first reformers could philoso- phize. The succeeding heretics were animated with a most invincible hatred against the crosses, so that they disappeared every where before them, while statues of kings, in the heathen style, were erected in their stead, as at Charing Cross, the demolition of which was effected amidst loud cheers from an immense multitude. Yet such was the inconsis- tency of these men, who mistrusted or condemned the impression pro- duced by the representation of the cross of Christ, that some of them were heard to say, that they could never hear the loud solitary whistle * Hist. Croylandensis in Rerum Anglic. Script. tom. i. and Ingulphi Hist. p. 39. AGES OF FAITH. 23 of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild cadence of a troop of gray plover in an autumn morning, without feeling an elevation of soul, like the enthusiasm of devotion. Our forefathers, too, may have known nothing, or next to nothing, of the structure of their souls, but yet they could give a reasonable account for their attaching more importance to the impressions which they felt at the sight of a cross, than to any of the seeming caprices of their nature. ‘‘'The mere sight of a crucifix is never useless to the soul,’’ says Louis of Blois, speaking of the spiritual ascetic.* ‘A Christian of orthodox faith,”’ he says again, ‘‘can never behold the image of a crucified Redeemer, without great utility.’’t ‘The moderns are not unwilling to kiss the books of the Gospels be- fore a judge,”’ observes Bossuet, ‘‘and what is the cross but the whole Gospels in one sign and character contracted? What is the cross, un- less the whole science of Jesus Christ crucified? Why then should we not kiss that and bow the knee to it?’ Does not the very instinctive aversion with which it is regarded by all enemies to Christianity prove it to be holy? What other inference can be drawn from those late hor- rors in Gallic land, where the symbol of salvation was overthrown with such demoniacal ferocity, and replaced by the symbol of the revo- lution, by that of Atheism? The moral influence of the Christian sym- bol was so clearly seen by its enemies, that among the articles of capit- ulation to be observed by the Christians on the fall of Jerusalem, the Turks stipulated that they should place no crosses upon their churches, nor bear them or the Gospels about in procession, and that their bells should not be tolled, though they might be allowed to observe their re- ligious rites in all the churches already built. Elsewhere, indeed, the same enactments, with the exception of the latter indulgence, were en- forced by men who continued to profess a belief in Christianity; but the results proved the acuteness of the Sarassin policy, and the folly of those who, with different intentions, imitated it. By degrees, the race which had lost faith, lost also the memory of Christianity; its thoughts were wholly engrossed with business or political debates, or with delu- sive phantoms of sense; if it heard mention of God having come down on earth, chosen apostles, and sent them to found a religion, the impres- sions excited were not different from those with which it read the histo- ry of Romulus or Alexander. Now one can easily understand why, in a Catholic country, such a godless crew should feel startled and disquiet- ed; for there men may indeed fall victims to passion, may aspire to rob or remain tangled in a net of sensual delight, but never for a single day can they forget the great and awful facts of the Christian dispensation. Faith has raised too many memorials of its history and of its mysteries for their minds, to be ever reduced to a state of nature or mere animal perception, that is left without either the consolations or the terrors of religion. Thus, then, during ages of faith, was nature enjoyed in connection with religion, by those to whom meekness imparted the privileges of simplicity. ‘Thus was the exterior and interior life brought into perfect harmony, so as to produce that expansion of the heart which is the real cause that makes a Catholic country so delightful to men of good will; * Institutio Spiritual. cap. vi. ¢ Enchirid. Parvulorum, lib. i. doc. xii. append. 24 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, for so sweet is it to them, that ‘‘they whose verse of yore the golden age recorded, and its bliss on the Parnassian mountain,’? may be thought to have foreseen itin a dream. ‘The earth was adorned with beauteous monuments, and the luminous air itself seemed to diffuse sweet harmony, not alone those wild and melancholy strains of which the poet speaks as heard in Scottish land, rising from the bands of busy harvest, “ When falls before the mountaineer, On lowland plains, the ripen’d ear ;”” but oftener, as in the neighbourhood of Rome, when peasants in the evening return from the vintage, some litanee or sacred hymn, for even festive songs, like those of that devout people, had in some manner still a religious burden. ‘The author of the Martyrs ascribes this custom of pious ejaculations and responses by the rustic labourers to the first Christians, and traces it to the days of Ruth.* In the time of St. Jerome, the labourers in Palestine conducting their carts, and the husbandmen in dressing their vines, used to refresh their spirits with the chaunt of Al- leluia, and the presence of Christian youth was recognised by hearing the shepherds and peasants singing canticles of devotion by the side of their flocks, a scene which then recalled the primitive innocence of the pastoral life of the ancient patriarchs. The old French kings endeay- oured to promote this custom by their paternal ordinances, which said, ‘‘Let all sing on the Sabbath, going to vespers, or to matins, or to mass, chaunting Kyrie Eleison; and in like manner let the herdsmen of cattle sing as they go into the fields or return to the house, ut omnes eos veraciter Christianos et devotos esse cognoscant.”’t Wandering among the olive groves of Fiesole, I have heard children in cottages chaunting the Kyrie Eleison, while mothers at the doors handled the distaff and the flax. The very reverence with which the humble friar and the village pastor were regarded was a source of social and serene enjoyment to the people among whom they walked. ‘Their sweet and holy countenances were felt as a benediction, in the same manner as the entrance of the unblessed feet of modern sophists is always felt as an interruption to joy, though these are the men who have the confi- dence to speak of applying their moral energies to the gradual extinction of Catholicism, and the consequent increase of social enjoyment, ‘as if,’ cries an excellent writer, ‘‘men who are themselves incapable of social enjoyment, their principles being a condensation of selfishness, and repugnant to all sociability, their rudeness, and even ferocity of look and manner, being sufficient to enable travellers to recognise them in any place, could increase or secure social enjoyment in others.”’? In short, the meek felt themselves in every object that struck their senses, and at every hour of their existence, endowed with hidden riches, and in possession of an innocent and a happy earth. If they had lived more days than Abraham, they would not have had time to use this long se- ries of sanctified pleasures and natural enjoyments which life distilled, drop by drop, sweetly, and secretly, upon their lips. ‘Thus ‘through a wilderness of primy sweets that never fade, they walked in thought- fulness, and vet expectant of beatitude more high.”’ * Lib. ii. + Capit. Carol. mag. 202. lib. vi. AGES OF FAITH. 25 So far we have considered the blessedness of the meek in relation to the material advantages which could be drawn from the possession of the earth. It remains to take a brief view of the more spiritual and in- terior riches which were attached to that inheritance, and the attempt to show in what manner it became subservient to the extension of intel- lectual good will be the object of our next disputation. CHAPTER IV. Ir is the object of our enterprise to discover in what manner the meek, in ages of faith, availed themselves of the intellectual treasures which the earth is capable of yielding, and for this purpose we must di- rect our thoughts to those spiritual and interior riches which are derived from poetry, from learning, and from friendship, for it is clear that, in one sense, these rise to mortals from the earth, and are an essential part of its inheritance. Of themselves, too plainly imperfect, and liable, as experience proves, to the most lamentable abuse, we shall find that they were ennobled, perfected, and secured by an alliance with the principles of faith, which gave purity to their object and stability to their posses- sion. Poetry was perhaps one of the original gifts which the bountiful Creator attached to the present condition of man’s life, in order to ena- ble him to sustain the wretchedness of his exile. Philosophers observe that the sensible world, being inferior in dignity to the rational soul, poesy seems to grant that to human nature which history denies, sup- plying shadows in place of substance to the mind; and Lord Bacon says that if any one should examine attentively, a firm argument is derived from poesy, that there is a more illustrious and perfect order of things than can in any manner be found in Nature herself after the fall; there- fore, as realities cannot satisfy the mind, poesy feigns actions more he- roic; it corrects history, and therefore conferreth not only to delecta- tion but to magnanimity.* Pindar had remarked, that truly there are many things wonderful, and that legends adorned with varied fables lead away the minds of mortals more than a true discourse.t Yet if atten- tion be paid to the original source of all poetic fable, there is deeper penetration shown by Homer, where he invokes the muses as divinities who alone know all things, and then adds, but we hear only rumours and know nothing: a S > 5 & yess St xartoc obov dxovomeey ovdé tt iducey.” ‘¢Fancy itself,” as Frederick Schlegel observes, ‘Sis one of the essen- tial groundworks of consciousness. It is in its foundation nothing but memory; and what we commonly call fancy is in fact only a delirium * De Augment. Scientie, lib. ii. c, 13. { Olymp. i. $I. ii. 465. Vor. [1.—4 C 26 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, of the memory.’”’* ‘True art and all higher poetry are the beautifully adorned summit, the promising blossom, nay, the very flower of hope.t ‘And man,” as he says, ‘from childhood to youth, from youth to man- hood, from manhood to death, is, above all other creatures, a being of hope.”’{ ‘The same view is taken by Huet, in accounting for the dis- position of men to love romance: ‘It arises,’’ he says, ‘from the fa- culties of the human soul, which, being too vast in capacity to be satis- fied with any present object, seeks gratification from the past and the future, from truth and fiction.’’|| St. Augustin had said that those fic- tions which are significative and emblematical are not falsehoods, but figures of truth, of which some of the wisest and most holy men have | availed themselves, and we find the same doctrine well explained and diffused in the middle ages, in proof of which we may witness the words of John of Salisbury, where he says that ‘the lies of the poets serve truth;’’§ and those of Christine de Pisan, where she says, ‘al- though in general the name of poesy be taken for some fiction, and thouvh it is a common saying, Les poétes mentent de moult de choses, yet the end of poetry is truth, to advance which these feigned images are formed, enveloping the real and occult sense.’’** Indeed, such has been the universal judgment of mankind. ‘The Persians, who had such a reverence for truth, and who regarded every species of lie with such horror, were nevertheless peculiarly fond of works of ingenious fiction, and many of their books of instruction for youth were in the form of romances. ‘Their legislator Zoroaster employed fabulous adventures for this object. Strabo says that their masters of youth gave their pre- cepts of morality in tales and fictions. Seneca observes that the an- cient Romans made frequent use of fabulous adventures for the purposes of instruction; and Macrobius reckons works of the nature of romances among those which administered instruction with delight, In the mid- dle ages the title Romant was applied to true histories, as to that of Du Guesclin, for it signifies any work which was written in the langue Ro- mane; but it was at length applied exclusively to those works which, as Huet observes, were true in their details, and false only in their gen- eral object, which differed from many of the ancient historians only on this account, that they were false in their details, though faithful in their general outline. After all, romances in this sense had their origin in the beautiful East, and they were allied to those parables which have the highest of all sanctions. Huet supposes the Egyptians, Arabians, Persians, Indians, and Syrians, to have been the first writers of ro- mances, and he shows that the great authors of antiquity, who compos- ed romances, were all of oriental origin.tt_ Aristotle, and after him Cor- nutus and Priscien, mention the Libyan fables. The Arabs brought their romantic poetry into Spain; but their dominion, during the first period, so far from assisting, kept down and stifled the genius of that people, and by imposing the Arabic tongue, put off the rise of the Span- ish literature, so that Italy, Provence, and even Normandy, had their poets and writers in the language of their country before Spain had pro- * Philosophie der Sprache, 136. t Id. 190. +70. 1 40. || Huet, De l’Origine des Romans. § De Nugis Curialium, lib. ii. cap. 6. ** Livre des Fais et bonnes Mceurs du sage Roi Charles V. liv. iii. chap. 68. TT De lOrigine des Romans, 13. AGES OF FAITH. 27 duced any. A Spanish bishop complains, that while his people can write verses in Arabic, they cannot say their prayers in Latin, by which he meant the Spanish in its infant state. In the hands, however, of the ecclesiastical and chivalrous writers, the object of romance be- came, in the middle ages, still more under the influence of idealism and allegory. Josaphat, Percival, Arthur, Wigalois, and Tschionatulander, were mystical personifications of sanctity and knighthood. According to the doctrine of Boethius in his Consolatio Philosophica, the ideal was represented as a person, and the Germans are delighted to find, in the middle ages, poets of their nation who professedly pursued this object, such as Konrad of Wiirzburg, Peter Suchenwirt, Henry Muglin, Hadamar von Laber, Hermann of Sachsenheim, and Melchior Pfinzing. Nothing is more easy than to collect passages condemning poetry from the writings of the holy fathers, and nothing simpler than to ar- range and connect them in such a manner as to convey the idea of a final and absolute prohibition, when men have taken in hand to write a formal treatise against it, or to show the danger of its abuse: but whether Religion might avail herself of the assistance of poetry, and include that beautiful world in the promise which gave to meekness the possession of the earth, was at no time, as the lives and writings of the holy fathers prove, made a question virtually in the Christian schools ; while the splen- did triumph which the eighth Clement had prepared for Tasso at the cap- itol, left a positive and ever-memorable testimony that the love of poetry is not incompatible with supreme solicitude for the first and highest good. Repeatedly, during the ages of faith, the holy bishops of the Church, by their instructions and by their examples, sanctioned its diffusion, and allowed men to mix serious things with trifles, and false with true, ‘in order,”’ as John of Salisbury says, ‘that all things might be referred expressly to the worship of the highest truth.”’* So that, as at the be- leaguered city sung by Auschylus, at whose seventh gate royal Apollo took his awful stand,t the purified and innocent Muse was permitted to appear as the champion on one side of the city of the church, that city which is besieged at all times by proud and deluded men. Celebrated was the ingenuity evinced by the Christian pastors in the time of Julian, when they contrived to elude the decree of that emperor, who sought to deprive their youth of the advantages of an acquaintance with the great poets of antiquity. The Greek tragedy entitled the Passion of Christ, composed of verses taken from Sophocles and Euripides, whose cho- russes were converted into Christian hymns, is said to have been formed by St. Gregory Nazianzen on this occasion, when the Christians were forbidden to study the original classical writings. This tragedy has been lately consulted with success, in order to correct the present texts of Euripides. Not without surprise will some hear mention of a Ger- man nun, Hroswithe, in the eleventh century, who, merely through a sense of the beauties of the classical writers, adopted a similar expedi- ent, and composed Latin dramatic pieces upon Christian subjects, in a style well imitated from that of Terence. Christianity has always had its poets, under the white robes of the Apollinares in the first age, as under the episcopal mantle of Fenelon after the lapse of eighteen cen- * De Nugis Curialium, in lib. vii. Prolog. { Aischyl. Sept. cont. Theb. 28 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, turies. Ecclesiastical history makes frequent mention of bishops, like Sidonius in the fifth age, who cultivated the Muse, and associated it with their apostolical labours, not disdaining to hearken sometimes to the ancient classic bards, but as Dante, when he followed the souls of Statius and Virgil, “Listening that speech, which to their thoughts convey’d Mysterious lessons of sweet poesy.” * St. Cyprian of Carthage, Pope St. Damasus I., Paulinus Bishop of Nola, Victorinus, Fortunatus, and Hilary of Poictiers, Prosper of Aqui- taine, and St. Avitus, Archbishop of Vienne, are illustrious examples ; to which may be added priests not invested with the episcopal char- acter, as Tertullian of Carthage, Lactantius Juvencus of Spain, Celius Sedulius of Ireland, Arator of Rome, and Claudian Mamertus of Vienne.t The subjects chosen by Paulinus are the death of the son of Celsus, the turbulent condition of his own times and trust in God, the ancient fes- _ tivals of the church, newness of life, and the creation of man. Many of the little pieces of St. Fortunatus were addressed to St. Radegonde or to St. Agnes. One was ‘‘on some violets,” another ‘‘on some flowers which were placed on the altar.” He composed many fine sa- cred hymns, among which the Vexilla Regis has been adopted by the Church. 'The oldest monument of German literature is an epic poem relating the slaughter of Roncevalles composed by a priest Conrad. The romances of Barlaam and Josaphat, published in the thirteenth cen- tury, by Rudolf of Montfort, had been composed by St. John Damas- cenus; it treats of the love of God and the heroism of the martyrs. It was greatly admired by the Christians of Egypt, being translated into the Coptic tongue. Eustathius, Bishop of 'Thessalonica, about the middle of the twelfth century, was said to have composed a romance, though it was one unworthy of his genius. ‘The Count of Stolberg might have appealed to the authority of Huet, who also is inclined to disbelieve the report of Nicephorus that Heliodorus had been deposed by a council for having composed the adventures of 'Theagenes and Chariclea, and the latter grounds his argument on the purity and virtue of the work itself.t That learned and holy prelate, Camus, Bishop of Belley, as well as the great St. Francis de Sales, spoke in terms of high admiration of the romance of Astrea. Fenelon may be said to have composed both a poem and a romance in the adventures of Telemachus, as also Auneas Silvius before succeeding to the apostolic chair, though in one of his letters this learned Pope expresses bitter regret for having left such a production among his works. Octavien de Saint Gelais, Bish- op of Angouleme, was regarded as one of the greatest poets of his time. He saw the reigns of Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I. He gave translations of the Greek and Latin poets, of the whole /Mneid, and of many books of the Odyssey, yet, from the tone of some of his early poems, perhaps Dante would have found him in the number of those who wept. On being invested with the episcopal character, he indeed abandoned all former amusements, and gave himself up wholly to the study of holy things, and to the service of the church, but still on the * Purg. xxil. + Fabricius, Poetarum Vet. Eccles. Opera. ¢ De P Origine des Romans, 70, AGES OF FAITH. 29 death of King Charles VIII. whose body he followed to St. Denis, he testified his regrets in many verses which were afterwards published in the Vergier d’Honneur. Our great St. Dunstan was both a poet and musician, whose works no purifying flame need have feared, and the Scottish minstrel who has sung the Lady of the Lake alludes to the harp which erst Saint Modan sway’d.* St. Aldhelm, Bishop of Shireburn, cultivated poetry with such success even in his native tongue, that it was said no one could equal him in the composition of English verses. Eldred mentions a certain poem of his which the common people con- tinued to sing; for when this blessed man led a hermit’s life in the woods of Malmesbury, he used often to station himself after mass on a certain bridge over which the people returned from the town, and there he used to stop them, endeavouring to correct and reform those semi- barbarous rustics by the melody of his verses. He composed at vari- ous times a multitude of poems and other works, and he expressly wrote on the rules of versification. ‘To convey an idea of the interest which poets in the middle ages could excite among the higher orders of the clergy, we need only to refer to that scene painted by Marchangy, where he represents some rude warriors relating what had passed during their reception in an apartment at Avignon. ‘‘A gentleman of Padua entered the hall and spoke a few words to the Cardinal of St. Vitalis, who uttered a loud ery, and gave signs of the utmost affliction. ‘This cardinal then spoke to those who were near him, and they in their turn lamented with hands raised up to heaven. ‘The news was soon known to all excepting to us, who, comprehending nothing of this general des- olation, were thinking that it must mean at least the sack of Rome, or some new schism in Christendom. It was in vain for us to ask the cause. Hardly would any one condescend to answer us, as if we were not worthy to feel this privileged grief, too delicate to reach hearts encased in steel. In the mean time there came in Mathieu Le-Long, Archdeacon of Liege, whose hands the cardinal seized, saying, the cel- ebrated companion of your studies, whose genius all Europe admires, the divine Petrarch, is no more! It is even so, adds the gentleman of Padua, for I have just come from assisting at his obsequies; he died in his house of Arqua, the 18th of last July. ‘The company soon broke up, each retiring to his own home apparently in equal consternation at this common loss.’’t If we now repair to the solitude of holy cloisters, we shall find the same affectionate converse with the Muse, disproving in its effects that maxim of the old Cratinus, that no verses can long survive which have been written by water-drinkers.t ‘The saintly re- cluses of the middle ages were far from evincing that contempt for po- etry and gentle studies which is so loudly professed by those modern theologians who are seen welcoming vile political debates, and engaging themselves in the vain and odious controversies of men. ‘ For what reason I compose this work in verse,’’ says Celius Sedulius, the Irish priest in the sixth century, speaking of his great poem, ‘I will briefly explain. There are many whom an harmonious style and the songs of poets delight to such a degree that they take no interest in any work of rhetorical eloquence, neglecting all such studies, and being so fond of * II. + Tristan, tom. vi. 101. + Hor. Epist. i, 19. c2 30 MORES CATHOLIC; OR, the sweetness of verses that whatever they receive in that way they commit to memory. I thought then that the manners of such persons ought to be not rejected, but cultivated, in order that every one accord- ing to his genius may be procured in a more voluntary manner for God.’’* But, independent of the efforts excited by charity, Plato would have said, that the monks were poets by profession, and sooth I believe if any convertite had proposed to them the question of the Athenian, «« Are we to receive tragic poets into our state ?’’ there would have been always some father sufficiently imbued with deep philosophy to make a reply in words similar to his, and with the smile of saintly brightness: ‘«‘O reverent stranger, we are ourselves poets and makers of tragedies, authors of the best and most beautiful tragedy. ‘The whole of our state is but an imitation of the best and most beauteous life, and we say that in fact that is the truest tragedy.”’t But in a lower and more ordi- nary sense we gladly admit the children of the Muses, among whom did not disdain to walk the great St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Colum- ban of Ireland, and Jacopone, that saint and poet, monk, mendicant, ascetic, and traveller, that worthy predecessor of Dante. Was it nota monk of good life, Jolin of the Abbey of Hauteselve, who translated into Latin the ancient romance of Dolopathos or the seven sages, the French translation of which was addressed by Hebers to the Bishop of Meaux? Was it not Guillaume de Guigneville, a monk of Chalis, who composed the romance of the three Pilgrimages, that of man while on the earth, that of the soul when departed from the body, and that of our Lord who comes to visit his people? Did not Adam of St. Victor, that holy monk, during his travels in Greece, compose some sacred poems ?t And did not Thibaud de Marly, a monk of the Cistercian order in the Abbey of Vaux de Sarnay, where he died in the odour of sanctity, in the year 1247, write a celebrated romance in verse?§ Bernard of Cluni wrote a poem in Latin of three thousand verses on the contempt of the world,|| and Mabillon commends the verses of Marc, of Monte Casino, the disciple of St. Benedict, which are the only vestiges that remain there of the studies of that time.** Who has not heard of Aboon, a monk of St. German des Pres, who died in 924, and of his Homeric poem on the siege of Paris by the Normans in the year 885? John du Pin, a monk of Vaucelles, who was a good theologian, a great phi- losopher and naturalist, was also a poet of renown. He employed six- teen years in composing his great work, entitled, ‘* Le champ vertueux de bonne vie,” having begun it in the year 1324.1 Is it forgotten that the first treatise on the art of poetry, which appeared in the French tongue, was written by a prior of the abbey of St. Genevieve at Paris ?{} or that the oldest Italian poet is the great St. Francis of Assisi? or that the friar Guittone of Arezzo is reckoned among the founders of Italian poetry ? or that the most ancient poem existing in a vulgar tongue, if we except the Niebelungen lay, was composed by the monk Otfrid, of the monas- * Sedulii Epist. Fabricius, Poet. Vet. Eccles. Opera. { Plato de Legibus, lib. vii. + Lebeuf, Hist. du Diocése de Paris, tom. 1. ii. c. 5. § Id. tom. vi. 73. || L’ Abbe Massieu, Hist. de la Poesie Francaise, 87. ** Tractat. de Studiis Monasticis, cap. i1. tt Massieu, Hist. de la Poesie Francaise, 212. tt Id. 222. AGES OF FAITH. 31 tery of Weissemburg, who lived about the middle of the ninth century ? This is a versified translation of the Gospels. ‘The author was a disci- ple of the celebrated Raban Maur, Abbot of Fulda, and he dedicated his work to Luitbert, Bishop of Mayence. This monk Otfrid, in the pre- face, blames the French of his time for neglecting their own language, and complains that no one will write excepting in Latin; his object was to impart the advantages of poetry to the people. The historians of German poetry will tell you also of a remarkable poem, composed by a monk Werner in the twelfth century, of which the subject was the life of the blessed Virgin, in which were united: the epic repose with the eulogistic transports of revering gratitude.* A poem of great inter- est on the same subject was also composed by Philip the Carthusian. The courts of princes could bear witness that poetry was cultivated by religious men; Helynand was a poet who used to be invited every day after dinner to recite his verses before Phillippe-Augustus. The most celebrated piece of his composition was a poem on death, which is al- lowed to contain passages of great sublimity. After passing his early years at court, and in the castles of nobility, he became a monk and re- tired to the abbey of Cistercians at Froimont, in the diocese of Beauvais. On leaving the world he left also all the spirit, views, and interests of the world, but he did not forsake the Muse; he led so holy a life that he was regarded as one of the lights of his order. France beheld in him a poet who was a saint; he was also a man of profound learning: he composed many works in prose, a chronicle, a treatise on the advan- tages of a monastic life, and one on the policy of princes, which evinced great wisdom and ability. His poems continued to be held in such esteem, that Vincent of Beauvais, who wrote under St. Louis, speaking of the year 1209, says, ‘* At this time lived Helynand, monk of Froi- mont, a man of extraordinary knowledge and virtue, to whom our lan- guage is indebted for the poem on death, which is now in the hands of every one as a work of great elegance and of acknowledged utility.” Will you hear now for what favours the abbot Gutberct, the disciple of Bede, writes to his most loving and sweet friend in Christ, Lullus the bishop? «Since you have asked for some works of the blessed father Bede, I have prepared, with the help of my boys, to the best of our power, what I now send you, namely, his books on the man of God, Cuthbert, composed in prose and verse. I should willingly have sent you more had I been able. But the present winter has been so severe in our island with intense frost and dreadful winds, that the fingers of our transcribers have been unable to execute more books. If there should be any man in your parishes who can make glass vessels, I beg that you will induce him to come here as soon as the season becomes mild; for we have no one who is acquainted with the art. It would delight me also to have a harper who could play upon the harp which we call rotta, because I have a harp, but no artist to play upon it. If it be not too much, I wish that you would send me such a person. I beg that you will not despise my petition, nor turn me into ridicule on ac- count of it, and as for the other works of Bede, of blessed memory, I * Rosenkranz Geschichte der Deutschen Poesie im Mittelalter, 177. 32 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, promise you if I live that I will fulfil your desire.”* It may be re- marked in conclusion, relative to the monastic poets, that many of their legends or short histories of holy persons have been acknowledged to possess considerable poetic merit. ‘The German critics speak with fondness of the legend of Alexius, by Konrad of Wirzburg, of that of the two Johns, by Heinz of Constanz, of the journey of the holy Brandan, in old German verse, which was celebrated in the middle ages, of the legend of St. Martina, by Hugo of Langenstein, and of that of the holy William of Oranse which was sung in the twelfth century in the language of the northern Franks, by Guillaume de Bapaume, and in German, by Wolfram von Eschenbach. But it was not only men separate to the church who possessed the enjoyments of the holy Muse ; history records the names of multitudes in every walk of life during the middle ages, whose works evince a tender and poetic mind of bound- less fecundity, and alive to the noblest and loftiest conceptions. It would not be too much to affirm that the people generally were then, not as is now supposed, mere animals of clay and spirits gross, but poets; and the reason of this phenomenon we shall better understand hereafter when we come to speak of the offices and festivals of the church. Dante and Petrarch do not stand isolated like beings of an- other world in their generation. ‘They possessed but the art of express- ing that which they felt in common with their contemporaries, and of developing in the language of genius the sweet and profound impres- sions which the multitude also experienced from the mysteries of faith, and the loveliness of nature. Do we suppose that ordinary men, in those ages of whom history takes no note, had not also their visions of hell, purgatory, and heaven ? That they had not also their seasons when the love of solitude would impel them to fly the city, and go wan- dering about the country, in summer seated in the shade on a green lawn or reclining on the bank of a river, and when autumn approached repairing to the woods, followed by the Muses? That they could not taste also how sweet was the pure and serene air, that their eyes would not contemplate with joy the stars which shone over them! Socrates says, that while Homer lived, he used to be utterly neglected,t but it was not so with the poets of the middle ages. When Petrarch came to Arezzo, his native town, all the inhabitants went out to meet him, and. paid him the same respect and homage that they would have shown to aking. Such was the enthusiasm of a goldsmith at Bergamo, named Henry Capra, that he renounced his trade to commence the study of philosophy and poetry in the steps of Petrarch, whom he persuaded to come to his house, where he received him in a style of royal magnifi- cence, with such joy and honour, that people feared he would lose his senses. That noble cavalier, Pandolphe, of the ancient house of Malateste, was so delighted with the works of Petrarch, that he sent a painter to make his portrait. Rienze at one time owed his preservation, as Pe- trarch relates, to this love of poetry : for it being rumoured at Avignon that he was a great poet, they thought it a kind of sacrilege to put a man to death of so sacred a profession. In another letter, Petrarch describes CL eC i a ES eee * S. Bonif. Epist. Ixxxix. _ F Plato de Repub. lib. x. AGES OF FAITH. 33 the passion for poetry which prevailed at this time, not in the city of Avignon alone, but in all parts; for he says, ‘« Verses rain in upon me every day from France, Germany, Greece, and England. Our lawyers and physicians will listen to none but Homer and Virgil. What do I say? Even labourers, carpenters, and masons, abandon their hammers and shovels to lay hold of Apollo and the Muses. ‘The other day a father came up to me in tears, and said, ‘See how you treat me who have always loved you: you have been the death of my only son.’ I was so struck with these words, and the air of the man who spoke them, that I remained for some time motionless. At last, recovering myself, I replied, that I neither knew him nor his son. ‘It is of little conse- quence whether you know him or not,’ replied the old man; ‘he knows you too well. I have ruined myself to bring him up to the law; and now he tells me he will follow no steps but yours. I am thus disap- pointed of all my hopes.’’’? Charles Fontaine, in like manner, used to be often lectured by his uncle, Jean du Gué, a lawyer and avocat of the parliament of Paris, who endeavoured to prevail upon him to forsake the Muses for the bar, saying to hin— “Mieux vaut gain que de philosopher A gens qui ont leur ménage a conduire ;”’* But it is hardly necessary to add, such arguments had little weight with youth during these spiritual ages, when even tradesmen devoted them- selves to the Muse. The famous Nicolas Flamel, from being at first but a simple scrivener in Paris, became a painter, a mathematician, an ar- chitect, a chemist, a philosopher, and a poet! What an extraordinary state of society was that which existed in Provence, under the sceptre of those amiable and poetic princes, who used to exempt their subjects from paying subsidies on condition that they could produce amongst them a troubadour! t—or that which was seen at the court of Urbino, when it was the asylum of the Muses, under the Duke Guidobaldo da Montefeltro? Historians relate, that many cities in the middle ages were in a peculiar degree favoured by the Muses. The poetic fame of Tholouse was inherited in Germany in the fourteenth century by Mainz, Strasburg, Colmar, Frankfurt, Wiirzburg, Zwickau, and Prague; in the fifteenth by Niirnberg and Augsburg; and in the sixteenth by Regens- burg, Ulm, Munich, Steiermark, Breslau, and Dantzic. But generally speaking, as was before observed, the multitude, from which a great part of poetry springs, and to which, in one sense, it must return to be judg- ed, was then inclined to receive poetic inspiration. ‘The Muses would not then have separated their admirer from the people, according to the expression of the Roman poet; +t for ordinary life was then poetical, so that the personal impressions and recollections of men corresponded with the beautiful creations of poesy. The poets of these ages, like Guillaume de Lorris, frequently trace the origin of their works to some dream which they really had experienced while sleeping upon some sweet violet bank of a clear river in the season of spring, or to some ride by night in the midst of a tempest over a moor, or to some lonely watch near the battlements on narrow wall, marking below the sudden * Gouget, tom. xi. 118. + Tristan, tom. vi. 233. + Hor. Car. i. 1. Vor. I.—5 34 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, hastening of the swine, who snatch up straw in foresight of a storm, while the distant howl of wolves rises over the surrounding forest. It was not strange that youths who had swam by night in Menai’s straits, when ‘the livid sparkles, those lightnings on the wave, crested the bro- ken tides,’’ should afterwards have had a wild romantic dream, which, with little effort, might employ the genius of a poet. Life admitted then of high natural enjoyments, and consequently men were formed to poetry. ‘They were poets precisely because they lived simply and had an unsophisticated heart. It is a false, and not a Christian civilization, that kills the imagination and banishes the Muse from all converse with mankind. Moreover, meekness and humility are essential to poetry, for pride is incompatible with its joys. The proud are too knowing to become or to continue poets. ‘The sensations caused in us by the various beauties of literature and art are so fine and delicate, that they perish at the first effort of the mind to understand their causes and relations. In general, _ pleasure defies analysis, and we are affected exactly in proportion as we are ignorant of the manner how. The proud curiosity of the moderns has impoverished their imagination. That sensibility, which, in youth, extended to all surrounding objects, gradually departs, and the same men, who had once so lively a sense of beauty, finish by regarding it with indifference. Do not these observations of Arnaud on the style of Pla- to, show clearly that meekness conduces to the possession of poetic en- joyment?* Now this artificial and perverted state, the result, not of a law of nature, but of a formal apostasy, which is substituted for the na- tural and renovated order of human life,—this proud curiosity, which only condescends to accept the gifts of heaven on condition of submit- ting them to an analysis,—did not exist in the ages of which we are at- tempting to relate the moral history ; and therefore the assistance and the consolations of poetry were possessed in all their fulness. ‘The ve- ry names of the streets of cities, as in Paris, bore testimony to the im- portance of the harper, who, like Reginald, had inhabited them, and the roads through forest wilds were designated by the titles that were cele- brated in heroic song.t The poet, or harper, was a welcome visitor in the castle or in the cottage—men listened to him, as Plato says, as to one who knew many things; and they used him as boys make use of aged persons,—loving to hear their sweet tales.| Even amidst the cold regions of the North, the people were not all in these ages, as one might at present suppose, men like those described by Au%schylus, whose lively blood dull draughts of barley wine had clogged.|| ‘These were the days when a young Harold bard of brave St. Clair, “born where restless seas Howl round the storm-swept Orcades: Where erst St. Clairs held princely sway O’er isle and islet, strait and bay !” would come to Roslin’s bowers,— * Mem. de l’Acad, des Inscriptions, tom. xxxvii. + In the diocese of Paris there was a road called le Chemin de la Table Ronde; and the Rue de la Harpe was Vicus Reginaldi Cithariste. Lebeuf, tom. i. ii. 567. , # Plato, Hippias Major. | Suppl. AGES OF FAITH. 35 “Where, by sweet glen and green-wood tree, He learn’d a milder minstrelsy ; Though something of the northern spell Mix’d with the softer numbers well.” These were the days when nobles in the castle halls, MuSeow cégrovre wee aaasrous tvéroveres, aS Plutarch says, “ And noble youths, the strain to hear, Forsook the hunting of the deer.” Even the pages of princesses were poets then, as was Michael Marot when page to Marguerite of France; and noble barons expected a po- etic nature in their squires, as when Marmion, sitting under the wide chimney arch of the hostel, says, “ Fitz-Eustace, know’st thou not some lay To speed the lingering night away ? We slumber by the fire.” King Edward I. had a poet in his camp on his expedition into Scot- land, who was a monk, named Baston. He was present in the dreadful battle, and describes the death of Sir Giles de Argentine with great feeling.— ‘‘ Nobilis Argenten, pugil inclyte, dulcis Egidi Vix scieram mentem cum te succumbere vidi.” Who need be told, that even the banquets of these ages were associated with a poetic taste? Ta} Arwvieou ydgires, Of which Pindar speaks,* were as familiar with our feudal ancestors as with the ancients.t For Chris- tianity did not declare war against all Homeric manners. Speaking of the Provencal poets, Huet says, that the verses which Homer puts in the mouths of Phemius and Demodocus at the courts of Penelope and of Alcinous, and those which Virgil makes Iopas sing in the court of Dido, may prove the antiquity of the Guay Savoir. Simonides was a troubadour in the Castle of Scopas, and Lord of Thessaly ; and Arion represented the same character with the princes of Italy. ‘The ancient Gauls had also their romantic bards: and we learn from Possidonius, as quoted by Atheneus, that Luernus, Prince of Auvergne, holding ple- nary courts and open table, presented a sack full of gold to a strange poet, who had come to honour the feast. Samson gives his robe to the Philistines who explained his enigma; and Pistheterus, in the Birds of Aristophanes, advises another to give his tunic to recompense a poet, who was come to celebrate the praises of their new city. I know not whether, among the ranks of modern society, it would be possible to select one to which justly would be applicable the words of Plutarch respecting the majority of kings, that they are not Apollos to sing, but Bacchuses to drink, ci St roanct obx’ Ardaraves pty ay petvuelowot, Asovucos d:, dy ueSurStew;t but I am convinced that these could not be used with truth, in reference to the character of the nobility of the middle ages. To propose giving instances illustrative of this assertion might well alarm a reader who was conversant with the pages of Wharton, Gou- get, Renaudot, Millot, Tiraboschi, or any of the great literary historians ei W OS * Olymp. xiii. ft Plutarch, Quest. Grace. § 36. t How to discern true Friends, cap. 16. 36 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, of Europe. But those who have only met with modern descriptions of the feudal age, which ascribe to it the character of their own, may not be unwilling to hear some evidence in proof that the dignity of a noble was not synonymous with a profound contempt and incapacity for every thing but the dull realities of a materialized existence. In the first age of French poetry there are recorded the names of Thibault de Mailly, of the illustrious house of Mailly, in Picardy, at that time one of the greatest in France, of Tristan, the chatelain of Coucy, and of Blondel, whose faithful attachment to King Richard I. of England was so celebrated in romantic annals. The oldest known poet of Provence was William IX. Count of Poictiers. In the time of St. Louis, nothing was more common than for great nobles and princes to be poets. Charles of Anjou, the king’s brother, and afterwards king of Naples, Henry of Soissons, who followed him to the crusade, Hen- ry, Duke of Brabant, Pierre Mauclere, Count of Brittany, Raoul, Count of Soissons, Thibaut, Count of Champagne, and King of Navarre, were all celebrated for their love and cultivation of poetry. ‘Thibaut, not con- tent with repeating his verses, had them written on the walls of his hall at Provins, and in that of Troyes. Henry of Soissons was a worthy rival, who followed St. Louis to the East, and was made prisoner at the battle of Massoura: so that what Pindar says of the Locrians Epizi- phyrians, might with strict justice be applied to the devout Paladins, who sought to deliver the Holy Land:— ——_—_——— Maas é ogiot Kaarnre Kak yaaneos 7 Agne,* And as at Corinth, where the bit was first joined to the rein of horses, and the eagle of Jove displayed upon the two parallel frontispieces of temples, and the sweetly-breathing Muse cultivated amidst the dreadful spears of heroes,t so to their towers might have been ascribed poesy and art, and the triumphs of a saintly warfare. How dear was poetry to Charlemagne, who collected all the ancient compositions of the bards! In the time of Charles, Duke of Orleans, father of Louis XII. and un- cle of Francis I. the greatest seigneurs of France aspired to be poets and men of learning; and as Gouget says, the majority of them were wri- ters. The Duke of Orleans had a noble genius and an admirable taste for poetry. In the manuscript collection of his poems on vellum, which the Abbé Gouget consulted, were also the poems of John Duc de Bour- bon, of Philippe-le-Bon, Duc de Bourgogne, of René D’ Anjou, of John of Lorraine, of the Duc de Nevers, of the Comte de Clermont, and of John, Duc d’Alengon. Spain, England, and Italy, could early boast of having poets among their highest princes and nobles. Illustrious women were inspired by the same enthusiasm. Margue- rite of Austria, while regent of Belgium, was the distinguished patron- ess of the poets, Jean Moulinet and Jean le Maire. She was herself a poet, and also an excellent prose writer: her most considerable work is the history of her misfortunes. The highest nobles of Germany fol- lowed in the same track, as Henry of Breslau, the Markgraf of Meis- sen, Otto of Brandenburg, John of Brabant, Ulrich von Lichtenstein, whose Castle of the Frauenburg was renowned in heroic song. * Olymp. x. Id. xiii. AGES OF FAITH, 37 The Swabian poets flourished a century later than the Provencal, and derived their models from them. Frederic I. composed a short history of Provence. Many verses of the Count Rudolf of N iimmburg resemble those of Folque of Marseille.* Celebrated in the middle ages were the German poets Hartmann von der Aue, who sung the Knights of the Round Table, Wernt of Gravenberg, who composed the Wiga- lois, Walther of the Vogelweide, Konrad of Wirzburg, Henry Frauen- lob Wolfgang Rihn, Marner Miglin, Klinsor, Boppo, Regenbogen, Konrad N achtigal, Herman Oertel, and Fritz Zorn, who composed the mystic twelve of the Niirnberg school, that were entitled the poets of the Wartburg. The wise grand master of the Teutonic order in the fourteenth century, Luther of Brunswick, loved poetry and music, and was himself a poet, Singing the praise of the Holy Barbara, a saint greatly venerated in the order, whose relics had been brought to Kulm by the brave Dietrick of Bernheim. His example had such an effect, that throughout all the land of Prussia a taste for poetry became gene- ral, and poetic paraphrases were made of the Prophet Daniel, and of the book of Job. The head convent of the order at Marienburg be- came the resort of minstrels and poets, some of whom were also knights and priests, who made religion and history the first subjects of their muse.t Spain could boast of her poetic princes: Don John the First, King of Arragon, was thought by his people to devote too much of his time to poetry; he lived always in the company of poets, whom he invited from every country.t Martin Franc, in his Champion des Dames, says, Lisez souvent au Breviaire, Du doulx poéte Alain chartier, Eslevez toujours le viaire A haultes besongnes traictier. This is an allusion to the Breviaire des Nobles, of which he says, that all knights, Le Breviaire de Maistre Alain, Doivent lire deux fois le jour. In fact, John le Masle, an Angevine, who has written a commentary on this poem, says, that in the time of our ancestors it was in such es- teem, that all pages and young gentlemen were obliged to learn it by heart, and to repeat it every day. The verses of these noble poets are often associated with the memory of an affecting and heroic history. John Regnier, escuyer and seigneur of Garchy, a counsellor of Philip the Good, was a great poet, whose affection for the poor was noticed in the last book. He had travelled, as he says, instigated by youthful de- sire to see strange countries, and had visited not only Italy and many parts of Europe, but also Greece, Turkey, the Holy Land, Armenia, and many other kingdoms. On his return he resided at Auxerre; but in the wars between Philip and Charles VII. of France, he was seized by the latter and imprisoned in a tower at Beauvais, which was oppo- site the cathedral. In his prison he composed many poems, one of Sri a A ee eh ss Se hh * Rosenkranz Geschichte des Deutschen Poesie im Mittelalter, 52, T Voigt. Geschichte Preussens, iv. + Diego Savedra Faxarda Christian Prince, tom. i. 62. 38 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, which was entitled, his fortunes and adventures, which begins with a devout prayer to Jesus Christ. The other prisoners, finding out his ta- lent, used to entreat him to write poems for them, which he did. One is entitled, for John Faulcon, a Norman esquire. Besides this, every solemn festival received his offering, that is, a poem on the subject which it commemorated. 'The poet, Charles de Clavison, who made it his pride that, in an age of heresy, he had always been attached to the Catholic religion, was a knight and lieutenant of the King of France; he dedicated his poems to his sister, Constance de Bauffre- mont, who was abbess of the royal monastery of Saint Menoulx. Here then, I conceive, is proof sufficient that the race of men during these ages of faith, loved and possessed the consolations of poetry: it may be required, however, to state briefly what were the merits of those compositions, and their claims to the honour of the Parnassian mount. In the first place, the enthusiasm with which they were received ought to be a sufficient warrant to us that they fulfilled at least one of the essential ends of poetry, which is to move and to exalt. In their rap- turous delight the men of these ages cried, ‘the course of the Loire swells with pride for having beheld the birth of Jean de Meun upon its banks.”? Jean de Meun, thus celebrated as a poet, who finished the Romance of the Rose, was a doctor of theology, and with him and Guillaume de Lorris, in about the year 1050, under Henry I., the French poetry may be said to have commenced.* Such was the admi- ration excited by Bernardo Accolti, in the time of Leo X., that when it was rumoured he was about to recite his verses the shops used to be shut, and the most learned men would crowd to hear him. The applause with which the divine comedy of Dante was received at the time, is attested by the fact of pulpits having been erected in many cities, from which it was expounded. Boccacio was employed for that purpose by the Florentine republic: to him succeeded in the same office Antonio Padovano and Philip Villani. In Bologna, Benve- nuto of Imola, became a public lecturer upon it in the year 1375. In Pisa, Francesco of Bartolo da Buti gave a similar course in the year 1386. The celebrated Giovanbatista Gelli, from being a shoemaker in the streets of Florence, became one of the greatest writers of ‘Tuscany, through the intense admiration which he conceived for the divine com- edy. He used to say, that after being born a Christian, he knew no greater happiness than to have been born in the country of Dante. Yet when that immortal poem first appeared, there was nothing new or sin- gular in its design, which was but a development of the deepest and loftiest thoughts that had long moved indistinctly through the minds of men, perpetuated by the tradition of many visions, like that related by St. Boniface, or that of the knight Tundal in Ireland, or that of Rotch- arius the monk, in the time of Charlemagne. But, in general, the char- acter of the poetry of the middle ages was religious, in so much that when poets produced works of a contrary tone, they were indebted for their success to the ingenious fervour, which enabled the people to put a devout construction upon them, and by means of a supposed allegorical sense to impart to them a holy character. Thus it was maintained, * L” Abbe Massieu, Hist. de la Poésie Frangaise, 67. AGES OF FAITH. 39 notwithstanding the indignation and impressive eloquence of Gerson, that the Romance of the Rose was all allegorical, and that it contained sublime wisdom to correct men, that no attention was to be paid to the letter, but that the deep religious sense was to be carefully investigated. This rose, so difficult to gather, was wisdom, truth, grace, Christian piety, salvation, and, finally, the beatific vision. ‘The Abbé Massieu says, that it is impossible not to smile at the simplicity with which all this is supposed in the editor’s preface. But still this judgment of its contemporaries is interesting; it shows that in these ages men exercised as much ingenuity in turning to a religious and virtuous sense what might have been really objectionable, as the moderns evince in detecting a bad motive for every production. For such ingenuity, indeed, there was no occasion in order to discern the religious sense of the greater poets of the middle ages, those monarchs of sublimest song, who even in their lightest productions, like Shakspeare, evinced the constant action of a profound revering spirit. Dante lived at the time of the crusades, when all Europe rose against Asia; and yet, as a French writer remarks, this immense and awful event was not the subject which seized his poetic imagination. There was in the interior of Europe something still greater than this sublime episode, that which was the cause of this prodigious movement, religion. ‘Three centuries later, the beautiful imagination of Tasso, amidst the delights of the court of Ferrara, found nothing more admirable to commemorate than the crusades. But even in presence of these holy wars, and while their memory was fresh, there was something still above them, the church, and it was this which he comprised in his mysterious and immortal Vision of the Life to Come. The example of St. Avitus, Archbishop of Vienne, has been already adduced as that of a pontiff and a poet. He was born in the middle of the fifth century, and was a firm suppor- ter of the Catholic faith against the Arians. His poems in hexameter verse, being six in number, are on the Creation, on Original Sin, on the Expulsion from Paradise, on the Deluge, on the passage of the Red Sea, and on the Praise of Virginity. The three first are only, as it were, cantos of one poem, which may be called the Loss of Paradise, and which modern critics acknowledge deserves to be compared with that of Milton, It has been thought by some, that his description of the garden of Eden is rather superior than inferior to that of the English poet; for, though so shortly removed from paganism, he mixes in his pictures fewer mythological images, the imitation of antiquity is less visible, and the description of the beauties of nature more varied and more simple. Like Milton, he has imparted to Satan some traits of his original state, and a certain vestige of moral grandeur ; he too has paint- ed Satan, at the moment when he enters Paradise and perceives Adam and Eve for the first time, “ Proh dolor, hoc nobis subitum consurgere plasma, Invisumque genus nostra crevisse ruina ? Me celsum virtus habuit, nunc ecce neglectus Pellor, et angelico limus succedit honori. Nec tamen in totum periit, pars magna retentat Vim propriam, summaque cluit virtute nocendi. Nil differre juvat: jam nunc certamine blando 40 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, Congrediar, dum prima salus, experta nec ullos Simplicitas ignara dolos ad tela patebit.” It will be easier, he continues, to deceive them while they are alone, and before they shall have launched a fruitful posterity into the eternity of ages. ‘«‘Immortale nihil terra prodire sinendum est ; Fons generis pereat, capitis defectio membris Semen mortis erit. Hec mihi dejecto tantum solatia restant: Si nequeo clausos iterum conscendere ccelos, His quoque claudentur: levius cecidisse putandum est Si nova perdatur simili substantia casu. Sit comes excidii, subeat consortia pene, Et quos prevideo nobiscum dividat ignes. Sed ne difficilis fallendi causa putetur, Hec monstranda via est, dudum quam sepe cucurri In pronum lapsus: que me jactantia celo Expulit, hec hominem Paradisi € limine pellat. Sic ait, et gemitus vocem clausere dolentis.” The departure from Paradise is thus described: *‘ His pater exactis, hoedorum pellibus ambos Induit, et sancta Paradisi ab sede rejecit. Tunc miseri egressum properant, mundumque vacantem Intrant, et celeri perlustrant omnia cursu. Et quanquam variis herbis ac gramine picta Et virides campos, fontesque et flumina monstrat, Illis foeda tamen species mundana putatur Post, Paradise, tuam, totumque videntibus horror. Quzque magis multo paradiso extenditur, illis Angustatur humus, strictumque tuentibus orbem Omnia lata nimis parent angusta duobus. Squallet et ipse dies, caussantur sole sub ipso Subductam lucem.” The middle ages were familiar with innumerable poems of a high moral interest, the fragments of which still charm and astonish us. Celebrated with our Anglo-Saxon ancestors was the poem of Beowulf, which has been termed a Gothic Iliad. It is so full of noble sentiments and poetic imagery, that the learned Dane, Grundtvig, affirms without hesitation, that any poet of any age might have been proud to have pro- duced such a work. Equally renowned were the song of the ‘Traveller in Anglo-Saxon, which is found in the great book at Exeter, bequeath- ed to the library of that cathedral by Bishop Leofric, at the close of the eleventh century, the triumphal song of the Battle of Brunanburh, and also the funeral dirge over Brithnoth, who, during the unhappy reign of Ethelred, fell gloriously fighting in the battle of Meldun. Genius, indeed, must not be estimated by years, nor is every old poem holy or inspiring; but yet what reader of taste at the present day does not recur with pure delight to those English poems of the middle ages, collected by Percy, Wharton, Ellis, and Scott, which recount the heroic deeds, the mourning, and the devout joys of our Catholic ances- tors?’ Many of these are by poets whose names have remained un- known; and some are said to have been the sole productions of their authors, who never made any other, like Tynnichus, the Chalcidian, who never composed any poem but that Pon, which Plato says all AGES OF FAITH. 41 used to sing, and which he affirms to be nearly the most beautiful of all hymns, the invention of which, having been without art, he therefore thinks was justly said to be divine rather than human.* In other works I have made use of these ancient Christian poems, in reference to the manners of chivalry, “ When all of wonderful and wild Had rapture for the lonely child.” The interest attached to the poetic associations of those days defies the cavils of modern criticism. Lord Byron, writing as a reviewer, at- tempted to despise the Lay of the Last Minstrel; but while he travelled amidst the beautiful scenes of Greece, he could not refrain from calling to mind, even at the court of Ali, the description of the castle of Brank- some. In turning to consider the merit of the early poets of France, we do not leave names and works of a domestic interest; for to Englishmen these old French poets were in some manner naturalized. Several of them had visited England, and were received in illustrious houses, where they nourished the genius of many of our own bards, and in- structed the youth of noble families; as was the case with Denisot. The poesies of Ronsard were a consolation to Mary Stuart, who used to read them in the days of her sorrowful captivity, and to find in them a relief that could lighten the burden of her chains.t The modern French have nothing to despise in these ancient poets, but rather from them they might learn simplicity and nature, as well as beauty and force of language. Even the Abbé Massieu admits that the old metrical ro- mances of France contained sometimes passages approaching the sub- lime. Where we least expect it, we find them giving to Christian vir- tue a most gracious, venerable, and august character, and striking terror into the guilty. Their object is not to represent the varieties of human character, but to move the soul with admiration and surprise, and that is the end which Aristotle had in view where he affirms that a phi- losopher is a lover of fables.t Henry Stephens made a collection of sentences from the old French romances, which he said were like Rab- bis for the knowledge of many things which belong to the French lan- guage. ‘These men, like Guillaume de Lorris, the Ennius of France, who began the Romance of the Rose, or like the songster of Limoges commemorated by Dante, could not at least be condemned as movers and fabricators of new words, an offence so alien from the office of a poet,|| though so common with those of our age who have risen to fame. Wil- liam of Malmesbury observes, that at the time when the English were fond of making use of abstruse and pompous words derived from the Greek, their greatest poet St. Aldhelm, Bishop of Shireburn, was remark- able for not using exotic words unless very rarely, and when they were necessary. In the descriptive poetry of the middle ages, there was not that fault of attempting to conquer difficulties which do not repay the conqueror, of describing what has no need of being described; objects are only named, and the rest is left to the imagination; a word or a comparison place them before our eyes. It did not resemble the de- i chet AREMD DE aN. A RRO 6 A, a * Plato Io. ¢ Gouget, Bibliotheq. Frangaise, tom. xii, 205. + Metaphysie. lib. i. ¢. 2. | Axistoph. Nubes, 1397. Vor. I1.—6 D2 42 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, scriptive poetry of our times, which, as Guizot justly remarks, is scien- tific rather than picturesque, and which, by dint of analysing objects minutely like an anatomist, makes them appear dissected and decom- posed. It is easy to perceive, too, in many instances, that this old poesy em- bodied the thoughts of men who possessed, as Marot says, ‘‘un gentil entendement.’”’ ‘The modern critic Gouget admits, in praise of the poet Andrieu du Hecquet, that he reproves vice without sourness, instructs without being morose, that he is playful without insolence, that he as- sumes a tone of irony without saying a word that is personal, and that he praises without flattery. Huet, though he derides the old romantic poetry, seems delighted to find that the learned Italians acknowledge that they learned it from the provengals. He remarks that the ancient romantic poems have served to throw much light upon the history of Spain, and to correct the order of its chronology; and though he affirms that D’Urfe was the first to elevate romances from barbarism, it is not to be doubted but that those old Spanish poems, which he so much despised, will survive the fame of that incomparable Astrea to which he assigned the palm. In truth, it appears that very high notions were entertained during these ages of the nature of poetry, and of the object to which its lightest effusions should be directed. The troubadour has songs for all kinds of glory, and a tear for all misfortunes. ‘‘ Jongle- rie,’’ says a contemporary of St. Louis, ‘‘has been instituted to put the good in the way of joy and of honour.’’ Then came the troubadours to sing the history of past times, and to excite the brave in relating the prowess of the ancients. Half a century afterwards the maintainers of the ‘gai savoir,”’ at Toulouse, exhorted poets to fly from sadness, and to make noble verses in order that all the world might be the more disposed to faith, and to virtue. ‘There was to be nothing childish or effeminate in their verse. ‘The advice given to them resembled that of Milon to Battos, recommending the choice of an heroic theme. TATA Ken Moy TeuvTac ey dAlwp avdgeac deldey" But as for these songs about private little domestic affections, it is only fit that you sing them to your mother at her toilet. MuSiodey +g pared nea’ ebvav deSewuodra'® Poetry, said they, is not to be degraded to an art merely administering to pleasure. The sages of antiquity had nobler sentiments respecting it, one of whom noticing the saying of the majority that the great object of poetry and music should be the giving pleasure to the soul, adds, but to utter such word is neither endurable in any manner, nor holy, aaaz TOUT ey OUTE dveRToY OUTS Orlov TO Wagamray o3,25ut So far I agree to the general opinion,”’ says Plato, ‘‘that music should be estimated by the delight which it inspires, but it is not by the delight of any one taken promiscuously ; but that is the most beautiful muse which delights the best men, and those who have been best educated—those who are most remarkable for their virtue. ‘Therefore, we maintain that virtue is an essential qualification for a judge of such things: for neither in the the- * Theocrit. Id. v. + Plato de Legibus, lib. i. AGES OF FAITH. 43 atre ought a true judge to take any notice of the clamour of the multi- tude, and of its undisciplined judgment. ‘The practice of determining the victory by the clapping of hands corrupted the poets themselves, who were induced to consult only the vicious pleasures of the multitude, and to look to them for instruction; and it corrupted the pleasure of the theatre, for it ought always to have exhibited better manners than those of the people, and to have inspired them with a sense of higher pleasure than their own.”* What a contrast is there between the judg- ment of the ancient sage respecting poetry, and that of our contempora- ries! ‘‘That which does not admit justice,” says Socrates, ‘does not admit any thing pertaining to the Muses, whatever is unjust is unpoeti- cal, “Apousoy 73 3 adixay.”t In their estimate of the importance and object of poetry, our ancestors adhered to the spirit of the ancient world, whose expressions only needed correction, as where Pindar says of their Apol- lo, that he invented the harp and bestows the Muse on whom he wills, in order to introduce peaceful law into the heart,{ and as where Hesiod says, in a connected strain, || that poets and kings are from the gods, for under a legitimate domination, the gifts of the Muses to men never seem to emanate from the demon. Nostradamus, in his lives of the Proven- cal poets, says, that the monk of the golden isles expressed himself as follows, respecting Phanette and Estaphanette, ‘‘‘They excel in poesy, having a kind of divine inspiration, ‘laquelle estoit estimée en vray don de Dieu.’”? Horace thought that the Iliad of Homer conveyed a better moral instruction than the works of the most able philosophers, and cer- tainly there is much to learn from the poets of the middle ages, though they might have little to expect from a critic like Quintilian, who excus- ing himself from deciding between the rival poets Sophocles and Eurip- ides adds, that no one need hesitate to aflirm that for all practical purpos- es Euripides is by far the more useful.§_ ‘To a judgment formed on loftier and less earthly views, the simplicity of their construction, the profound piety of their sentiments, the corresponding tone of candour and inno- cence which characterize them, attended with some degree of that Homer- ic excellence of sublimity in great things, and of propriety in small, for government may be learned from the names which they give to wines in the fabliaux, cannot but conciliate the affection even of the modern read- ers, and perpetuate the renown of books which were alike recommend- ed by the consent of the learned as well as by the love of boys. By the poets of the middle ages nature was shown in her totality with a holy earnestness. The solution for all temporal difficulties was sought for in the traditions of spiritual wisdom; and a grand universal view was exhibited of the origin and destiny of the human existence, as may be witnessed in that remarkable book entitled, «‘ Hortus Deliciarum,” composed in the twelfth century, by the ubbess Herrad of Landsberg, at St. Odilien, near Strasburg, for the instruction and recreation of her sisters. It may be remarked too, that there was nothing forced or still- born in the poetry of the middle ages, because it was in accordance with the living faith of men. It was Homeric and Virgilian not from a cold repetition of Pagan fable and exploded error, but because in accordance * De Legibus, lib. ii. t Plato, Phedo, 105. + Pyth. v. 63. || Theogon. § Instit. Orat. x. 1. 44 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, with the true ideal exposed by Tasso it was employed upon such themes as Homer and Virgil would have chosen if they had lived in Christian ages.* How well does Mamertus of Vienne direct his com- panion— *¢ Quanto major ab his cedet tibi gloria ceptis, In quibus et linguam exercens, mentem quoque sanctam Erudies, laudemque simul vitamque capesses : Dumque legis catus et scribis miracula summi Vera Dei, propior disces, et carior ipsi Esse Deo.” But with this principle constantly borne in mind, there was nothing to prevent a Christian poet from knowing and mentioning all things. It was said, that he should read all books, so that strange works ought to be found in his study. rs Mais cela n’est offense A un Poéte, a qui on doit lascher Ia bride Jongue, et rien ne lui cacher, Soit d’art magique, négromance, ou caballe, Et n’est doctrine escripte, ne verballe, Q’un vrai Poéte au chef ne deust avoir, Pour faire bien d’escrire son debvoir.”’ But whatever might be the multitude of discordant subjects to which he alluded there should be never any difficulty in discovering what was the poet’s own opinion; and heathen imagery was never to be used as a heathen would have applied it. Certainly no poet of the middle ages describing Adam and Eve in Paradise, would, like Milton, have com- pared them to Jupiter and Juno.t Nor have been obliged to say of Eve, ‘¢ With goddess-like demeanour forth she went.} Nor, on the other hand, would he like Milton have described angels in language that belonged rather to a heathen. What Villani chiefly admires in Dante, is the art by which he reconciled the ancient poets with Christianity, and transferred their treasures to illustrate the Christ- ian doctrine. In fact, the meek possessed all the intellectual as well as material riches of the earth, on the principle that was even known to Cicero. ‘‘Recte ejus omnia dicentur, qui scit uti solus omnibus.”’ || In the poetry of Dante, Guinicelli, Cavalcanti, and even Petrarch, were united philosophy and theology, civil science and poetry, the beautiful and the divine, earth and heaven, not from a defective direction of the intelligence as the modern sophists affirm,§ but from a thorough initia- tion into the mysteries of wisdom, and in accordance with that divine fiat which gave to the poor in spirit, and to the meek, both heaven and earth. To the ages of faith was unknown that erroneous philosophy which first appeared in France during the time of the fourteenth Louis, which rendered men scrupulous and afraid, whenever they beheld reli- gion attended with the chorus of glorious and beautiful offerings of na- ture, and which taught that men could not have fancy as their compan- ion along with reason as their guide. The great spiritual writers had shown to the exclusive admirers of every thing positive the danger of * Dialoghi degl’ Idoli. + Book iv. 500. + Book viii. 59. | De Finibus, lib. iii. 22. § Antichita Romantiche d'Italia, ii. 213. AGES OF FAITH. 45 affecting to despise poetry. ‘‘’There are some,” says Taulerus, ‘in this life who too quickly bid adieu to images before truth has delivered them from their power: and because they deliver themselves they scarcely or never can attain to truth.’ ‘The danger arising from the power of the imagination when not under the control of reason, that Socratic medicine, as Cicero terms it, was indeed never more carefully and acutely explained than in the writings of St. Anselm and other masters of the school, in which we may find passages exactly parallel to that sentence of ieck, that if the feelings and imagination succeed in setting up their own supremacy, and in overthrowing reason, then each of our higher impulses begets a giant as its son, that will war against God. For doubt, wit, unbelief, and scoffing, are not the only faculties that fight against God; our imagination, our feelings, our en- thusiasm, may do the same, though at first they seem to supply faith with so safe and mysterious an asylum.’’ In the blessed John of the Cross, the holy Theresa found a monitor to correct those wanderings of the imagination which had sometimes caused her so much pain, and who enabled her to read from experience that the imagination and the understanding, as she says, are not the same thing.* It was not over- looked that the possible errors of fancy are as great and their delusions as dangerous as those of reason; but neither was it unobserved in those times which beheld the fall of an Abailard, that as Frederick Schlegel says, there was much more occasion for pointing out the errors incident to reason, than for anxiously warning men against the possible abuse of fancy.t Upon the whole, therefore, to the philosophic views of the ages of faith, the object and employment of poetry were not different from those of religion. ‘Tasso says, that the poem of Dante has con- templation for its object ;+ and accordingly we find that many of the poets then renowned, never began to compose without a formal and de- vout invocation of the Almighty.|] Moral and pious reflections in verse are mixed up with their histories, as in that celebrated account of the life of Louis de la 'Tremouille, by John Bouchet, who proposed as his chief object to edify and instruct young knights in their various duties, as also in his book “ Séjour des trois nobles Dames,”’ though it was written for a particular occasion on the death of Arthur de Goufier, in which he says, that his object is to inspire hope and comfort to all per- sons in adversity, and to supply brief instruction to teach men how to pass the perilous ways of this dispiteous world. Thus again, Claude Mermet entitled the collection of his poems, the past time of Claude Mermet, of Saint Rambert in Savoy, a poetical work sententious and moral, to give profitable instruction to all persons who love virtue. One poem of Arthur Desire, is entitled, Les Batailles et Victoires du Cheva- lier Céleste contre le Chevalier Terrestre. Raoul de Houdan, of whom Huon de Merry says, that no mouth of a Christian ever said things so well, composed a work entitled, the Story of the Way of Hell, which those follow who go to visit the Lord of Hell, ‘* Plaisant chemin et bon- ne voye.”’ As they began with a religious invocation, so they used to fin- ish with a devout prayer. Thus concludes John Ruyr one of his poems: * The Castle uf the Soul, iv. dwelling. { Philosophie der Sprache, 180. t Discorsi sul Poema Enrico, i. || Gouget, Bibliotheque Frangaise, tom. xi. 4. 46 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, “ Jesus soit mon art studieux, Et sa sainte croix mon volume.” And the only reward which Martin France requires for his long labours in the composition of the Champion des Dames in defence of women, to disprove the slanders brought against them in the Romance of the Rose, is that they for whom he has composed it, would please to pray for him that he might obtain the kingdom of Paradise. Many of these poets, too, were themselves men of innocence or of sincerely pen- itential lives. Such were Luis of Leon, Gower, Lydgate, Southell, T'asso, Dante, and Petrarch. ‘The exquisite Latin poems of Marc Anto- nio Flamminio, the friend of Cardinal Pole, are associated with the image of the most amiable of men, those of Vida, Bishop of Alba, with that of a prelate whose generous disposition had endeared him to the poor, those of Sannazzaro with that of a poet comparable to Virgil, whose heart was ever bent on heavenly musings. In reply to the heir of Petrarch, and on hearing of his death, Boccacio says in his epistle, ‘After having read your letter, I wept all night for my dear master ; not indeed for him; his prayers, his fasts, his life, permit me not to doubt his happiness, but I wept for myself.’ Philip Villani relates that when Petrarch had grown mature with age, he devoted himself without intermission to the study of theology, to the ecclesiastical office, to prayers and fasting, and that he lived piously and with simplicity. How engaging is the portrait which John Bouchet gives of the poet Pierre Riviere, in the verses which he placed on the tomb of * this child of Poitiers.”’ ‘¢ En son jeune ge il fut fort studieux, A Dieu devot, aux gens trés-gratieulx, Humble et courtois, et de bonne nature, Prisé de tous par sa littérature.” The poet John le Masle, who expressly sung the moral excellence of poets, and their honest freedom, and who was celebrated as the com- mentator on the Bréviaire des nobles of Alain Chartier, who had so well explained all the virtues and perfections which belong to the nobility of a gentleman, could bear this testimony to himself, that he had never sought— “ Pour estre grand en biens, se mettre en servitude, Mais tousjours libre et franc, a mis tout son estude, A poursuir la vertu.” These are examples and lessons which ought not to be withheld from the youth of our times, which is in such danger of losing sight of the true ideal of the poet, familiar to men in ages of faith, and of mistaking for it the gloomy and delusive phantom of modern genius. ‘The human intelligence is, to the ear of faith, like the statue of Memnon, which sends forth no harmonious sound, unless it be shone upon by the sun of justice. Without those rays to sanctify it, the extraordinary gifts of the Creator may astonish and impart a transitory pleasure to wretched mortals; though, after all, what is Childe Harold by the side of Dante, or Juan compared with the hero of the Jerusalem? but they can never yield a complete and unfailing joy. Sad, at all events, and unutterably miserable is the attempt of those who look to them for models of imita- tion. Modern literature shows how easy it is to catch the licentious- AGES OF FAITH. 47 ness and the gloom, without the freedom and the depth of Byron, the frivolity of the Troubadour without his grace and tenderness. As Marot says, in allusion to the celebrated but immoral poet Villon,— «“ Peu de Villons en bon savoir, Trop de Villons pour decevoir.” But how feeble is language to express the desolation which awaits genius misdirected, and employed to an unholy end, when, as in this once gay and licentious Villon, it beholds the early victims of its influ- ence prematurely departing, and itself comfortless, self-tormented, and alone! Would you hear the mournful testimony of an old poet to the inefficacy of his art to sweeten such days: «Quand on est jeune, en grand esbattement Pour passe-temps et pour contentement, C’est un plaisir de sonner la musette ; Mais puis aprés, quand l’age et la disette Surprennent tost le poéte estonné, Alors s’en va son chant mal entonné, Diminuant tout petit a petit, Car de sonner il pert tout appetit : Alors il hait sa musette et sa muse; Si elle s’offre, il la jette et refus.” St. Fortunatus of Poictiers taught the same lesson in his poem on hu- man life: “Cum venit extremum, neque Musis carmina prosunt, Nec juvat eloquio detinuisse melos. I am not ignorant that there is a dark and deplorable side belonging to the poetic history of the middle ages; but I reserve my observations respecting it to a future place, where I shall speak in general of the virtue and vice which distinguished them, for the modern opinions will necessarily require an explanation, with respect to the profligacy of the licentious poets, when we may be able to place the fact of their exist- ence in its just and natural point of view. At the present, let us direct our attention for a moment to the theatre, as it was reconstituted in the middle ages. All things, say the teachers of divine wisdom, are lawful to the pure; but some are so essentially tyrannical, so powerful and universal in their tendency to bring men into subjection, to give force to the passions, and to enervate those higher powers of the immortal nature which are to wage war against the ancient serpent, that Christianity has pronounced them to be eternally separate from the sphere of her dominion, and from an association with her consoling promises respect- ing the enjoyments of a future life. In the form of the ancient world, the theatre evidently stood condemned on different grounds, but whether it was possible to revive it in any other, so as not to have it included among those things, through prudence, and almost necessity, forbidden, was a problem which did not admit of an easy solution. Some, in con- sidering it, might indeed be influenced by caution and unwillingness to sanction any unnecessary restraint which might affect the interests of human genius, while others, with equal zeal in behalf of poesy, might question whether the interests of intelligence were really so concerned in the result as was pretended. Probably it would be very easy to have demonstrated that they were not; and, indeed, the experience and 48 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, testimony of men the most removed from ascetical influence, will go far to show that the grandest creations of dramatic poets are not developed by a representation on the stage of a theatre. But, however that ques- tion be determined, it is certain that genius lost that instrument of expression when the belief in the heathen mythology was destroyed. From that hour the real dramatic effect, in relation to higher poetry, could only be revived on the stage by an alliance between the theatre and the Christian faith, an association most difficult, most delicate, which it was obvious could not be accomplished until the Church had seen many ages and generations of her children, and which if ever formed, the least relapse to heathen incredulity, or the scepticism of later philosophers, the least relaxation or diminution of simplicity and faith, would inevitably and for ever abolish. Such an union, however, did take place during the middle ages, and it was at an end when they closed, and from thenceforth the genuine children of the muse, they who had really drunk deep of the spirit of A%schylus and Sophocles, might have regarded with the utmost indifference the controversy re- specting dramatic representation between the Church and the self-ima- gined poets who sought to identify the interests of human genius with the success of their art and the encouragement given to their own pro- fession. ‘This brief statement may serve to account for the seeming inconsistency in the language of the clergy, who at one time cry out with the primitive Christians, What union is possible between the Gospel and the muses, between Calvary and the theatre? and at another, are heard to invite men to the new plays, which they have themselves composed, and in which their students perform characters, at the same time that they are condemning actors in ordinary theatres, saying, with John of Salisbury, that it is unquestionably a shameful thing to be an actor; ‘‘satius enim fuerat otiari quam turpiter occupari,”’ declaring that actors and buffoons are excluded from the holy commun- ion while they persevere in their malice, thence leaving the patrons and favourers of actors and buffoons to collect what awaits themselves, if those who do and those who consent are to be punished alike,* and adopting as a passage to be for ever read by their successors in their office for the vigil of Pentecost, the solemn words of St. Augustin, which refer to the theatre in its ordinary state, in that to which it had always a tendency to return: ‘these things you must renounce, not in word alone, but in deed, and in all the acts of your life. For you are caught and discovered by your cunning enemy, when you profess one thing and perform another, faithful in name and not holding the faith of your promise, at one time entering the church to pour forth prayers, and shortly after in the theatres crying out shamelessly with actors. Quid tibi cum pompis diaboli quibus renuntiasti?’’f The history of the Christian drama, though in many respects inter- esting, need not detain us long: its first efforts are witnessed in those mysteries, as they were termed, of the nativity, of the passion, of the resurrection, and of the acts of the apostles. This forced union, which, however, be it remembered, was the only possible device for affording to a Christian society a dramatic representation of the highest tone, is * De Nugis Curialium, lib. i. c. 8. + Tractat. de Symbol. ad Catechumen. AGES OF FAITH. 49 one of the chief grounds for the accusation of crossness and barbarism brought against the ages of faith by modern writers, who thus enable us to estimate pretty clearly the consistency of their own faith as Christ- ians, and the depth of their sagacity as philosophers. In the villages, on the patronal feasts, the mysteries of their respective patrons and of other saints, used to be performed when every cone would contribute, from the baron who lent his finest tapestry, to the poorest rustic, who gave his labour to construct the stage. ‘There were pious spectacles at Paris, Metz, Angers, Poictiers, Rouen, Limoges, and in other cities of France. At Rheims, in the year 1624, the mysteries of the saints were transferred to the theatres of colleges. The personages were not liber- tines, adulterers, robbers and gamesters, but angels, apostles, doctors of the law, scribes, and tyrants. ‘The people were so familiarized with these scenes, that if any actor of the troop were absent, there was al- ways some young man ready to take his’ part, and play an angel or a martyr. In England, the first trace of dramatic representation is found in the history of Matthew Paris, where he relates that Geoffrey, a learned Norman, master of the school of the abbey of Dunstable, com- posed the play of St. Catharine, which was acted by his scholars in the year 1110. Another writer, in 1174, mentions that religious plays were acted in London, representing either the miracles wrought by holy confessors, or the sufferings of the martyrs. ‘The Gray Friars at Coy- entry used to represent mysteries on the festival of Corpus Christi, comprising the story of the Old and New Testament, composed in the old English rithme, which used to attract vast multitudes of people to the city. In the year 1483 Richard HI. visited Coventry in order to see the plays, and in 1492 they were acted in presence of Henry VII. and his queen. In every great castle the children of the chapel used to act religious plays during the twelve days of Christmas and at Corpus Christi. There is notice of this in the Earl of Northumberland’s household book. In every college pieces of this kiftd used to be per- formed. The confraternities of the mysteries were composed of per- sons of the most innocent manners and of the purest intentions; and who can doubt but that these spectacles tended to keep men familiar with the themes which should be ever dearest to the Christian family ?* At the same time it is to be remembered that, owing to incorrigible abu- ses, they were not every where equally favoured by the encouragement of the religious. The reply of the Sacristan, in the convent of the Franciscans at Poictou, to Villon, who came to borrow a magnificent cope, to be borne by one of his actors in the piece entitled The Passion, proves that such spectacles were sometimes regarded with displeasure by the clergy.t With respect to the literary merit of these pieces, their most disdainful antagonists admit that they are enlivened by boldness of incident, and that occasionally they evince an unexpected tenderness and delicacy of expression. It was from one of these plays called Adam *See Monteil, Hist. des Francais, tom. iii. Hist du Théatre Francais, par Parfait, tom. i. 11. Hist. de Poésie Francaise, par Abbé Massieu, régne de Charles VII. Historia Universitatis Parisiensis a Buleo, annis 1469, 1483, 1487. Antiq. de Paris, par Sauval. Wharton, Hist. of English Poetry, &c. } Hist. de Poésie Frangaise, par ? Abbé Massieu, 257. Vor. U1.—7 E 50 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, and Eve, which Milton saw represented in Italy, that he is said to have taken the first hint for his poem of Paradise Lost. In Catholic coun- tries, at the present day, there are sometimes to be seen, at banquets, certain religious shows in miniature, representing the annunciation, the nativity, or the epiphany, and the kind of galvanic effect which these innocent spectacles produce upon the sophists would be unaccountable, if one had not perceived that they were associated with a deep religious feeling, the attempt to recall which produces in minds that detest God, those paroxysms, which are supposed to arise only from the pain which all indications of a popular and barbarous taste occasion in per- sons of delicacy and philosophic refinement. When brought unexpect- edly in presence of these innocent representations, they rail like the demoniac who came out from the tombs, and sometimes might be observed to use almost his words: ‘ Quid mihi et tibi est, Jesu Fili Dei altissimi? obsecro te ne me torqueas.”’* ‘There were other spectacles exhibited in the middle ages to which I shall merely allude. ‘Those professedly ludicrous, though associated with solemn forms, were offen- sive abuses against which the clergy loudly protested. Contemporary writers speak of them with the utmost abhorrence, and yet perhaps they were only the indication of a natural disposition which belongs to men in their noblest state, which merely required to be directed and modera- ted. Miiller speaks of the inclination of the Doric race to mirth and merriment, under which a very serious character was frequently con- cealed ;+ and, in fact, when these diversions of the middle ages are des- cribed, we might imagine that we were reading of those sports of the Lacedemonians which mingled in the same breath the grave and solemn lessons of philosophy, and the most ludicrous mimicry and buffoonery. Persius, the disciple of the Stoic sect, made Sophron the mimographer, the model of his satires; and the grave and philosophic Sparta was the only Greek state in which a statue was erected to laughter. Religion, indeed, would have the right to reject such a plea in mitigation of sen- tence, but when human wisdom proudly inveighs, we may, in justice to the character of the middle ages, reply, with the historian of the Doric race, that among that people the strictest eravity was found closely uni- ted with the most unrestrained jocularity and mirth; in the same man- ner as the modern society can lay claim to neither; for as every real jest requires for a foundation a firm, rigorous, and grave disposition of mind, so moral indifference and a frivolous temperament not only des- troy the contrast between eravity and jest, but annihilate the spirit of both. sg NR AA i A A ee et eae emme eel een oer Se a * Luc. vill. 28. + Hist. of the Dorians, Book iii. c, 10. ’ AGES OF FAITH. 51 CHAPTER V. RETURNING now to matters of more interest, we should observe that from the very nature and origin of the Christian religion, there was clearly no inconsistency between its principles and the possession of human learning. ‘Truth admits of no separations or exclusions. In the first astonishment of the awakening soul of men and of nations, when apprised of the advent of the Son of God, it was indeed to be expected that there would be a temporary suspension of all intellectual exercise, and a total obliteration from the memory of all former and perishable things ; but the universal and continued indulgence in such a quiescent state would, beyond all doubt, be contrary to the order of Providence, and opposed to the intentions of the Divine announcement. They who had been permitted to see the end of all perfection were at the same time made sensible that the commandment was very broad. ‘The inter- ests of truth sometimes required the employment of learning to illustrate and confirm it, and the Divine promises sanctioned the enjoyment of its advantages in declaring that the meek should possess the earth. St. Clemens Alexandrinus was the first among the Christians to attack the profane authors with their own arms, and to make use of their learning. Origen followed in that track, but as St. Augustin says, ‘the faithful always accommodated what was good to their own use, wherever it was found. How much gold and silver,”’ he says, ‘¢ did the blessed martyr Cyprien carry away from Egypt?) How much Lactantius? How much Victorinus? Optatus? Hilarius? We ought not to disdain what is good in the learning and arts of the heathens : ‘¢imo vero quis- quis bonus verusque Christianus est, Domini sui esse intelligat ubicun- que invenerit veritatem.”* St. Basil, treating expressly on the advanta- ges to be derived from the learning of the Gentiles, found much to praise in Homer and the Pythagoreans. The Greek fathers, indeed, are known to have endeavoured to imitate the style of Demosthenes and Homer ;t and the importance which they attached to the beauties of literature, may be inferred from that work of Apollinarius, Bishop of Laodicea, who, when Julian published his decree, forbidding the Christians to be in- structed in ancient learning, in order to supply the faithful with a speci- men of every kind of composition, according to the design of St. Gregory Nazianzen, formed the writings of the Evangelists and those of the Apostles into dialogues, in the style of Plato. Even St. Jerome had not omitted the study of the heathen writers, and in writing to Magnus, a Roman orator, he observes that the ecclesiastical writers who preceded him had always used this liberty. ‘The passage in which he describes his ancient fondness for learning, is truly remarkable. ‘* When I was young,” saith he, «I was carried away by a wonderful ardour for learn- ing, nor did I presume, like some others, to be my own teacher. I heard Apollinarius at Antioch, and worshipped him, yet I would never * De Doctrin. Christiana, lib. ii. cap. 18. 40. + Mabillon de Studiis Monasticis, pars li. c. 15. 52 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, receive his contentious dogmas, When my hair became gray, and be- spoke rather the master than the disciple, I went to Alexandria and heard Didymus. I was grateful to him, for I learned what I had not known before, and I did not lose from his teaching what I had before known. Men thought that I would make an end of learning, yet I proceeded again to Jerusalem and to Bethleem. With what labour and cost had I Bar-aninam for my nocturnal preceptor! for he feared the Jews like Nicodemus. Of all these men I make frequent mention in my works. Certainly Apollinarius and Didymus differ on many points, so that I was borne to one side and the other, for I confessed both of them as my masters! I have read Origen. If there be a crime in reading, | must confess myself guilty. Yet I never admitted his errors: his genius would never have displeased me. Lactantius writes a detestable sen- tence in his Institutes, yet who would forbid me to read that powerful work because of that one sentence? In like manner I may apply to - Origen without fearing his poison. Physicians say that great diseases, being incurable, should be left to nature, lest medicaments should agera- vate the evil. I have never sought, therefore, to transfer these errors of Origen into the Latin tongue, and to publish them to the world. Non enim consuevi eorum insultare erroribus quorum miror ingenia. If Or- igen were alive again, he would be indignant at you his admirers, who have made known his errors; and he would say with Jacob, ‘odicsum me fecistis in mundo.’ Let us not imitate his vices whose virtues we cannot follow. But the books of Origen may be read with profit for their learning and useful matter, and they who object to this should re- member, that if there be a woe against those who eall evil good, there is also one against those who call good evil.”* It is a modern discovery that the Christian literature of early ages is unworthy of the attention of scholars. Petrus Crinitus, the friend of Politian and Picus of Mirandu- la, says “that he cannot express with what delight he studies the Greek and Latin fathers, for their writings seem to him to be treasuries in which there is such a varied and multifarious learning and knowledge of all things, that they contain nearly all laws and sentences of philoso- phy, and nearly all antiquity.”’+ The tragedy composed by St. Grego- ry Nazianzen, of which I have already spoken, shows how early it was the desire of the Christians to avail themselves of the beauties of heathen literature. We do not find them paying any attention to the medium through which they might have to pursue intellectual riches. ‘The cel- ebrated Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II. studied for three years at the Moorish university of Cordova, where the sciences of mathematics and medicine were cultivated with great success. It was this pope who introduced the use of the Arabic figures into Christian Europe. St. Au- gustine scrupled not to make use of the writings of Tichonius, a Dona- . tist; and Mabillon, in his treatise on monastic studies, recommends the Prolegomena of Walton, and the proofs of Christianity by Grotius, and proves that it is consistent with the monastic duties to consult the wri- tings of heretics, when they contain nothing contrary to truth.{ Of the importance attached to learning in the estimation of men, during the ages neuen pant aes Sean aM ES * Bpist. lvi. xli. + De honesta Disciplina, lib. viii. 1. + T'ractat. de Studiis Monast. Preefat. pars il. cap. 2. § 2. AGES OF FAITH. 53 of faith, we have evidence in almost all the ecclesiastical monuments which have come down to us. We find St. Augustin exposing the folly and criminality of certain enthusiasts, who were for dispensing with the trouble of learning languages, from expecting a particular inspiration, and even for despising all who did not pretend to it as deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit. ‘Let us not tempt Him in whom we believe,” says the holy Augustin, ‘lest being deceived by such craftiness of the enemy, we should become unwilling even to enter the churches to hear the Gos- pel, or to attend to any man reading or preaching, being inflamed with the hope of being carried up to the third heaven like the Apostle, there to hear ineffable words, and there to see our Lord Jesus Christ, and from him, rather than from men, to hear the Gospel. ‘ Caveamus tales tentationes superbissimas et periculosissimas.’’’* St. Jerome, too, re- proves certain persons who condemned him for his application to learn- ing, and who esteemed themselves as saints because they knew nothing.t ‘‘ Join yourself to a virtuous, tractable, and learned man,”’ is the advice of an ascetic writer of the middle ages. The decay of learning, during the convulsions which attended the in- vasion of the barbarians, was regarded as a great calamity by the Christ- ian clergy, whose affecting lamentations over the fall of letters, were a proof how highly they esteemed them. St. Gregory of Tours, in the preface of his history says, ‘the study of letters and of liberal sciences, perishing in the cities of Gaul, amidst the good and the bad actions which were there committed, while the barbarians were given up to ferocity, and their kings to fury, while the churches were alternately en- riched by devout men and plundered by the infidels, there has appeared no grammarian, skilful in the art of dialectics, to undertake the descrip- tion of these things in prose or verse, so that many men lament, saying, Woe to us! the study of letters perishes among us, and there is no one who can record the facts of this time; seeing that, I have thought it right to preserve, although in an uncultivated language, the memory of past things, that future men may be made acquainted with them.”’ ‘The promotion of learning was a constant object of solicitude with the sove- reign pontiffs. ‘* We are bound,’’ says Pope Alexander III. to Peter Abbot of St. Remé, ‘*to provide with so much the more care for the convenience of learned and devout men, as the fruit and utility are great which result from their labours to the churches of God.’ And ina sub- sequent age we find that it was the Roman pontiffs who encouraged the learned scholars, who devoted themselves to searching for precious man- uscripts, like Poggio, the successive secretary to eight popes. Nicho- las V. promised five thousand ducats to him who should produce a man- uscript of St. Matthew in Hebrew, and he made Rome an asylum for the learned men of the East, when they fled from the Mahometans, car- rying with them their literary treasures. It was the popes who assisted and supported the first printers, as the workmen of Faust and Schoeffer, on their removal to Rome. It was a pope, the great St. Gregory, so falsely accused of having burnt the library of Mount Palatine, which must have perished long before his time, who was the patron of scholars * De Doctrina Christiana Prolog. t Hpist, xxv. + Thom. de Kempii Hortulus Rosarum, 1. E 2 54 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, throughout the universal church. Of the wide diffusion of learning, during the middle ages, the generality of modern writers seem not to be aware, nor, on the other hand, of the very confined limits within which its influence extended before the rise and propagation of the Church. At the commencement of the Christian era, we find that books were so scarce, and the means of communicating them so scanty, that the great- est writers were often unknown to their contemporaries. ‘Thus Strabo is not once quoted by Pliny or by any other contemporary naturalist, nor is Aretin by Galen. It is probable that they were not aware of each other’s existence. Whereas in the middle ages, in the vast society of the Church, by means of communication with Rome, and the inter- course which was carried on between monasteries, learned and holy men, though separated at the greatest distances, were known to each other, and Europe became one immense republic of letters. Schlegel shows that from the time of Charlemagne manuscripts were multiplied in the West with more profusion than they had ever been in the most polished times of antiquity, so that the writings of Greece and Rome were now studied and commentated upon in remote and desolate regions, to which, if it had not been for the ecclesiastical society, their fame would have never reached. We find the monk of Melrose, who wrote a chronicle of that abbey, quoting the fourth book of Aristotle de Ani- malibus, and the eighth of Pliny’s Natural History. In the fifth and sixth centuries, amidst the dreadful shock of the fall of the Roman em- pire and the desolation of Europe, by the barbarous hordes, Ireland, from its situation, as Baron Cuvier remarks, being at a distance from the ruin, became the asylum of learning, and monks from Ireland then proceeded to carry back the torch to the devastated regions of Gaul and Germany. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that the ancient learn- ing at any time wholly perished in any part of the empire. St. Augus- tin speaks of the wide diffusion of the Latin language as an event mira- culous, and a result of the special providence of God to facilitate the work of evangelizing the nations. In the fourth and fifth centuries, the Latin was spoken in all the Gauls to the Rhine, as well as in Spain and Italy. So late as the time of St. Bernard, the people generally under- stood Latin; and Mabillon places it among his questions, whether the sermons of St. Bernard were originally composed in the Latin or in the Romance. There was in Europe, as a modern French critic observes, a kind of intellectual republic, which was styled ‘‘omnis Latinitas.”’ It is certain that St. Bernard sometimes preached in Latin, and his secreta- ry says of him, that his eloquence and wisdom are celebrated ‘ through all Latinity.”’ Yet he preached also in the Roman wallon, or language of the country. In the seventh and eighth centuries it was in Latin that even popular songs were composed. When Clotaire II. gained a vic- tory in the north of France, his army celebrated it by a Latin song. It appears, from the Life of St. Eloy, by St. Ouen, that in the seventh century the upper classes of Rouen were familiar with Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Herodotus, and Homer, with Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Virgil, Menander, Plautus, Horace, Solinus, Varro, and also with other authors, of whom we have now nothing but the catalogue of their writings.* * See Recherches sur I’ Hist. Relig. et Lit. de Rouen, 41. AGES OF FAITH. 55 St. Gregory of Tours relates that King Gontran, making his entry into Orleans, was received with greetings in Syriac and in Latin; for in consequence of commercial relations, the oriental languages were then taught in the schools of Paris. The chronicles of these ages speak of many saints who were skilled in the Roman law. At the end of the seventh century, St. Bonet, Bishop of Clermont, was learned in the decrees of Theodosius, and St. Didier, Bishop of Cahors, from the year 629 to 654, applied himself to the study of the Roman law. The tenth century is that age of deplorable fame which is said to have been in- volved in extreme darkness,—insomuch, that the heretics have made it a ground to deny the perpetual and uncorrupt transmission of the doc- trine of the Church. Mabillon, aided by his unbounded learning, ex- amines the history of this period, and comes to a result widely different from theirs: he even proves that the complaints of Cardinal Baronius* can only be justified by a regard exclusively directed to the state of Rome and Italy at that moment; for that a view of the universal Church will demonstrate that, although there were then indeed many evils to be deplored, yet all things were not so deplorable but that there were some remains of ancient learning; nay, it will show that there were then many men of the most eminent sanctity and of sound learning, who were able to transmit the uncorrupt doctrine of the Church to pos- terity. No age is void of moral darkness. The holy Fathers in prim- itive times lamented the reign of wickedness and ignorance: this we too lament, and this our posterity will lament also; but never does the Church lose the savour of sanctity and of learning which she received from Christ.t Ignorance is the punishment of sin; but they who say this, continues the master of the sentences, should consider diligently, that not every one who is ignorant of something, or who knows some- thing less perfectly, is therefore in such ignorance, or ought to be called ignorant; because that only should be called ignorance when what ought to be known is not known. Such ignorance is the punishment of sin when the mind is obscured with vice, so as not to be able to know the things which it ought to know.{ This is a darkness which involved the race of men in no age of the Church’s history; but the light of human learning in Italy was no doubt in the tenth century ob- scured, though even then, as Henrion justly remarks, the object of studies was good, since it embraced doctrine and morals, the only things in reality of which the knowledge is essential.| In the eleventh it broke forth again in the various congregations of learned Benedic- tines, the success of whose labours are acknowledged by the moderns themselves; but even in the tenth century other nations enjoyed greater learning: for, it is a mistake of Villemain, when he affirms that Italy had uninterruptedly remained more civilized than every other part of Europe.§ Spain, though oppressed under the yoke of the Arabians, beheld those great prelates, Gennadius of Asturia, Attilanus Zamoren- sis, Sisenand and Rudesind of Compostello ; and the state of the Church with regard to learning, in Germany, France, England and Ireland, was a a a i en oD * Ad. An. 900. { Prefat. in V. Secul. Benedict. § 1. + Petr. Lombardi, lib. ii. distinct. xx. \| Hist. de la Papauté, tom. iii, 177. § Tableaux de la Litterature au Moyen Age, i. 97. 56 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, far happier. Bruno, brother of Otho.the great, and Archbishop of Co- logne in that age, is thus described in the chronicle of Magdeburg: ‘‘He was endowed with a great genius; he was great in Jearning, and in all virtue and industry. Being appointed by King Otho to preside over the untameable Lotharian nation, he delivered the country from robbers, he instructed it with legal discipline, he loved the flock com- mitted to him, he saved many from error,—some, by assiduous disputa- tions, leading to better things, and others, by maturity of learning, in- flaming with a holy desire:—mild in speech, humble in learning, a destroyer of evils, an asserter of truth, gentle to the subject, severe to the proud, and fulfilling in his own life what he taught to others.”” Of Rotgerus, a German bishop in the tenth century, we read that he was versed in Greek and Latin, and that wherever he went he used to carry about with him his library, like an ark of the Lord.* Modern critics have remarked, that the prodigious number of books published during the twelfth century, attests the existence of a multitude of readers. They admit, that in the city and feudal life of those times, a great number of persons, of all classes, employed themselves in read- ing, and in reasoning on the books they read.t Even the Provengale poetry of the Troubadours, is not free from the influence of classical antiquity ; for it contains some literal imitations from the Latin poets, and one ‘Troubadour expressly cites Plato, Homer, and Virgil. ‘That classical learning was at no time wholly neglected, might be inferred from the writings of many whom obscure fame hath concealed from ordinary readers; + but the compositions of distinguished men through- out the series of ages, place that point beyond question. ‘To attempt to give an adequate idea of the learning of the clergy during the ages of faith, would be wholly inconsistent with the very narrow limits prescrib- ed to this inquiry, and indeed it would be also on other grounds deserv- ing of ridicule, since it would indicate great presumption in one who is himself without learning, to pretend to estimate that of others. It is not for a mere spy to feel ambitious to mount the horses of Achilles. Nevertheless, I fain would say something on this subject, not only be- cause one feels as it were arrested irresistibly by the kind of solemn and romantic interest which is attached to it, but also in consideration of its extreme importance, independent of what is required to be shown in this place: for though many good men may be disposed to think lightly of such disquisitions, there is reason to believe that the strong hold of heresy in many heads consists in the opinion, that during the middle ages, men were ignorant to such a degree as to be incapable of distin- guishing truth from error, history from fable. When Mabillon published his Treatise on Monastic Studies, in which he proved the antiquity, universality, and great importance of the study of learning in the religious orders, the celebrated Armand de Rancé sent forth a reply, in which he disproved the necessity for such studies in members of the monastic order, and proceeded even to criticize, with considerable severity, that part which related to the conduct of the an- * Mabillon, Pref. in V. Secul. Ben. § 2. { Villemain, Tableaux de la Litterature au Moyen Age, i. 307. ¢ Vide Heeren, Geschichte des Studiums der Classischen. Litteratur im mittelalter. AGES OF FAITH. 57 cient religious in the cultivation of the sciences. ‘The facts, however, he did not disprove: and although he might feel that no obligation resulted from the example of such numbers of holy monks who had applied to learning, to music, and even to poetry, he could hardly have expected that the judgment of many readers would acquiesce in his sug- gestion, that these men must have forgotten death and judgment, because they had been anxious to procure a copy of Cicero’s books, de Oratore, and the Institutions of Quintilian. At the same time it cannot be denied but that, independent of the object presented to us in this place, there would be more occasion for explaining on what grounds the elect chil- dren justified their cultivation of human learning,—though, to those who stand near the mountain, the answer is invelyed:i in no “difficulty, — than for proving a fact which is so evident to every one conversant with the history of the middle age, that they did possess it in an eminent degree. It is, however, to illustrate the latter proposition that I am at present called upon. But to what order shall I first turn for examples ? or what bright gems shall I select from the overflowing plenty in the intellectual treasury of the meek during the ages of faith? Before I attempt to enter upon the subject, I would observe, that to a Catholic, not only the philosophical, as we shall see in another place, but also the literary history of the world, is prodigiously enlarged ; ob- jects change their relative position, and many are brought into resplen- dent light, which before were consigned to obscurity. While the mod- erns continue, age after age, to hear only of the Cesars and the philos- ophers, and to exercise their ingenuity with tracing parallel characters among their contemporaries, the Catholic discovers that there lies, between the heathen civilization and the present, an entire world, illus- trious with every kind of intellectual and moral greatness: the names which are first upon his tongue are no longer Cicero and Horace, but St. Augustin, St. Bernard, Alcuin, St. Thomas, St. Anselm: the places associated in his mind with the peace and dignity of learning, are no longer the Lyceum or the Academy, but Citeaux, Cluny, Crowland, or the Oxford of the middle ages. Perhaps I shall best discharge the office I have undertaken by aban-. doning all pretensions to an oratorical enumeration of illustrious titles, which need only be named to proclaim genius and wisdom in its utmost cultivation,—and by simply taking detached statements from the history and other writings of the middle ages, which will prove that, in what- ever direction we look, we shall be sure to discover some eminent example of extensive and excellent erudition. ‘Taking them then as they might occur to one who at hazard would open the ancient chron- icles, how remarkable is this testimony of Bede, that Thobias, the Saxon Bishop of Rochester, could speak familiarly, not only the Latin, but also the Greek language? What an example is presented by the venerable Bede in his own learning! Barlaam, who first made the Italians acquainted with Homer, was a monk of St. Basil, who came from one of the seven convents which the religious of that order pos- sessed at Rossano alone, where they cultivated the popular Greek dia- lect, which had remained in Calabria. What episcopal see, what holy monastery, during the middle ages, was not associated with the names Vou. I1.—8 58 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, of men most illustrious for their love of letters? Who has ever fath- omed that sea of learning in Dominic and Aquinas, ‘© Whence many rivulets have since been turn’d Over the garden Catholic, to lead Their living waters, and have fed its plants ?” # The fact of the existence of libraries in the early monasteries, even in the days of St. Pachomius, is adduced by Mabillon in proof of the ereat antiquity of monastic studies.t Celebrated were the libraries of Lerins, of Tours, of Monte Cassino, of St. Germain-des-Prés, where Dacherius was librarian when he compiled his Spicilegium, of Bobbio, which was so rich in ancient manuscripts, of Luxueil, of Corby, of St. Remi at Rheims, of Fulda, of St. Gall, of St. Emmeranus, at Ratispon, and of Einseidelin; in the last of which I have seen curious manuscripts of Bede’s works. In England, our libraries are but of modern date; for the pseudo-re- formers did not spare even those which they found in the Universities : but in the libraries on the continent before the French revolution, were collected the accumulated stores of the learning of the middle ages. In the abbey of Jumiéges, the writings of Annon, its learned abbot in the tenth century, might have been found as he had left them. There were no less than seventeen hundred manuscripts in the abbey of Peterbo- rough. The libraries of the Gray Friars in London, that of the abbey of Leicester, and that of the priory at Dover, contained noble collections, as did also those of Crowland, Wells, and many others. ‘To these all persons had access. At Crowland it was ordained that the greater books, of which there were more than three hundred volumes, were never to be taken for the use of remote schools without license of the abbot; but smaller books, of which there were more than four hundred, such as Psalters, Catos, and Poets, might be lent to boys and acquaint- ances of the monks, but only for one day.t The magnificent library of the abbey of St. Victor at Paris, used to be open to the public during three days every weck.|| ‘There were even public libraries attached to some parish churches. Baptist Goy, the first curate of the parish of St. Magdalen at Paris, left his libraries to the church, one for the use of the clergy of the parish, and the other for that of the poor parishioners.§ The library of Marucelli, at Florence, was founded by a virtuous pre- late, for the use of such men of learning as were poor, as the inscription testifies—‘ Publice et maxime pauperum utilitati.”’ In the works of Petrus Crinitus,** there is repeated mention of learned men,—Picus of Mirandula, Politian, and others,—meeting together in the Marcian h- brary at Florence, to discuss questions of philosophy and literature. St. Louis, in the same manner, used to visit the public library which he had founded at the holy chapel in Paris, for the purpose of conversing with learned men. There is a character of learning and sanctity belonging to the very rooms which contained the ancient collections, as may be wit- nessed in the library of Merton at Oxford, and in that of St. Michel-in- Bosco, at Bologna; in which latter, over each department of books, was * Dante, Parad. xii. + De Studiis Monasticis, Par. 1. cap. 6. + Ingulph. 105. || Lebeuf, Hist. du Diocése de Paris, tom. ii. 5. § Lebeuf, ii. c. 4. ** De Honest. Discip. AGES OF FAITH. 59 a noble painting of the principal writer belonging to it. Thus over the scholastic philosophy was seen the angelic disputing with the subtle doc- tor on the “universal 4 parte rei.’’? The student of Rome, when he finds himself in the libraries of St. Augustin and of the Minerva, waited upon by the men of those venerable orders, seems of necessity to imbibe somewhat of the grave and holy spirit of Christian antiquity. Bede mentions the multitude of books that used to be brought from Rome to England by holy bishops on their return thence. St. Osmond, Bishop of Salisbury, who completed the building of that cathedral, collected thither men of learning from all parts, and retained as well as invited them by his liberality: he formed a library, and enriched it literally with the works of his own hands, transcribing books for it, and binding them himself. So again in the time of Pope St. Gregory VII. Herrand, Abbot of Ilsenburg, afterwards Bishop of Halberstadt, having founded a school at Ilsenburg for all liberal arts, and collected many learned men, made there a noble library, which was particularly rich in old histories.* Of the abbot, William of Hirschau, we read, that he became when young most learned in all kinds of science, so as to surpass his precep- tors, and that he mastered all the arts which are called liberal;t that he was skilled in philosophy, in dialectics, in music,—so that he wrote upon it,—in mathematics, arithmetic, and astronomy; that he procured copies of holy and profane books to be written out in beautiful letters, in which work twelve monks of the house sat daily employed. He used to send good men to govern other monasteries, many of which became celebrated in consequence, among which are reckoned that of St. Peter at Erfurt. There were above two hundred and sixty men in his abbey, who all loved and revered him. Mabillon desires his reader to consider what was the immense manual labour exercised by the Cis- tercians and Carthusians in copying manuscripts and writing them out for the public, in revising, and correcting, and collating the works of the holy fathers, and to consider too how all this was done in a spirit of humility, and pious fervour, and penitence, for the good of the church and the greater glory of God. ‘Be not troubled at the labour through fatigue,’ says Thomas 4 Kempis in addressing youth, ‘for God is the cause of every good work, who will render to every man his recom- pence, according to his pious intention, in heaven. When you are dead, those persons who read the volumes that were formerly written beautifully by you, will then pray for you: and if he who giveth a cup of cold water, shall not lose his reward, much more, he who gives the living water of wisdom, shall not lose his recompence in heaven.’’{ The collection of the Latin Fathers on vellum, written in the most beautiful characters, and illuminated with exquisite paintings, which is in the Libraria Medicea in the cloister of St. Lorenzo at Florence, or the splendid choral books and Bible, in twenty-two volumes, of the Carthusian monastery of Ferrara, will give an idea of the labour and admirable skill of the monks in this art. Albert was a monk of Cluny, distinguished for the number of beautiful books which he wrote out and bound. ‘The Bible was covered with beryl stones: he had read it * Voigt’s Hildebrand als Papst Greg. VII. und sein Zeitalter, 164. t Chron. Hirsang. An. 1071. + Doctrinale Juvenum, cap. 4. 60 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, through twice and corrected it twice, and at the end of his labour he fell at the feet of the seniors of Cluny, beseeching them to pray to God for him and for his father, that their sins might be forgiven them.* Es- tates and legacies were often bequeathed for the support of the scripto- rium of abbeys; at Montrouge, indulgences were given for the supply of books, and vestments, so that to that poor rustic church crowds of learned men and scholars used to come from Paris, to cast their little piece of silver or gold into the trunk appointed for the alms in behalf of learning. By the Pope’s Bull, in the year 1246, which stated that the churches in Prussia and Livonia, being as yet infant, were unprovided with books, monks and other persons were invited to send them a sup- ply of books out of their abundance, or to employ writers at their expense for furnishing them; and indulgences were extended on their complying.t In the middle ages, books were generally bound by monks. Char- lemagne, by charter, in 790, gave to the abbots and monks of Sithin, an unlimited right of hunting, in order that the skins of the deer should be used in making covers for their books. The prodigious number of volumes frequently composed by one writer in the middle ages, is con- stantly a subject of astonishment to those who visit libraries. The works cf Albert the Great form twenty-two folio volumes! But one might account for this in the same manner as ‘that in which Cicero explains the wonderful dispatch with which Pompey accomplished his naval projects, when he says, ‘* Whence had he this incredible celerity ? For he possessed no extraordinary power of impelling ships, no un- heard-of art of navigation, no new winds; but the things which gener- ally delay others did not detain him; no avarice diverting his course for objects of plunder, no lust carried him away to pleasure, no love of ease to delights, no fear of labour to repose.”’t It is to be remembered also, that the chief of a convent had often as many as fifty young men who studied under him, and who wrote out extracts for him. St. Peter the venerable abbot of Cluny, in the twelfth century, employed learned men to translate certain books from the Arabic. St. Raymond of Pennafort procured the Arabic and Hebrew tongues to be taught in several con- vents of his order; in the abbey of Tavistock, of which so many of the abbots were learned men, a regular course of lectures on the Saxon tongue used to be given, which was continued until the dissolution by Henry VIII. It has not been sufficiently remarked with what care the monastic philosophers endeavoured to cultivate the barbarous idioms which arose upon the cessation of the Latin tongue. The only grammar of the Ro- mance language was composed by Basil Maier of Baldegg, a monk of Einseidelin.|| During the conquests of the Teutonic order in the North, it is the bishops who are found insisting upon the importance of eculti- vating the national idiom, in order to instruct the people in the precepts of the orthodox faith.§ In Italy, the professed champions of the vulgar tongue went so far as to condemn the study of Greek and Latin, as * Chronicon Cluniacensis, x. + Voigt. Geschichte Preuss. ii. 491, + Pro Lege Manilia, 14. || Tschudi Einseid. Chronic. 172. § Voigt. Geschichte Preussens, iii. 146. AGES OF FAITH. 61 the dialogues of Speroni the Paduan, in the sixteenth century, can testify.* But probably, while poets and fine writers were condemning the clergy for the importance which they attached to the ancient lan- guages, they would have been found, under many circumstances, as in Ireland, perfectly willing that the national tongue of one country should be sacrificed to that of another, which, however, would have been not the less preserved without their co-operation, as it was there by bish- ops, priests, and friars. Mabillon observes, that we owe the histories of England and of many other kingdoms, almost solely to the Benedic- tine monks.t Especial regard was paid by them to the studies con- nected with history. Matthew Paris says, that in every royal monas- tery in England there was one learned and diligent scribe, who used to note down all the actions and events of each reign, and that on the death of the king, this account was referred to a general chapter, to be examined, and afterwards it was inserted in the chronicle, which was to transmit them to posterity. We should have been always children in our national history but for the writings of Bede, Ingulphus, William of Malmesbury, Matthew of Westminster, and Matthew of Paris. In the same manner we are indebted for the history of France to Odo of Vienne, William of Jumicges, Oderic Vitalis, and other monks; for that of Italy, to Paul the deacon, Erkempert, Leo Marsicanus, and Peter the deacon; and for that of Germany, to the abbot Reginonus, Wilichind, Lambert of Ascenburg, Ditmar, and Herman. ‘In our schools,’’? says Mabillon, ‘‘ were taught all branches of learning, but every other study was referred to that of the sacred Scriptures and of the holy Fathers.”” Whenever the atrocity of wars did not impose silence on the Muses, those ancient academies were schools of eloquence as well as of virtue. ‘The profane authors were studied with the sole limitation of excluding what was immoral. Thus St. Anselm, writing to Maurice, prescribed to Arnulphus that he should read Virgil and other authors, ‘‘exceptis his, in quibus, aliqua turpitudo sonat.”’ Cele- brated was the learning of Gerbert at the time when he only taught in the cathedral school of Rheims, where he had for his pupils King Robert and the Emperor Otho III. and Fulbert, who became such a learned priest. Mabillon shows, that the joys and sweets of study might, without scruple, be possessed by monks, who, for the sake of recreation, might read voyages, elegant orations, or heroic poems. ‘The books of Virgil were under the pillow of St. Hugo VI. Abbot of Cluny, though he had a dream which represented the fables of poets as a poison.{ Yet his judgment probably outweighed it. St. Augustin makes use of a verse of Virgil to illustrate a mode of expression in the holy Scriptures. || We find that no branch of learning was disdained by the monks. Among the fathers of Italian literature, Pignotti acknowledges many Tuscan monks of the Dominican order, from whose works, he says, even at the present day, the students of the language imbibe the purest draughts of learning, such as Bartholomew of St. Concordio, Beato Giordano, a famous preacher, Dominico Cavalea, equally celebrated for * Dialogo delle Lingue. t De Studiis Monasticis, i. 16. + Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, 423. F | Enchiridion, cap. 13. 62 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, his divine eloquence, and Jacob Passavanti, who, besides being a most admirable preacher, gave lectures upon philosophy and theology in vari- ous cities. It was this friar who directed the building of the church of Santa Maria Novella: but his sermons, his theology, and philosophy, have all disappeared, and his Mirror of true Penance alone remains,— an ornament of the language, being written first in Latin and afterwards translated by himself into the vulgar tongue. ‘The works of these theo- logians enjoy the double advantage of teaching at once Christian truths and elegance of style. The precepts sweetly penetrate the heart with a soft unction: and such is the beauty of the language, that we seem to hear the most eloquent fathers of the church.* In the beginning of the ninth century, John Scotus, named Erigenus, from his country Erin, or Ireland, which was then renowned through- out the west for its learning, had travelled as far as Greece through his ardour for philosophic studies. ‘I did not fail,” he says, ‘*to visit every place or temple where the philosophers used to compose and deposit their secret works, and there is not one of the learned men, who had any knowledge of their philosophical writings, that I did not question.’’*t He resided at the court of Charles-le-Chauve, who invited many learned men from Ireland and from the Anglo-Saxons, insomuch, that instead of saying, as before, ‘‘schola palatii,’? men used then to say, ‘‘palatium schole.”’ John Erigenus, as the chief of this school, used to lecture on Plato and Aristotle, the former of whom he called the greatest of the philosophers of the world, and the latter, the most subtle inquirer among the Greeks as to the diversity of natural things. t He was profoundly versed in Greek, and probably in Hebrew, so that, at least, on the ground of his extensive learning, we may be allowed to mention him. With the same reserve one may also allude to Abailard, though his blessed end may free his memory from every dark association. This extraordinary man was said by his contemporaries to have been ignorant of nothing in heaven or on earth, excepting himself. Peter of Cluny, who used to call him the Socrates of the Gauls, put these words upon his tomb: ‘Ille sciens, quicquid fuit ulli scibile.”’ Heloisa had studied under him philosophy and theology, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Of Alcuin I shall speak shortly; but there are names less renowned that one ought not to pass over in silence. Leon, of Ostia, who wrote the voluminous Chronicles of Mount Cassino, by order of the Abbot Orderic, in the eleventh century, has merited the highest praise of Baronius and Dupin; Eginhard, the secretary of Charlemagne, Paul, the deacon of Aquilea, whose life was spared when convicted of a conspiracy against the emperor, on consideration of his learning, Wiiliam, Archbishop of Tyre, and James of Vitri, are historians of whom the most cultivated age might be proud. A German monk, who lived in the middle of the eleventh century, Lambert von Affschenbourg, wrote an admirable history of the wars of Italy against the empire, in a style imitated from the great models of antiquity; he had studied in his convent Livy, ‘Tacitus, and Sallust. At the end of the tenth century, amidst wars and disorders, the monk Gerbert, in the monasteries of * Hist. of Tuscany, ii. t+ Wood Hist. et Antiquit. Oxon. lib. i. 15. t Jean, Erig. de Divisione Nature, i. c. 33. 16. : AGES OF FAITH. 63 Aurillac and of Bobbio, was studying the most precious manuscripts of Latin antiquity, and some even that we possess not; he was studying metaphysics, geometry, history and literature; he was inventing works of ingenious mechanism, and exchanging them for manuscripts. ‘* We do not send you the sphere,’’ he writes to one of his friends, ‘it is not a thing that costs little labour amidst so many occupations. If, there- fore, you are very earnest in these studies, send us the volume of the Achilleid of Stacius, carefully transcribed; with that present, you will be able to draw this sphere from me, which you can never procure gra- tis, on account of the difficulty of such a work.’’ ‘The zeal of Lupus, Abbot of Ferriers, in the ninth century, induced him to write to the pope, to request that he would send him a copy of Quintilian, and of a treatise of Cicero. His correspondence with other abbots respecting the loan of manuscripts is highly curious. One friend having sent to borrow a manuscript, Lupus sends back the messenger without giving it to him, because, though a monk and trustworthy, he was travelling on foot. In the thirteenth century the Dominican and Franciscan orders produced men of most remarkable genius and learning. Baron Cuvier says that it is really astonishing to reflect upon what was written by Albertus Magnus, Vincent of Beauvais, though he was of Burgundy, who composed an immense Encyclopedia, St. Thomas Aquinas, that meek master of the sapient throng, and Roger Bacon; for though the latter composed but comparatively small treatises, they are full of genius, and evince a most extraordinary spirit of discovery. It may be well to compare this language of a great modern naturalist with that of some Catholic historians. The learning of the Franciscans was celebrated. Monteil says, that there was justice in the old proverb, ‘parler Latin devant les Cordeliers.”’** Dugdale says, that the Franciscan order has yielded so immense a number of men renowned for learning and piety, that it is impossible to mention them ;t and he states, that in England many extraordinary men proceeded also from the schools of the Augus- tinians.t Notwithstanding the zeal which was evinced for manuscripts, the monks are accused of neglecting, and, in consequence of the scarceness of parchment, of cancelling them, though it is not probable that the latter was ever done with that reckless disregard for the intrinsic value or rarity of the original, which some modern writers suppose. It does not appear that the publishers of the manuscripts of the classics accused the monks of neglecting them. Petrarch only says to his brother, ‘If I am dear to you, charge some faithful and learned man to travel through Tuscany, and to search the shelves and chests of the monks, and other men of instruction, in hopes of producing something to allay my thirst.” It is true they speak of dark corners and iron clasps, but it is only to give an air of greater importance to their own activity, and not to cen- sure the monks who had them in possession. ‘The description which Benvenuto da Imola gives of the visit of Boccacio to Monte Cassino, in which he says that the library was left open, that the books were cov- ered with dust, some of them torn and defaced, and that the grass was * Hist. des Frangais, tom. iii. 395. { Monast. Anglic. vol. ii. 6. t Ib. vol. ii. 224. ‘ 64 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, growing in the windows, besides that the sum of its testimony amounts to little, contains intrinsic evidence of having been written with a hostile mind. ‘Fast shut and with great care the library of sacred books is to be preserved,’”’ says a writer of the thirteenth century, ‘from all defilement of dust, from fire and from damp, from thieves and from the sound of clamour, from clay off the feet and from the corrosion of worms, from all stain and rent of leaves. He is not worthy to read a sacred book who knows not how to take care of it, and who neglects to put it back in its proper place. Thus must be preserved the treasury of the church, made and edited by holy doctors, written and collected by good writers, and provided by God for the consolation of many.’’* That only one copy of Tacitus should have been found in an old chest in the monastery of St. Gall, is no proof that the ancient learning would soon have perished through culpable neglect, since manuscripts of that author were always scarce, and one instance of carelessness will not justify an universal charge, not to remark that the searchers for manu- scripts, like hunters, were no doubt often guilty of exaggerating their difficulties. Chateaubriand says he does not remember to have found in any catalogue of the ancient monasteries of France a single copy of 'Taci- tus. 'The Benedictine monks of Corby possessed the first five books of his Annals.t The only manuscript of Phedrus that existed was in the li- brary of the cathedral of Rheims. It appears even that the condition of the copies of manuscripts in one monastery would be known to monks living in another. Peter the venerable abbot of Cluny, writing to Guigo, prior of a Carthusian monastery, and sending him some books, assigns as his reason for not sending with them the tract of St. Hilary upon the Psalms, that he had found in his own copy the same corro- sions as existed in that of the Carthusians.t In erasing Cicero’s book, De Republica, to write upon the parchment St. Augustin’s Commentary on the Psalms, it may be conceived how naturally they might conclude, that they were substituting a work of incomparably superior value, and they would hardly have supposed that the former would not come down. to posterity, since so much of it was preserved even in the writings of Lactantius and other fathers. On the invention of printing, the monks were the first to appreciate its value and importance. In the year 1474, a book was printed by the Augustin monks of a convent in the Rhingau. The first patrons of Caxton were Thomas Milling, Bishop of Hereford, and the Abbot of Westminster, in which abbey he established his printing-office. The first printing press in Italy was in the monas- tery of St. Scholastica at Subiaco, the productions of which are sought after with such avidity on account of their extraordinary beauty. It was the Bishop of Holun who enabled Mathison to introduce printing into Iceland. In the year 1480 a printing press was established in the Benedictine monastery of St. Alban, of which William Wallingford was the prior. John Whethamstede, abbot of that house, was celebrated for his love of learning. Soon after the introduction of printing, another press was established in the abbey of ‘Tavistock, where the printer was a monk, Thomas Ryehard. * Thom. de Kempis Doctrinale Juvenum, cap. 5. + Mabil. Prefat. in iii. Secul. Bened. § 4. { 8. Petri ven. Epist. lib. 1. 24, AGES OF FAITH. 65 Along with this prodigious discovery for the propagation of learning, appeared that admirable society of fervent disciples of our Lord, who demonstrated the art of combining the interests of piety with those of learning, not only exercising, but even teaching it, as in the incompara- ble work of Father Jouvency, the Ratio discendi et docendi. Among the first fathers of the society, Salmeron, at the age of twenty-one, Laynez at twenty-four, and Bobadilla at twenty-six, ‘ad acquired such learning, that they were the admiration of the court of Paul III.; and Bellarmin, before the age of thirty, had composed seven learned contro- versial treatises. ‘lolet and Vasquez, at the age of twenty-five, began to be the oracles of the universities of Spain. But the services of the Jesuits in multiplying editions of excellent books have never been appreciated ; though independent of all other benefits, that work alone gave them an unquestionable title to the gratitude of Christians in all future ages. Of the love which men bore for learning during the middle ages, we have many curious and memorable instances. ‘The Abbot Lupus, in a letter to Einard, says, ‘‘ The love of letters is innate in me almost from the first days of boyhood.” His love of learning induced him to travel into Germany to Fulda, not in order to learn the German language, but ‘that he might feed his soul with sacred study and erudi- tion.”’* St. Liudger, when a child, used to make imitations of books with the bark of trees, and with them to form a little library. Whena youth he travelled to many countries for the sake of attending the lec- tures of learned men; and on his return from York into Saxony he carried with him a quantity of books. John of Salisbury, in a letter to Count Henry says, ‘that in his late interview with Peter, Abbot of St. Remy, that holy man had affirmed that nothing was sweeter to him in life than to converse with men of letters upon subjects of learning.’’t Richard of Bury, Bishop of Durham, in the thirteenth century, was celebrated for his love and encouragement of literature. Besides having libraries in all his palaces, it is related that the floor of his common apartment used to be covered with books, so that it was no easy matter to approach him. St. Bonaventura, on account of his singular virtues and most admirable learning, having been offered the archbishopric of York in England, begged of the pope, Clement IV., to permit him to continue in his evangelical poverty to serve the holy church by his studies of holy Scripture and divinity. Let us be satisfied, without demanding further evidence, and confess that we have no reason to accuse the middle ages on the ground of their neglect of learning. Is it for the present race of men to boast of being the first to appreciate the value of books, when their type of a great sovereign exhibited one, who for a mere political and commercial trick exported from the coast of France the contents of some of the richest libraries in the world, con- sisting of superb Benedictine editions, and of vast treasures of ancient books, which had been plundered from the monasteries during the revo- lution, and then piled up in churches till they reached the very roof, for the express purpose of casting them into the sea, in order that the ship might take in coffee and sugar in their place?t_ Who now loves learn- * Mabillon, Prefat. in iv. Secul. Benedict. § 8. ) + Joan. Saresberiensis, Epist. clxxii. t In the year 1809. Vou. Il.—9 F 2 66 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, ing on its own account? May not this age, notwithstanding all its pretended freedom, supply posterity with matter for another treatise, like that of Lucian, on men of learning in pay of the great? what writer is not now, at least, in pay of the public? and when was learning more independent than during the middle ages?) Of how many branches of learning might we not say, what one of the greatest natural philosophers of the present age affirmed of science, that ‘‘ there are very few persons in England who pursue it with true dignity: it is followed as connected with objects of profit.”’* The writers of Catholic times were never drudges for vain man’s applause, or for base lucre. Not for the world’s sake, for which now they toil who send forth lying books, but for the real manna grew they mighty in learning. Letters are, indeed, profess- edly cultivated, and spoken of with admiration; but where are they seen to act upon minds with that real power which they exercised during the ages of faith? where is there now a student, like St. Ed- mund, or a master, like Bede, who used to be so excited by his reading, and moved to compunction, that often while he was reading and teach- ing he used to burst into tears? ‘¢ Consider the happiness and content of a scholar’s life,’’ says the author of the meditations which were compiled for the English College at Lisbon. <‘'The pleasure of learning is most pure and etherial, most constant, gathering strength with her increase; finally most secure and honourable without any danger of foul wretchedness, blemish of fame, or breach of friendship ; whereas all other pleasures are gross, tumultuous, and sordid. In point of dignity too scholars have the pre-eminence ; for there is no man but laughs at a fool how rich soever, and in his heart respects a scholar though never so poor.’’t Thus wrote these holy men, whose pathetic statement of the prospects which then awaited their students on their return to England, where so many were martyr- ed, cannot be read without the deepest emotion. ‘‘ None,’’ say they, ‘but those who have had the experience can truly conceive the condi- tions and difficulties of this state.’? But who in our days of compara- tive facility in the pursuit of letters is found to speak with the same reverence and love for learning? ‘Turn to whatever side we will, the utmost we can expect to hear is the language of Callicles. ‘*I love to see a youth devoted to philosophy, but when a man continues to culti- vate it, I deem him worthy of stripes; for however ingenuous he may be by nature, he becomes servile through study. For he flies from the centre of political affairs, and all the custom of forensic assemblies, hiding himself and whispering in some corner with three or four boys all his life; and never coming forward to sound forth any thing liberal or magnificent. Truly, O Socrates, I love you; and therefore I say to you that you are neglecting what you ought to meditate, and that you are moulding that generous excellence of your mind to a certain boyish form, and disqualifying yourself for all active and public affairs of life, and neglecting to exercise yourself in matters which would make you seem to be wise, and procure you fame and riches, and many other good things.’’{ With what effect do we suppose such persuasions would * Sir H. Davy’s Consolations in Travel, 1830. + Part iv. c. 3. t Plato Gorgias. AGES OF FAITH, G7 have been addressed to the studious inhabitants of cloisters and colleges in the middle ages, when it was known that a Divine blessing was on the man who had borne the yoke from his youth, who should sit solita- ry and hold his peace? But it will be said, these were all men separate to the church. ‘The laity during this time were in a state of deplorable ignorance. No greater error than to suppose that they were. The evidence which has been already adduced of the wide diffusion of learn- ing, might be still further strenethened, if we were to visit the places where one might least expect to find it; for we should frequently dis- cover, even in the feudal castle, men of great erudition. It is said, that a single book often formed its library, which had the appearance of a piece of furniture, being enclosed within boards, locked up, and opened as a kind of sanctuary, from which during the long evenings of winter men used to read without ceasing: but one book then contained a great deal of matter, if we may judge from the compilations which have come down to us, and this is after all but an exaggerated picture of the little encouragement afforded to study by the habits of feudal life. Little favourable as they may have been to a constant fortuitous and desultory reading, which St. Bonaventura says, does not edify because it renders the mind still more rambling and unstable,* still there were some points in which they were more in accordance with the interests of real learn- ing than those of the modern society ; for as letters have in them some- thing generous, they inspire an aversion for exercises in which the mind does not participate; they render men, as Don Savedra says, solemn and melancholy, lovers of retirement, and averse to public employ- ments, and such a disposition found many circumstances of feudal life as if peculiarly accommodated to its state. We are told, indeed, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, that Lord Cranstoun’s elfin page was sur- prised to find Michael Scot’s book on the person of the wounded Sir William of Deloraine. ‘¢ Much he marvell’d a knight of pride, Like a book-bosom’d priest should ride.” But the fact is, that great numbers of nobles and princes in the mid- dle ages were men of considerable learning, fond of books; and many who were themselves without it, respected and encouraged it in others, like Theodoric, who was so passionately fond of learned men, though he could not even write his own name. Gaston Phebus, that celebra- ted knight and feudal prince, was so attached to learning that he formed a collection of Greek, Latin, and Italian authors; and it is to the educa- tion which she received at his court, that historians ascribe the admira- ble beauty of the writings of Clotilde de Surville, which have been late- ly restored to light. De la Barre, the historian of Corbeil, says, “ that Anthony Seigneur de Carnazet exalted the honour of his house by add- ing to the lustre of’chivalry the glory of learning, and produced the fruits of his noble mind, in his discourses on morals to be the instruction of his children, having the courage to proclaim this truth, that science is more estimable than nobility, riches, strength, or valour.”” ‘The Secre- tary of Anthony de Gingins, President of Savoy under Duke Charles II., composed his Mirouer du Monde, while residing in the castle of * S. Bonav. Speculum Novitiorum, cap. 15. 68 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, that old nobleman in the country of Gex, at the foot of the Jura, where he found a library containing, as he says, many beautiful and exquisite books, such as Strabo, Ptolemy, ’Especule Naturel of Vincent of Beau- vais, Pliny, Albumasar, and others, from which he made extracts, and composed in the Gothic and French language this present book, enti- tled, Le Mirouer du Monde.* Frangois de Malherbe, on his return to Caen from his travels, during which he had resided at Heidelberg and Basle for the sake of attending the lectures of professors, delivered dis- courses in the public schools of the University of Caen, with his sword at his side, of which practice Huet gives other examples. Nicholas Vauquelin sieur des Iveteaux, author of the poem on the Institution of a Prince, delivered discourses publicly in the same university in the dress of acavalier.t Evena gentleman of Gastine, in Poitou, who had no other theme but hunting, and the recollections of his youth, became dis- tinguished as a writer in prose and verse, as in the instance of Jacques de Fouilloux, whom Gouget inserts in his history of French authors. Gaufridus Bellus, the fourteenth Count of Angers, is described as admi- rable for probity and justice, and though engaged in the profession of arms, excellently learned and most eloquent among the clergy and lai- ty.|| Fulco the good, Count of Anjou, is said by the same historian to have been very learned, and a profound master of learning among brave soldiers. St. Odo, the second abbot of Cluny, relates that his father used to know by heart the histories of the ancients and the novels of Jus- tinian, and that the evangelical words were constantly heard at his table.§ What learned nobles did England possess in Catholic times! how did the true sentiments of a Christian gentleman breathe in every line of the works of Antony Woodville, Earl of Rivers, as remarkable for goodness as for erudition! John Tiptoft, the learned and accomplished Earl of Worcester, was so great an orator, that at Rome he was said to have drawn tears from the eyes of Pope Pius IJ. On the flight of Edward IV. he was taken prisoner and beheaded. Caxton exclaims on this event, ‘*O good blessed Lord God! what grete loss was it of that noble, virtu- ous, and well disposed Lord, and what worship had he at Rome in the presence of our holy fader the Pope, and so in all other places unto his deth ; at which deth, every man that was there might learn to die and take his deth patiently.’’ The learning of many of the Italians in the middle ages, has never beenexceeded. Giannozo Manetti, the Florentine, was one of the most learned men that Europe ever possessed: he spoke Lat- in, Greek, and Hebrew: he translated the whole of the Psalms from the original, and he wrote a book in confutation of Judaism, exposing their misinterpretations of the holy Scriptures. ‘These sacred studies and the reading of the works of St. Augustin made him a theologian ; he consid- ered St. Augustin and Aristotle as the greatest men the world had ever seen; he had the whole work De Civitate Dei by heart, as also the Eth- ics of Aristotle, and the Epistles of St. Paul; and he asserted that theol- ogy ought to be the principal science of mankind. Raphael Maffei was another learned Tuscan of the fifteenth century: he passed the latter part of his life as a hermit in a cell covered with boards, sleeping upon * Gouget, Bibliotheque Francaise, tom. ix. 226. ft Id. tom. xvi, 111. + Id. xvi. 34. | Dacher. Spicileg. tom. x. § Bibliotheca Cluniacens. 15. AGES OF FAITH. 69 straw, feeding upon bread and water, and a few vegetables: he finally renounced all profane erudition, and wrote only the lives of saints. He founded and endowed a monastery of nuns, under the title of St. Lino, and was himself regarded as a saint. ‘The convents could bear testimo- ny to the love of learning which animated numbers of noble laymen. It was in the spirit of that age, when Cosmo de Medicis enriched with a library the magnificent Abbey of St. Bartholomew, near Fiesole, and presented another collection of books to the convent of St. Francesco, which was not far distant from his Caffaggiolo, situated in a picturesque wood in the pleasing valley of the Mugello, resembling those delightful groves which the poetic imagination has ascribed to Arcadia. In an early age, Cassiodorus, who was blessed, as Gibbon says, with thirty years of repose in the devout and studious solitude of Squillace, carried with him to the monastery of Monte Cassino, his own extensive library. An Italian author remarks, that flattery has had no share in the elegant representation which adorns the hall of the palace Pitti, from the pencil of John Mannozzi, where the Muses are painted as exiled from Greece, and meeting a courteous reception from that house; for the government of Florence was distinguished by the hospitable reception which it gave to the illustrious fugitives. When Raymonde Sebonde came into France, from learned and philosophic Spain, with the intention of visit- ing the University of Paris, he was stopped on his way by the city of Toulouse; for such was the enthusiastic admiration excited there by his renown, that the inhabitants forced him to remain, and absolutely de- tained him against his will. In the middle ages, were seen many kings who were men of learning and ardent admirers of all wisdom. What an admirable instance is that of Charlemagne surrounded by the eminent scholars whom he had collected from all nations. Whata zeal did he evince for learning! <‘*O! I wish,” he exclaimed one day while con- versing with Alcuin, ‘‘ that I had twelve clerks as learned and instruct- ed in all wisdom as were Jerome and Augustine!”’ when Alcuin replied, ‘‘'The Creator of heaven and earth had not any more like them, and you wish to have twelve!’? Such was the esteem in which letters continu- ed to be held at the imperial court under another monarch, that the pres- ent of a book was received as an equivalent for a tax due to the crown. The abbot of Corby, in the year 847, wrote as follows to the king. ‘Instead of a present of gold or silver for this festival I send a book on the Eucharist, which although small in bulk, is great in consideration of the subject. I composed 1 it for my dear disciple the Abbot Placide de Varin.”’ No sovereigns encouraged learning with greater zeal than Louis-le-Jeune and Philippe-Augustus. King John of France in that feudal age, evinced a great love for learning, and to his orders the French owed their first translation of Livy, Sallust, Lucan, and Cesar. Chris- tine de Pisan, writing the life of King Charles V. in which she adheres most rigidly to truth, divides the work into three parts, which are enti- tled, on the Nobleness of Courage, of Chivalry, and of Wisdom, for learning entered then in the ideal of an excellent prince, and offered them titles which they valued more than those of their royal birth, as in the instance of Henry of England. By order of King Charles V. some of the finest treatises of St. Augustine, as well as the whole Bible, the greatest part of the works of Aristotle, Cicero, and many other au- 70 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, thors, were translated into French: and this king gave immense pen- sions to the learned men who were employed in these labours. Speak- ing of John the brother of Charles V. then Duc de Berry, Christine says, ‘Se délicte et aime gens soubtilz, soyent clercs ou autres, beaulx livres des sciences morales et histoires notables, moult aime et voulen- tiers en oit tous ouvrages soubtilment fais.”’* Of his brother, Lewis, Duce d’Anjou, she says, “il amoit les chevalereux et les sages cleres ;’’t and of his fourth brother, Lewis, Duc de Bourbon, ‘aime et secuert les bons chevaliers et les clercs sages { en toutes choses bonnes soubtilles et belles se délicte ; livres de moralitez, de la sainte Escripture et d’enseigne- ment moult luy plaisent, et voulentiers en ot, et luy mesmes par notables maistres en theologie en a fait translater de moult beaulx.”” Of Louis, Due d’Orleans, son of King Charles V. she says, ‘that often there used to be before him many disputations of great congregations of wise doc- tors and solemn clerks, when many cases would be proposed and put in terms of diverse things, and that the memory and eloquence he used to evince on these occasions were wonderful, as he replied to each of the ar- guments, not in a high and fierce style of language, but mildly and all in peace, so that it was beautiful to witness it.’’| King Charles V. was told on one occasion, that some persons had murmured against him for paying such honour to clerks, but he replied, «*‘One cannot too greatly honour clerks who have wisdom: for so long as wisdom shall be honour- ed in this kingdom, it will continue in prosperity, but if wisdom should be ever thrust out it will. fall away.” § The old writer, who collected the very joyous history of Bayart gives this testimony, that the Duke of Ferrara is a gentle and wise prince, ‘qui scet quasy tous les sept ars liberaulx et plusieurs autres choses mécaniques ;”’** and that the duchess is a most triumphant princess, being beautiful, good, sweet, and courteous to all kinds of people, and so learned that she speaks Spanish, Greek, Italian, French, and a little very good Latin, in all which languages she can compose.tt The Duke of Nemours, he relates, passing through a little town named Carpy, remained there with his knights two days, and was very well received by the seigneur of the town, who was a man of ereat learning in Greek and Latin literature: he was cousin-german of Picus of Mirandula, and was styled Albertus Mirandula, Count of Car- py-tt Picus of Mirandula, at the age of twenty-three, maintained at Rome certain theses, containing nine hundred propositions, drawn from Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldaic authors. 'The Emperor Ferdinand III. spoke a great number of languages, and could answer every ambas- sador in his own tongue.||]| The learning of these high princes was in- deed not always scholastic. It was sometimes acquired solely by inter- course with learned men. Thus the King Don Alonso of Naples used to retire after his repasts in the company of learned men, in order, as he used to say, to feed his mind after refreshing his body, and even Francis I. King of France, whose reign beheld a suspension of learning, without having studied in his youth, made himself, by means of similar conver- sation, qualified to speak on all subjects of importance. Christine de * Livre des Fais du Sage Roy Charles V. ii. chap. xii. Pw. Ads + Id. iL. c. 14. | Id. ii. c. 16. § Id. part. iii. c. 14. ** Chap. xlii. tf Id. chap. xlv. ++ Id. chap. xlvii. \||| Savedra, Christian Prince, i. 51. AGES OF FAITH. 71 Pisan, mentions that King Charles V. did not neglect this method, for being circumspect in all things, as she says, in order to adorn his con- science, it pleased him often to hear at his collations masters in theology and divinity of all orders of the Church, having them around him and honouring them greatly, having in the utmost reverence every spiritual father or wise person, of just and salutary instruction.* It would be hazardous to affirm that the chivalrous lords of feudal towers, like the modern sons of nobility, could always boast of having possessed a Phe- nix for their governor, but unquestionably in Catholic times, the clois- ter supplied true sages, whose conversation was able to form great and good men to administer justice and govern their dependants with benig- nity and firmness. It remains to speak of the character of the learning which was thus diffused and ardently pursued during the ages of faith. A modern French writer, treating on the fifth century, says, that not only did literature become wholly religious, but being religious it ceased to be what is generally styled literature. In the ancient time of Greece and Rome, men studied and wrote for the sole pleasure of studying, and of knowing how to procure for themselves and others intellectual enjoyment. Literature was devoted to the search of truth; and so, he might have added, it has again become, professedly, at least, in the modern societies in which men write and study, precisely as if no such fact as that of the Christian revelation had ever occurred; but during the ages of faith it was quite otherwise. Within the sphere of divinity and morals, men studied no more in order to search for truth, and ac- quire knowledge; they wrote no more for the sake of writing. Wri- tings and studies assumed a practical character. Men only sought to convert and regulate the purely speculative character of philosophy ; as, independent of religion, poetry, letters, and arts had disappeared. From not having well seized this character of the period, a false idea of it has been generally formed; men have concluded that it was a time of apathy and moral sterility, without any development of intelligences. But it is an error to suppose, that there was then no intellectual activity. On the contrary, adds this writer, there was much; only it was under a different form, and tended to different results. It was an activity of application. One is astonished at regarding a world of writings which attest the ardour and fecundity of those ages, and which still constitute a real and rich literature.t The leaves of modern books are exactly like a Protestant country, or some barbarous region where the light of Christianity has never shown; where all is secularized, and every im- age of religion effaced, excepting what belonged to the idolizing of nature. The old books introduce us, as it were, into a Catholic coun- try, where amidst beautiful woods and wild mountains, we find monas- teries, and crosses, and holy images of saints, constantly reminding us of our heavenly country. Men talk of literature becoming religious, as if that was an indication of its decline; and yet without the sanctifying influence of religion, when has learning ever assumed an amiable or even a dignified character? ‘* Postquam docti prodierunt, boni desin- unt,”’ said Seneca,t and Petrus Cellensis explains the invariable phe- nomenon connected with the manners of the learned, when he says, * Part i. c. 15. + Guizot, Cours d’ Hist. Mod. tom. ii. t Epist. i. 72 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, ‘‘ Literatura secularis inflat, si illam caritas non reprimat.”* But what a gracious tone did that charity impart to learning in the ages of faith? It is recorded of James, abbot of Villemoustier, in the eighth century, that if he ever heard one of his monks in reading place the accent on a wrong syllable, to spare the modesty of the reader, he never reprehend- ed him at the time.t But not merely the style, the whole object and motives of learning were changed, ‘*Quid tota series literarum aliud indicat, quam te ea que sursum suntsapere, non que super terram ?”’ says Peter the venerable abbot of Cluny, writing to his dearest brother Odo. Mabillon shows that learning was to be cultivated with no other view but to render men more humble and charitable, more hidden to the eyes of men, and more sensible to the knowledge of God; more fervent to love him, and more diligent to serve him.|| One was to study, but never in or- der to seem to be wiser or more learned than others.§ One was to write, but not for the sake of being always able to boast like Demosthenes, that he came forward in literature and science, in politics and theology, zearoc xat wovoce. Lt was often necessary to use much persuasion to induce men to publish their works. ‘There is a letter from the Monk Petrus Picta- viensis to Peter the venerable abbot of Cluny, exhorting him to this effect. «I know that I am very bold in daring thus to advise you, but I trust in your piety that it will pardon me. For, beloved father, I fear not a little lest from declining all vanity in study you should wish too much to remain concealed under this intention. You ought to take care, most discreet man, lest by avoiding the praises of men with too much caution, you omit those things for which the faithful servant in the Gospel deserved to be praised by the good householder. Consider, I beseech you, that if the holy fathers had written nothing formerly, but had only passed a good life in silence, they would not have gained such a multitude of people to God, nor would they have left with us such a sweet and celebrated memory. The study of writing has always dis- tinguished the abbots of Cluny from ancient times, so that if they do not write they have reason to blush for themselves as being degenerate and unworthy of their predecessors.”’** St. Anselm uses stronger lan- guage to encourage literary exertion. ‘There are some men,” he ob- serves ‘ignorant sinfully, who say, what use to retain this little? I shall never become wise from so small a thing. All who are not learned will not perish. There are enough of wise men in the world, enough of learned writers. ‘There is no need for me to fatigue myself: thus he speaks to his mind, and does not perceive that the ancient enemy sug- gests these things to him, that he may never study to be useful, that he may live in torpor and negligence, and so perish.”’tt These men had but one object in their studies, ‘In doctrinis glorificate Dominum,’ {tf the supremacy of which continued to be recognised till the last; for the first efforts of engraving and printing were employed to aid religion, of which we see examples in the Biblia Pauperum, and the Speculum * Petri Abb. Cellens, Epist. lib. ix. 7. + Historia Monasterii Villariensis, lib. i. cap. 12. apud Marten. 'Thesaur. Anecdot. tom. iii. { Epist. lib. i. 13. || T'ractat. de Studiis Monasticis Preefat. § De Imit. lib. iii. 53. ** Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, 620. . tf S. Anselmi de Similitudinibus, cap. 54. tt Isa. xxiv. 19, AGES OF FAITH. 73 Salutis, and the editions of the Latin Bible by Fust. All the learning, even of the laity, during the middle ages, partook of this sacred char- acter. Fleury mentions that the young Emperor Theodosius had a good library of ecclesiastical books, and used to converse with bishops, almost as if he had been one of their order:* and Christine de Pisan says, that King Charles V. of France was really a philosopher, that is, a lover of wisdom. He was a true inquirer after high primary things, that is, of high theology, which is the term of wisdom, which is noth- ing else but the knowledge of God and of his high celestial virtues ; he desired to be instructed in this by wise masters, and he caused many books of wise theologians to be translated, ‘*et de théologie souvent vouloit oyr.’’t The modern sophists condemn such learning in a prince, and require on the contrary that he should be instructed in the sciences of natural philosophy, as if a knowledge of botany or mineralogy were more con- ducive to perfect the art of wise government, than that of ethics and divinity, which would teach the end of all good government, the true interests of mankind, and what belongs to the various relations of men on the stage of the present life. How should the natural sciences con- stitute the proper learning for rulers, or legislators, or magistrates! So- ciety is not in a better or worse condition for their opinion on physics being true or false; there are always men whom they may consult on such questions, but their error in religion or morals may involve whole generations in incalculable evils. ‘The example of king Don Alonso is adduced by Savedra to prove the inutility of science in a prince, for he knew how to correct the disorders of the heavens, but not those in his state; he who, by the force of his genius, could ascend to the height of the celestial orbs, was not able to preserve a kingdom and an hered- itary crown. The Sultan of Egypt, ravished at so glorious a renown, sent ambassadors to him loaded with presents, and almost all the cities of Castille, in the heart of his kingdom, refused to obey him. The religious studies of the middle ages taught men how to govern themselves, and therefore enabled them to rule over others. Men would not have deemed it possible, during the ages of faith, that the fact of a religious direction having been given to the studies of the laity, could be adduced in subsequent times in evidence of their having been barba- rians. ‘They would have shrunk in contempt, as well as in displeasure, from any learning which was otherwise directed. Hec et a pueritia legimus et discimus, they would have confidently replied to any object- ors who should have proposed a different kind of learning. Hane eruditionem liberalem et doctrinam putamus. This was the learning, not for the priest alone, but for all Christians in time past, who, while they occupy themselves with learning, ‘“‘hane amplissimam omnium artium bené vivendi disciplinam vita magis quam litteris persecuti sunt.”’{ ‘This was the learning of those masters of religion whom our ancestors revered, of whom we might justly say, in the words of the Roman orator, ‘‘ that their wisdom seems to us so great, that those men are more than sufficiently prudent, who, we do not say follow their * Meeurs des Chrest. 307. f Livre des Fais, &c. Part iii. ¢. 3. t Cicer. Tuscul. liv. iv. 3. Vo. II.—10 G 74 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, prudence, but who are able to perceive how great it was.”’ Do men at present forget, that the reason, even of the ancient philosophers, would have dictated similar language? ‘Let us inquire what say the priests: for I confess that I am vehemently moved by the gravity of their answers, and by their one and constant voice. Neither am I that man who, if he should seem to be more than others versed in the study of letters, would take delight in or make any use whatever of such letters as would tend to withdraw our minds from religion.’’ This, you reply, is the language of some bigoted disciple, when education was the mo- nopoly of the priesthood during the dark ages. Nay, most profound critic, they are the words of Cicero.” But, even in a mere literary point of view, what was the character of the learning of the middle ages? Truly I do not see on what grounds the men of later times have reason to despise it. Philosophers enu- merate three distempers of learning; the first, fantastical learning, the second, contentious learning, and the last, delicate learning: vain imagi- nations, vain altercations, and vain affections. Now I would ask these disparagers of the Christian school, whether, if we exclude these three kinds of learning, will there be found remaining such prodigious stores for the moderns to boast of, as to warrant their contempt for past ages? It is infinitely remarkable that Lord Bacon should have noticed this per- version of learning, as having been consequent upon what he calls the reformation: he admits that learning then became characterised by an affectionate study of eloquence: men began to hunt more after words than matter, and more after the choiceness of the phrase and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment. Then grew the learning of the schoolmen to be despised as barbarous 5 then were Cicero and Demosthenes almost deified, and young men allured unto that deli- cate and polished kind of learning, which induced Erasmus to make the scoffing echo, ‘‘ Decem annos consumpsi in legendo Cicerone,’’ and the echo answered in Greek ‘‘ ove—ass.”’t Now whatever may have been the faults of the ancient learning, it at least never evinced the spirit or the tricks of the sophist or the pedant. ‘A good reader or student,” says Vincent of Beauvais, “ought to be humble and mild, and ready to learn from all, and he never should presume on the ground of his know- ledge, and he ought not to wish to seem to be wise before the time, pretending to be what he is not, and ashamed to appear what he is. He ought not to condemn instantly whatever he does not understand. This should be the discipline of readers.t There are some,” he con- tinues, “ who wish to read all things, but the number of books is infinite. Be not desirous of following where there is no end or rest, and therefore no peace; and where there is no peace God cannot dwell. Philosophy rejects a fastidious stomach, and invites the cheerful guest to a simple supper of few but good meats. There is a great difference between seeing the thing itself and only the books; for books are only poor (SGN a Tre 97 Vy 29 Ee a ee ee eee acca re ee ee en . ay < nae gener aanianica * Orat. de Haruspicum Respons. 9. + Advancement of Learning. + Speculum Doctrinale, lib. i. cap. 28. AGES OF FAITH. 75 monuments of knowledge, and contain only the principles for inquiry, which are to be pursued afterwards, and for that very purpose books are to be laid aside.’’* Mere book-learning distinguishes no great wri- ter of the middle ages. ‘*Some things which I have not found in books,” says John of Salisbury, ‘from daily use and experience of things, as if from a certain history of manners, I have gathered.”+ ‘The learning of the middle ages was Homeric, indicating personal acquaint- ance with men and things. Many of their great writers were them- selves wanderers. ‘Trithemius mentions a certain priest of Ireland, named Sedulius, a disciple from childhood of the Archbishop Hildebert, who might be said to represent them all, for he was a man exercised in the divine Scriptures, and most learned in literature, excelling in verses and prose, who left Ireland, passed into France and Italy, thence into Asia, and lastly, after visiting the shores of Achaia, returned to Rome, where he shone in admirable learning.t In the schools, indeed, were distinguished the superseminati, or those who were superficial, the pannosi, or those whose learning was all in scraps and collections of sentences, and the massati, or those who were solidly learned ; || but even to the two former belonged the grace of humility, and the merit of a sound judgment, of which the proof may yet be witnessed in the col- lections made by them which have come down to us, as well as in works of their own composition. The admirable Phillipe de Comines confesses that he is a man ‘who has no literature, mais quelque peu d’expérience et sens naturel,” which the Abbé Gouget justly remarks, is worth far more than learning. A certain tone of noble simplicity, not unconnected with those manners of the feudal hearth, to which I before alluded, was observable in the writings of such men. It is this which seems so admirable in Joinville, and Froissart, and Olivier de la Marche, and a multitude of others, to whom the following distich of the poet Panormita, addressed to Leon Batista the Florentine, might with justice be applied by every judicious reader, “ Cum placeas cunctis, raris pro dotibus, idem Tu mihi pro vera simplicitate places.” One is struck also in all their compositions with that characteristic, which a distinguished critic of our times praises in Dante, that lively and respectful faith, that laical docility which reigns amidst the magnifi- cent inventions of his imagination, and the boldest flights of genius. In general, the learning and style of the middle ages had a certain deep mysterious tone, unobtrusive, symbolical, and at an infinite distance from the pert familiarity and vulgar display which is so characteristic of mod- ern literature. ‘This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard,” says Hip- polita of the play, to whom Theseus replies in words that express the genuine spirit of all their beautiful and profound compositions : “The best in this kind are but shadows: And the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.”§ But what could imagination do for the popular literature of the present * Speculum Doctrinale, lib. i. cap. 33. + De Nugis Curialium, lib. vii. Prologo. + In lib. ii. de Scriptoribus Eccles. || Heuffel, Hist. Scholarum, 376. § Midsummer Night’s Dream, v. 1. 76 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, age? Men in these days would have disdained the domestic famil- iar muse of Euripides, who, it was said, never wrote any thing but what all the world could understand and perceive at the first instant, and from whose dramas men could learn better skill even in the com- monest matters of household economy. ‘The muse of the middle ages was that of Auschylus, and critics, like him described by Aristophanes, might object to their style, “that it was not sufficiently clear and contin- uous, but that its expressions were only scamandars, or trenches, or the insignia of shields, and broken words, which it were not easy to put to- gether,” like crosses, and holy sepulchres, and hooded heads, shrines, vigils, dirges, nocturns, templars, and chivalry. The wise poet of anti- quity, however, leaves the clear popular writer in the shades, and brings back the dark and solemn A‘schylus, to save his country by the max- ims of his wisdom.* With respect to books intended for general circu- lation, many historical works, of the most solid and practical philoso- phy, were composed in the middle ages, in a simple but condensed style, that united the brevity of Tacitus with the clearness of Livy. Such, for instance, was that history of the English schism, transferred to the Italian, with a truly Roman gravity, by Bernardo Davanzati, in the sixteenth century. That profound thinker and parsimonious speak- er, who received from the academy of the Alterati the name of the Si- lent, was the first to show, in this curious history, that the language of Florence need yield to no other in brevity and weight. A most remark- able monument, though of a different kind, is the work which was com- posed by Paschasius Radbert, on the deeds of Wala, the Abbot of Cor- by, which, being written while the enemies of that holy man were alive, and during the reign of Charles the Bald, when it was dangerous to treat upon such a subject, fictitious names are employed, and the truth of history explained in the form of a dialogue, after the manner of Plato. Mabillon, who discovered this work, which he justly styles golden, in the library of St. Martin des Champs at Paris, inserted it in his Acts of the Benedictine Saints, where it stands an imperishable monument of the profound wisdom, the learning, the judgment, and the accurate knowledge of all human duties, combined with the deepest piety, which were possessed in the ninth century. Assuredly the author of this work stood in need of no useful knowledge that the men of our times could give him. Indeed, of the literary excellence of many writers of the middle ages some modern critics have had the courage to speak with justice. Guizot, for instance, concludes his review of Alcuin’s writings in these words: «‘I regret that I cannot enter more fully into the exam- ination of these monuments of so active and distinguished a mind. I seem as if I had but taken a glance at them, and if they were made the subject of our profound study, we should reap, without doubt, pleasure and advantage. Jn fine, this appears to me to be the general character of Alcuin and his works. He is a theologian by profession; the atmo- sphere in which he lives, and the public to whom he addresses himself, are essentially theological; and yet the theological spirit does not alone reign in him: it is also towards philosophy and ancient literature that his thoughts and works are directed. These also he desires to study, * Aristoph. Rane. AGES OF FAITH. 77 to teach, and to revive. St. Jerome and St. Augustin are familiar to him, but Pythagoras, Aristotle, Aristippus, Diogenes, Plato, Homer, Vir- gil, Seneca, and Pliny, are also in his memory. The greatest part of his writings is theological, but mathematics, astronomy, dialectics, and rhetoric occupy him habitually. It is a monk, a deacon, the light of the contemporary church, but at the same time it is a scholar, and a classical scholar. We see united in him an admiration, a taste, or rath- er a regret for the ancient literature, and the sincerity of Christian faith, the ardour to illustrate its mysteries and to defend its power.’’ Of what learned and profound men might not the universities have boasted at their very commencement? What erudition appeared in the works of Gerson, John Raulin, Biel, Clavasius, and of innumerable others at Pa- ris ? in other universities, what great Platonists were beheld in Marsilius Fiscinus, Hermolaus Barbarus, and Picus of Mirandula? What great astronomers in the Cardinal Cusa, George Purbach, Regio Montanus, and Walter? What Grecians and poets in Merula, the two Strozzas, the two Philelphes? What Latinists and poets in Mapheus Vegius, whom some compared to Virgil, Andrelinus, who composed such beau- tiful eclogues, Ugolinus, who celebrated the victories of Charlemagne, Ravisius Textor, the author of that fine dialogue between the Pilgrim and Death, Collatius, who sung the calamities of Jerusalem? What sa- cred orators in Maillard and Menot, the Franciscan friar, who declaimed in French against the scandals of their age? What profane orator in Jean Lefevre, who so eloquently defended an unfortunate prince?) What historians in Paulus Emilius, the canon, who wrote a history of France in Latin, Robert Gaguin, who wrote a Latin history of the French mon- archy, the two Chartiers, John and Alain, Froissart, and Monstrellet, Juvenal des Ursins, Mathieu Coucy, Le Bouvier, Nicole Gilles, Jehan de Troyes? What philologists in Annius, Ureeus-Codrus, Angelo Po- litien, Beroaldus Brant, Alexander Min, respecting whose birthplace no- ble cities disputed? What lexicographers in Ambrose Calepin and Stephens? What grammarians in Valla, Lully, Niger, Sulpitius, Pero- tus, Tiphernes, Hermonius, Lascaris, Chrisoloras, Capnion, Androni- cus, Dalmata, for whom kings and republics contended? What civil- ians in Alciatus, Chopinus, Corvinus, Marculfus? In fine, what univer- sal geniuses, of whom Alphonso Tostatus, the Spanish divine, was so eminent an example, that he merited the epitaph,— “ Hic stupor est mundi, qui scibile discutit omne.” Examine the literature of these ages during any period, and take, for example, that which was produced in France alone from the fifth to the tenth century, and, as far as relates to the choice of subjects, it will be found more noble and philosophic, more conformable to the idea of lit- erature, in the sense of Plato and Cicero, and of the ancients generally, than even that of the nineteenth, with its libraries of novels, memorials of robbers and of persons of profligate renown, and catechisms to teach children political economy and arithmetic. In the fifth century there flourished in France, Sulpicius Severus, who wrote the life of St. Mar- tin of Tours, a sacred history, and dialogues respecting the monks of the East; Evargrus, who wrote disputations between ‘Theophilus, a Christian, and Simon, a Jew, and a dialogue between Zacheus, a G2 78 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, Christian, and Apollonius, a philosopher; St. Paulin, Bishop of Nola, who wrote epistles and poems, and a discourse upon alms; Cassien, of Provence, who wrote a treatise upon monastic institutions, and confer- ences upon the monastic life; Palladius, of Poictiers, who wrote a poem upon agriculture; St. Prosper, of Aquitaine, who wrote a poem upon grace, and a chronicle or universal history; Mamert Claudien, of Vienne, who wrote a treatise on the nature of the soul, the hymn of the Passion, Pange lingua; Salvien, who wrote a treatise against avarice, and another on the government of God; Sidonius Apollinarus, Bishop of Clermont, who wrote poems and epistles ; Faustus, who wrote a trea- tise on grace, and letters on points of philosophy and theology; Gen- nade, of Provence, who wrote a catalogue of illustrious men, and a treatise on ecclesiastical doctrines; Pomeerius, of Arles, who wrote a treatise on the contemplative life, and a treatise on the nature of the soul; St. Ennodius, of Arles, who wrote a panegyric of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, a life of St. Epiphanius, letters, poems, and theological tracts; St. Avitus, Archbishop of Vienne, who composed two sublime religious poems, besides epistles and sermons; St. Cesari- us, of Arles, who wrote a treatise on grace and free-will, and sermons; St. Cyprian, of Arles, who wrote the life of St. Cesarius ; St. Gregory, Bishop of Tours, who wrote the ecclesiastical history of the Frances, on the glory of the martyrs, on the glory of confessors, lives of the fathers, and many theological works; Marius, of Autun, who wrote a chronicle ; Josephus, of Touraine, who wrote a history of the Jews; St. Fortuna- tus, Bishop of Poictiers, who composed sacred and profane poems, and lives of the saints; St. Columban, Abbot of Luxeuil, who composed poems, homilies, letters, and theological tracts; Marculfus, who wrote a collection of formula or models of public acts; Fredegaire, of Burgun- dy, who wrote a chronicle; Jonas, Abbot of St. Amand, who wrote the life of St. Columban; St. Ouen, Archbishop of Rouen, who wrote the life of St. Eloi; St. Boniface, Archbishop of Mayence, who wrote the- ological works, sermons, and letters; Alcuin, Abbot of St. Martin of Tours, who wrote commentaries upon the Scriptures, philosophical and literary works, poems and letters; Angelbert, Abbot of St. Ri- quier, who composed poems, and a history of his monastery ; Leid- rade, Archbishop of Lyons, who wrote theological works, and letters ; Smaragdus, Abbot of St. Michael, who wrote treatises on morals, commentaries on the New Testament, and a great grammar; St. Benet, Abbot of Aniane, who wrote the code of monastic rules, and theological works; Theodulph, Bishop of Orleans, who wrote instructions on the schools, poems, and theological tracts; Adalhard, who wrote the Stat- utes of Corbie, letters, and a treatise, De ordine Palatii; Dungal, of Ire- land, a recluse of St. Denis and a poet, who wrote upon eclipses; Halitgaire, who wrote a penitential, and a treatise on the life and duties of priests; Ansegisus, Abbot of Fontenelle, who collected the capitula- ries of Charlemagne and Louis-le-Debonnaire, in four books; Fried- gres, Abbot of St. Martin of ‘Tours, who wrote a philosophic treatise upon nothingness and darkness, and poems; Ermold the Black, Abbot of Aniane, who wrote a poem on the life and deeds of Louis-le-Debon- naire; Amalaire, of Metz, who wrote a rule for canons, and a treatise on ecclesiastical offices ; Eginhard, who wrote the life of Charlemagne, AGES OF FAITH. 79 annals, and letters; Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, who wrote poems and theological treatises ; Hilduin, Abbot of St. Denis, who wrote upon the patron of that abbey ; Doane, Duchess of Septimania, who wrote a manual of counsels to her son; Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, who wrote a treatise on the institution of Laics, and on the institution of a king; St. Ardon Smaragdus, who wrote the life of St. Benet; Theganus, of Treves, who wrote the life of Louis-le-Debonnaire; Walfried Strabo, Abbot of Reichenau, who wrote a commentary on the whole Bible, the life of St. Gall, poems, one of which was descriptive, entitled Hortulus, and several theological treatises; Freculfus, Bishop of Lisieux, who wrote a history of the world; Angelome, monk of Luxeuil, who wrote commentaries on the Bible; Raban-Maur, Archbishop of Mayence, who wrote fifty-one works of theology, philosophy, philology, chronol- ogy, and letters; Nithard, Duke of Maritime France, and monk of St. Riquier, who wrote the history of the dissensions of the sons of Louis- le-Debonnaire; Florus, of Lyons, who wrote theological treatises on grace, poems, and a complaint on the dismemberment of the empire after Louis-le-Debonnaire; St. Prudentius, Bishop of Troyes, who wrote on grace; Loup, Abbot of Ferriers, who wrote on the same, and also a history of the emperors; Paschasius Radbert, Abbot of Corbie, who wrote upon the Eucharist, and composed the lives of Wala and Adalhard; Ratramnus, who wrote on the Eucharist and on grace; Gottschalk, who wrote on grace; Otfried, monk at Weisembourg, who wrote a paraphrase on the Gospels in verse; Milon, monk at St. Amand, who wrote poems, one upon sobriety, and a pastoral entitled, the Combat of Winter and Spring; John Scot Erigenus, who wrote upon philosophy and upon grace, and the division of nature; Usuard, monk of St. Germain-des-Pres, who wrote a martyrology; St. Remi, Archbishop of Lyons, who wrote upon grace and free-will; St. Adon, Archbishop of Vienne, who wrote upon religion, and a universal histo- ry; Isaac, Bishop of Langres, who made a collection of canons; He- ry, who wrote the life of St. Germain of Auxerre, in verse; Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, who wrote theological treatises, and political works; the Monk of St. Gall, who wrote the life of Charlemagne; Re- mi, monk of St. Germain of Auxerre, who wrote a commentary on the Bible, and commentaries on the ancient grammarians and orators ; Abbon, monk of St. Germain-des-Pres, who composed a poem on the siege of Paris by the Normans in 885; Hucbald, monk of St. Amand, who wrote poems and lives of the saints; St. Odon, Abbot of Cluny, who wrote theological treatises, poems, and a life of St. Gregory of Tours; Frodoard, who wrote poems, and a history of the church of Rheims; Helperic, who wrote a treatise on the computation of time in relation to the ecclesiastical calendar; John, Abbot of St. Arnoul at Metz, who wrote lives of saints, and the history of John of Verdiere, Abbot of Gorze, in which he relates his embassy into Spain to Ab- deram, Caliph of Cordova; Adson, Abbot of Montier-en-Der, who wrote the treatise on Anti-Christ, which was so celebrated; Arnoul, Bishop of Orleans, who wrote De Cartilagine, being an essay on ana- tomical studies; Gerbert, Pope Sylvester II., who wrote works on mathematics and philosophy, on theology, poems, and epistles, which showed that the activity of men of learning was not abated by the pre- 80 MORES CATHOLICI; OR vailing opinion that the world was then about to perish, as the tenth century drew to its close. Literature has been said to be the expression of society: that of the ages of faith was thus holy and historical. Has it, on moral and philo- sophical grounds, any reason to fear a comparison with ourown? Men may have wanted the critical sagacity that could always detect impos- ture, and disengage the real facts of a narrative from what credulity and exaggeration had superinduced ; but insincerity can never be laid to their charge. ‘They wrote, in regard to truth, like Fluery, of whom Chateau- briand says he would rather die than be guilty of a falsehood. What Montaigne says of himself, applies perhaps to every author,—that he does not more make his book than his book makes him: and on this principle, an acquaintance with the books of the middle ages would lead us to conclude, that those who wrote them were among the holiest and the wisest men that ever lived in the tide of times. Besides these origi- nal works, the collections which were made during the middle ages, and the choice of authors, which we find invariably to have been formed with the soundest judgment, and in which the men of greatest science in our days have nothing to change, prove them to have possessed judi- cious and solid, as well as extensive learning. Such were those vast compilations of which the Margarita Philosophica, by an anonymous author, and the Speculum Naturale and Historiale of Vincent of Beau- vais, are examples, forming an abridgment of all the branches of human knowledge. ‘The compilation of moral and theological sentences, like those of the Abbot Eugipius and Louis of Blois, indicate prodigious re- search, and a true perception of literary beauty. That spiritual and affecting book, which was published at one time as the manual of St. Augustin, and at another as that of St. Anselm, or of Hugues de Saint- Victor, was, in fact, composed by some writer of the middle ages, whose name is unknown. The same is true respecting the book en- titled the Soliloquies of St. Augustin, which was written subsequent to the year 1198, as is inferred from the author having inserted in it sen- tences from the first chapter of the fourth Council of Lateran, held in that year. We have seen in a former place that the ascetical writers of the middle age wrote only to edify the faithful, and had no ambition to win the glory of writing well. ‘The rumour prevalent here,”’ says Louis of Blois, ‘‘ that the number of the heretics is daily increasing, has compelled me to treat on these matters more at length. Henceforth I have determined on writing and publishing nothing, since I have to pre- pare myself for a salutary death: the world is already full of books.’’* Concealing their names as well as their lives, they made no scruple of availing themselves of what others had said before them, when they judged that it was better than what they could themselves say, seeking in every thing only the greater glory of God. ‘The author of the Man- ual, indeed, in his Preface declares, that it is only a collection of re- markable sentences from the holy Fathers. Even on scientific subjects, men made a right choice of ancient au- thors, and had the no small merit of being able to distinguish what wri- ters possessed the greatest merit. In the middle ages, Dioscorides and * Ludovic Blosius, Epist. ad Florentium. AGES OF FAITH, 81 Pliny were the only authors consulted for botany and the composition of medicines, and Galen was the great authority and guide of physicians, insomuch that Carden advises his pupil, when asked any irrelevant ques- tion by a patient, to reply, that Galen forbids him to answer that ques- tion,—as if the weight of his name was quite sufficient to put any one to silence. Now Baron Cuvier says, that Galen is the only natural philos- opher of antiquity who deserves to be placed at the side of Aristotle. In ages of faith it was not overlooked, that the anatomical and physiological writings of this great man are composed in a spirit of profound piety, that he begins by invoking the Creator, and never loses an occasion of leading his reader to consider the final Cause in the wonderful construc- tion of the human frame. What penetration did men evince in revering Plato for having taught that the soul was an emanation from the divinity ! How little reason have the moderns to ridicule them for so admiring Aris- totle, that they would always lift their cap when he was named! Baron Cuvier declares, that he never reads the Natural History of that philos- opher without being filled with astonishment at his genius and observa- tion. ‘The first complete Latin translation of Aristotle was given in the thirteenth century by Michael Scot, who had studied in Spain with the Arabs. It is not to be denied, however, but that of the phantastic learn- ing there were unhappily some examples, in the very ages when it was most clearly denounced, and therefore, when it ought to have been re- garded with the greatest aversion. Who has not read somewhat of those strange retired old men, who thought that in Nature’s infinite book of secrecy a little they could read,—who, in subterraneous vaults, worked incessantly at what was called the great work, those blowers and alchem- ists,—among whom poor Nicholas Flamel was unjustly reckoned by posterity,—and who, notwithstanding all their follies, used to be sup- ported by the alms of some devout though weak persons? or of those mysterious inhabitants of the cloister, like that clerk of fame who had studied in Padua, far beyond the sea, regarded on his return with such dubious reverence,— “As when in studious mood he paced St. Andrew’s cloistered hall?” Gillebert, Abbot of St. Bertin’s at St. Omer, was accused, by a proud disobedient prior whom he had deposed, of being an alchemist. John of Ypres, who wrote the chronicle of that Abbey, says, that he has been present when the Abbot Alelmus proved the metal, of which certain can- delabras and vases were composed that had been made and given by Abbot Gillebert, and that they were found to be of alchemic silver. Gil- lebert used to be called the golden Abbot, from the splendour of his works. ‘And since I have alluded to alchemy,” says John of Ypres, ‘¢T entreat all and each one never to apply their mind to this art. For this art promises beautiful things, and gives few: it strongly attracts and fascinates men, and many are deceived by it. Trust one who has expe- rience,—for I who write this was deceived by it, and I have seen many similarly deceived. Nor have I ever seen any one who has attained to the true work, which is of itself probable, for the principles of this art do not agree with the principles of nature. Also, its end is plainly defec- tive, nor does a metal become good by it: witness Albert, in his book Vou. Il.—1} 82 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, entitled Semita Recta, which he composed on this art, in which he says, ‘By this mode gold is made better than all that which is extracted from the mines of the earth, in weight and colour, and fusibility, ductability, and malleability ; excepting that, as alchemic iron is not attracted by the loadstone, so alchemic gold does not cure the leprosy, nor by means of it is the heart of man made glad, and the wound which it makes swells, because it is not the gold of God.’ ‘These are the words of Albert.’’* Christine de Pisan mentions, that ‘¢ the wise King Charles, who singu- larly delighted in all men of science, heard that, towards Avignon, there was a speculative clerk who led a life of philosophy, and worked with great subtilty in the art of alchemy, in which it was said he had already attained to many fine and notable points. The said clerk had been a dis- ciple of Master Arnault de Villeneuve, who was a very solemn man in science, and who, it was said by some, had attained to the philosopher’s stone. The king, who desired to see all subtil things, wrote to him that he wished him to come to him, and that he would reward him well. The clerk, in his letters, written in very fine Latin, thanked the king humbly for the honour which he paid to him unworthy ; but in sooth, as he was a solitary man, speculative, and of strange manners, he was not fit to appear at court: he had no flattering accents on his tongue; he was too much at ease in repose, in leading a poor life, eating roots and leaves, and speculating in philosophy: as he was not covetous of other’s riches, there was no delight or wealth which could induce him to lose the repose and pleasure of speculation. ‘The king sent him a message to say, that he did not wish to deprive him of his repose, but to increase it if he could; and that, although God had given to him the charge of the office of temporal rule, his inclination and his desires were not bent upon hearing lying flatteries which are thus offered to princes, but to search into the points of truth and virtue. The clerk, seeing the benig- nity of the king, came to Paris, where the king received him with great honours, and heard him speak. He remained a short time, and then returned with many fine gifts.”’t Modern science is indebted for the knowledge of many important facts to these indefatigable and mysterious inquirers of the middle age. Though employed in occult, and therefore in sinful occupations, they were not without some influence, from the devout spirit of their times. ‘‘The chemical philosopher,”’ says Sir Humphrey Davy, ‘should re- semble the modern geometricians in the greatness of his views and the profoundness of his researches, and the ancient alchemists in industry and piety, in keeping his mind awake to devotional feelings, that in becoming wiser he may become better.’’ If I did not fear to tire and offend the reader, I could relate some strange discoveries or professed inventions connected with these forbidden studies. Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, Petrus Loyerus, Renodeus, Gregorius Tholosanus, Cardan. Capocchio, and many others, who thought that men might ape creative nature by a subtil art, recall sad examples of misdirected study. But it sufficeth to name them: we shall have occasion in a future place to speak of the superstitions of those ages, when there will be more excuse for * Chronicon 8. Bertini, cap. 49, pars x. apud. Marten. Thesaur. Anecdot. tom. iii. { Livre des Fais, &c. iii. c. 22. AGES OF FAITH. 83 citing Arbatell. For the present, let us follow the example of the Lady of Branksome, and send back the book to Michael’s grave. . It must be admitted that the sciences formed not the most favourite branch of study during the middle ages. As with the Spartans of old, the teacher who won most admiration, was not one who lectured upon the stars and the movements of the heavens, upon geometry, or the science of numbers, upon the power of letters and syllables, rythms and harmony of accent,—but it was one fond of antiquity like Virgil, who spoke of the generation of heroes and men, of the founding of colonies, and of the first establishment of cities, and in general, as Plato adds, mdone Tis agxatorcyiec.* Religion gave to history and to moral philosophy a charm and an importance which the natural sciences could never pos- sess ; and that is one reason why Catholic studies are generally so much more occupied with the former than with the latter, while those who pursue their opposite, having comparatively no interest in Christian history, which they are incapable of understanding in consequence of their false position, and finding but little encouragement from the an- cient philosophers of the Socratic or Pythagorean school, who, with the original traditions of mankind, are all against them, naturally direct their genius to the pursuit of the exact sciences, in which they find nothing contrary to the state of mind in which it is convenient for them to con- tinue. The mind of man, as Aristotle says, is naturally formed to em- brace truth ;t so that when that which is more immediately divine, as theological, is denied or rendered unattainable, it endeavours to supply the deficiency by scientific truth, by research into the causes and nature of material things. The heretics and schismatics in early ages, were known to apply with diligence to the natural sciences, as was witnessed in the Nestorians, who first propagated the science of the Greeks among the Persians, and other oriental nations. In later ages they have not been wanting in similar application to the study of the sciences; and in cultivating the Greek and Roman litera- ture, their efforts have been unwearied. ‘The Church, from the first ages, has been accustomed to see genius and learning in the ranks opposed to her. Even after Christianity had acquired a complete vic- tory, among the Greeks at least, the heathen party was still distinguished by the most commanding talents: it could boast of men worthy of very high admiration, whether we regard the extent of their learning or the elegance of their compositions. With respect to the witnesses, whose profession would lead us to suppose that they now, as formerly, came forward to accuse the wisdom of the ages of faith, I would not involve all in one similar sentence. There are in that number many learned and humane men, who would shrink from such charges, and gladly sup- pose themselves Catholics without the supposed humiliation of a Pali- node, many impudent, illiterate, light men, who come forward as in the days of Luther and the Puritans, to sustain them. But this I do say of all kinds of protestors,—TI ascribe science and classical learning to them: I concede the discipline of many arts: I do not deny them elegance of lancuage, the sentiments that belonged to noble birth, penetration of genius, and abundant eloquence. Finally, if they claim many other * Hippias Major. ft Arist. Metaphysic. lib. i. cap. 1 84 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, merits, I do not object;—but the learning of Christian antiquity, and the humility which casts down all high thoughts, and brings them into | captivity to faith,—that race never cultivated. ‘They cannot have the Same encouragement to pursue Christian learning; for their labours must be intended to serve a party, or at the most, some one nation, whose theologico-political system they defend: whereas, the Catholic student had the infinite satisfaction of being able to consider himself one of an immense army spread over the entire earth, consisting of men who, without having ever seen each other, were all directing their respective abilities to serve, not any particular sect, or government, or nation, or rank of society, but the sacred cause of the universal Church. Moreover, learning in them would only serve to develope more stri- kingly the inconsistency of their system; for they could not but admire the writings of the men with whom it would make them acquainted ; and how painful would it be to imitate the inconsistency of those who eulogize Thomas & Kempis, and Fenelon, and St. Bernard, and others, without withdrawing the charge against the Church to which they belonged! Unhappily, some of their number have been tempted to claim possession of such men with consistency, by means of altering or diminishing the truths which they deliver, publishing St. Frances de Sales’ Introduction to a Devout Life, corrected, as they say, from the errors of the Popish edition,—as if he had been originally one of their authors,—and cutting off the fourth book, of the Imitation of Christ, not perceiving that without that last part the three former are, in a the- ological, and even philosophic sense, inexplicable. Famous in the annals of literary deceit was the crime of Hiobus, a Lutheran, who, in the year 1528, published an edition of the book of Paschasius, Abbot of Corby, on the Eucharist, not only omitting whole chapters, but also adding and foisting in words and sentences of his own, in order to make that holy writer appear to speak his sentiments; but his perfidy was exposed by Nicolas Mameranus, who published, in 1550, at Cologne, an edition of the real work.* *'They who contrive how to propagate heresy under another name,” says Vincent of Lerins, ‘‘choose gener- ally the writings of some ancient man, more obscurely set forth, which, by the very ‘obscurity of its doctrine, may seem to agree with their own, so that whatever they propound, it may appear as if they were neither the first nor the only persons who think so; whose wick- edness I deem worthy of double hatred, both because they do not fear to give the heretical poison to others to drink, and also because they fan, with a profane hand, as it were, the quiet ashes of some holy man, defaming his memory, and perpetuating, by revived publicity, what ought to be buried in silence.”’+ In some instances, indeed, this con- duct may have arisen merely from a weakness which attaches itself to human nature, such as led the Turks formerly to maintain that Orlando was a Turk, from his renown having passed into Colchus, where it is more known than that of Jason and the Argonauts.t But this mode of appropriating intellectual riches, is foreign from the inheritance of the meek, and can have no security; while, on the other hand, imperfect * Mabillon, Prefat. in iv. Secul. Benedict. pars ii. ft Vincent. Lerinens. Com. cap. 40. + Huet, de Origine des Romans, 37. AGES OF FAITH, 85 or ambiguous sentences were not a sufficient ground for them to aban- don their claims to great writers as having been in error, but, according to the advice of Facundus, they were warranted in interpreting, in a better sense, the writings of all learned men who were gone before in the peace of the Church.* Even without literary fraud, the learning of these proud choosers was often employed in self-deception and in misleading others; for ‘*he only reads with profit,” says St. Hilary, ‘‘who expects the sense of the things said from the words, and does not impose it upon them,—who does not force that to seem to be contained in the words, which before reading he had presumed was to be under- stood.’’t In attempting to explain what was the doctrine of the Church, they worked at hazard, and without any judgment: respecting the Trin- ity, they would as soon have consulted the writers who had opposed Pelagius as they would have studied St. Athanasius, St. Gregory Nazi- anzen, St. Augustin, and St. Fulgentius, for the doctrine of grace, for- getting that, although the anti-Nicene or the Greek Fathers did not think different from the Catholic Church, still, not being obliged by circumstances to treat upon those questions, they only alluded to them in passing, and with less precision. In describing the doctrines and customs of Catholics, these modern historians wrote with as much knowledge as Tacitus evinced respecting those of the Jews, which he designates as sordid, detestable, and absurd.t They were betrayed into the most palpable inconsistencies, so as to speak in admiration of the solid piety of the founders of their ancient colleges in times of what they termed Popish superstition. Wondrous is the force of truth, cries Petrus Cellensis, which takes captive the adversaries unwilling and unaware, and drives them on to the snares of an unavoidable conclusion, when they are taken and entangled in their own words, speaking truth unintentionally, and expressing with their lips what they do not feel in their heart.|| Indeed, their endless concessions and panegyrics, in the same breath with the most unjust and horrible imputations, seem so like a total loss of intellectual conscience, that one ought to be less shocked at the old catalogue of epithets in use with the illiterate, or with the raving Burtons of old, than at these eulogiums. Meanwhile, the more noble adversaries of the Church, who scorn all dishonourable methods of appropriating intellectual glories, feeling such a sense of their poverty in respect to theological studies, are induced to substitute opinions and speculations for a study of tradition. Truly, in their histories of the Church, it is curious to see how soon they find themselves painfully struggling amidst rocks and sands, and with what signs of pleasure they escape to the passes where a heathen’s discourse would flow as smoothly as their own. ‘These modern philo- sophic historians of the Church insensibly fall into a style as ridiculous as that of the pedant in Moliére, who says, ‘You ought not to say I beg your advice, but I seem to beg it.’’ With them there is never any thing, but, it would seem, as if all their confidence were reserved for repeating the detected falsifications of a Robertson.§ Even those who * Facundus Hermianensis, lib. ix. de tribus Capitulis 5. + S. Hilar. lib. i. de Trinitate. + Hist. lib. v. | Epist. lib. vi. 23. § Library of Useful Knowledge, Hist. of the Church. H 86 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, have a tone of sincerity, dwell only on the reasons for doubt, and con- ceal all the proof of truth, and thus reconcile themselves to clear and cer- tain falsehood. Lord Bacon himself remarked, that ** when a doubt is once received, men labour rather how to keep it a doubt still than how to solve it, and accordingly bend their wits. But that use of wit and knowledge is to be allowed which laboureth to make doubtful things certain, and not those which labour to make certain things doubtful.’’* To combat these wilful doubters is the task prescribed to Bellerophon, to destroy Ximagay dussraxtrny.t There is more of unfolding the sails of an oration with them than of labouring at the oars of dialectics. Even the sententious Tacitus becomes loquacious when an occasion offers of calumniating the Christians. ‘They will always have the last word, and charity need not render the meek anxious to deprive them of this melancholy privilege. It belongs to the nature of man’s reasoning facul- ty, that he should be able to protract disputation without end, and this ability is unopposed when there are no fixed principles, or when those which have been produced as fixed, may be changed and dissolved in a moment, as the success of those who produced them may require. In general, the learning of the adversaries only furnishes them with nega- tions. Do they seem at length to take up a position? On your ad- vance, they involve it in a mist of unintelligible phraseology, and you will hear them singing the peon of victory. Methinks, like the old symbolica]l knight, who encounters the magical adversaries, the Catho- lic should only make the sign of the cross and pass on. Nor is it even necessary to have learning to remain unmoved at their bold proposi- tions. ‘They may appear to have an exact knowledge of an infinite number of minute facts, so as to know the shepherd better than if they were of the fold, for men in ignorance always affect to be very particu- lar, like the traveller in Plautus, who, while pretending to come from Asia, where he had never been, replies to one who asked him whether Arabia is in Pontus,— ** Est: non illec, ubi thus gignitur, Sed ubi absinthium fit, atque cunila Gallinacea.”’t These graphic triflers light upon a false date, or a hasty and ambiguous word, and instantly rejoice like a hungry lion, who stumbles upon some great carcase of a stag or goat, and he will fasten upon it although the swift dogs and keen hunters are close to him: and so does the sectarian critic rejoice when he sees with his eyes something that will satisfy his appetite for censure and for doubt. ‘This discovery, he thinks, will jus- fy the schism of his ancestors; this inference will prove that the Church has fallen. ‘* Quis illas conclusiunculas: non rideat, quibus literatihomi- nes se simul et alios fatigant?”’ As ‘Tertullian says of the demon in pa- gan times, who employed against Christians both truth and falsehood, ‘‘Qmnia adversus veritatem de ipsa veritate constructa sunt.’’|| ‘These polemic and historical compositions resemble those which Glaucus de- scribes, being formed of sentences exactly balanced and symmetrical, in harmony with each other, and having the same tone, according to the art of the sophists in accumulating genitive and other accordant sounds.§ * Advancement of Learning. + Hom. Il. vi. 179. + Trinum. iv. 2. | Apolog. § Plato de Repub. vi. AGES OF FAITH. 87 Plausible books men may compose from ancient writings, by commit- ting faults against the letter and sense of the text, by the addition, sup- pression, and change of words, by the change of punctuation, by sup- pressions of phrases in the text, such as conceal what is necessary for understanding the author, which leave only a part known, suppressions of explanations, limitations, and essential exceptions, by extracts which make an author say what he never said, but the contrary to what he said, by extracts which unite what ought to be separate, and which sep- arate what ought to be united, by unfaithful statements, essential omis- sions in the recital of facts, by assertions which are false, or hazarded without proof, by acts given falsely as authentic, by extracts which have no relation to the title, by translations in violation of grammar, by alterations of sense in words, by addition, omission, transposition, and change, by treacherous expressions, contradictory to sense, redundant, deficient, inapplicable, malignant. By these and other kinds of falsifi- cation they may maintain the system of the moderns, and so still repeat- ing their despiteful song, condemn and vilify Catholic writers, but as Louis of Blois observes, in his mild and penetrating-style, ‘though they may say a great deal, and persuade many with specious words and vain eloquence, yet those who are truly humble, that is, who are humble in heart, they cannot seduce.”’** Meanwhile, there is nothing in the suc- cess of such labours to be compared to the pure and tranquil recom- pense of the meek ; there is nothing to conciliate esteem for the writer, even from the gentler spirits of his own party; he may have evinced sagacity, quickness, and diligence, but the muse of every clime rejects him; he is not an enemy, like Pandarus, to whom Apollo himself gave his bow.t ‘Those on his side may feel often tempted to entreat him, in the words which Bacchus addresses to the frogs, of whose monotonou chorus he is weary, “Grr, & ptrwdoy pévos, wradoube.’+ Confined and fettered at every step in the career of letters, he is deprived of the enjoyment of books that are most venerable and admirable, and compelled to resign to the meek the rich inheritance of the ancient Christian literature. At the same time, he may not be ignorant of any event in ecclesiastical history, for the most insensible and destitute may have read every thing. King Assuerius, having ordered Mardocheus to be fixed to the cross, and being unable to sleep that night, ordered that histories and the annals of former times should be read to him.| What history or book of annals have not the modern adversaries of the Catholic church read, while crucifying the Son of God afresh? Let it be remarked too, that an acquaintance with the literary productions of the adversaries is unquestionably far from being essential to a learned Catholic, but that the converse does not hold with regard to their inter- est in Catholic literature. «+ Mihi quidem,” I might reasonably say, in the words of Cicero, ‘‘ nulli satis eruditi videntur, quibus nostra ignota sunt ;’’§ or, as he remarks of Plato and other Socratic philosophers, that they are read by all persons, even by those who do not assent to * Epist. ad Florentium. f IL. ii. 27. { Aristoph. Ran. 240. | Liv. Esther. cap. vi. § De finibus, i. 88 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, them, whereas no one ever takes in his hands Epicurus and Metrodo- rus, unless it be one of their immediate disciples ;* we also may appeal to the fact that all persons read the Catholic philosophers, while no one ever hears of Taylor or Jewell, unless it be within the immediate circle of their sect. I omit to speak of the ignoble crew, whose learning con- sists in the ridicule of holy things, in holding them up to the eyes of flesh, and concealing their relation to faith and to a supernatural exis- tence. Ah, that noble spirits should be joined to such a rout! Where license of that description is permitted, there is nothing so easy as to write books that will seem to indicate imagination, sagacity, and genius ; and the temptation is too strong for modern authors, to whom therefore the chronicles of the ages of faith are a mine of inestimable value, which they are incessantly working, with a diligence commensurate with their vanity or their avarice. To refrain from examining such productions is no real diminution of the inheritance of the meek, and certainly they should refrain. ‘It seems to me,” says St. Augustin, ‘‘that studious and ingenuous youths, fearing God and seeking the happy life, should never dare to approach and follow confidently any doctrines which are exercised without the church of Christ, but should learn to judge them soberly and diligently, and that they should reject utterly and detest some things through suspicion of those who are in error, and that they should keep their studies separate, at a distance from the superfluous and luxurious institutions of men.”+ Who is ignorant that a new and most dangerous crew of writers has arisen in those professed historians and antiquarians of the French school, who have succeeded to the Ducanges, Mabillons, and Martenes, men who are Catholics in name and heretics in spirit, solemn libertines, followers of Epicurus, who with the body make the spirit die, of whose writings there is not a page that would not have served to Plato as a specimen of the sophist’s style, so far poetical that it would entitle them to use the language which Hesiod ascribes to the muses. << iducey Leddece Trornd abyety erdpeorrty ofnoiee””? ' though not perhaps to complete the sentence, < iDurey &” sa’? ebércue, Garndee pubiocacdas.” + The superficial and frivolous nature of these compositions is illustrative of the justice of Aristotle’s sentence, that ‘it is the breast which makes men learned;’’ but the effects which are produced continually by their diffusion, might make men sigh for the comparative security from impo- sition which readers formerly possessed, when even the wisest and most learned men, like Mabillon, would not have presumed to publish any writing without the consent of superiors, and when other means were placed at every one’s disposal of knowing the real value of par- ticular works, besides what might be inferred from the authority of a company of traders, whose sole estimation of the excellence of a book depended on the supply of money which it would bring them. Books formerly, as well as persons, were canonized, that is, were admitted into the class of approved and authentic works. This usage of the word seems more ancient with the Greeks, for we find in St. Athana- * Tuscul. lib. ii. 3. + De Doctrina Christiana, lib. ii. 39 + 'Theogon, AGES OF FAITH. 89 sius and others, the expression 4 xzven¢cuee @~riz. In the year 1308, the pope replied to the Friar Minors who desired a change in their rule, ‘that the rule of St. Francis is canonized, and that he did not wish to violate it.’’ Infamous books were burned by the Apostles. It would be strange if they who were not to receive into their houses any one who brought not apostolic doctrine,* were allowed by the same law to accept their serpent books. St. Isidore says, ‘‘that to read impious books is the same thing as to offer incense to the demon; and theolo- gians demonstrate from history that the holy Church in every age has exercised jurisdiction in prohibiting their perusal.”’t Hence the books of the Arians, Manicheans, Priscillians, Pelagians, and Albigenses are no longer to be found, because they did not contain those doubtful things which men were to prove by inquiry. The liberty of St. Je- rome was compatible with his own maxim, “that it was better to be ignorant of some things than to learn with danger ;’’{ and where the error and danger were self-evident, Muratori says that it was due to the republic to pronounce sentence against books intrepidly, without further hearing.|| But to return to the learning of the avowed and less danger- ous adversaries of the Church. Having substituted speculation for the knowledge of facts, there is no longer occasion for the erudition which would be employed in ex- plaining the latter. ‘They are sufficiently skilful to be able to invent explanations for most difficulties, that would be only rendered more embarrassing by a greater portion of learning. When the Catholics appeal to history and to tradition for the truth of faith, the objector may feel for a moment at a loss, but he soon recovers himself, without the aid of learning, and replies in words, like those of the sophist of old to Socrates, ‘It is not difficult to find the solution of what you demand. I know very well, that if I were to be alone for a short time, and to look into myself, I could explain this to you, I could speak on this point to you clearer than all clearness.” ‘I am convinced, indeed,”’ replies Socrates, ‘‘that you will find this easily when you are alone.” ‘It is just so: not at this present moment, but as I have said, when I shall have considered the point, I know well that I shall find the proper answer.’’§ A question, however, more important would be, will it seem satisfactory to him when on death-bed laid? for that is the moment which gives a value to all learning and to all pains. Will it be found a judicious reply when called upon to answer, not in a school of men, but before God’s tribunal, before him who gave so clear a command, and who vouchsafed so infallible a guide to truth? At present, who does not mark that even worldly interests enter to increase his difficulties, and Demosthenes says, ‘‘In deliberations when money is added to either side, as if placed in one scale of a balance, it sinks that down, and drags reason along with it; and he who does this is then incapable of reason- ing soundly and justly upon any question.”’** Hereafter we must all, for one great day at least, become good logicians. * II. John 10. + Ligorio Theolog. append. iii. de prohibitione libror. Joan. Devoti Instit. Canon. lib. iv. 7. : ¢ S. Hier. Reg. Monach. || De Ingen. Moder. lib. ii. c. 5. § Plato, Hippias Major. ; ** Orat. pro pace. Vor. I1.—12 H 2 90 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, But we have wandered too far upon the domains of this modern liter- ature, and mine art with warning bridle checks me. We have been drawn on to behold the nakedness of that desolated region, and we may well weep on leaving it. Yet, not in order wantonly to offend and afflict those among whom is many a spirit allied to innocence and joy, did we pass beyond the stretch of promise; for some of these whom we have now, perhaps, with weak words grieved, are gentle and humane writers, whose instinctive reverence, and I know not what kind of poetic affection, for all that pertains to the holy Catholic church, which they view from a distance only, should render them, even without reference to diviner motives, the objects of our tenderest sympathy, and sincerest love; but if honour be due to their genius, and affection to their noble capacities, truth and sincerity are no less a sacred debt which we should render to them, heedless of the loss and injury, and multiplied sorrow which may result too surely to ourselves. Returning now to the learning of the middle ages, we may observe that, in every sense of the term, this was Catholic, for it comprised all branches of human knowledge, although the divisions were few. ‘The first mention of the division of the seven liberal arts into the trivium and the quadrivium, the three of grammar and the four of physics, the knowledge of which formed the qualification for the degree of mas- ter of arts, occurs in the work of Martianus Capella, an African, who lived before the time of Justinian. ‘The monastic studies embraced the study of the holy Scriptures, of the holy Fathers, that of the councils, of the canon and civil law, of positive and scholastic theology, and moral theology, that of sacred and profane history, that of philosophy, that of what is termed humanities, including the study of manuscripts, inscrip- tions, and coins. Notwithstanding the predominance of theological and moral studies, we must not suppose that in every other men were mere children, and incapable of distinguishing popular errors, as some would conclude, from the city of Lucerne having mistaken some huge fossil bones for those of a giant, which it caused to be borne on its shield as such. The Carmelite friar Nicholas, who describes his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the year 1486, was shown, when at Jaffa, one of the ribs of the giant Andromadus, which measured forty feet in length; ‘but I am of opinion,’’ he adds, ‘ that it is the rib of a whale.”’* ‘The map of the world, by Father Mauro of Camaldoli, in the convent of St. Michael in Murano, drawn in the year 1460, had anticipated, or at least predict- ed, the discoveries of the moderns in the old world. Assuredly, even in a scientific point of view, the learning of the middle ages is most remark- able. The great doctors of the school appear also in the capacity of naturalists. We observe in the writings of Albert the Great, all the sub- tilty of the Arabie philosophers. In his books on physics, he gives all the hypotheses that are still produced to account for the formation of the stones which fall from the sky: he has a work, which Cuvier esteemed interesting, in twenty-six books, on animals, written in the scholastic style, first considering them in general, then descending to particular species, and describing their anatomical and physiological and historical character. In this he enlarges on Aristotle’s work, and gives many new “ * F. xiii. AGES OF FAITH. 91 descriptions. His catalogue of animals is taken from Aristotle, Pliny, the Arabic authors, and his own observation. By means of the com- merce of furs, he had seen many northern animals. Here occurs the first notice of the fish of the north seas, whales and herrings; he describes the shoals of herrings, so that it is an error to suppose that these shoals first began in the fourteenth century, for in the thirteenth he describes them. He speaks of birds also, and of falconry. Besides this creat work he composed a number of little treatises on anatomy and medicine, chiefly extracted from Aristotle. He has one in five books, on minerals, in which are many things relative to alchemy. St. Thomas Aquinas, the principal disciple of Albert, having studied with him at Padua, and in the same Dominican convent, appears also in the capacity of a natu- ralist. He wrote a commentary on the physics of Aristotle, in which alchemy plays a great part. He speaks of mercury as that which gave metallic qualities to metal, just as sulphur was considered the principle of combustibility in bodies. In philosophy he had an antagonist in Dun Scotus, a Franciscan, who was arealist. Each order continued to main- tain the favourite theory of their great respective doctors. Vincent de Beauvais, the Dominican, wrote Speculum Magis, or great mirror, in four parts, the first was Speculum Naturale, the second Speculum Doc- trinale, the third Speculum Morale, and the fourth Speculum Historiale, in which last are found many curious facts of considerable importance in the study of history. The whole is a vast collection in four enor- mous folios, that would form twelve such folios as the men of our days make, composed of extracts from all sources, and containing many trans- lations from the Greek. The first part is a universal treatise on natural philosophy, in the order of the six days of the creation, like the hexam- eron of St. Ambrose. It treats on animals, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, insects, on geography, on agriculture, on mining, on alchemy, on pre- cious stones, which were then in great request for churches, where, as we have already shown, are still preserved the most rare and valuable specimens. ‘The details and the style of this great work are richer than in the work of Albert the Great: he treats also on dreams, on proph- ecy,—in short, it shows that he embraced all parts of visible nature, and that he viewed them with penetration and judgment. Roger Bacon was a Franciscan, a native of Somersetshire. From Oxford he removed to Paris, where he met Grossetéte, with whom he returned to England. He was the first to teach experimental philosophy, in the pursuit of which, by means of the liberality of his pupils and others, he expended two thousand pounds. His books, however, contained expressions that gave offence, and he was persecuted by the general of his order, but Pope Clement IV., hearing of his merit, ordered him to be delivered, and desired to see his books. On the death of this pope, the general re- newed his attacks, but being raised to the popedom, he finally restored Bacon to full liberty, and bestowed on him the title of Doctor Mirabilis. Bacon, in his writings, treats on reading glasses, on the microscope, on the telescope, on concave and convex mirrors: he called for the reforma- tion of the calendar, which was afterwards made by Pope Gregory, and he showed the proper method, which was afterwards pursued in effect- ing it. He understood the steam engine and steam vessels. His alche- my was learned from the Arabians, and he professed, like all the other 92 MORES CATHOLICI; OR alchemists of the thirteenth century, the theory which has of late been supported by Stahl. He speaks also of gunpowder. It appears that in his time children used it commonly for their amusement, by means of different little instruments. It was employed in the mines of Germany as early as in the twelfth century. In the beginning of the thirteenth, in the third crusade, it was first employed for the purposes of war, against the castle of Theirs. Friar Bacon was one of the many religious men who, amidst the pursuit of science, retained all the spirit of his blessed order. Another example was seen in Father Alexander Spina, who was one of the first to develope the discovery of convex glasses to assist the sight. In the very ancient chronicle of St. Catharine of Pisa, he is called ‘*a humble and good man, who used to write down whatever he saw or heard, and who was the first to make known the use of glasses for the eyes.’’ In another chronicle of the same convent, it is said that he learned to make them without having any teacher. Some of the great mathematicians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were friars. Such was Friar Lucas Pacioli of Borgo, a St. Sepolcro, of the order of the Minors, who had no rival in his age. It was he who was the author of the first book of algebra known to Europe. William Becchi, an Augus- tin and Bishop of Fiesole, and Friar Leonard, a Dominican, were illus- trious in the fifteenth century, both in astronomy and mathematics. But in the science of these men we still trace the holy monk. If they culti- vate the physical sciences, the master was to attend more to the utility than to the curiosity of the matter. <‘‘Denique mente teneat id semper nobis preferendum esse quo prodesse possimus rurestri populo, cujus cure: et ministerio constitu solemus,’’ say the statutes of the order of Premonstré.* If Roger Bacon studies astronomy, it is in order that the calendar may be well arranged, to determine the festivals of the Church; if he treat on the magnifying glass, it is to rejoice in the consolation and assistance which will result to the aged priests for reading the books of their holy office. In like manner the old author of the poem entitled the Mirouer du Monde, which is a mixture of cosmography and natural his- tory, as also a history of the inventions of arts, says that Ptolomy the astronomer was of great service to monks, in furnishing them with the means of assembling together at the exact hour to repeat the office of ma- tins. ‘Let not the study of natural philosophy,” says Dionysius the Carthusian, ‘ delight you more than that of theology: quid enim prodest cognitio creaturarum sine dilectione ac debita veneratione Creatoris?’’t To the ancient philosophers such views would not have appeared un- worthy or ridiculous. The advantage which Plato ascribes to the study of astronomy is that it induces the soul to look upwards to the Primal Being and to what is invisible.t No one conversant with his writings need be told of the care which he takes to show that learning or study should not be pursued for any object of commerce or traffic, but in order to strengthen the soul and to convert it from things that are born to that which has existence in itself; for this, with him, is the great object of all learning and all science. Proceeding now to the sacred studies of the middle ages, there is * Statuta ord. Premonstratensis, cap. 9. art. 4. t De Arcta Via Sal. i. t De Repub. lib. vii. AGES OF FAITH. 93 much that demands our attention; but I can only glance at their order. Positive theology consisted in the study of the holy Scriptures, of coun- cils, and tradition, but scholastic theology embraced a wider field, and admitted the illustrations of philosophy and other learning. 'Tayon, a priest of Sarragozza, was the first who composed a sum of theology: he lived in the middle of the seventh century. In the first book of this compilation, which has never been printed, he treats on God and his attributes; in the second on the incarnation, the evangelic preaching, the pastors of the Church and their flock; in the third on the various orders of the Church, on virtues and vices; in the fourth on the judg- ments of God, on temptations and sins; in the fifth on the reprobate, on the general judgment, and on the resurrection of the dead. St. John Damascenus was the first among the Greeks who published a sum of theology, which is entitled on the orthodox faith. St. Anselm was the first among the Latins who treated theological questions in a scholastic manner, and Mabillon admits that his writings, with the four books of Peter Lombard, can never be studied without deriving considerable advantage. A clear description and an admirable defence of the scho- lastic theology is given by Melchior Canus.* It consists, he says, in reasoning learnedly concerning God and divine things, from the sacred writings and institutions. The proud subtilties, and contentious dispu- tations, morose and tedious, of some doctors, are to be ascribed to the manners of evil men, not to the school, for it is a calumny to affirm that the majority were guilty of such childish trifling. The heretics, though they always affected to despise the school, rose up in arms against the scholastic theology. But they naturally regarded it with displeasure, because it restrained their license in disputation. It was the office of scholastics to illustrate and also to confirm, as far as possi- ble, from human studies, the doctrine of the Church of Christ, to spoil the Egyptians, to take the weapon from the hand of the enemy, and to smite off with his own sword the head of the proud Goliah, having an example of learning in St. Paul, and of wisdom in Moses and Daniel. A theologian, says an ancient writer, professes science from God, but whatever he meets with in reading or observing relative to jurispru- dence and medicine, and especially such things as have an affinity with theology, he gladly learns. For it is with wisdom as with virtues, all are branches of one stalk, according to the concordant sentiments of all noble theologians.t ‘*I confess,’’ says the blessed Dionysius the Car- thusian, ‘‘ that as far as I am able to discern after self-examination, J am not conscious of having undertaken these works through any vanity or for any vile end, for the sake of fame, or of temporal advantage; but I engaged in them in order that by occupying myself daily in the Scrip- tures, I might become able to live according to them, acquiring true humility, meekness and patience, which I greatly need. From my heart I return thanks to God that I entered religion so young, in about my twenty-first year, since which I have now during forty-six years applied myself to study. I have read St. Thomas, Albert, Alexander de Hales, Bonaventure, Peter of Tarentum, Avgidius, Richard de Media * De auctoritate Doctorum Scholasticorum. + Instructio Novitiorum, cap. 22. auct. P. Joan. 4 Jesu Maria. 94 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, Villa, Durandus, St. Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory, Dionysius, Origen, Gregory Nazianzen, Cyrill, Basil, Chrysostom, Damascen, Betius, Anselm, Bernard, Bede, Hugo, Gerson, William of Paris, be- sides all the vulgar sums and chronicles, all the canon and civil law, many commentaries on both Testaments, and as many of the natural phi losophers as I could obtain, Plato, Proclus, Aristotle, Avicen, Algasen, Anaxagoras, Averroes, Alexander, Aphorabius, Abubather, Evenpote, ‘Theophrastus, 'Themistius, and others; and, although the Scripture is clearly and copiously expounded by great doctors, and holy fathers, yet as St. Jerome saith, in the house of the Lord every one should bring what he can.”’* ‘The scholastic theology embraced the three ends of all true theology, the knowledge of God, the knowledge of celestial things, the prudence and the use of human things; and so far was it from re- tarding the study of the holy Scriptures, that it invited and excited men to prosecute that study.t But I shall have occasion to return to this learning in a future place, when it will be necessary to speak of the phi- losophy of the middle ages. At present, let us return to matters more immediately connected with literature, though we have not been wan- dering far from the subject; for we must remember that after all it was Dante, the scholastic theologian, who became the monarch of poets. And in fact the scholastic divines, in consequence of their sublime apprehensions of truth, frequently furnish lines that would be worthy of his highest song, of which circumstances poets were well aware. We find ‘Tasso complaining to his friend Aldus, that he had not sent him the sum of theology of St. Thomas, and asking for the works of St. Gregory Nyssen; and, in a letter to Vincenzo Malpiglio, expressing his intention to commence the correction of his Jerusalem Delivered, in the spring, he says, ‘‘I want a treatise of Pope St. Gregory, on the Hierarchy of the Angels,{ which I have not yet read, and a commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul, respecting the armour of light, for I hope to render my whole relation more solemn and venerable by means of alle- gory.’’| ‘To speak with contempt of the style and language of the ancient Christian writers, who give us in such abundance, the sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge, has been a favourite artifice of modern writers, who endeavoured to win the renown of a more liberal erudi- tion; but persons of solid instruction may naturally feel the necessity for much caution in admitting the justice of their charges. It is not always so easy to determine respecting style. Origen maintained that a certain chapter was in the highest and most excellent style of Daniel, and Julian Africanus denied that it was worthy of him. Men com- plain that some historians of the middle ages should have written in the style of bards, such as the monk of St. Gall and Ermold the black, who wrote a work on chivalry, and a poem on Louis the Pious; but Aristotle says, that the style of the first prose writers of Greece was entirely poetical, as that of the noblest authors in all ages has been in a great degree. It is true the priest of the Teutonic order Nicholas Jeroschin in the fourteenth century, found no subject fitter for a poem than the * B. Dionysii Carthusiani de Arcta Via Salutis. Protest. ad Superiorem. T Melchior Canus, c. 1, 2. + Homil. lib. ii. 34. | Prosatori dal Sec. xvi. p. 468. AGES OF FAITH, 95 contents of the old chronicle of the order by Peter of Dusburg which he accordingly versified; but modern critics are compelled to admire the spirit in which that work is composed. ‘ With what diligent cir- cumspection,”’ says Dusburg, ‘‘ the ancients and holy fathers committed to writing the wonderful works of our Lord Jesus Christ which were wrought by them or by their ministers is known to all; for they attend- ed to the words of Tobias, ‘quod opera Dei revelare honorificum est,’ whose footsteps I follow, lest like the useless servant who hid his Lord’s talent, I should be cast into outward darkness; therefore, I have written the wars which have been carried on by the knights of the ‘Teutonic order.”? Voigt remarks, that this passage, as also the very title of another work, Gesta Dei per Francos, indicates that constant regard to Providence, which gave such a unity to their historical narra- tives, which are nothing but a wonderful relation of the combat between the good and the evil principle. Dusburg traces all enmities and sedi- tions to the malice of the ancient serpent, the enemy of the human race, who envies the growing prosperity of a Christian community, and incessantly labours to interrupt the peace of the church; so that his whole history is the combat between God and the enemy of light and truth.* The natural flow of their narrative often indicates the simple means which had been employed in collecting it. In the life of St. Liudger by Altfrid, there is mention of an old blind man named Bernlef, who was greatly loved by the whole country because he was affable and knew how to sing the acts and contests of the ancient kings.t And Adam of Bremen, one of the old historians of Prussia, says, that the Danish king Sweno, had retained in memory all the deeds of the barba- rians, as if he had them in writing, and that he used to relate them to him when he was compiling his annals. Wernbert, the celebrated abbot of St. Gall, the son of Adalbert, who had followed his lord to the war against the Huns, used to be forced when a little boy to sit and lis- ten to the tales of his father, and it was the conversation of this Adal- bert which afterwards supplied the monk of St. Gall with the materials for his history. These old humble chronicles of days gone by, need not have been so despised by the pretenders to classical propriety, who nevertheless committed an error in their title page, and wrote histories ~ of their own times.t With respect to the great learned works of the monastic and other Catholic writers, it may be remarked, that one is never shocked by the breaking out of personal vanity adding weight to trifles, and of secret private spite, suggesting malignant observations, and that while they analyze ancient traditions, they do not employ imaginations to destroy former opinions, nor do they insult the reader with a tone of wanton defiance drawn from the pride of scholarship. ‘They never wound the pious ear by a profane application of the most sacred words of Christ and his apostles to their own subject. ‘That detestable abuse in- troduced by heretics, which has passed into an example with modern authors, whose hearts are little alive to the holy delicacy of the faith, * Geschichte Preussens, iii. 613. t Mabillon, Acta 8. Ord. Bened. See. iv. p. 1. + Historia est res gesta sed ab etatis nostra memoria remota. Cicero ad Heren. lib. i. 8. 96 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, was absolutely condemned by the fathers of the Council of Trent. They never offer for literature personal contests like those fierce aca- demic squabbles of an Annibal Caro and a Castelvetro, who, as Varro would say, ‘volsellis non gladiis pugnant.”” ‘They have not the air of being in love with their own works, as if they could not survive the loss of them, like Terence, who is said to have died of grief because some of his translations from Menander perished at sea, when he was return- ing from Greece; nor can one find in them any trace of that jealousy which Petrus Crinitus detects in Plato and Xenophon, who never make mention of each other in their writings, though both disciples of Socra- tes.* Their style may have been unpolished, but it was not like that of a literature which seems made by machinery. It was living, and often endued with a force that astonishes, as when the fathers describe the last moments of Julian, and say, ‘he died in the disgrace of God and men.”? In all their writings they evince that modesty and rever- ence which appears so remarkably in Dionysius, who though an anti- quarian, and writing a most learned work on the antiquities of history, yet refused to enrich his work with information which religion forbade him to disclose, saying, it is not proper that I should write down those things which it is not permitted every one to see or hear of from those who have seen them.t Not that the same motives could have existed with Christians, but still there were many things which they would never expose to the common gaze of inquisitive men through respect for religion and humanity, through regard to private friendship, to the rights of hospitality, and to the initiations of their course in the schools. On the other hand, as was before remarked, they insert as well as omit some things, on account of their writings being intended for the eye of friends alone, on whose particular genius or experience they may have depended for the needful application or correction. ‘Re- member,” says St. Avitus, in sending his poem of consolation to his sister, ‘that this little book is only to be trusted to the reading of those who are bound to us by the ties of relationship or of religious vow. Scarcely, though constrained by orders, do I commit it even into your hands; when or how should I wish it to pass into those of strangers ?”’{ Another contrast which their writings present to those of later ages, consists in the absence of all anxiety to draw at every step political re- flections from history. Mabillon cites the words of a learned author, who says, there is no more visible effect of that wicked glory with which men are enamoured, than the vanity which they derive from the knowledge of politics. This disposition of mind which betrays their secret admiration for grandeur of rank, is one of the greatest obstacles to true wisdom: it perverts the understanding, and makes the mind irra tional. They wish to know princes before they know men; whereas they must first know men before they can understand princes.|| How injurious to their own intellectual character is the neglect of this maxim by those great modern writers with whom political opinions are the highest test of virtue, in whose eyes Plato is a bad citizen, and Demos- * De Honesta Disciplina, lib. 1. c. 7. + Antiq. Roman. lib. i, cap. 68. t In Libellum de Consolatoria Castitatis Laude Prefat. | De Studiis Monasticis, p. ii. c. 8. AGES OF FAITH. 97 thenes a saint? In another respect also their idea of learning was well conceived; for it did not consist like that of many modern solitary writers, in knowing the titles of innumerable books and in quoting from them at random, without having ever heard their history or known what were the author’s life and actions, his particular genius, his object in wri- ting, and the circumstances of the time in which he wrote.* ‘This is the erudition of our young contributors to the libraries that are gradually to eradicate Catholicism and impart pure light to men, although to a scho- lar of the ancient learning, it is all but mere drawing-room display. ‘*Circulatoriw vere jactationis est.” Unquestionably the great crities of antiquity might have found matter to censure and ridicule in some of the monastic compositions ; but it does not appear exactly reasonable in the moderns to affect their right of judgment, considering the little cor- respondence between the greater part of their own literature, and the models by which they would attempt to try them. ‘he praise which Caxton bestows upon Chaucer might be extended to many authors of the middle ages; for in fact he only evinced a characteristic feature of their whole literature in ‘‘ comprehending his matter in short, quick, and high sentences, eschewing perplexity ; casting away the chaff of super- fluity, and showing the picked grain of sentence, uttered by crafty and sugared eloquence, in writing no void words, but having all his matter full of high and quick sentence.’? But it will be asked, was not the language of these old writers barbarous and their Latinity execrable? Many distinctions are necessary before we ought to subscribe to such an opinion. On the rise of Christianity some innovations in language were unavoidable; much indifference to its refinement was natural, and almost of necessary consequence. ‘The Pagan rhetoricians complained that the Christian religion was effecting a revolution in grammar, and introducing many alterations into the Latin tongue. St. Augustin, who studied Cicero and Virgil with such care, though he showed the insig- nificance of their objections, was anxious to preserve the purity of the Latin language; but Arnobius altogether disdained the scruples of the grammarians, and confessed that in fact Christianity ought to introduce changes into the language, since it had changed the sentiments and views of men. Yet assuredly many writers of the middle ages, like St. Leo the Great, and St. Bernard, attained to an admirable erace and har- mony of style. ‘There were still men who could write treatises which have been mistaken for the composition of St. Augustin, and beauty of style was not excluded by that impressive unction which belonged to the ascetical writers, whose sweet and honied sentences disarm the severity of high crested thoughts. Nicholas of Clairvaux imitated the style of St. Bernard, so that it was almost impossible to distinguish it. Schle- gel even asserts that the Latin language was written with the same ele- gance in the eleventh century, as in the golden age of Augustus. The schoolmen, indeed, may have used new words in treating of new things, or rather of things new to the Latin tongue; but the Roman authors themselves had taken similar liberties, Cicero used the words Appiita- tem and Lentulitatem. ‘The mania for substituting classical Latinity in place of the terms consecrated by Christian usage characterized the * Mabillon de Studiis Monast. pars ii. c. 111. § 3. Von. I.—13 I 98 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, learning of the period immediately previous to the pseudo reformation, when new versions were published of the Psalms, and even of some as- cetical works, as the imitation of Christ. Some wished to change Sal- vator into Servator, because the former does not occur in the writings of the heathens. ‘This was an old idea, and St. Augustin had made the just reply, ‘* Let the grammarians bark what they will about Salvator not being a Latin word: to Christians it is sufficiently Latin, provided it express rightly the truth of that article which they believe. TE admit that the words Salvare and Salvator were not Latin before the Saviour came, but when he came to the Latins he made them Latin.’’* With respect to the Latin which was known in secular society, there is no reason to conclude that it was wholly void of classical grace. The judgments at which presided the Viscountess of Béziers, and which were collected under a famous title, are said to have been pronounced in very good Latin. We have already seen on what grounds the holy fathers without hesitation made use of the heathen writings to explain or illustrate to the Gentiles the true religion, but we have not sufficiently shown what an influence this Catholic view of learning, which allowed men to claim as their own every intellectual good, continued to produce upon the literature of the ages of faith. When it was argued by some that the fathers had only quoted pagan authors in consequence of their living among pagans, but that in subsequent ages Christians had no occasion to consult them, the objection was refuted by showing that the faithful still lived among men who extolled reason, and that on that account an acquaintance with the writings of the pagans continued to be of the greatest importance.t The observation of Minucius Felix on this point was equally just in all times, when speaking of men who being aware of what they deserve, wish rather than believe that every thing will perish with their bodies, being hardened in their error by remarking the liberty which they enjoy in this life, and the incomparable patience of God, he adds, ‘and yet nevertheless, they cannot open the books of any distinguished man, they cannot even read the poets, without finding salutary warnings on this head; so profoundly graven is this thought in the heart of all men, that a day will come when the different disorders which at present reign will be repaired, and when Divine justice will reward every man according to his works.”{ St. Clemens of Alexan- dria recognized the fundamental principle of Christianity that the testi- mony of God is the basis of faith, in that passage of the 'Timeus of Plato, where he says, that there is one only way to understand truth fully, which is, by being instructed by God himself, or by those who are born of God.| ‘O man, magnificently humble and exalted by humility,’’ cries Petrarch, speaking of St. Augustin, ‘** who adorned with the plumes of others, does not insult over them, but while guiding the vessel of the Christian religion amidst the rocks of heresy, conscious to himself without arrogance of his own greatness, commemorates the rudiments of his youth, and though so great a doctor of the church, yet does not blush to have been led by the man of Arpinum who was tend- eee rs ee See Ce * §. Augustini Serm. 299. + Jamin, Traité de la Lecture Chrétienne. { Cap. 35. || Stromat. vi. AGES OF FAITH. 99 ing to another end.”’* St. Jerome, indeed, alluding to the day of judg- ment, says, in a rhetorical style, ‘‘foolish Plato with his disciples,’’t but he admits the principle on which the ancient learning was still studied, in citing some verses from the Aineid, adding, ** these things we take from a Gentile poet, that he who does not keep the peace of Christ may learn peace at least from a heathen.”{ It was only when alluding to some strange conceits of Abailard respecting the procession of the Holy Spirit, which he spoke of as being the soul of the world, that St. Bernard used that famous expression, that endeavouring to make Plato a Christian he proved himself a heathen,|| which will not justify our concluding that St. Bernard generally was insensible to the sublimity of Plato, or to the advantage of studying his writings; in fact, the passages adduced by Abailard from his works are the last that would give an idea of the excellence of his philosophy. Petavius says, in his book on the Trinity, that if we examine the more ancient heresies of which there is mention in Epiphanius, Philastrius, and others, we shall find that of almost all the doctrines which were contrary to the Catholic faith, but especially those concerning the Trinity, the foundation and author was Plato;§ but, perhaps, it would have been more correct to trace them to the men who abused Plato by endeavouring to prove that he had anticipated Christianity. Fleury, in his manners of the Christ- lans, makes the distinction between Plato with the old academicians and the Platonists of the age of Julian, who had little in common with the disciple of Socrates but the name; and he observes that when Chris- tianity arose there were some true philosophers who faithfully sought to discover truth and to practise virtue. In the ages of faith, before men had experience of an attempt to revive the heathen philosophy within the Church, we find them speaking with greater respect of the ancient sages, and inheriting with greater abundance and security the intellectual treasures of ancient times. «'This we ought to do’’ says Raban Maur, and his authority is decisive as to the opinion of these ages, ‘‘ when we read the Gentile poets, or when the books of secular wisdom come into our hands, if we find any thing useful in them we should convert it to our doctrine; but if there be any thing superfluous, concerning idols or love, or the care of temporal things, that we should pass over.”’** When Jerome Savonerola warned some learned men sitting in the Marcian academy at Florence, from the study of the an- cient philosophers, saying, that Plato tended to ins pire insolence of mind and Aristotle impiety, Petrus Crinitus relates that Picus of Mirandula smiled, and said in reply that his own studies convinced him that the Mosaic writings, and the Christian religion, in a great measure agreed with the ancient philosophy as contained in the works of Pythagoras, Mercurius, Zoroastre, and Solon.tt After the sixteenth century, the insane arrogance of pedants and the errors of heretics naturally inspired the faithful with greater timidity and induced them to abandon many associations which they had formerly cherished with innocence and eee Oe eee ee ee * Epist. Famil. lib. ii. 69. + Epist. v. t Epist. xv. ll Epist. exe. § De Trinitate, cap. 6. ** Rabani Mauri de Institutione Clericorum, lib. iii. cap. 18. tt De Honesta Disciplina, lib. iii. 100 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, enjoyed with meekness. A tone of gloom and severity which belonged rather to the porch of the stoics than to the meek and joyous family of the Church, infused itself even into the privileged fold, insomuch that Villani the historian complains that the taste for graver studies which occupied his age made the productions of their most celebrated poets appear frivolous. Before that era faith was too firm to fear any conces- sion which did not compromise its principles, and men never supposed it possible that truth could be confounded with exploded errors or endan- gered by recognizing the voice of primary traditions in the monuments of ancient learning. ‘hey enjoyed and honoured genius and every testimony to truth, so that if a poet, like that Athenian of old, had described them visiting the shades, he would have shown them like Sophocles approaching and kissing Auschylus and Plato, and giving them in their capacity of poets and sincere lovers of truth, the first place, and never questioning their right to it, but that same poet would represent the moderns like Euripides, who began to ery out and contend for it, appealing to the judgment of the vile majority of the rabble shades.* With what noble affection does St. Jerome speak of the great Origen, extolling the beauty of his immortal genius, and the depth of his researches, and at the same time acknowledging, though in a style that might move one to tears, that there were so many points on which he had erred.t The learning of antiquity harmonizes far more with that of the middle ages than with our own. When a youth at present leaves the schools where he has been familiarized with the sentiments of Socrates and Cicero, and the older sages, and on entering the world finds himself in the midst of what is called society, he perceives an abrupt transition which fills him with astonishment. His studies of heathen literature had not prepared him for this insolent contempt for all that is holy, this audacious mockery of goodness, this undisguised egotism: he finds in literature itself, a total contrast to every thing in the writings of the sages of antiquity, high and mysterious, generous and inspiring, to all that refined intellectual beauty which had so often exalted his imagination to rapture in solitude, and shed such a grace and sweetness upon those evening walks with early friends to which he looks back with such affection: he finds himself now among impious, ignorant triflers, centaurically vociferating, men whose philosopher is Voltaire, whose temple is the exchange or the tribune, whose festivals are a horse race or a review of the civic guard, whose reading is con- fined to journals, and whose highest boast is to be one of the majority. But to return to the learning of the middle ages. ‘ All things,” says John of Salisbury, “ offer themselves for the use of the wise man, who finds matter for exercising virtue in whatever is said or done: ‘nam et otia ejus negotia sunt :’’ he proceeds rightly in his own actions, and he philosophizes upon the vanities of other men.{ His own work, a monu- ment of the wisdom and learning of the eleventh century, is an example of this in its vast and curious erudition, and in the excellent judgment with which classical passages are quoted; for besides all the known classics it-contains extracts from a multitude of other books. More * Aristoph. Rane, 788. + Epist. xxxvi. et Catalog. Scriptor. Eccles. + De Nugis Curialium, lib. ii. Prolog. ) AGES OF FAITH. 101 than one hundred and twenty ancient authors are there cited. Peter of Blois, Archdeacon of Bath, in the twelfth century, cites passages from Aristotle, Boethius, Cato, Cicero, Tacitus, Frontinus, Galen, Gellius, Hippocrates, Horace, Justin, Juvenal, Lucan, Macrobius, Martial, Ovid, Persius, Plato, Plautus, Curtius, Quintilian, Sallust, Seneca, Statius, Suetonius, Terence, ‘Theophrastus, Livy, Valerius Maximus, Virgil, and Vegetius. He had become a priest only in his old age. Christine de Pisan had read Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, and all the Greek and Latin poets, though her chief study had been the writings of St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustin, St. Jerome, and St. Ambrose. In the ninth century, Paschasius Radbert, who wrote the life of St. Adalhard, Abbot of Corby, applies a passage from the republic of Plato to his own subject, and makes with exquisite taste many quotations from the classical authors.* ‘Though the Gentile without Christ,’ says John of Salisbury, ‘had not laid hold of the fruit of beatitude, yet we see in them the shadows of virtues, as in the diligence of Themis- tocles, the gravity of Fronto, the continence of Socrates, the fidelity of Fabricius, the innocence of Numa, the modesty of Scipio, the patience of Ulysses, the abstemiousness of Cato, the piety of Titus.”t He shows that even the ancient poets convey lessons of salutary wisdom. Homer, he observes, chooses that his hero Ulysses should never be without Minerva, who signified prudence. Therefore, he underwent all horrible things without perishing; for he entered the cave of the Cyclops and escaped from it; he beheld the oxen of the sun and ab- stained; he passed into the infernal regions, and ascended from them; he sailed by Scylla, and was not seized; he touched Charybdis and was not retained, he drank the cup of Circe, and was not transformed; he visited the Lothophagi, and was not confined; he came to the Sirens and passed on his way.{ if I am not deceived, it will be interesting to a scholar to take, in this manner, an occasional glance at the great writers of classical antiquity, as if from the cloisters of the middle age. The monks and holy men who wrote books in those times, are very fond of applying the beautiful sentences of Cicero and Plato to their own subject; but then they con- trive to give them a tone essentially Christian, so as to be homogeneous with their whole composition, and they effect this by connecting or com- pleting them with sentences out of the holy Scriptures, so that the entire page is made to express the simple unadulterated faith of Christ. In this way the classical student learned to associate the brightest gems ot the ancient learning with the wisdom of Christians. If their lustre did not confer additional beauty on the thoughts, the practice will at least show with what innocence and piety the classical learning was cultivated in these ages of faith, An instance of this kind occurs in the old Life of Lietbertus, Bishop of Cambray, where the author describes the last dis- course of that holy man in language taken from the Treatise de Senec- tute, by Cicero, and from the Apology of Plato: but he does not allow his reader to depart without hearing still higher wisdom, for the conclud- ing words are these—‘* Unde ne censeas lugendam mortem quam im- nee aL prema bnemervent Cost UraerWe capers et ©" Bi > SR aa MeL ee ee ea mnPIC NPT GP Jr hy * Mabillon, Acta S. Ordinis Bened. Secul. iv, p. i. t De Nugis Cur. lib. iii. cap. 9. + Id. vi. cap. 28. 12 102 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, mortalitas consequitur: si enim credimus quod Jesus mortuus est et res- urrexit, ita et Deus eos qui dormierunt per Jesum adducet cum eo.’’* In this respect, the influence of classical learning upon literature was widely different from that which it exercised in a subsequent age, when men lost sight of the Christian character in their admiration of the writ- ings of antiquity. In many writers of the sixteenth century there are two characters—the Christian and the Philosopher. Led away by en- thusiasm for classical learning, they sometimes wrote like heathens and at others like devout Christians. In the same chapter and page of Montaigne, this separation is perceptible. Let antiquity appear, and he revives all its errors; let Christianity show itself, and he falls upon his knees. Cardan is another writer of this kind, yet in heart so Catholic, that he refused the offer of great advantages rather than reside in a Pro- testant country. ‘This accounts too for the contradictory opinions which have been held respecting them. Generally, through Heaven’s mercy, grace was given to these men, enabling them to die penitent and Cathol- ically, like Cardan, Polydore Virgil, and Montaigne. But they were not examples of the evil in its greatest extent. By degrees the classical Spirit predominated to such a degree as to form the very character of men, and to impart that uniform odour of Paganism which is so percep- tible in the modern literature. During the ages of faith, men did not cul- tivate classical learning with an indifference to its errors. Julian said that the Christians might persist in teaching the books of Homer, He- siod, Herodotus, Thucydides, and others, if they would persuade their disciples that there was nothing of impiety in these authors, and that they should imitate their worship,—an indulgence which was only re- garded as the addition of insult to injustice. But no exercise of ingenu- ity was more agreeable to them than the art with which they made use of the beauties of classical learning, without ever confounding its errors with the simplicity of Christian truth. Chateaubriand, in his Martyrs, has shown himself in this respect a true Christian poet; for though he employs Pagan Mythology, and all that is most severe and holy in the true religion, yet he never mixes them, or speaks of the former other- wise than as a Christian: yet his work was harshly criticised, on the ground of its combining irreconcileable elements, because his contempo- raries were ignorant of a legitimate use of heathen erudition. Had that work appeared in the middle ages, it would have been received with enthusiasm, because men were then accustomed to use heathen and Christian learning without confounding either. In fact, to the inherit- ance of the earth was attached much that was gracious and innocent in the manners as well as in the learning of the ancients. Christianity sanctioned no superstitious separations or distinction. 'The names of adults were not even changed in baptism, so that many saints retained the titles which came from false gods, as Denis, Martin, Demetrius; and on the sepulchres of the martyrs may be seen traced the ancient symbol of the heart. A holy Franciscan, Father John of Bordeaux, in his book entitled the Christian Epictetus, speaks of weak persons who, not com- prehending how grace corrects the faults of nature, blame the alliance which he seems to make in that book between the maxims of a philoso- * Vita Leitberti, Episcop. Cameracens. cap. 63, apud Dacher. Spicileg. tom. ix. AGES OF FAITH. 103 pher and those of the Son of God. Knowing that heaven is not farther removed from the earth than human philosophy from evangelical wisdom, they cannot persuade themselves that there may be a union between these two sciences. ‘They are deceived,” continues the wise friar. ‘¢'That is not impossible: for holy souls in Christianity have an admira- ble secret to unite them, which is the miracle of charity.””. The Church, in her solemn offices, reads from the works of one whom she names not in consequence of his fall. ‘The books of Wisdom are for her use, and she reads from them; but she is not authorized to claim their author, and therefore she declines pronouncing his name.* ‘All things are to be read,’’ says John of Salisbury, ‘‘in order that some, when read, may be neglected, some reprobated, some seen in transitu, and others to be more studied, as those which relate to political life, or to jurisprudence, or to ethics, or which conduce to the health of the body or soul. N othing,”’ he continues, ‘‘ should arrest the mind which does not tend to make man better. Even those things of which the use is necessary, if pursued im- moderately, become most pernicious. Who doubts that poets, histori- ans, orators, and mathematicians should be read, since without them men are ignorant and illiterate; yet when they claim possession of the mind as of right, although they promise the knowledge of things, they withdraw men from virtue and from devotion. Witness the vanity of Cicero! What darkness covers minds that are lifted up like his by praise! What fear comes upon them, what cupidity inflames them! ‘These palliate adulteries, teach injustice, and propose examples of evil to the multitude. What fires from heaven, or inundation from the sea, or opening of the earth, cause such destruction of people as these occa- sion of manners! For reading alone, without the co-operation of grace, can never make man wise.t But with grace assisting him, all things are food to him, because, in all creatures, the Lord speaks to him the words of his salvation. All edification of manners is from the Lord, and all instruction of safety is, in a certain manner, the Word of God; and from whatever part truth is offered, it should be accepted, because it is always incorrupt and incorruptible. Therefore all things may be read if vice be avoided. What is even the odour of death to some may be profita- ble to life in others: all are more or less useful; and hardly can any writ- ing be found, from which, if not from the sense or words, there may not still be drawn something by a prudent reader. The Catholic books are read with more safety, but it is still very useful to be acquainted also with those of the Gentiles. Wisdom is as a certain fountain, from which all the rivers flow that water the whole earth, which not only form the garden of delights of the divine page, but also pass to the nations, and enrich those flowery regions with beauty and fragrance.”’t In this admi- rable passage the danger of such studies to some minds is admitted, to which we find allusion also in many other works; for the scholar of the middle ages sometimes found by experience, that the reading of the heathen poets was injurious to the purity of his soul. Such an instance is related in the chronicle of Centulensis, and the young man is said to a ee * Durandi Rationalis, lib. vi. 1. t De Nugis Curialium, cap. 9. t Id. cap. 10. 104 MORES CATHOLICI; OR have renounced secular learning ever afterwards, and to have devoted himself wholly to what was divine.* It remains only to notice briefly the character of learning, during these ages, in its application to secular objects. In early times medicine was studied by monks. Those of Monte Cassino employed the time that remained to them after their devout prayers, in the relief of afflicted humanity. In the beginning of the twelfth century, Faricio, a monk of Arezzo, was illustrious in medicine. Passing into Scotland, he became abbot of the monastery of Aberdeen, and was held in great repute for his medical knowledge by the mon- archs of that kingdom. We have already remarked the excellent judg- ment which was shown in the choice of Galen for the chief authority. Cardan says, that there had been in ancient times a distinction between herbalists and physicians,t It was chiefly in the former capacity that the monks practised. ‘Their motive was wholly religious, and the influ- ence of piety appeared in this as in all their other sciences. An exam- ple occurs in the chronicle of Sens, of which the author speaks as fol- lows :—** When I was in Argentine following the schools, there was a certain Master Henry with St. Thomas who was imbued with the art of medicine. He being made prior at Trouthenhouze, related to me, that a certain soldier named Rambald being attacked with a grievous sickness, sent to invite the prior to come to prescribe for him. On his arrival he found the soldier dangerously ill; so the prior said to him, ‘My lord, if you believe me, you will first confess your sins, and | receive the body of Christ, before I attempt to cure you, because that will be a more important remedy for you.’’’t However, as the study of medicine was found to interfere with more important duties, a decree of the Council of Rheims, in the year 1131, prohibited monks and canons from pursuing it; and in that of Tours, in the year 1168, Pope Alexander III. declared, that. those who left their cloister to learn the art of healing or to pursue the study of law, would incur excommu- nication. Many of the most learned laymen, in the thirteenth century, were physicians. They studied with the Arabs, to which education may perhaps be ascribed the errors of Arnold de Villeneuve in matters of faith. He too had studied with the Moors in Spain, from whom he learned the art of making brandy, which they regarded as a medicine, being prevented by their law from using it for any other purpose, and which he was the first to introduce into Europe. His heretical tenets on points of faith caused his books to be burnt, and it was with difficulty that the Pope succeeded in saving those which had only relation to medical science. In the same age flourished Raymund Lulle, a man of noble race, senechal of the King of Arragon. He was a warrior, a poet, an alchemist, and a theologian: he passed into Africa to convert the Mahometans, and was rescued when about to suffer martyrdom. H{e was supposed to have succeeded as an alchemist in his labours to accomplish the great work. Even the muse of Tasso, like that of Pin- * Chronicon Centulensis, lib. iv. cap, 13. + Prudent. Civ. c. 92. + Chronic. Senoniensis, lib. iv. cap. 34, apud Dacher. Spicileg. tom. ii. AGES OF FAITH. 105 dar, does not disdain to mention such men ‘as the heroes who repelled all kinds of diseases ;’’* for after treating how Godfrey was wounded at the first assault of Jerusalem, we are told, “ Erotimus, born on the banks of Po, Was he that undertook to cure the knight: All what green herbs or water pure could do, He knew their power, their virtue, and their might : A noble poet was the man also ; But in this science he had more delight; He could restore to health death-wounded men, And make their names immortal with his pen.’’+ Bartholomew de Granville was another learned and noble layman of that age, who composed a work from the writings of Albert the Great and Vincent de Beauvais, which was entitled De Rerum Proprietate. Symphorien Champier, in later times, was another example of an excel- lent theologian and philosopher, a renowned poet, and an experienced physician, versed in all kinds of learning. We find the two-fold char- acter of these inen generally recognised on their tombs, as in the inscrip- tion on that of Neri, in the Neri chapel at the convent of St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, at Florence, in which the terms ‘‘ medico ac phi- losopho”’ are applied to him.—Celebrated in the middle ages were Fracastor, a physician, astronomer, and great poet, and also Speroni of Padua, a physician and philosopher, who was so loved by St. Charles Borromeo as to be admitted to his Notti Vaticane. In later times, the influence of piety ceased to distinguish the learning of the physicians, so that a striking contrast to the meek spirit of the theological and monastic disputants was seen in the writings of these lay cultivators of medical science of the sixteenth century, who resembled the classical crit- ics of modern times in making the margin of books their field of battle. The furious and ignoble combats of the anatomists arose when Veselius, from the schools of Padua and Bologna, sent forth a book to prove that Galen had described the anatomy of animals alone, and not of men, and Sylvius replied to him in terms of such outrage and insult. Veselius, the celebrated anatomist, physician of the Emperor Charles V. was known when at Madrid to have opened the body of a gentleman whose heart was found to palpitate, he having probably been only in a trance. ‘The horror inspired by this event was so great, that it was generally believed he had been guilty of dissecting a living man. He was con- demned to make a pilgrimage to Palestine, and he died at Zante while on his return. The study of law was in an early age cultivated by the clergy. In the twelfth century, that of the Roman law, at Bologna, was instrumen- tal to the diffusion of learning. Gratian, who made the celebrated com- pilation, was a Benedictine monk, who lived there in the middle of that century. Many clerks studied the civil law. St. Philogonus, who succeeded Vital in the See of Antioch, in the year 318, had been an eminent lawyer, celebrated for his eloquence and learning, as well as for the holiness of his life. However, in the beginning of the four- teenth century, masters of law were not desired in the University of Padua. Innocent IV. found it necessary to issue decrees to check the Se oa een ee eee eh ee eS el _ * Pyth. Od. ii. + xi. 70. Vor. W.—14 106 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, ardour for this study, lest the Church should suffer injury, and: he pro- hibited any professor of laws to be admitted to an ecclesiastical dignity. Matthew Paris, writing in the year 1254, laments the prevalence of such studies and says, ‘¢ Almost all scholars now, forsaking grammari- ans and philosophers, turn-to laws; quas constat non esse de numero artium liberalium: artes enim liberales propter se appetuntur, leges autem ut salaria acquirantur,’’ an opinion very conformable with what was said in a later age of lawyers by the chancellor D’Aguesau, that with them to make one’s fortune and to do one’s duty, meant the same thing. Hugues de Bercy, a poet who lived in the days of Philippe- Augustus, is still more severe against lawyers, and says, ‘‘ Les loix apprennent tromperie.’? ‘Che Church commemorates the action of St. Andrew Avellin, who when a young man at Naples studying jurispru- dence, and engaged in pleading for private clients, finding himself in a moment of excitement guilty of uttering some trivial falsehood, and soon after coming by chance to the words of the sacred Scripture, ‘* Os quod mentitur occidit animam,’’ was seized with such compunction, that im- mediately from that hour he renounced all such engagements, and gave himself up wholly to the divine service. In consequence of the pre- script of Honorius III. there were no professors of law in the Univer- sity of Paris. In the Complutensian, Ximenes the founder took care, by a severe enactment, that there should be no place for such professors in after times. ‘The same prohibition was maintained in Hiedelberg, Prague, and other ancient academies of Germany. Without taking any side in this question, one may observe that, in all countries where the modern philosophy prevails, the importance with which this profession is invested, is certainly not a little remarkable. At the same time it would be unjust to overlook the noble character which judicial learning and manners assumed in the ages of faith. History records of Anthony Roselli, that learned and eloquent lawyer of Arezzo, that he was never induced to defend a cause which even appeared to him unjust. In the chronicles of the middle age, lawyers sometimes appear invested with almost a saintly character. ‘They are even assist- ed by visions. William Lydyngton being employed by the monks of Crowland to support some cause of theirs which was pending, saw in a vision by night, as he lay restless and concerned in reflecting upon the case, a certain reverend hero, clad in the garb of an anchorite, who de- sired him to take the refreshment of sleep, and added, that he would succeed in course of time. He concluded that it was St. Guthlake who had appeared to him, the patron of that abbey, who having been a great soldier, renounced the world and lived as a hermit in the fens.* It is impossible to regard, without awe and reverence, the solemn figure of Gothardus, rector of the law students, as he is represented on his tomb in the cloisters of the University of Pavia. Ranulphus, Bishop of Dur- ham, in the days of the Conqueror, wrote a book entitled De Legibus Anglie, which constitutes him the father of English lawyers. The clergy read in their office a sentence from St. Basil, that ‘fasting makes wise legislators.”*+ We have seen, that in the time of Charlemagne it * Hist, Croylandensis in Rer. Anglic. Scriptor. tom. i. 502. + Homil. i. de Jejun. AGES OF FAITH. 107 was imposed upon those who administered the law. When the Catho- lic archbishops and bishops, and mitred abbots, sat in parliament, men like Chancellor Morton, who had studied the canon law and the law of God, who were spiritually wise, and when the nobles who assisted them,—some of whom, perhaps, could only set their cross for their sig- nature,—legislated for England in conformity to their principles, there were acts of parliament passed and laws enacted, which have stood, and will for ever stand to all posterity, as models of legislative wisdom. The men of our age imagine that it would be well to change them: they attempt it, fall into pitiable mistakes, involve things in confusion, and become justly objects of public derision for their pains. Such is the general idea of the learning of the ages of faith which will result from a reference to their works. In the next chapter, the constitution and manners of schools, and the history of the rise of Uni- versities, will still further develope it, and can hardly fail to prove in- teresting and instructive. CHAPTER VI. ‘THE institution of schools supported by public authority, in places secured and set apart for instruction, was unknown to the ancient Greeks; and with the Romans, military glory for many ages excluded all study of the liberal arts, so that it was not till the end of the first century of the Christian era that public schools began to be maintained in Rome at the expense of the state. ‘The school of Alexandria, in Egypt, was indeed of great antiquity. From the time of the Ptolemies it had been a seat of learning, boasting of that renowned museum found- ed by Ptolemy Philadelphus, which contained an ambulacrum, a place for disputation, and a house in which the sophists and grammarians were lodged. Among the primitive Christians it had become very celebrat- ed. St. Jerome says, that from the time of St. Mark the Evangelist it had possessed ecclesiastical doctors. There the mathematics were also studied by the Christians. In order to assist the Church in the compu- tation of the festivals, the Pagans themselves were induced to attend the lectures in the Christian school at Rome, near the baths of Titus. It was to a school of this description that the stoic Pantenus was indebted for his knowledge of the Christian religion, and afterwards he was placed at the head of the very school that had instructed him. St. Clemens of Alexandria used to boast that he had been a disciple of St. Pantenus, which he deemed a greater honour than to be a master him- self. In the school of Alexandria. flourished Origen, Heraclas, Diony- sius, John ¢«aéroves, and other learned Christian doctors. This celebrated school was destroyed about the end of the fifth century by the invasion 108 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, of the Mahometans. The school of Cesarea-Palestina was also cele- brated among the Christians. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. Basil the Great, and St. Gregory Nazianzen, who studied and taught there, ren- dered it illustrious: but of its duration we have no certain evidence. St. Basil, departing from Caesarea to Constantinople, the school of the second Rome, soon became renowned, and here it is supposed was founded by Constantine a seat of letters, furnishing the first instance of a public academy endowed and instituted by authority. That of Rome was equally celebrated, as was also that of Berytus, which three cities had the exclusive privilege of having lectures upon the Roman law. The college of Bangor in Britain was established by monks before the time of Constantine. Shortly after the death of Justinian, Berytus was overthrown by an earthquake, and a fire destroyed what had been saved from that ruin. ‘The school of Constantinople lasted till the beginning of the eighth century, when it was extinguished by Leo the Isaurian. The school of Carthage also was spoken of by St. Augustin as the rival of that of Rome. ‘hat of Milan is celebrated for its library, and from St. Augustin having gone to it to teach rhetoric. In the fourth century anumber of schools were founded in Gaul by the edict of Valens and Gratian. That in the town of Cleves was eminent, which it appears had existed in the third century, where an Athenian had taught. Mar- seilles retained its academy, which was so grandly described by Stra- bo and Cicero. ‘The schools of Bordeaux, Tholouse, Narbonne, and Treves, are expressly mentioned from the epoch of the fourth century ; but the professors were only grammarians, both Greek and Latin, and rhetoricians, for no philosophers or professors of law were yet in Gaul. Of ecclesiastical schools, the earliest that are mentioned are those of Rome, Alexandria, and Nisibe. Such schools were either public or conventual. In the beginning of the sixth century, Cassiodorus, who from a Roman senator had become a monk, lamented the deficiency of these, compared with the secular schools,* and ascribed it to the wars, which raged in Italy. Edessa was soon after celebrated for its ecclesi- astical school. ‘The conventual schools were episcopal and monastic. Of these the first instance is that of Hippo, founded by St. Augustin for the education of young clerics, as a seminary to supply priests to the Church. Muratori describes the desolation of Italy, in consequence of the ravages of the barbarous Goths and Longebards, who nearly destroy- ed all learning, excepting at Rome and Pavia. As a remedy for this evil, the parochial schools by the clergy became general throughout Italy in the fifth century, which institutions thence passed into Gaul. ‘Thusa council in Narbonese Gaul, in 443, decreed as follows: ‘It pleases us that all priests, constituted over parishes, according to the custom which is so beneficially established in Italy, should have junior readers unmar- ried in their houses, whom they shall spiritually nourish, instructing them in the psalms and divine lessons, and in the law of God, that they may provide worthy successors for themselves, and receive from the Lord an eternal recompense,”’t In Spain first arose the schools of cathedral churches. This was in the beginning of the sixth century. Children offered by their parents were here to be instructed under the * Preefat. ad lib. divine et humane lection. t 1 Can. Concil. Vasionensis, ii. AGES OF FAITH, 109 eye of the bishop,* and to dwell under one roof.t Yet the first Christian schools were always adjoining the cathedral, where was also the hospi- tal for the sick and for pilgrims, and there science and mercy met togeth- er, justice and peace kissed each other. The first schools of Paris were opposite Notre Dame, and adjoining the church of St. Germain |’ Auxer- rois. In the time of King Robert, the Palatine schools, so called from their being near the palace of Thermes, were on the ascent of the hill of St. Genevieve. The schools of Rheims, under Hincmar, in the ninth century, were celebrated. Young men flocked there from all parts. These schools produced great bishops, abbots, and chancellors of France. His successor Foulques excited emulation by his example, for he did not disdain to study with the youngest clerks.t In the year 970, the famous monk of Aurillac in Auvergne, Gerbert, was placed at the head of these schools, and King Robert, son of Hugues Capet, was sent to study under him by his mother Adelaide. Under Guy de Chatillon the youth of the city were also instructed, by the masters of the cathedral school, in the holy Scriptures and in the ecclesiastical computation. At Lyons I saw, adjoining the cathedral, a very ancient building, called the manécanterie. It was the cathedral school, erected by Leydrade the archbishop in the eighth century. ‘The name is derived from mane can- tare, to sing matins, for it was here that boys were instructed in the chaunt. In the eleventh century we find St. Maiolus, a young ecclesias- tical student, repairing to Lyons as to the most eminent school, the moth- er and nurse of philosophy, as St. Odilo calls it.| It was king Ina who founded the English school at Rome. We read in the Saxon chronicle, that in the year 816 the school of the English nation at Rome was de- sttoyed by fire. Alfred was a great benefactor to it. The title of one of the great hospitals at Rome is derived from its proximity to this school of the Saxons. In the time of St. Bernard it was usual for some, even of monastic students, to be sent to Rome. St. Peter, the venerable abbot of Cluny in the twelfth century, sent some of his disciples to Pope Lu- cius, to whom he wrote in these remarkable terms: ‘“ According to the will and command of your eminence, we direct from the bosom of Clu- ny’s cloister these beloved brethren and sons to the common father, yea to our and their especial father; we commend them to apostolic piety. For the cause of God and by virtue of obedience they leave their native soil, repair to a foreign land, and seek not to fly from death itself, which the Roman air is accustomed to inflict so quickly upon our countrymen ; so that like lambs they go to the sacrifice.”’§ In the sixth century also arose the schools of the new family of the Benedictines, which’ spread themselves over the whole western church. Of these the school of the monastery in the island of Lerins became first most celebrated. This was founded by St. Honoratus, and it produced Maximus, Faustus, Hi- lary, Cesarius, Vincent, Eucherius, Salvius, and many others. The school of Seville in Spain was also renowned for having produced the great St. Isidore. Of this school Mariana says, ‘that as if from a cita- del of wisdom many came forth illustrious both for probity of manners, * Concil. Toletano, ii. Can. i. + Id. iv, + Anquetil, Hist. de Reims, i. 152, | Bibliothec. Cluniac. 282. § S. Petri ven. Epist. lib. iv. 24. K 110 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, and for learning.’’* Isidore gave this precept for all similar schools in Spain: ‘‘ Cura nutriendorum parvulorum pertinebit ad virum, quem ele- gerit pater, sanctum sapientemque atque wtate gravem, informantem par- vulos non solum studiis litterarum sed etiam documentis magisterioque virtutum.’’ Until the time of Charlemagne letters found an asylum in England, and especially in Ireland in the monasteries. Henry of Aux- erre, in the life of St. Germain, which he dedicated to Charles the Bald, says that the Anglo-Saxons used to resort unto the monks of Ireland, for the sake of learning, and that they received from them the manner of forming their letters; and Bede is a witness that in the year 664 ‘* many of the noble and middle classes of England left their country and passed into Ireland, for the sake of divine reading, or of a more continent life, and some within the monasteries, others going about from cell to cell delighted in receiving instruction from masters, all whom the Irish lib- erally received, giving them daily food without price, as also books and instructors gratuitously.’’t ‘Then returning home, they enriched their own country with learning. Renowned schools and colleges were in the abbeys of Louth, of St. Ibar in the island of Beg Eri, on the coast of Wexford, in the fifth century, in the abbey of Clonard in Eastmeath, and of Rathene, in those of Lismore, Ross, and Bangor, of St. Mary at Clonfert, and in that of St. Ninnidius in the island of Dam-Inis in the Lake of Erne, and in the abbey of the isle of Immay on the coast of Gal- way.{ At this time Theodorus, a Roman monk, sent by Pope Vitali- anus, came to Canterbury, where he was made archbishop, having for companion the abbot Adrian. ‘These were both learned in the Greek and Latin. When Alcuin presided in the school of York, a crowd of scholars resorted thither from France and even from the farthest parts of Germany. St. Liudger was sent from Saxony to York to study under him, and remained there three years and six months. ‘Tanner admits that the English monasteries, till the moment of their destruction, were schools of learning and education, and that all the neighbours who desired it might have their children taught grammar and church music without any expense to them.|| In the abbey of Jumiéges, where our Edward the Confessor was educated, there were many schools for the monks and for seculars, in which rich and poor were alike received, and the poor could send their children, because they *were nourished at the ex- pense of the monastery.§ In the monastery of St. Benedict on the Loire, there were at one time five thousand scholars. Two descriptions of col- leges flourished within all the Benedictine monasteries, of which one was for lay youths.** The Scholasticus was the master of the school, who not only excelled in the science of the divine Scriptures, but also in secular learning, in mathematics, astronomy, arithmetic, geome- try, music, rhetoric, and poetry. ‘Trithemius adds, that whenever an abbot found no monk in his abbey competent to discharge this office, it was no subject of shame to apply to some other monastery for a monk to fill it.tt No college in these ages was more celebrated than that of * Lib. vi. Rer. Hispan. cap. 7. + Hist. Anglic. lib. iii. cap. 27. + Monast. Hibernic. 410. | Notitia Monastica, Pref. § Hist. de Jumiéges par Deshayes. ** Mabillon de Studiis Monast. i. cap. 11. t{ Withem. in Chron. Hirsan. ad an.890. AGES OF FAITH. 111 Fulda, of which Raban was preceptor. Even bishops did not disdain to study in the schools of learned abbots. Thus we read of Burchard, Bishop of Worms, who followed the instructions of Olbert, Abbot of Jumiéges, ‘a noble and powerful bishop did not disdain to submit him- self to the form of a disciple: and a humble and foreign monk did not fear to assume the part of a master over such a man.’’* In the Benedic- tine monasteries were always two divisions of boys for learning, forming the interior or claustral and the exterior or canonical schools ; the former for those that were dedicated to religion, the latter for seculars. The care which was expended upon all these boys is described by Udalricus, in the third book of his customs of Cluny, where he concludes that it would be difficult for any son of a king to be nourished with greater dil- igence in a palace than was the least boy of the lowest rank in Cluny. Many sons of kings were educated with the children of the poor in mon- asteries of Benedictines. Lothaire, son of Charles the Bald, was educa- ted in the abbey of St. Germain L’Auxerrois, Theodoric III. at Kala, Louis VI., Pepin, parent of the great Charles, and Robert, the second king of the third race, in the abbey of St. Denis. Even the exterior schools were under strong monastic discipline. Ekkehard the younger says, in the sixth chapter of his book on the monastery of St. Gall, that there were places of strict discipline, not only in the cloisteral but also in the external schools, from which, besides clerks, who were often there nourished, there came out many illustrious bishops. Joachim Vadianus, though an adversary, bears testimony that in the masters of these schools were required piety and erudition, the former being estimated by inno- cence of life and love of the divine worship, the latter by the judgment and excellence of the learning which was possessed. Preceptors were often chosen from the monasteries for the episcopal schools. ‘And in all these offices,” says Mabillon, ‘if they ever received any thing as a gift from the munificence of their disciples, they used to spend it in pious uses.’’ ‘Thus we read of Sigebert, that he applied many things to the use and ornament of the church of Jumiéges, which he had received as voluntary presents from the liberality of those whom he instructed. With Charlemagne arose the Palatine school, which was held in the pal- ace, of which the scholars were in the court. ‘This was so far ambula- tory, that wherever the emperor went to reside it established itself in the imperial palace. Louis-le-Debonaire and Charles the Bald continued to maintain the school in their palaces, in which had always presided from the time of Charlemagne the most learned monks, Alcuin, Peter of Pisa, Clemens, Claudius a Spaniard, Amalarius the Deacon, Angelo- mus the Monk of Luxeuil, and Scotus, who gave lessons on the holy Scriptures, on tradition and on the liberal arts.t The zeal of Charle- magne for learning is finely evinced in his admirable letter to Baugolf, Abbot of Fulda, and to other abbots. By means of Alcuin, it was said, that a new Athens had arisen in France. It is not denied that there had been, as we have shown, schools in Gaul before his time: for Bede speaks of Sigebercht, King of the East Saxons, having fled to France, and says, that when he returned to his kingdom, he instituted a school in imitation of what he had seen in France, in which boys were instructed in * Mabillon, Prefat. in v. Secul. Bened. § 3. + Id. Pref. in iv. Secul. Ben. § 8. 112 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, letters, Bishop Felix himself assisting.* But the wars and troubles of the eighth century were a great obstacle to the progress of learning. The Council of Valence in the year 855, recommends the erection of schools for divine and human sciences, and the ecclesiastical chaunt, because from the long interruption of studies, ignorance of the faith, and the want of all science have invaded many of the churches of God. The exer- tions of the great Alcuin and other British monks under Charlemagne and his son Lewis, led to the extension and improvement of schools, Alcuin, amidst all his labours of composition, gave public lessons in the monastery of St. Martin at Tours, “‘I your Flaccus,”’ he says in a letter to Charlemagne, ‘according to your exhortations and good desire, apply myself to minister to some under the roof of St. Martin the honey of the holy Scriptures. Others I endeavour to inebriate with the old wine of ancient learning, others I begin to nourish with the apples of gram- matic subtilty. Some I try to illuminate in the science of the stars, as if of the painted canopy of some great house; | am made many things to many persons that I may edify as many as possible to the advantage of the holy church of God, and to the honour of your imperial kingdom.”’ In 813, a celebrated synod at Mayence ordered the clergy to admon- ish the people that parents should send their sons to the school whether in monasteries or in the houses of the parochial clergy, that they might learn there in the vernacular toncue, the symbol and the ‘ our Father,”’ and whatever was necessary for instruction in the Catholic faith.t There were parochial catechetical schools which were also gratuitous, and in another synod in 800, it was ordered that the parochial priests should have schools in the towns and villages, that the little children of all the faithful might learn letters from them; ‘‘let them receive and teach these with the utmost charity, that they themselves may shine as the stars for ever. Let them receive no remuneration from their scholars unless what the parents through charity may voluntarily offer.”’t In- deed, so early as in the fifth century, the clergy had not only cathedral schools, but also others in the country villages. In the year 529, the Council of Vaison strongly recommended the building of these country schools. Yet a late writer of the life of Caxton asserts that parochial grammar schools in villages were first established in the fifteenth centu- ry! In the monasteries there were the major and the minor schools. In the latter, boys were taught the symbol, the ‘‘our Father,”’ the Psalms, chaunt, arithmetic, and grammar. In the major schools the various branches of learning were cultivated, sacred letters, mathematics, music, poetry, the oriental languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic. The most celebrated were in the monasteries of Fulda, St. Gall, Hirsfeld, St. Alban of Mayence, Bec, Corby, Milan, St. Deny at Paris, St. Max- imus at Treves, at Rheims, Autun, Tours, Strasburg: but there were many others, a list of which is given by Launoi, in his book De Scho- lis celebitlbus a Carolo Magno in Occidente instauratis. Of Fulda, in the ninth century, Trithemius writes as follows: ‘There flourished there a most learned body of monks, under the abbot, Raban Maur. Their fame and memory were in great price with emperors, kings and * Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. c. 18. + Concil. Moguntini Can. xlv. { Synod. Aurelianensis, anno 800, Can. xx. AGES OF FAITH. 113 princes, not only on account of the sanctity of their lives, but also of their incomparable learning.”” Not only abbots sent their monks to this school, but also from all parts of Germany and Gaul, noblemen used to send their sons to be instructed by Raban Maur; and as he was most mild, he received them all with great care, and instructed them according to the age and disposition of each. ‘The necessity for episcopal schools was inculeated in the celebrated Council at Metz, under Chrodogang, shortly before the time of Charlemagne. The school was to be attached to the cathedral, where the clergy were to live in community under the bishop. ‘The fathers of the sixth Council of Paris in 829, petitioned the Emperor Louis to found three public schools in some three proper places of his empire, ‘that the labour of his father may not by their ne- glect come to be in vain, that the holy Church of God may gain honour, and the emperor an eternal memory.” What was the result is un- known. In 859, another council invokes pious princes and all bishops to provide for the support of schools of the holy Scriptures, and also of human literature, ‘that on all sides, public schools may be constituted for both kinds of erudition, divine and human.’”* The writer of the life of Bishop Meinwercus, describes the episcopal school of Paderborn as ‘ flourishing in both divine and human science.”’ Multiplied exer- cises of study occupied youths of good disposition and boys, all under claustral discipline. There were the trivium and quadrivium, music, dialectics, rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, astronomy, and geometry. There flourished Homer and the great Virgil, Crispus, Sallust and Sta- tius. It was a play there to make verses, and sentences, and sweet songs ; and of the beauty of writing and painting executed by these stu- dents, we see proofs to this day. A Council at Rome in 826, under Eugene II. ordained that there should be three kinds of schools estab- lished throughout Christendom, episcopal, parochial, in towns and villa- ges, and others wherever there could be found place and opportunity. In 823, Lothaire I. promulgated a decree to establish eight public schools in some of the principal cities of Italy, «in order that opportunity may be given to all, and that there may be no excuse drawn from poverty and the difficulty of repairing to remote places.” Among these were Pavia, Cremona, Florence, Verona, and Vicenza. In the tenth century, St. Gerard, Bishop of Toul, drew into his diocese several learned monks from Greece and from Ireland, who opened schools which produced some eminent men. At the same time, the fame of the school of Mag- debure, under Otheric, was spread through all Germany. It was here that St. Adalbert, the apostle of Prussia, was educated, a beautiful ac- count of whose holy youth, and of the affectionate diligence of his mas- ters, is given in the ancient chronicles of that city.t The Teutonic knights in Prussia used to send boys of talent into Germany, and espe- cially to that school, to be educated in Christian learning, and alms for their support used to be collected in Germany.{ Van Espen sup- poses that, from the eleventh century till the Council of Trent, the episcopal schools had fallen into decay.|| Alexander III. by various constitutions, had endeavoured to obviate this evil. The third Council a ee ee eee ee * Concil. Saponar. Can. x. t Voigt. Geschichte Preussens. i. b. 4. c. + Id. ii, 293. || De Jure Eccles, part ii. Til. xi. § 6. Vou. I.—15 K 2 114 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, of Lateran, in 1179, says, “Since the Church of God, as a pious mother, is bound to provide that opportunity for learning should not be withdrawn from the poor, who are without help from patrimonial riches, be it ordained, that in every cathedral there should be a master to teach both clerks and poor scholars gratis.”’* This decree was enlarged and again enforced by Innocent III. in the year 1215. Hence, in all colleges of canons, one bore the title of the scholastic canon. Pope Innocent Il]. who with Honorius III. was most zealous for the increase of schools, extended the law to other churches besides cathedrals, that there might be a master to teach gratis. The formal establishment of the universities, dates from the thirteenth century ; but celebrated schools had existed long before, in the places where they were instituted. Joffridus, Abbot of Crowland, who suc- ceeded Ingulphus, sent monks to his manor of Cotenham, near Cam- bridge, who used to walk to Cambridge every day to give lectures in a barn, and in a short time they collected a crowd of disciples, so that soon the studies were regularly pursued as follows: Brother Odo, early in the morning, taught grammar to the younger boys: at prime, brother Terricus delivered to youths the logic of Aristotle, with the commentaries of Porphyry and Averoes: at tierce, brother William read the rhetoric of Tully and Quintilian: master Gislebertus, on every Sunday and Saint’s day, preached the word of God to the people, and on all week days he expounded before sext the text of the sacred page to learned men and priests.t Similar details might be discovered rela- tive to the commencement of studies in the other great universities of Naples, Bologna, Paris and Oxford, which were all established about the same time; for Europe then forming almost but one country, insti- tutions and manners followed every where the same impulses contem- poraneously. However, the universities of Padua and Perugia did not arise till a century later. In Spain, the three greater universities were those of Salamanca, which was founded by Alphonzo el Sabio, and afterwards favoured by the especial patronage of Queen Isabella, of Alcala, which was instituted by Cardinal Cisnero, and of Valladolid, which, through the patronage of the Austrian dynasty, rose to great eminence. ‘T‘he most distinguished of the other twenty-four lesser uni- versities of Spain, were at Sarragossa, Valencia, Seville, Grenada, Itruria, Cervera, Toledo, and Santiago. The word Universitas, signi- fied corporation, and did not necessarily imply universality of the sub- jects of study. At Montpellier and Salerno there were universities of medicine solely. The beginning of the fourteenth century was distin- guished by the multitude of colleges which were founded. ‘There were forty-two in the university of Paris alone. The schools of the Domin- icans and Franciscans were now found every where. At Paris, the ancient episcopal school in the Island adjoining the cathedral, was trans- ferred to the Mountain of St. Genevieve. The universities were rendered illustrious by the lectures of the great monastic doctors, most of whom were of noble and even of royal blood. Albert the Great studied successively at Padua in his father’s house, and * Cap. i. x. + Petri Blesensis Continuatio ad Hist. Ingulphi in Rer. Anglic. Scriptor. tom. i. AGES OF FAITH. 115 at Paris, where he gave public lectures on Aristotle in the year 1219. The place Maubert, is so called from this Magister Albert; for he was obliged to lecture in the open air, there being no hall large enough to contain his audience. In one of the courts of Magdalen College, in Oxford, may be seen the stone pulpit projecting from the wall, from which lectures or sermons were delivered in the open air. At Paris, a street in the quarter of the university mentioned by Dante, is still called the Rue du Foin, where the hay or straw used to be distributed to the scholars to furnish seats. Albert then retired to Cologne, as General of the Dominican order, and afterwards became Master of the Sacred Palace at Rome ; he also assisted at the Council of Lyons; wearied with his labours he returned to his convent at Cologne, where he died in the year 1280. The number of scholars at these universities was prodigious. Nearly ten thousand foreigners of every nation, and many of them very illustrious, were at the University of Bologna in an early age. St. Thomas of Canterbury and Peter of Blois, were students there. Pope Alexander HI. was the Professor of Sacred Scripture, when exalted to the Pontificate. ‘The masters and students at the Uni- versity of Paris were so numerous, that when they went in procession to St. Denis, the first ranks were entered into the church of the abbey when the last were leaving the church of the Mathurins in Paris. ‘The university on one occasion promised to send twenty-five thousand scho- lars to increase the pomp of a funeral. It was usual to study at more than one university. The great Pope Innocent III. had studied at Rome, Bologna, and Paris; and Alexander V. shone both at Paris and Oxford. Men were students till the age of thirty or forty. Guillaume de Champeaux, after having taught philosophy at Paris with great applause where Hugues and Richard de Saint-Victor were his disciples, became himself, at an advanced age, the disciple of Anselm of Laon, in order to study theology under him, after which he returned to Paris, where he was the first to establish a double school of theology, one in Paris itself, and the other in the abbey of St. Victor which he founded. On those ancient tombs of doctors in the cloisters of Pavia, the master, like Nazario, is represented instructing scholars who are themselves bearded men; and at the college of the Jesuits at Rome, shortly after its foundation, Dr. Martin Gregory says, that prelates and bishops, and other honourable personages used to sit out of the press at lattice win- dows looking into the school, hearing and writing down the lesson of divinity. The church commemorates a trait in the life of St. Camillus de Lellis, that in his thirty-second year, feeling the advantage that learn- ing would yield him in consoling the sick and dying, to which work of charity he devoted himself, he was not ashamed to enter into the first class of grammar with little boys and thence proceeded to study for the priesthood. The same is related of St. Ignatius Loyola. Sometimes the whole life even of a poet was cloisteral through his anxiety to benefit men by his writings, as was said of ‘‘ gentle Champier.”’ Tout ton vivant tu n’as fait aultre chose Que ta personne tenir tousjours enclose, Pour profiter quelque chose aux humains Tant que des livres tu as composé maints, Tu as parlé des sainctes et des saincts ; 116 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, Et au dernier, comment pour estre crains Et bien aimé de leurs nobles vassaulx Les princes doivent vivre soir et mains, Et supporter bonnement leur villains, De tout cecy tu as moult bien parlé Car le peuple ne doit estre foullé.* The jurisdiction enjoined by these new academies throughout Europe was drawn from the constitution of Frederick I. Barbarossa. By decree of Pope Clement V. in the Council of Vienne in 1312, the profession of Oriental languages was added to the ancient faculties for the purpose of providing missionaries to the east. At Rome, Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca, the Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldaic, began to be gener- ally taught. Then arose the schools of the Jesuits, and after the Coun- cil of Trent, the episcopal seminaries were multiplied, in which it was expressly provided that the students should assist at mass daily. Some councils, chiefly Belgian, prescribed schools on Sundays and festivals after mid-day, that the poor children may be instructed in the rudiments of the faith.t The favour and indulgence shown by rulers to schools of learning may be traced to the immunity from gifts granted by the Cesars, Au- gustus, Vespasian and Adrian, to the professors of the liberal arts. Do- mitian seems to have withdrawn this dispensation, which when restored was restricted to Asia by Antoninus Pius.t Constantine the Great confirmed and increased all the privileges of learning, of whom three constitutions in favour of schools are in the thirteenth book of the 'The- odosian code. ‘This emperor was not the first to appoint salaries for the professors, since Vespasian, Adrian, and Antoninus Pius, are record- ed to have set the example, confining their patronage to the four sects of the Stoics, Platonists, Peripatetics, and Epicureans.|| To the mul- titude of students, who flocked from all parts to Rome in the fourth century, Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian gave rules and privileges which may be seen in the code of Theodosius. By this law, the stu- dents were forbidden to frequent theatres or taverns, and all whose lives did not correspond to the dignity of liberal things were to be beaten publicly and expelled. No student was to remain after the age of twen- ty, which prescription Keuffel justly regards as an instance of imperial jealousy most injurious to learning. ‘The discipline and privileges of the academy of Constantinople were similar. Theodosius raised pro- fessors of learning to the dignity of counts of the first order, a title invented by Constantine, and divided into three degrees of honour. For Constantine thought, that all who partook in the labours of govern- ing in acivil or military situation should be styled his companions. They were also raised to the dignity of the spectabiles which placed them next to the first, who enjoyed the chief honours in the empire. Julian decreed that the Christians should neither teach the liberal arts nor be received for instruction in them by pagan professors, with the exception of one whose name was mentioned, but this persecution did not last long. Justinian was illiterate, and no lover of learning ; but ai ce UE OE A ag * Gouget, x. t Espen in Jur. Eccles. p. ii. tit. ii. cap. 5. t Keuffel, Hist. Originis ac Progress. Scholarum inter Christianos, 33. | Vide Heineccii Antiquit. Rom. lib. i. til. 25. AGES OF FAITH. 117 such was his zeal for building magnificent temples, that he took for that purpose the stipends which had been granted by former kings to the masters of liberal sciences. The Emperor Frederick I. in his famous constitution which is the base of university jurisdiction, gave several privileges to students and professors. At this time the dangers to which solitary students were exposed, travelling and passing into strange coun- tries, were so great, that by this decree it was made a peculiar crime to touch or wound any student or scholar travelling, or remaining in a for- eign land for the sake of learning. All such persons are placed under the especial protection of the emperor, who is most anxious to defend and favour with peculiar love those by whose science the whole world is enlightened and reduced to obedience towards God and to rulers who are his ministers, who make themselves exiles, for the sake of science, and poor from being rich. On occasion of a great sedition at Paris, between the town and the students respecting the price of wine, which led to a great interruption of scholastic exercises, Henry III. of Eng- land addressed an invitation signed with his own hand to the masters and to all the scholars of Paris, in which he says, ‘* Humbly compas- sionating the straits and tribulation which you suffer at Paris from an unjust law, and wishing piously to assist you in reverence for God, and his holy church; we wish to signify to you, that if it please you to pass into our kingdom of England, we will assign for your use what- ever city, borough, or town you may choose, and secure you all liberty and tranquillity.” More than a thousand in consequence removed to Oxford, and by order of the king the rate of lodging was not to exceed a certain sum. Some French authors suspect that the King of England excited the sedition in order to profit by it in gaining possession of those learned men. To the twelfth century may be traced the origin of the- ological degrees, but it was not till the year 1562, that the Council of Trent authoritatively established for the whole church degrees in theol- ogy and canon law. The degrees of universities were conferred by giving the chair, the book, the cap, the gown, the gold ring, and the kiss, and the profession of faith. The first signified the faculty of teaching others. ‘The book was presented open to signify that the can- didate must study with diligence, and then it was given into his hands closed, to signify that it was not only in books but in the mind that wisdom was to be retained. The cap belonged to the clerical office. The ring given to doctors signified the mystic marriage to science. The kiss was to denote the fellowship which should exist among the learned. The profession of faith was prescribed by Pius [V.* Great honour and pompous ceremonies belonged to universities. Foreign kings would assist as spectators before an assembly of five thousand graduates, which was the number at Paris when there were twenty-five thousand scholars. The grandeur of the purple yielded to the scholas- tic dignity. In the year 1476, the University of Paris refused to give the degree of doctor to a man for whom the kings of France and of Spain had requested itt ‘The zeal for these foundations continued in Catholic countries unabated. Lorenzo de Medicis, to facilitate the in- struction of youth, opened a college at Pisa, where he assembled the * Keuffel, Historia Scholarum. ¢ Historia Universit. Parisiensis a Bulzo. 118 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, most excellent masters of Italy. There were at least eight universities founded in France during the fifteenth century, while nothing but the work of dissolution proceeded in England, though it had been immedi- ately preceded by Wolsey’s foundation at Ipswich. The last instance of the establishment of a university,was in the year 1547, when Charles of Lorraine, Archbishop of Rheims, uncle of Mary, queen of Scots, solicited and obtained from Rome the establishment of a university at Rheims on the model of that at Paris. It became distinguished for the piety as well as the learning of its masters and scholars. But the schools of the Jesuits were now combining the advantages of a university with- out its danger. ‘‘ Hast thou seen in Oxford, written over the school doors, Metaphysica, Astronomia, Dialectica, and so forth? So is it here within one college,”’ says Dr. Martin Gregory, speaking of that at Rome, shortly after its foundation by St. Ignatius. The literary meetings held in the convent of the Santo Spirito at Flor- ence, were the first embryo of academies in Europe; and the first aca- demy was Platonic. ‘The present Latin translation of Plato, and of the whole works of Aristotle, though defective, evinced the zeal of Cardinal Bessarion its founder for the study of the ancient philosophers. In this convent the monks used to discourse in Greek and even in Hebrew. These meetings originated with the learned friar Louis Marsigli, around whom men of letters used to assemble and enter into disputations. Such then were the ancient institutions of education for the propaga- tion of learning; for of others which belong to the history of modern foundations I find no trace excepting among the Turks, who were the first to have military colleges, as was natural under a religion which was to be propagated by the sword. The Christian princes had not followed their example even so late as in the age when Savedra wrote.* It would be in vain to look back to ages of charity divine, and honour high, for any institution resembling those schools from which the offices of religion were to be excluded as a doubtful thing, and which men were equally to fill with faith and heretic declension, sanctioning in the eyes of artless and unguarded youth by their intellectual ministry, and perpetuating by the associations of early life arising from it, error as well as truth. No mention here need be made of these, in favour of which philosophy hath no arguments though civil powers may think fit to legislate. At present, I return to the ancient schools and universities, of which we have now seen the rise and progress during ages when the object of education was to render souls innocent, to stand once more beautiful in their Maker’s sight. Many interesting characteristics of the former demand our atten- tion: for, in the first place, the situation in monasteries removed from the dissipation that may occasionally at least prevail in great cities, — yielding the healthful air of the country and the beautiful aspect of woods or mountains, where the scholar, in the sweet and silent studies of his youth, learned to associate lessons of piety and devout exercises with the love of nature, was peculiarly favourable for the purpose of educa- tion. The evening walk of the students of the Cistercian abbey of St. Urban, is a happy spectacle. The being able to feel at home in its vast halls, and galleries, and peaceful cloisters, and then to range through the * Christian Prince, ii. 406. AGES OF FAITH. 119 noble woods which surround it, might seem almost of itself an educa- tion. ‘The importance of these first impressions is quite incalculable, and the wisdom of the middle ages recognised the necessity of attending to them. ‘* Colleges ought to be placed in the country,”’ says Bonald, ‘‘ that there may be no external pensioners to introduce the corruption of the town within its walls, who might receive instruction, but who could not receive education like those lodged within the college. Sa- lubrity of air, innocence of manners, and habits of a country life, are advantages for which no city could offer compensation. Such were the ancient monasteries for the education of youth.’’* Lord Bacon remarks the need of places for learning, all tending to quietness and privateness of life, and discharge of cares and troubles. What is termed a character, may indeed be formed in the boisterous stream of the world, but a genius is fostered amidst the stillness and peace which enable the soul to hear the sweet voice of Nature. It was the general opinion of the learned in the middle ages, as of the ancients,t that education could best be administered ina foreign country. John of Salisbury cites the words of an old man of Chartres, describing the keys of learning to unfold truth to philosophers, “Mens humilis, studium querendi, vita quieta, Scrutinium tacitum, paupertas, terra aliena, Hee reserare solent multis obscura legendo.” And he supplies this comment, ‘‘ For to the humble God gives illum- inating grace, enabling them to understand truth, and they despise not the person of the teacher nor the doctrine, unless opposed to religion ; and without this, all capacity of genius, tenacity of memory, and dili- gence of study, will only serve to lead men into greater error, as the swift horse sooner carries his rider from the way. Simplicity and anxious study to find the sense, attend humility: that a quiet life is necessary to wisdom, even the heathen sages taught; and this cannot be found with- out the necessaries of life, and on the other hand, without the absence of luxurious delights,—for the abundance of things extinguishes the light of prayer, and therefore joyful poverty is an excellent thing to assist studies, as many of the ancients also found. Philosophy requires a for- eign land, and sometimes makes one’s own country a foreign one, be- cause it engrosses a man wholly, and prevents him from being engaged in domestic concerns.’’{ And to the same effect speaks Vincent of Beau- vais, who says, ‘‘ A foreign land is one of the helps to learning and phi- losophy, because it does not suppose the mind to grow forgetful of its end, and it is the first of virtues to learn gradually to withdraw the mind from these visible and transitory things, that afterwards one may be able to relinquish them freely.’’|| To the young scholar in a foreign land, solitude is the mother of tears and piety. Savedra, from the judgment of his chivalrous lore, goes so far as to say, that youth hardly ever succeeds in its own country: friends and relations render it too insolent; but in foreign lands the case is otherwise, for necessity renders it there more circumspect, and obliges it to form its manners to gentleness, to concili- ate favour. In his own country a young man feels more free and more * Legislat. Primit. liv. iii. 63. t Jamblich. de Pythagoric. Vita cap. v. t De Nugis Curialium, lib. vii. cap. 13. | Speculum Doctrinale, lib. i. cap. 29. 120 MORES CATHOLICI; OR assured of receiving pardon; but where he is unknown he fears the rigour of strangers: besides, it is in foreign countries that he loses insensibly that rudeness of manner, that retired humour, that ridiculous vanity, which prevail among those who have not frequented various nations.’’* Methinks now I hear some voice repeat the poet’s invitation, and say, ** Revele to me the sacred noursery Of virtue, which with you doth there remaine, Where it in silver bowre does hidden ly From view of man and wicked world’s disdaine.”’> Where like that happy race of which an older poet sings, ‘‘ the children of heaven, nourished with illustrious wisdom, with the fruit of that holy country where it is said celestial harmony gave birth to the chaste Muses, enjoy for a time that bright pure air, and those sweetly blowing winds, which refresh the unviolated land, where dwells that Love which was seated by the side of Wisdom, the handmaid of every virtue.’’+ Who, in fact, would not wish to behold the interior of these Catholic colleges, which have left such a sweet and holy memory! ‘We had loved it with fondness like our native home,” says one whose early years were spent in the English college at Douay. «Domestic harmo- ny and mutual confidence had indeed at all times made a college life a happy life; and I will affirm, that many now living in different classes of society, as many before us have done, look back with complacency to Douay, and call the happiest period of their life the years of youth Spent there in preparatory studies, with companions and friends who were dear to them?’’|| It is not thus, we may observe, that the sophists look back to the days of youth, and to the place of their instruction. But the schools of holy Church were not their mother. Far from the tumult of cities, the young Levites who are destined to bear the holy ark of the new alliance, and those also who are to serve God in the walks of secular occupations, are assembled to enjoy the sweets of solitude, and to animate each other with the love of study and of wisdom, having before their eyes great examples, which always con- stitute the most perfect school of life. Here they apply to a course of profound learning, which often occupies them till an advanced age. ‘Their religious exercises commence and close each day. The solemn wind of night still sighs in the towers, but the bell has sounded, and every one rises from sleep. ‘The dawn has not yet streaked the sky, but the long corridors give echoes to the passing steps of the student. In the chapel is already collected that throng of devout youths and ven- erable masters, whom Christ in his own garden chooses to be his help- mates, some of whose devoted lives, perchance, shall be hereafter sung deservedly in heights empyreal. Let England no more boast of those roses of the divided houses which dyed her fields in the blood of her children. Let her remember rather that band of innocents which she sent forth to Liege and Lisbon, to Douay and to Rome, who returned to her bosom each year as the flowers of the martyrs, among which, as the venerable Bede would say, neither roses nor lilies were wanting ; for many of them were worthy to receive crowns composed of both,— Sepa eanoe SO Nnae OME Loh, C) a detested and shameful return home, a mournful silence, and a desire of darkness to cover them.t He did not rob them of a mild welcome, nor of the sweet smile of their mother as they came to her arms; they returned not as through streets full of enemies, fallen from on high, and oppressed with calamity.t These were the cruel victories of heathens, barbarous and delusive,—but the crowning of the Christian conqueror was a common joy, and he alone felt humbled. Religion even had in store her own sweet balms, to administer, with kind and cunning hand, to the sorrows of young students, who were depressed with a sense of their own inability to serve and honour the masters of their education; for she taught them, that the inferiority of their talents took nothing from them in the eyes of God, and rendered them no less dear and pre- cious to their common mother: she taught them, that failure and disap- pointment might be more conducive to their future happiness than the most brilliant success: she always said, ‘Give me but your will, and I a ESE REARDAN ale Sih ahllb Al cic Dar * Pindar, Olymp. x. 1. f Olymp. viii. 5. + Pyth. viii. Vou. II.—16 L 122 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, engage to make you wise and happy: I ask not genius, I ask not strength, health, success, crowns, applause,—I ask but your heart.’’* True, the discipline of her colleges was strict and watchful; but how small a part of education is the attainment of knowledge, in which vain sophists now say it all consists! The human character is beheld in the greatest deformity in a man without education, and possessed of immense general knowledge,—who knows much, but every thing knows ill. WON Hwloraro teyey nec dD ricraro wayra.t Religion did not sanction that system against nature, which takes the infant from its mother’s breast, and leaves the youth to lament in the words of the Forsaken Ion,— —esvov zie, ov mu” exeinv ev ayudarcus MnTecc Teugioal nak +E reepbaves blcv dmrerreendny pratarus fantecs Teogns.t Not the planet-like order of her temples, which is to glorify Heaven’s mercy, but the unhallowed mechanism of the factory, which is to enrich commercial tyrants, demands that sacrifice. All that she required of the child was, that on first coming to the use of reason, he should make an act of the love of God, because, if that were omitted, he would be guilty, as St. Thomas Aquinas held, ‘of mortal sin.’ But though she imposed no exercises beyond their strength, she knew that they are blessed who have borne the yoke from their youth; she knew that the source and the root of all goodness and of all honour, is the having been from youth well instructed. ‘The Spaniards ascribed even the cruelty and savage temper of Don Pedro to the negligence or ignorance of his governor, Don Alonzo Albuquerque, who, say they, might have tamed him when young.|| What a train of evils did the ancient philosopher discern as attendant upon false discipline, —«deradsiav,—ionorance and error, sadness and weeping, avarice and incontinence !§ Discipline, therefore, with her, assumed a decided and inflexible organization; but with what love was it imagined? with what benignity was it maintained? ‘*Sinite parvulos venire ad me,”’ said our heavenly master in the school of God. ‘O sweet Master,’’ continues Thomas de Kempis, ‘¢in how few words dost thou enable all men to learn humility! ‘These holy words console the humble and the poor, comfort the simple and the inno- cent, teach us all to become like children, without malice or guile, that we may be beloved by God and men.’’** Jesus in the Heart of Youth, a Dialogue between Jesus and a Boy,—such are the titles of works composed by the most learned men,—a Bartolommeo dal Monte, a Dio- nysius, surnamed, through admiration at the depth of his philosophy, the extatic Doctor. ‘‘ We wish,”’ says the holy Benedict, * to institute a school for the service of the Lord, and we hope that we have not placed any thing sharp or painful in this institution; but if, after the council of equity, there should be found, for the correction of vice and the maintenance of charity, any thing a little too rude, let no one, through fear of that, fly from the way of safety; at the commencement * Le Petit Manuel du Pieux Ecolier: Paris, 1828. + Margites. t Eurip. Ion. 1890. || Savedra, Christian Prince, i, 16. § Cebetis Tabula. ** Manuale Parvulorun, i. AGES OF FAITH. | 494 it is always narrow, but by a progress in faith and in a regular life, the heart expands, and we learn to run with an ineffable sweetness in the way of the commandments of God.’’ These are the last lines of the Preface to his Rule, which was for the strongest aspirants to perfection. Less severity was shown to the weak. The master of the monastic schools was not to be hard, clamorous, and reproachful; but putting on the bowels of a mother, he was to be gentle and affectionate, so that whatever the scholars had at heart, they might securely and sincerely trust to him.* The masters and professors were expressly charged to converse often with the scholars, to take part in their exercises and plays, that no occasion might be lost of useful admonition, and of winning their hearts, by evincing love and benevolence.t ‘+ What obedience, and humility, and brotherly love,’’ cries Dr. Martin Gregory, describing the college of the Jesuits at Rome, ‘‘ when, but for order sake, there is no superior in heart and mind, when the greatest divines in the world, highest in place and dignity, will ask permission that they may serve the youngest students at the table! when the good fathers of our Eng- lish college wash the feet also of our scholars when they arrive first at Rome! When, in fine, all are fathers and brethren and sons in respect of each other!” Affectionate solicitude was constantly proposed as their duty.{ ‘The master must be full of gentleness and humanity for his disciples,”’ says St. Bonaventura, ‘“‘ whom he should regard as his children, so as to evince towards them the tenderness of a mother with a father’s firmness.’’|| ‘* The master,’’ says brother John, a bare- footed Carmelite, ‘* should always begin with some prayer like the fol- lowing: ‘ Humillime Rex cordium Jesu Christe, per viscera misericor- dize tue, in quibus visitasti nos oriens ex alto, obsecro te, creare digne- ris in me cor humile et purum, cupidissimum secrete eruditionis tue : ut in schola humilium discipulorum tuorum fiam dono tuo sapiens ad regendam sine deceptione novellam prolem, dulcissime genitricis tue.’ ”’ Like Moses, the meekest of men, like David, the most humble and gentle, like the holy father Benedict, who could not be angry even against those who wished to poison him, the master must be a pattern of the tenderest humanity, showing always a cheerful and mild counte- nance, to win the hearts of his disciples, never irritated at their faults or moved at their weakness, bearing with the rudeness of some, uncon- quered by the difficulty of others, so that no one of them may ever fear to approach him by day or by night. ‘This sweetness and affection will render the way of Christian perfection still more delightful to them. This will soften hearts of stone, and give them hearts of flesh. Every day he must remember to offer for his scholars the most holy sacrifice of the altar, imitating the example of him who said, *“ Lest perchance my sons may have sinned.’”’ But if at any time, through their faults, he should feel his love for them to grow cold, he should, with great effort and earnestness of prayer, endeavour to banish that temptation: he should throw his eyes upon the celestial Master, our most sweet Re- deemer, who never despised his poor, rude, abject apostles, obnoxious to * Statuta Ordinis Premonstratensis, cap. 18. f Id. cap. ix. art. 2. t Instructio Magistri Novitiorum, Auct. Joan. a Jesu. | S. Bonaventura, Speculum Novitiorum, cap. 13. 124 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, so many passions, but loved them, bore with them, and instructed them with the sweetest love. On the other hand, he must not evince a par- tiality for some over the rest, on account of their more eminent sanctity or other graces; but must endear himself to all by studying the good of all. In reproving faults, let him never use harsh words, but as the Apostle says, if any one be tempted so as to commit a fault, we must instruct him in the spirit of gentleness ; it is not said he must reproach or insult, or adopt any such mode, but that he must instruct him; he must be ready also to excuse them, and to come forward himself in their behalf, urging their inconsiderate youth; and when it is absolutely necessary to punish the fault, he must show that he separates the person from what he punishes, and he must speak soothingly and affectionately to him, as to something most amiable, and far removed from the turpi- tude of vice; he must avoid also the words of magisterial authority, and, like one of the disciples, as if he had not himself attained to per- fection, he must associate himself with their labours; thus in words and also in deeds he must be kind and loving towards them. For his books, he should have the Holy Gospels and the Epistles of St Paul, the Ascetics and Rule of St. Basil, the Morals and Pastoral Care of St. Gregory, the Confessions and Meditations of St. Augustin, the Opus- cule of St. Bernard and of St. Bonaventura, the works of Cassien, Hugo de Saint Victor de Claustro Anime, Ricardus de Saint Victor, Humbertus de Eruditione Religiosorum, Climacus, Innocent and Ger- son, Thomas 4 Kempis, the treatise of blessed Vincent de Vita Spirit- uali, the works of Blosius and of Denis the Carthusian, the Institutions of Taulerus, Albertus Magnus de Virtutibus and Landulphus de Vita Christi. In vulgar tongues he should have the works of P. Lewis of Grenada, Avila, Diego Perez, Arias and St. Theresa, and others. And for history he should have St. Gregory of Tours, Eusebius, Theodoret, and the Lives of the Saints. The master should take care to employ his talents well. Spiritual men, to whom education is entrusted, should remember that they perform their duty to God when they commit to memory the fruit of their erudition, along with pleasant and delightful histories ; that in walking or sitting with the novices they may be able to exhilarate and entertain them, for their labours must be refreshed with joys. Therefore he should relate histories to them, and order others who have the ability to charm their companions with relations, and he may vary his conversation by a thousand innocent modes of diversion, which may excite a laugh without breach of modesty, instituting little contests to determine who can imagine the most perfect instance of the love of God or of hope, and allowing little plays to be represented on the sacred history, and to this he should add singing of hymns and psalms, to raise their souls to heaven. As for extraordinary recreations he must provide that all games be consistent with modesty and mutual love, conducive to the delight of the mind and the refreshment of the body. He should vary also his mode of instruction, and make use of Pictures and emblems, to administer delight, and keep them ever im- pressed with a sense of true perfection, that they may perform all their actions for the love of God, or on account of God. He must explain to them what they are to hold respecting the mysteries of faith, and he must explain the commands of the Decalogue. Youth being impatient AGES OF FAITH, 125 of rest, he must avail himself of that love of acclamation which Plato remarks in them, and give them occasion to make formal acts to inflame their hearts with the love of holiness and the horror of vice. He will therefore cry, ‘¢ Vivat Jesus Christus Dei altissimi filius,”’ and they will all answer, ‘ Vivat.”’—** Vivat serenissima Regina celorum,”’ and they will answer, ‘** Vivat.’?’—** Convertantur universi homines ad fidem et charitatem Dei ac Domini nostri Jesu Christi,’ and they will answer, ‘¢ Convertantur;’’ and then they may pronounce an anathema against forgetfulness of God, ingratitude, despair, disobedience, luxury, and pride; and this exercise of acclamation and of malediction will conduce to fervour and piety.* This ideal of discipline passed also to the mind of persons in the world. Christine de Pisan speaks of the poor human fragility in the days of youth, on which every well ordered sense should have compas- sion, as on a thing subject to passions, to diverse desires, and natural as- saults; and he says that masters ought to correct and form it to good manners by good examples: rather, ‘‘que par verbéracions ou bateures maistriseuses.”’t St. Gregory of Tours says, that all the ecclesiastical colleges in his time were expressly formed to secure that innocence of life which is the distinctive characteristic of the clerical office. A scho- lastic class was governed so far like the Church itself, that the ultimate object therein was to save souls redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Well then may we exclaim with the poet, who lived at the moment of the transition, when the education of faith was giving place to that of a new philosophy,— ‘¢ Let none then blame them, if in discipline Of vertue and of civill uses lore They did not form them to the common line Of present dayes, which are corrupted sore ; But to the antique use which was of yore When good was only for itself desyred, When simple truth did rayne and was of all admyred ; For that which all men then did vertue call Is now call’d vice, and that which vice was hight, Is now hight vertue, and so used of all.’’|| The young were taught to live in a house with little noise. There were to be no commands, troubles, incessant wants, insolence, impa- tience, or meddling with other people’s affairs further than to assist them. The ordinary food of scholars was plain, and generally of one kind.§ The dress, as may be still traced in some of the old Catholic foundations in England, was modest, and at the same time manly, requiring a hardy exposure of the limbs. Plainness and simplicity marked every object around them. Who does not love to find himself in one of those antique halls, lighted through small high grated windows, pierced in the walls of vast solidity, furnished with hard benches, notched and worn and stained with the ink of centuries, where every thing seems in the same state as in the time of St. Edmund or William of Paris? With what delight does one escape from Turkish Ottomans and the luxurious sickly * Instructio Magistri Novitiorum, Colon. 1613, cap. 2. ¢ Livre des Fais, &c. chap. 11. t P. Judde, GZuvres Spirit. tom. iii. 354, | Spencer, v. 1. § In France and England the scholar’s fare was mutton. L2 126 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, atmosphere of gaudy dissipation, to collect one’s thoughts, and to recover the recollections of sweet and holy study, within the plain unvarnished walls of a monastic college! How do they bring before one’s eyes the men of better days! We seem to behold united the bright school: there sit the race who slow their eyes around ** Majestically move, and in their port Bear eminent authority ; they speak Seldom, but all their words are tuneful sweet.” There seems to rise Richard of St. Victor, Richard more than man, as he is styled by Dante, there to stand, “ One, whose spirit, on high musings bent Rebuk’d the lingering tardiness of death: He whom Dante beheld in Paradise, as the eternal light of Sigebert, “Who ’scap’d not envy, when of truth he argued, Reading in the straw-litter’d street.’’* Here would our saintly countryman, Edmund of Abingdon, read les- sons upon theology, where many and illustrious men used to be assem- bled to hear him, and it is related that during these readings, they used often to close their books, not being able to refrain from tears.t Here one is reminded that the labour of education was undertaken solely for the honour of God, and in virtue of holy obedience, without the least inducement, or indeed thought, of remuneration, and here one feels how great was the dignity which the Catholic religion imparted to every stage of the scholastic learning. But let us return to the studious disciples, the pious sons of the holy Nicholas and Gregory, who are all animated with the innocent ardour to excel in wisdom, and whose conversation is angelic as their looks; whom the ancient poet would have commemorated as walking in the law of their fathers, and reviving their ancestral goodness, collecting riches for their minds, shunning injustice and arrogant youth, and culti- vating wisdom in the quiet retreats of the muses, cogiay J” ty uuycior Tscgiday.t What a goodly sight is it, cries Dr. Gregory Martin in his description of the college of the Jesuits at Rome, to see in the streets long trains of students, two and two; within the college a whole swarm coming out of divine schools into one court together, while new companies succeed them in new lessons and other readers! Beautiful are the portraits of the Christian student which we discover in the writings of the middle ages. Such as represent the young Meinrad, in the ninth century, re- ceiving his education in the celebrated abbey of Reichenau, on the island in the Lake of Constance,§ and Bruno, who afterwards became one of the apostles of Prussia, of whom a friend, who had known him from boyhood, says, ‘‘ Every morning when going to school, before he left his lodging, he used to be at his prayers while we were playing.’’|| Lothaire, the son of King Charles the Bald, was committed to the care of Heiricus, Abbot of St. Germain at Auxerre. The abbot speaks of, his disciple as follows, in a letter to his father: ‘*In years a boy, in mind * Parad. x, t Vita ejus apud Martene Thesaur. Anecdot. tom. iii. } Pind. Pyth. vi. § Tschudi Einsiedlische Chronik. 2. || Ditmar Annalista Saxo. AGES OF FAITH. 127 a philosopher, I confess to you that in natural disposition and in genius he is estimable beyond others of his age.”” The language of parents and of guardians was not then directed to undo the work of education, and to counteract that of the instructors of youth. Eginhard wrote to his son, who was then at the schools of Fulda, and his letter was to this effect: ‘* My son, study to imitate good manners, and take care that you never offend him whom I wish you always to follow; but be mindful of your profession, be diligent to obey the commands of him to whom you have wholly committed yourself. Learned in these things, and familiar to their labours, you will want the advantage of no vital science. As I advised you while present to exercise yourself in the study of oratory, so I again exhort you to leave nothing untouched of that noble science which you may acquire from the genius of the great and most abundant orator; but above all, remember to imitate those good manners in which he excels ; for grammar and rhetoric, and all other studies of liberal arts, are vain, and greatly injurious to the servants of God, unless by the Di- vine grace they know how to be subject to virtue; for science puffeth up, but charity edifies. Melius mihi quidem est ut te mortuum videre contingat, quam inflatum et scatentem vitiis.’’ ‘The preceptor whom this pious parent, the secretary and historian of Charlemagne, desired his son to imitate, was the celebrated Raban Maur.* Let us take an- other example. ‘* Anselm archbishop, to Anselm, his nephew in the flesh, and in love his dearest son, salutation and the benediction of God. Since I love you especially amongst all my relations, I desire that you may advance well before God and before all men. Therefore I admon- ish and exhort you, as my dearest son, that you study diligently to fur- ther that for which I have sent you into England, and that you suffer no time to pass in idleness. Apply assiduously to grammar, and exercise yourself more in prose than in verses. But above all things, guard your manners and actions before men, and your heart before God, that when I shall see you, by the favour of God, I may rejoice in your progress, and that you may rejoice in my joy. Farewell, I commend to God your body and soul.’’+ Boleslaus, Duke of Poland, when a boy, was sent to Paris to study, and the chronicle of Cluny testifies that he led a most innocent and diligent life, devoting himself with all his heart and affection to love and serve his Creator. It is related also of St. Philip Benitius, a noble Florentine, that when a youth studying at Paris, he united his scholastic application with such piety, that he inflamed many with a desire of the celestial country. ‘The memory of such students made the recollections of a Catholic college like a book of holy instruc- tion, to teach men how to live and die well. Those of St. Acheul, as the little book so entitled demonstrates, were associated with many sweet and affecting examples, both in life and death, of the holiness of youth. St. Joseph Calasanctius, of a noble house of Arragon, gave indications in his tender years of the especial charity which he was to exercise to- wards poor boys; for while himself a little scholar, he used to assemble them, and give them lessons in the mysteries of the faith and in sacred prayers. It was he who afterwards, on coming to Rome, being divinely admonished that he was destined to train the minds of the young poor to eS ek ates) os Rew a? esha a * Mabillon Prefat. in III. Secul. Benedict. §. 8. +S. Anselmi, lib. iv. Epist. 31. 128 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, knowledge and piety, founded the order of poor regular clerks of the Mo- ther of God for that purpose, which was approved of by Pope Clement VIII. and Paul V.: though he afterwards applied himself to the assist- ance of every class, yet his principal instructions were always afford- ed to poor boys, whose schools he used to superintend, and he would accompany them to their homes, for he beheld in each of them the child Jesus. It is on the day of his office that the church repeats the words of St. John Chrysostom, ** What is greater than to train the man- ners of the young? certainly I esteem as more excellent than any painter or sculptor, or any other artist whatever, the man who knows how to mould the youthful mind.” In her office on the 12th of June, she relates of St. John of Sahagun in Spain, that when a scholar boy he used to lead a most holy life, and that he used often to place himself upon some raised spot, and make a discourse to other boys, exhorting them to virtue and to the worship of God, and that he used to compose all differences among them. In the year 1590, God inspired a young scholar at the university of Douay, with the resolution to found a Car- thusian monastery in his own country ; this was John Vassour, Seigneur de Rabadingue. The resolution grew with his years and studies, and in the end he fulfilled it at Laboutillerie.* St. Edmund, who was born of poor parents at Abingdon, was sent to Paris to study; such was the ardour and the facility for learning in those ages. His mother gave him a hair shirt, which he was to wear twice or thrice a week. When he used to go out into the fields with other boys, he would withdraw him- self, and walk alone to meditate, and every night on going to bed, he used to write the name of Jesus with his finger on his forehead. And the writer of his life says, that he used to be advised by him to do the same. ‘The origin of this practice was thus related: ‘* One day, having as usual left his companions in order to walk alone through the mead- ows to meditate, he met a beautiful boy, who looked like an angel from heaven. ‘This stranger saluted him familiarly, and when Edmund ex- pressed surprise, he said, «I wonder that I should be unknown to you, since I always sit by your side in school, and am constantly in your company, and follow you wherever you go.’ Edmund perceived him to be our Lord, and he was then told by him to write his name, Jesus Naz- arenus, every night, upon his forehead, diligently and deliberately, for that this would be a defence to him against sudden death ;t and St. Ed- mund accordingly charged his friend to adopt that exercise.”? While at college he had a Psalter with a gloss, a book of the twelve Prophets, also glossed, and the decretal Epistles; all which books he sold, and full of compassion gave the price to poor scholars. One scholar, having an infirmity in the hand, Edmund gave a large sum of money to a physician to cure him. The ardour for studies among the saintly disciples, is often mentioned in the annals of monastic schools. The father of Abundus, we read, did not wish that his son should continue as a student. He was a pious * Hist. des Saints de Lille et Douai, 660. { A writer in the Quarterly Review, No. LXVIIL., translates the words of the vision, “A practice that would secure any person from sudden death,” as if there was no dis- tinction between the soul being guarded in the event of sudden death, and the body be- ing secured from death. AGES OF FAITH. 129 youth, and had a face like an angel; his mother privately gave him the habit which scholars wear in the churches, and sent him to another school; and the innocent boy was thus enabled by his mother’s affection and firmness to pursue the life which he loved in the church and in the schools.* Guibert de Nogent furnishes another instance, but more re- markable, as he laboured under all the disadvantages of a private educa- tion, which from his statement appear to have been grievous. ‘M mother,”’ he says, ‘‘reared me with the most tender care; hardly had I learned the first elements of letters, when she entrusted me to a master of grammar. This master had learned grammar late in life, and there- fore had made less proficiency in the art; but what he wanted in know- ledge he made up in virtue. From the moment in which I was placed under his direction, he formed me to such purity, he kept me at such a distance from all the vices which often accompany early life, that I was preserved from the usual dangers. However, notwithstanding all my application, I made but little progress under him; though he used to give me a shower of blows, he yet evinced such friendship for me, he occu- pied himself so much about me, he watched with such assiduity for my safety, that so far from experiencing the fear which is usual in that age, I used to forget all his severity, and I obeyed him with a certain feeling of love. On one occasion, my mother discovered that I had been ill. treated, complained bitterly of my master, and said, «I no longer wish you to become a clerk, if in order to learn letters you must suffer such treatment ;’ but as for me, when I heard her words, looking at her with all the anger that I was capable of showing, I said, ‘though it would be necessary for me to die, I would not cease on that account to learn letters, and to wish to become a clerk.’”’ Victor Hugo paints the ideal of a student of this kind, amidst the more dangerous companions of the university, ‘the scholar Frollo,”’ he says, ‘* was early taught Latin, and he grew in stature over the Lexicon. Silent, peaceable, and modest, he was never implicated in any of the mutinies of scholars, nor was he ever engaged in quarrels, nor for the cry, ‘ dare alapas et capillos laniare ;’ but to make amends, he was assiduous at the greater and lesser schools of the rue Saint-Jean de Beauvais. ‘The first scholar whom the abbot of St. Pierre-de-Val, the moment he began his lecture on canon law, used to perceive, always glued, opposite his chair, to a pillar of the school of Saint-Vendregesile, armed with his ink-horn, chewing his pen, scribbling on his worn knees, and in winter blowing on his fingers, was Claude Frollo. The first auditor whom Messire Miles d’Islien, doctor in decretals, saw arrive every Monday morning, quite out of breath, at the gate of the school of the Chef-Saint-Denis, was Claude Frollo. Hence at sixteen, the young clerk could have made head in mystical theology with a doctor of the church, in canon “law with a father of the councils, in scholastic theology with a doctor of Sorbonne.” The young Archduke Leopold of Austria maintained a thesis of phi- losophy and theology against some fathers of the society of Jesus, in presence of the Emperor Ferdinand II., his father, and the whole coun- cil. Where there was not this virtue and zeal for learning in youth, we en ere ree i * Hist. Monasterii Villariensis, lib. ii. cap. 10. apud Martene Thesaur. Anecdot. tom. iil. Vo. H.—17 130 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, sometimes find in the writers of the middle ages the reflections of after life, expressed in language of the most affecting piety. Such an in- stance occurs in the Testament of Lydgate, the monk of Bury, in which he speaks of his youth at the age of fifteen years as follows: ** Voyde of reason, gyven to wylfulnesse, Frowarde to virtue, of Christ gave lytell hede, Lothe to lerne, loved no vertuous besynesse, Save play or myrth, straung to spell or rede, Folowying all appetytes longyng to chyldhede, Lightly tournyng; wylde and selde sadde, Wepyng for nought, and a none after gladde. For lytell worth to stryve with my felawe, As my passyons dyd my bridell lede Of the yarde stode I sometyme in awe To be scoured, that was all my drede, Loth towarde scole, lost my tyme in dede, Lyke a yong colt, that ranne without bridell, Made my frendes gyve good to speade in ydell. I had in custome to come to scole late, Not for to lerne, but for a countenaunce With my felowes redy to debate, To jangle and jape, was set all my plesaunce, Whereof rebuked, this was my chevynaunce To forge a lesyng, and there upon to muse, When I trespassed, myself to excuse. To my better dyd no reverence, Of my soveraynes gave no force at all, Were obstynate by inobedyence, Ranne into gardeyns, appels there I stoll, To gather fruites spared hedge nor wall, To plucke grapes on other mennes vynes, Was more redy than for to say mattynes. Lothe to ryse, lother to bedde at eve, With unwasshe handes redy to dynere, My pater noster, my crede, or my beleve Cast to the cocke; lo this was my manere, Waved with eche wynde, as dothe a rede spere, Snobbed of my frendes such tatches to mende, Made deffe eare, lyst not to them attende. My port, my pase, my fote alway unstable, My loke, myne eyen, unsure and vacabounde, In all my workes sodenly chaungeable, To all good thengs contrary I was founde; Nowe oversad, nowe mournying, nowe jocounde. Wylfull, reckeles, madde; startyng as an hare To folowe my lust, for nothing wolde I spare. Entrying this tyme into relygion, Unto the ploughe I put forthe my hande, A yere complete made my professyon, Consydering lytell change of thylke bande Of perfectyon, full good example I founde, The techyng good, in me was all the lacke, With Lottes wyfe, I loked oft a backe. AGES OF FAITH. © 131 Taught of my maisters, by virtuous dysciplyne, My loke restrayne, and kepe close my syght, Of blessed Benet to folowe the doctryne, And bere me lowly to every mener wyht, By th’ advertence of myne inwarde syght, Cast to God warde of holy affectyon, To folowe th’ emprises of my professyon.” This disposition, even in the most negligent, to recognize the virtue of the masters of their youth, is characteristic of these ages of faith, when religion secured for all persons in authority that filial reverence to which length of days is promised. Even Quintilian admonishes the dis- ciples that they should love their preceptors no less than the studies themselves, and believe them to be the fathers, not indeed of their bodies but of their minds, and he adds, that this piety conduces much to study.* Dante says, that so long as life endures his tongue shall speak how he did prize the lessons of Brunetto, and when he meets that benign pater- nal image of his ancient master he says, ‘I dared not tread on equal ground with him, but held my head bent down, as one who walks in reverent guise.”’ Octavian de Saint-Gelais, who wrote the Séjour d’hon- neur, in the reign of Charles VIII., describes in an affecting manner, how he met the shade of his old master, Magister Martin, when travers- ing the forest of adventures, whom he styles, Mon feu patron et tres honoré maistre. “ Interpréteur de la saincte pagine Aigle @honneur, philosophe tres-digne, Ha que moult fut mon mal pesant et grief, De voir mon maistre et personne honorée, Hors du siécle.— A Paris fut jadis mon directeur, A Sainte Barbe, en son noble collége Régent fut-il de mes fréres et moy, Puys son scavoir le logea chez le roy, Ou il vivant en honneur transitoire, Fut convaincu par mortelle victoire.”’+ In the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, the manner of teaching was ac- cording to the practice that still prevails in the public schools of Rome and Padua, and of other places. ‘The master delivered his explanation like an harangue ; the scholars retained what they could, and often took down short notes to help their memory. ‘'The act of instruction, viva voce,”’ says Vincent of Beauvais, «has I know not what hidden energy, and sounds more forcibly in the ears of a disciple transfused from the mouth of a master.’’t Quintilian had made the same remark, proving the superior advantage of oral instruction over every other; and he says, that youths should never be permitted to testify their approbation in a noisy manner, but that they should hang on the judgment of the teacher, and should believe that to be well said which is approved of by him; as for that indecorous, and theatrical, and most vicious custom, of giving applause to each other, it should be never permitted, being contrary to scholastic institution, and the most pernicious enemy of studies; but they should attend to the masters modestly and intensely, and the mas- ter ought not to attend to the judgment of the disciples, but the disciples On NT | EE * Instit. Orat. lib. i. 10. { Gouget, tom. x. t Speculum Doctrinale, lib. i. c. 37. 132 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, to that of the master. Who would not now suppose that this was writ- ten by some scholastic monk of the middle ages? and yet they are the words of Quintilian ;* so much farther removed are we than our Catho- lic forefathers from the wisdom of the ancient civilization. A correct idea of the mode of instruction in monastic schools may be formed from examining the four ancient tombs of doctors, which are in the cloisters of the convent of St. Dominic at Bologna, where each doctor is repre- sented sitting in the midst with a book open before him, which he ex- plains, as is indicated by his hand stretched out, while around or in front is seated a crowd of students in a religious habit, who are placed before desks, on which they are writing down as if from his lecture, or turning round to consult each other. These groups have, indeed, an air of anti. quity, which denotes that they refer to days gone by ; but yet the ven- erable aspect of our college halls during an academic discourse, can often revive within one a sense of the ancient dignity of learning, and inspire that noble confidence which the Roman orator desired to feel before his judges; for as everywhere else truth has little support and but little strength, so in these places one feels that false envious prejudice is weak, that while it may prevail in popular assemblies, here it must be pros- trate; its force is in the opinions of the unlearned, but it is far from the understanding of the prudent: its sudden and vehement impulses giving place, after a while, to senile lamentations,t can never enter within the walls which hear of universal tradition, Catholic authority, and immuta- ble eternal truth. It is with a feeling of devotion that one enters the school-rooms in the monasteries of Rome and Bologna, in which there is always an image or portrait of our blessed Lady. The world and all its miserable interests, all its fears and commotions, its rumours, and its policies, seem excluded; here youth was placed beyond the hearing of the horrors of political debate; while cities are in a ferment, and cham- bers of assembly resound to the sanguine declamation of inflammatory orators, the meek and cheerful scholar consorts with his Virgil or his Thomas 4 Kempis, and enjoys bright and saintly visions. If the ru- mour of discord should penetrate to their quiet halls, the young will still never put on the visage of the times, and be, like them, to gentle spirits troublesome. Better they would esteem it to be at once compro- mised, like the children of Mycale, who fell under the murderous sword of Thracians, though that was an event which of all others in the Pelo- ponnesian war, Thucydides thought the most worthy of being lamented and compassionated.{ When the English college at Douay was invaded by the agents of the revolution, by spies and guards, it might have been presupposed that no one could then venture to retain his cheerfulness, oud: dn’ icy, But there was only occasion given to show, as a venerable priest observes, ‘¢ what college boys can do in the way of generous self- devotion and dauntless enterprise; for every one then was intent upon devising and practising some ingenious plan to rescue various articles of value from the grasp of the plunderers. To carry off a lamp or a sacred vestment some would ascend the funnels of chimneys, and others would descend the external walls by ropes to enter windows of forbidden rooms. Strange as it may appear,’’ continues the narrator, ‘never do a tat thir g e e e * Instit. Orat. lib. ii. 2. + Pro A. Cluentio. + Lib, vii. 29. AGES OF FAITH. 133 I remember a more cheerful flow of spirits than what was manifested during the whole time. We sang God save the King and Dulce Domum. Such a behaviour astonished every one, friends and enemies wondered alike how we could sing in such circumstances, and sometimes heaved a sigh of concern to tell us we did not know what we had still to expect. Our classical and devotional exercises went on as usual, and continued till the 9th of August, when the message came on Saturday night, which ordered us to leave the college fora prison. ‘The clock had struck eight, and we were waiting for the summons to night prayers. We were soon ready, for we had little to carry away. Some went to take their last farewell of the church, by a short prayer before the altars, which, alas! were soon to be no more.” ‘Thus closed the oldest seminary of English Catholics, the mother and nurse of so many martyrs, the bulwark of faith, as Baronius calls it, created by God to protect the Catholies of this land against the blasts of heresy. It was overthrown by French atheists in the frenzy of revolutionary zeal; but it was reserved for the states- men in our age of that people which of all the world boasts to be the most generous, in the cool deliberation of their cabinet, under the cloak of a zeal for God’s unpolluted worship, by a judicial sentence, pronounced in all the solemn forms of equity, to legalize and consummate its ruin. It will now be necessary to retrace our steps in order to allude to the rise of the universities, which was preparing a new era in scholastic his- tory, and there were circumstances attendant on this transition which must be noticed. Nothing is more certain than that the purest and no- blest motives, and the most enlarged charity, gave birth to these great institutions. At all times it was considered a meritorious application of alms to support poor scholars in the academies of learning, and to con- tribute to their education. Origen from the age of eighteen exercised himself in the work of instruction, and refused every present that his friends offered him, although he was obliged to sell his books of gram- mar for four obols, which a man promised to pay him per day for his nourishment. In the tenth century, we read that Wolfgang, afterwards Bishop of Ratisbon, would receive no honours or emoluments from his intimate friend, Otho of Treves, but at length he yielded so far, that scholastic boys and youths should be committed to his care without any remuneration; this was before he had retired to the monastery of Ein- siedelin, whence he was raised to the see of Ratisbon. The same char- itable zeal for the education of youth distinguished the Belgian prelates, of one of whom it is said, such was his solicitude in educating boys, and in instituting scholastic discipline, that even when he went ona journey, whether long or short, he led his young scholars with him, for whom he had also a preceptor and a quantity of books, with the other utensils of scholars.* In the will of Charles de Balzac, Bishop of Noyou, it was ordained that Montlhery, and three other places, should each furnish a boy to be presented by the curate to the Celestines of Marcoucis, from whom he was to receive, during three years, the sum of one hundred livres, to enable him to study at college, while the same sum was to be paid, as a marriage portion, to a maiden of each place.t * Mabillon, Prefat. in V. Secul. Benedict. 3. + Lebeuf, Hist. du Diocése de Paris, x. 184. M 134 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, In many places, as at Rome, education was wholly gratuitous. The Archduke Leopold of Austria, besides repairing deserted or ruined churches, and enriching many episcopal sees, founded, for the augmen- tation of the Catholic faith, numerous classes for young scholars; he established colleges and seminaries, building them in a style of ‘magnifi- cence, and giving the government of them to learned monks. Francois de la Béraudiere, Bishop of Périgueux, founded a seminary in that city, and placed a versified inscription upon it, stating, that in quitting the world he left to posterity his book, his church rebuilt, second to no other, and a seminary founded at his expense for the nourishment of poor scholars. << ae, gracious heaven grant,”’ it added, ‘ that posteri- ty may receive great utility, and may God vouchsafe pardon for my past sins.””* Sometimes these poor scholars were supported by casual chari- ties. In the year 1246, there was established at Rheims the scholastic society of the Good Children, which imposed a rigorous rule of religion, having obtained it from Archbishop Ivelle. These poor scholars were directed occasionally to go out two by two to beg alms for the commu- nity.t Sometimes they were indebted for their education to the charity of individuals. Monteil speaks of a note by Pierre Pisgier, a monk of the Augustinian monastery of Tours, respecting an alms of fifty sols tournoys, which the king had given him to support him during his stu- dies in the university of Angiers.t Pope St. Urban V. supported more than a thousand scholars at different academies, and supplied them with books. Unquestionably, the zeal for learning was fervent at the time when the universities arose: yet it would be a great mistake to imagine that they owed their origin to a mere human ambition for promoting science and literature. It was simply faith and charity which originally led to their foundation ; for the will and power of kings would not have suffi- ced to establish them if religion had not inflamed many of their subjects with a desire to impart to the poor the inestimable advantages of sacred learning. ‘The colleges of the university of Paris were founded by de- vout persons for poor scholars. ‘That of Navarre was founded by Jean- ne de Navarre, wife of Philippe-le-Bel, in the year 1304. This was for seventy poor scholars, twenty children students in grammar, thirty students in logic and philosophy, and twenty in theology. The gram- marians were to receive four sols per week, the philosophers six, and the theologians eight. The college of Thirty-three, on the mountain of St. Genevieve, was founded by a poor priest for poor students of the- ology, to the number indicated in the name, corresponding with the years of our Saviour’s life. The college of Boncourt was founded in 1357, for eight poor students, who were to have each four sols per week ; and the celebrated Scotch college, founded in 1323, by David, Bishop of Murrai, in Scotland, was also for poor Scotch students. Mary Stuart made them legacies at her death.|| The college of Cor- nouaille, in Paris, was founded in 1317, by a clerk of Brittany, for poor scholars of the diocese of Cornouaille. ‘The college of the Lombards was founded in 1333, for Italian scholars who should not have more * Gouget, xvi. 13, + Anquetil, Hist. de Reims, liv. iii, } Hist. des Frangais, iv. 412. | De St. Victor, Tableau de Paris, tom. iii. 603. AGES OF FAITYy. 135 than twenty livres of rent: it was called the House of Poor Italian Scholars of the charity of the Blessed Mary. The college of Mon- taign was founded in 1314 for eighty-four poor scholars, in honour of the twelve apostles and the seventy-two disciples. ‘The Sorbonne itself, according to the plan of Robert de Sorbonne, was for the poor : it was a community of poor masters, ‘ pauperes magistri,””» who were to give lessons gratis. ‘The college of Boissi was for scholars who re- sembled its humble founder, Etienne Vidé, who declared that they must be poor and of low origin, ‘‘ qui non sint nobiles, sed de humili plebe, et pauperes, sicut nos et preedecessores nostri fuimus.”” The college of Harcour was founded in 1280, by Raoul de Harcour, a canon of Paris, of an illustrious house of Normandy, for poor scholars of that province. The same spirit gave rise to all the similar foundations in England, Spain, Germany, and Italy. At Pavia there are gratuitous colleges of a magnificent order, founded and still supported by noble families, the Caccian and Borromeon, the last of which supports thirty-two students. Some colleges were appropriated to particular nations or orders. Such were at Bologna the magnificent college for Spaniards and that of the Belgians, founded by a silversmith of Brussels for youths of that city, who were to be chosen there by the company of silversmiths. But generally, poverty alone had privileges in these places of learning; and if the rich did repair to them, they were admitted only on condition of conforming to the discipline of the poor. In the university of Pisa the scholars were obliged to be dressed in a kind of uniform of a given colour. he cloth was of inferior quality and of a low price, and even the greatest and wealthiest signor, who was inscribed on the roll of scholars, was forbidden to put on a more noble cloth.* In some colle- ges at Paris the students could only expend one sous per day for their nourishment. The offices each day were terminated with prayer for the souls of the charitable founders.t Not even a state of utter destitution excluded youth from the advantages of a university education. The class of Spanish students who live upon the alms dispensed at the gates of convents, who have no other property than their class-book and their gown, and some of them no other lodging but the peristyle of some church, may be seen at the present day regularly attending the classes, receiving degrees, and not unfrequently carrying off academical and ecclesiastical honours by their sheer merit, without having any other recommendation. At the end of the annual course they quit the town, and wander about all the summer in bands of four or six, provided with guitars, singing student songs, and begging alms. Many students, who belong to rich and noble families, consider it a refinement of gentility to join these bands, whose manners have created a certain simple and romantic character, that is now almost peculiar to the Spanish student. In consequence of the advantages afforded to learning in the univer- sities, it became a desirable object for the monks, who inhabited the provinces, to have houses there for the reception of a certain number of their students, who might still dwell in cloisters, so as not to acquire the spirit of the world;{ and accordingly other colleges were built for ee eee NE eee Eger ere ae * Statuta Studii Pisani et Flor. ann. 1479. t Monteil, tom. iv. + Mabillon de Stud. Monast, xii. 136 MORES CATHOLICI; OR that purpose. So early as in the eighth century, the monasteries of Clairvaux and Villemoustiers, and others, had houses for students in Paris,* but in the thirteenth century the custom became general. The college of Cluny, in Paris, was for students of that order, who should be sent to Paris to pursue their studies. It was founded in the year 1269. In the time of our Henry IV. the monks of Crowland speak of their scholars studying at Cambridge.t John Wisbech, abbot of Crow- land, in Edward IV.’s time, built chambers in the college of the monks of Buckingham at Cambridge, for the use of the scholars of Crowland who might be sent there to prosecute their studies.t The Benedictines of Canterbury, Durham, and Gloucester, had separate colleges under those names for their youth at Oxford. Each convent in Paris had scholars from convents of its order in the distant provinces, and even from those in England and Germany. There was a college there for the students of the abbey of St. Denis.|| And this was the case at all the other universities of Europe. The provincial Council of Cologne in the year 1536, recommended that some of the junior. monks of each monastery should be sent to Catholic universities. Nevertheless, there were evils attending this arrangement which made devout men in those ages lament the preference given to the system of universities over that of the ancient monastic schools, and some will be of opinion, that the experience of centuries has only confirmed the justice of their appre- hensions.§_ We shall see in another place that the abbots were alarmed at sending their students to inhabit cities, and that the young men were themselves unwilling to go. The congregation of the Scholars’ Valley arose in the year 1201. Four professors of the university of Paris, preferring solitude to the world, and the life of contemplation to the glory of the schools, retired into a desert valley of Champagne, in the diocese of Langres, where the bishop allowed them to build cells. Some young scholars of the university followed them to this solitude, and this re-union of young disciples constituted the congregation or order of the Vale of Scholars.** The most exact discipline was indeed maintained in the monastic colleges in the universities. The rules for the students of Cluny, when pursuing their studies at Paris, were very strict: they were never to go into the city excepting with leave of the superior, and attended by masters. The utmost sanctity was to reign in the college.tt But still, amidst such a multitude of scholars from all nations, it was impossible to obviate every evil. St. Augustin removed from Carthage to Rome in consequence of the boisterous manners of the students in the former school. ‘The chief cause of my going to Rome,” he says, ‘‘ was my hearing that young men studied there more quietly, and that they were kept in order by a better discipline: that they might not break insolently into the school of a master whom they did not follow. At Carthage, the license of the scholars is odious and intemperate: they burst in furiously, and commit so many injuries with * Hist. Monasterii Villariensis, i. cap. 8, apud Marten. Thesaur. Anecdot. tom. iii. t Hist. Croylandensis, Rer. Anglic. Scriptor. tom. i. t Id. 560. | Lebeuf, Hist. du Diocése de Paris, iii. § Joan. Devoti Instit. Canonie. lib. ii. tit. 11, ** De St. Victor, Tableau de Paris, ii. 1214. TT Henrici I. Abb. Clun. 29, Statuta Bibliothec. Cluniac. AGES OF FAITH. 137 wonderful stupidity ; for which laws should punish them unless custom were a patron. ‘They think they do all this with impunity, when in fact they are punished by that very blindness, and suffer incomparably worse things than they inflict upon others. So I resolve to remove where such manners were not to prevail.’’* Jacobus a Vitriacus, in his Historia Occidentale, gives a dark, but no doubt exaggerated picture, of the disputes and jealousies among the scholars of different nations in the university of Paris. ‘The French were styled proud and effeminate, the Teutonic nations furious, the English were taxed with being drink- ers: though it is to be remarked, that Fuller speaks of drinking and swearing among the lower classes as having begun to grow frequent in his own time, subsequent to the pseudo-reformation,t when Milton, fallen on evil days, had to beseech his Muse to drive far off the barba- rous dissonance of Bacchus and his revellers; to which epoch also must be traced the testimony of Poggio, where, in a letter to Nicholas Niccoli, he says, that the English were more occupied with eating and drinking than with letters. ‘The Normans were styled vain-glorious, the Burgundians senseless and gross, the Britons light and inconstant, to whom the death of Arthur used frequently to be objected, the Lombards were said to be avaricious, the Romans seditious, the Sicilians cruel and tyrannic, the Flemings prodigal and gluttonous. One can detect, how- ever, in this the fertile invention of a satirist, magnifying the peculiarity of national character; neither is it fair to confound the scholars who were receiving their education at the university, with those external pension- ers who used to be called Martinets, because not belonging to any col- lege, they flew like swallows from one to another, and staid only at that which suited them the best. After all, though the innocence of monas- tic students might fear the dissipation of a university, it is probable that the influence of the general manners which they beheld there would be felt in later ages as the inspirations of a better world. ‘The zeal for learning, which imparted somewhat of a wandering and Homeric char- acter to the life of scholars as well as professors, was not unaccompanied with a tender piety. Andrieu du Hecquet speaks of his studies at Paris, at Cologne, and at Louvaine, in these terms,— “ Lettres j’apprins (car homme indocte est vain) En toi Paris, en Coulogne et Louvain, Ou le tout soit a la gloire de Christ, Le cueur, le corps, toute l’ame et |’esprit.”’| These studies were associated with many sweet recollections of a friendship that was almost angelical, where names were not even mutu- ally known, but only countenances, and what was common between all, the love of learning and the reverence for holy Church; for these friends saw each other only in the schools and before the divine altars. In some places, indeed, a less secluded discipline was established in union with certain forms of a poetic life, as in ihe universities of Spain, where the students are allowed to go into society, or to perform a sere- nade, to as late an hour as nine in the evening on Sundays and the fifth feria, but at other times a student is not allowed to appear in public with Seecaai ES CERO UEERO TU RCEE RENO. 3 | LEI GRMC PO Bes Sol eee aes * Contess. lib. v. + Fuller’s Thoughts, 53. { vii. | Gouget, Biblioth. Frangaise, tom. xii. Vou. II.—18 m2 138 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, his guitar, although it is an instrument almost inseparable from him. ‘he scholars in the colleges of Paris used to visit Gentilly and two other villages in their customary walks, which used to be called Ire ad Campos.* ‘The leave to play or for the promenade, were themes which the old poets of France did not disdain to choose. One of our ancient writer says, ‘* Before this time there was an old custome for the scho- lars of London to meet at the priory of St. Bartholomew, to dispute in logic and grammar, upon a bank under a tree.” A joyful festival was that of St. Catharine to the students of Padua; it was denominated the Feast of Hope. Sometimes the mirth of public rejoicings was allowed to penetrate within universities. A contemporary writer relates that, during those which took place after the battle of Bouvines, in the reign of Philip Augustus, the scholars of the university of Paris, not content with the joy of one day, protracted their triumph during seven days, dancing and singing continually. Aristotle was silent all that time; Plato proposed no questions; all books were laid aside; but the xpos, which Pindar condescends to notice as the contumacious diversion of boys, throwing all things into confusion, was not required for their enjoyment; neither did their discipline permit the rougher exercises of boxing and the pancration to form athletic champions, which were both prohibited by the Spartan discipline; and yet Aristotle says, that even that tended to make youth too brutal, Sede. "Tiberius, to render his son Drusus odious for the character of cruelty, permitted him to be present at the combat of gladiators.t In reading Mabillon’s account of the foundation of the Benedictine public schools in Germany, we might imagine that it was a passage from the writings of Plato, to explain the ideal end of a perfect education; for he says that these schools were instituted, in which an uncultivated and savage race by degrees might be taught to lay aside their hard rough manners, and being exercised in a mild and holy discipline, might be rendered gentle and humane.|| The innocent and simple recreations of a country life belonged to students even while attending the monastic schools, where they would have felt less fear than Ulysses at the prospect of spending a night upon a lake or river, lest they should suffer from the cold air which springs up be- fore the dawn.§ For swimming there was even provision made where rivers were not near. With the ancients, baths for swimming were provided with porticoes, gardens, libraries, and places where philoso- phers might discourse and poets recite their verses. Agrippa was the first to establish one of these baths at Rome. Here were places for all exercises of the body and amusement of the mind. The famous Ulpian Library was in the baths of Diocletian. In the middle ages the predo- minance of the swimmer’s sport may be learned from those paintings in the palace of ‘Tau at Mantua, which represent the diversions of the different seasons. Places for swimming were provided by Charlemagne in the neighbourhood of his schools, and we discover frequently in the monastic chronicles allusion to the healthful and manly recreations which were permitted to their scholars. But whatever license in this respect might prevail in universities, learning continued to be grave, and * Lebeuf, x. 13. _ F Polit. viii. 3. + Tacit. Ann. 1. | Prefat. in iii. Secul. Benedict. § 4. § Od. v. 469. AGES OF FAITH. 139 solid, and religious, and had not then yielded place to the modern philo- sophic system of education, in which students are chiefly employed in constant little manipulations, and are taught, like the boy in Goetz Von Berlichengen, not to know their own father from their learning, or rather, as Bonald says, because they pin butterflies, glue plants, or arrange little morsels of mineral substances: natural philosophy was not an essential part of studies, but the primary and indispensable object was to train the young to love what ought to be loved, and to hate what ought to be hated, and according to Plato, that is the true end of all education.* The studies of seculars in the courts of nobility were such as were useful as well as interesting to youth; for the scholastic doctors do not seem to have been in ignorance of what was the proper learning for noblemen. The book of instruction entitled L’Esperon de Discipline, by Antoine du Saix, which was composed for Charles, Duke of Savoy, contains a view of all virtues and vices, and an abridgment of all branches of knowledge, and of every thing that belongs to the education of youth, both relating to the mind and body. The Abbé Gouget admits that the author shows a profound knowledge of human nature, and that his idea of education was admirable.t For the clergy and for the priests of letters, the universities provided, no doubt, higher studies. ‘The chairs of theology, founded in the Sorbonne, were seven in number, consisting of that of reader, that of contemplative theology, that of positive the- ology, that of the interpretation of the holy Scriptures, that of casuistry, that of controversial divinity, and the seventh was consecrated to the interpretation of the Hebrew text of Scripture. Who can doubt but that in these schools Raphael would have found subjects more adapted to his genius than that which was furnished to him by the school of Athens, which he revived in his immortal painting on the walls of the Vatican, when one observes the success which crowned his sublime en- terprise to represent the dispute on the mystery of the blessed sacra- ment? And remark too what a contrast would be found if one were to assist with the eyes of an artist or of a poet at the polemical discussions which have succeeded in some places to the scholastic disputations of the ages of faith! But give the reins to imagination, and try to con- ceive a scene of the highest intellectual and even poetic interest: your mind’s creation will fall short of the reality which Catholic schools have witnessed! In the year 1304, a crowd of clerks, monks, and laymen, were assembled in the great hall of the university of Paris to hear a thesis which was to be sustained de quolibet. There were fourteen scholastic champions, and it was a young stranger of lofty and thought- ful countenance who was to sustain their attack. This stranger was Dante, who, being then in exile, had travelled into France for his in- struction. **'Theologus Dantes, nullius dogmatis expers,” was the verse first inscribed at Ravenna upon his tomb. But it is time to break off, though one would stand charmed and for ever unwearied in the holy and peaceful retreats of Catholic learning. Let us still speak of them as we move away. Pliny, in setting forth the praise of Isacus the rhetorician, contrasts the school with the forum, * De Legibus, liv. ii. t Tom. xi. 376. 140 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, and says he has passed his sixtieth year, and still he is only a scholas- tic,—than which kind of men there is nothing simpler, or purer, or bet- ter. ‘The forum inspires the best men with some degree of malice: the school being concerned with fictitious causes, is a peaceful and innocent thing, neither is it less happy, especially to old men; for what can be happier in old age than that which is most sweet in youth?* « Nam quid in senectute felicius quam quod dulcissimum est in juventa 2” The Catholic schools provided that safety for the philosophic nature which was sought for with such anxiety by Plato, though he seems to have considered its attainment as impracticable. ‘* Where can we find safety for it?’? he asks, ‘¢and where are there means existing to enable it to arrive at its end? We have seen that to such a nature belong, of necessity, the talent of learning with ease, and memory, and courage, and magnanimity: therefore, from early youth, such a person will be first among all wero tora ev araow, especially if he should have, in addi- tion, a body corresponding to these dispositions of soul; therefore I think that his relations and fellow-citizens will desire to have him in their inter- ests when he grows up; they will consequently fawn upon him and give him many salutations, flattering his future power. Living, then, sur- rounded by them, what will such a man do? particularly if he be a native of a great city, and rich, and noble of race, and besides, handsome and tall? Willhe not be filled with a hope which nothing can subdue, think- ing himself competent to conduct the affairs of both Greeks and Barba- rians? Will he not adopt a high pompous manner, full of specious and dramatic action, being swollen with vain and senseless pride ?’’t Now in these Catholic schools, which we may well leave with regret, that philosophic nature was sanctified and preserved; there were no flatterers, and no temptations opposed to the manners of an innocent angelic life: there was not the knowledge of evil. The cares of the worldly race were so excluded, that it became scholars’ fashion to take no trouble about the things of life, as if all necessaries would wait upon us at the instant we want them. Pride was kept down, for there were no inquiries there instituted as to nobility of birth or prospects of future power. ‘There was not found the proud disdain or supercilious neglect of those, who with themselves at war, forget the shows of love to other men. Courtesy to strangers was expressly required as a criterion of proficiency. ‘The meek were there the favourites, and the wisest and the greatest were the most humble. In a word, every thing estimable and precious was comprised within the school. There were devout exercises, the resources of piety, the delights of music, the solemn choir, the poetry of the groves and streams, the communications of study, the exhilaration of play, the sanctifying influence of example, the sweets of friendship, of which the poet is obliged to return here for the purest example,— — “O! and is all forgot ? . All school-days’ friendship, childhood, innocence 2” A brief review of the character of friendship during the ages of faith, will form the conclusion of this third Book. * Epist. lib. ii. 3. + Plat. de Repub. lib. vi. AGES OF FAITH. 141 CHAPTER VII. Frienpsuip, that sweet engaging word, which awakens so many pure affections, so many grateful recollections, that word so familiar to the tongue of youth, which was shouted in play, and looked in study, and whispered every morning at the altar of God; friendship, that musical, poetic, religious word, to exhilarate the j oyful, to encourage the diligent, to console the wretched, is associated most intimately with the manners of the ages of faith, with the days of scholastic education, and with every conception that we can form of the present and eternal beatitude of the meek. It is not possible, says an ancient sage, either that a wicked man should be a friend to a wicked man, or that a good man should not be a friend to a good man:* profound and piercing words, that may lead many to meditate on the vanity of their own hopes, and not a few perchance to see evidence that their own piety, notwithstanding the zeal which seems to animate them for God’s honour, is hypocritical and false. Cardan inserts it among his maxims of civil prudence that there can be no such thing as friendship, excepting between the wise, who may be called philosophers.t Understanding, he says, that our religion is the only true philosophy, for that not even conformity of studies, of literary or scientific principles can yield it, is shown by Aristotle, who observes, that the common bonds which give rise to friendship, do not consist in thinking alike with respect to the heavenly bodies, for there is no ground of love in unanimity on such matters; but that it must be of a more general description, and therefore goodness is requisite, for it is not possible, he adds, that evil men should think alike excepting within very confined limits.{ Friendship is clearly a treasure unattainable to the proud, who can endure nothing that is contrary to their own caprice and customs ; unattainable to scorners, who despise the things which are excellent, because the good will fly from such men; unattainable to the vain and dissipated, who can only receive words for words, tokens of an acquaintance, which is itself an unhappiness; unattainable to all men whose manners are not formed to meekness, unless, indeed, we dignify with the name of friendship such a passion as that of the barbarous Huns, who are described as so capricious and choleric, that they would separate from their companions without any cause of anger, and return to them without any reason for reconciliation in one and the same day ; for the refinement of more civilized society cannot of itself present any higher claims to it, since that only tends to destroy the simplicity and truth which the ancients, as John of Salisbury remarks,|| deemed so essential to friendship, that they used always to represent the Graces naked. That only tends to make men hold their friends, as Plautus says, enclosed within their teeth, having not confidence enough even to pronounce their name;§ that only tends to make them suspect each other, though they speak together as if friends; through its influence * Plato, Phedrus. t Prudent. Civ. cap. vi. t Ethic. lib. ix. 6. || De Nugis Curial. iii. 7. § Plautus Trinummus iv. 2 142 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, they are taught to receive the words of those who perhaps truly love them, as those of an enemy, and are thus deceived by their own dread of deception. What is this, cries St. Odo in his collations, but the wretchedness of human life?* The truth is, and to express it in the words of St. Augustin, men can never love one another with true love unless they love God. But he who loves God will love his neighbour as himself.t Hence the friendship of the meek is immutable. «I have read in your letters,”’ says Petrus Cellensis, writing to Bernerdo, ‘that you have lost old friends without having found new. But true friend- ship in virgin purity and constancy of fervour can never be adulterated or cooled. It never dies, but with a daily renovation, like the sun, is always in vigour. Therefore if you ever had friends you have them still, not old, which denoted what was imperfect, but renewed, which is the work of God.”{ The Catholic religion in many ways conduced to the formation as well as to the solidity of friendship; the multiplication of those innocent and useful relations which sweeten and adorn the life of men followed of necessity from that principle of association which we have seen emanated from the church, and gave a new form to socie- ty. In all common pursuits % érdcy xowavig, there is friendship, says Aristotle. In all companionship there is love. In sailing together, or labouring together, or reading together, and similarly in all other com- mon sufferings or performing, in proportion as there is fellowship there is friendship.|| Now we have already seen how the Catholic religion extended these common bonds, and associated men together in a thou- sand forms of connection, who otherwise would have been isolated and separate, and therefore it furnished a soil most favourable to this sweetest flower of friendship. Another way in which the religion of the meek promoted its growth, consisted in its removing the artificial barriers into which pride divides the world. ‘+ By the law of friendship,”’ says the blessed CGlred, abbot of Rievaulx, ‘the superior is on a level with the inferior, for it frequently happens that some of an inferior rank, or order, or science, are taken into friendship by others of more pre-eminence, who must then despise and esteem as nothing all the things which are not of nature; they must have constant regard to the beauty of friend- ship, which is not adorned by silks or gems, nor dilated by possessions, nor flattered by delights, nor exalted by honours and dignities; and thus recurring to the principle of its origin, they must acutely attend to the equality which nature gave, and not to the appendages which cupid- ity has superinduced. ‘Therefore, in friendship, which is the best gift both of nature and of grace, the sublime descend, the humble ascend, the rich want, the poor are enriched, so that each communicating his condition to the other, the equality spoken of is maintained.§ Friend- ship belonged to the meek because they were weaned from the love of riches, for as Ariosto sings, In poor abode, mid paltry walls and bare, Amid discomforts and calamities, Pia MS Sil AN SS ah de PT er fh eh hy a hes 79 a Se a *S. Odonis Collation. lib. i. Bibliothec. Cluniac. } Tractat. 87 in Joan. + Petri Abb. Cellensis Epist. lib. ix. 2. || Ethic. lib. viii. c. 9. § De Spirit. Amicitia, lib. iii. AGES OF FAITH. 143 Often in friendship hearts united are, Better than under roof of lordly guise, Or in some royal court, beset with snare, Mid envious wealth, and ease, and luxuries; Where charity is spent on every side, Nor friendship unless counterfeit is spied.* Besides this, meekness of itself fitted men for friendship. Cardan says, that the conversation of any common unlearned person from among the people, is more agreeable than that of a sophistical and learned man, _ because there is nothing so offensive as the pride and affectation of the wisdom of the world; but as the Catholic religion extirpated the roots of pedantry and arrogance, and made men, however learned or accom- plished, speak and comport themselves like others, according to the natural sweetness of humanity, which is recognised equally in all classes, it made them also estimable, and entitled to be the objects of friendship. In fact, as the Greek poet says of generosity, the Catholic religion made men young again.t Catholic conversation is cheerful and popular, as it were youthful; that of the modern schools is gloomy, suspicious, pedantic, and senile. In the latter, we find a false and pre- tentious urbanity, refined and pompous, but ill concealing insensibility and egotism; in the former a simplicity which perhaps at first offends, but by degrees, a disposition also along with it of a subdued and smiling tone, which soothes, charms, and ravishes by its goodness. And sooth we shall the more appreciate this privilege of meekness conducing to friendship by considering what is the wretchedness of those who forfeit it; for those learned men who otherwise have the least chance of secu- ring a friend, are precisely those to whom friendship is most neces- sary. Cicero remarks this in speaking of Dionysius, for he says, ‘‘What a misery must it have been to such a man to want friends and familiar conversation, one who like him was learned from a boy and skilled in ingenious arts.”*t Moreover, by inducing habits of med- itation and retirement, and a temper of mind essentially opposed to the spirit of Thersites, a temper devout and joyous, though softened and subdued like the bright tints in a landscape by a certain tone of sweet melancholy, that religion assisted and regulated the develop- ment of those qualities which men of acute philosophic observation like Cardan have found to be conducive to friendship ; for he says, that in choosing friends, those persons ought to be selected who are by nature constant and melancholy, and who are not easily withdrawn from affections, whom we find from boyhood to have been always content with one or two companions, with whom they assiduously con- versed.|| He might have added too, that men who reject mysteries are not made for friendship, which Hesiod shows in saying that night was its mother. Nor is this all, for who does not perceive how greatly friendship was promoted and secured when religion taught the meek, as the blessed Francis said, to love their brother when they are far from him in the same manner as when they are with him, and never to say any thing in his absence which they could not say with charity to his face?§ When it taught them to place in their daily memento those ee ce SS ANN R50 NE OT RMON. iy ui * Canto xliv. Rose’s translat. { Eurip. Heraclid. 698. + Tuscul v. 22. | Prudent. Civilis, cap. xli. § S, Francisci Opuscul. De la Bigne Bib, Patrum iv. 144 MORES CATHOLICI; OR friends who had departed to the other world, that by prayers of faith their bliss might be advanced, or to draw consolation from that convic- tion of their fecility at which the remembrance of their manners enabled them to arrive? Where the principles of the Catholic religion did not exist, the most acute and reflecting men in surveying the disorders which sin and death have entailed upon humanity, have been obliged to speak of friendship in terms that are calculated to wound and shock the heart which feels that it is formed for the sweets of infinite and eternal love. ‘They speak of it as a dangerous thing, to which reason must place limits, lest it should prove a source of bitterness when the hour of separation arrives, and they even teach that the heart must never ven- ture to trust itself to perfect friendship. ‘Length of years hath taught me many things,’”’ says the poet, ‘for mortals should cherish only a moderate friendship for one another, and not an affection from the deep- est marrow of the soul; xeth xn meds Axeoy pverov uyac but only a love which can be easily loosened without tearing and over- powering the soul with affliction, for an extreme friendship is too great a weight; and nothing is good when it exceeds the bounds of modera- tion.”’** What a contrast was here to the sentiments of the meek who love their friends in God; who by the mystic privileges accorded from the Mount are enabled to inherit friendship, that sweetest plant of earth, if it be not rather of heaven, in all its strength and perfection, in all its beauteous and everlasting bloom! How strange sound to them the words separation and dissevering of the soul as connected with the death of friends! What mortal ever loved with more profound and intense affection than the tender Augustine, and yet he commits his sainted mo- ther to the grave, that mother who had wept so many years for him, who was doubly his mother, having brought him forth both to the world and to heaven, reconciling him to Jesus Christ, and he feels that in regard to her he has henceforth only a higher duty to fulfil. A prudent companion is in no respect as Homer says inferior to a brother.t Such a friend did he see quietly inurned, not with the sentiments of uninstructed humanity giving vent to sorrow in the bitter cry of desolation, but with those of the renovated race in the sweet ecstacy of quiet thought meditating on everlasting gladness. ‘‘ Nebrides is living in the bosom of Abraham. Yes, whatever may be intended by that bosom of Abraham, Nebrides, my dear friend, is there; for where else could be a soul so beautiful and so Christian? He is in that place of glory and repose about which he has so often questioned me. His ear is no longer attached to my lips, but his lips are attached to that source of living water which is nothing else but thee, O my God! ibi Nebridius meus vivit, et bibit quantum potest sapientiam pro aviditate sua sine fine felix.”? What an exten- sion of the sweets of friendship followed from the assurance that there is communion between the living and the dead, that there were those who already arrived at expiatory or even at supremely blessed shore pee be addressing us in such words as Dante heard from the spirit of asella. — * Eurip. Hippolyt. 253. + Od. viii. 585. AGES OF FAITH. 145 ——_—— Thee as in my mortal frame I lov’d, so loos’d from it I love thee still.* William of Malmesbury relates a wondrous example, which would have greatly moved the stoics, of the manifestation of this ghostly friendship made after the death of the body. Robert of Lotharingia, he Says, was the intimate friend of the most holy Wlstan, Bishop of Wor- cester. It happened that when Wlstan was sick at Worcester, and near his blessed end, Robert was at court employed about the king’s affairs, when lo! Wlstan appeared to him in a vision saying, «If you wish to behold me alive hasten to Worcester.’’? Moved by this vision, Robert obtained leave from the king to depart immediately, and he never rested night or day till he reached that city; for he feared greatly lest he should not arrive in time to find him alive, for the journey was very long. However, on arriving at the last stage, he was overcome with sleep, and Wlstan appeared to him again, saying, «* You have done all that pious love demanded, but you are disappointed in your hopes, for I have departed. But dear companion, provide for your own safety, because you will not remain long after me; and to convince you that you are not deceived by a fantastic vision, this shall be a sign to you. ‘To-morrow, after you have committed my body to the earth, a gift will be presented to you in my name.” Robert awoke and proceeded on his way. On arriving at Worcester, he found the procession already marshalled to escort the saint’s body to the tomb; he joined it, and then condoled with the monks of whose funeral meats he partook in silence. Already mounted on his horse, he was taking leave of the holy brethren, when lo! the prior stepped forward from the throng, and kneeling down reverently presented him a gift, saying, ‘* My lord, accept I pray you this cap of your ancient friend made of lambskin, which he was accus- tomed to wear when he rode on horseback, and it will bear witness to your long friendship with our holy lord.’’ Hearing these words and recognising the gift, the other turned pale, and a cold shuddering ran through his bones; he dismounted and waved to his attendants in sign that he suspended his departure: demanding an audience of the monks, they assembled with looks of consternation and amaze, in the chapter- house, where with tears he related the circumstances of his vision, and then having commended himself heartily to the prayers of all their soci- ety, he resumed his state and departed. It was in the middle of Janu- ary when WIstan died, and Robert did not survive the succeeding June.t Of the friendship which was found to prevail during the middle ages, even in the scenes of secular dissipation, history and also the fables of chivalry, which are true representations of real manners, furnish many engaging and memorable examples. Witness the deliverance of Bou- teiller and Dufresnoy, from the hands of Louis of Spain, by Sir Walter Mauny and his troop of heroic companions, one of the most noble and affecting adventures of which friendship, honour and chivalry can boast. The old writer of the life of Bayart says, that the Duke of Nemours had so won the hearts of his companions, that they would all have died for him; and he bears the same testimony to the Seigneur de Molart, of whom he says, ‘tous ses gens se feussent faits mourir pour luy,’’ and NO SERIE Emi inde | RR ee nS es eda * Purg. ii. t Will. Malmesbur. de gestis Pontif. Anglicorum. lib. iv. Vol. 11.—19 N 146 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, of Bayart himself, he affirms that while lieutenant of the king in Dau- phiny, he so gained the affections of both nobles and peasants, that they would all have died for him. Indeed, the annals of the middle ages abound with portraits of the purest and noblest friendship, and even the dveugeves of the Greeks, invested too with an interest that the muse of Eu- ripides had never conceived, was a character familiar to them. The friendship of Bassanio and Anthonio, which in our age would be deemed unreasonable, and opposed to the decrees of domestic philosophy, was drawn by Shakspeare from the life as seen in the middle ages. We have been so imbued in other works with illustrations of this theme, that I shall be content at present with offering the instance of the friendship which is ascribed in the history of Gyron le Courtoys to Hector le Brun and Abdalon le Beau, of whom we read, ‘en telle maniere lung ayma lautre par telle guise et par telle amour comme se ils eussent este freres charnels. Ne oncques puis pour advanture quils trouvassent discorde ne peut venir entre deux, ne lung neut envie de ]’autre en nulle maniere. Oncques ne se departerent lung de lautre, mais tousjours chevaucherent ensemble en se entre aymant. Desi grant amour que lung ne povoit vivre sans lautre.’’* ‘The confidence which men reposed in their friends is nobly expressed in the same history, where Gyron replies through the iron bars of his prison to one who spoke of his calamity. ‘My friends will hear of my adventure. I] ny a en ceste part montaigne qui puisse tenir mes amys quils ne viennent jusques a moy par fine force.’’t — The literature which corresponds with these compositions, and which has superseded them in the courts of nobility, may pretend to greater refinement of language, and claim.a place in a more philosophic order of study, but assuredly it does not furnish examples in equal abundance of the same virtue to exalt and adorn the human character: but I has- ten to consider the friendship which belonged more especially to the meek during these ages, and which is sought for, not so much in fables of chivalry, though they are not without some sweet remembrance of it, as in saintly histories, and in the sentiments which have been delivered by the wise and holy. Doubtless if with clear view the intellect be fixed upon the ordinary proofs of friendship comprised within the world’s annals, there will be ground rather for sadness than for joy, for it cannot be deceived by hearing the Capulets and Montagues speak of friendship when it must witness also their rivalries and wrath. ‘ Who- ever hates one man cannot love another truly and spiritually, nor yet himself, nor God, since he is in mortal sin, as Denis the Carthusian says.’’{ All was false and worthless that wore the semblance of love in men that to Christ’s school were dead ; but after rejecting every sus- picious claim we are not left unprovided with bright examples that are proof against the test possessed by saints. Celebrated was the friend- ship of St. Paul and St. Thecla, of St. Ambrose and St. Monica, of St. Jerome and Paulina, Eustochia, Blesile and Ruffina, of saints Marcella, Albina, Asele, and Leta, of St. Francis of Assissi and St. Clare and Jacquelina, of St. Anthony of Padua and a devout person of Limoges. At an infinite distance from every thing allied to inhumanity, from all indications of a selfish, contracted, and unfeeling nature, was the self- * Gyron le Courtois, f. xxxvi. { Id. f. ccevi. ¢ De Arcta Via Sal. vi. AGES OF FAITH. 147 renouncement and mortification of the saints. ‘They were precisely the most feeling, liberal and generous of men. We find some of them acknowledging that it was for the love of a friend, after God, that they were induced to renounce the world, following him like the companions of St. Bernard to his cloister.* _Gaudentius had been the playfellow of the young Count of Woycech, his fellow student in the cloistral school of Magdeberg, and when under the name of Adalbert he retired into the monastery of St. Alexius, on Mount Aventine, that faithful brother alone followed him, though still in the flower of youth. Ever constant to friendship, he left that peaceful retreat when the blessed man direcied his steps to preach the Gospel to the heathen people of Prussia, accom- panied him through all his dangers, and never left him till he had seen him receive the martyr’s crown.t Passionate fervent souls, quick to conceive hopes of inexpressive joy, would you hear of a friendship sud- denly formed, and yet precious as the ruddy drops that warm the feeling heart, lasting as eternity ? you will find an instance in the lives of the anchorites of the desert. ‘*Ah, Paul, why hast thou left me?’ cried the holy Anthony. ‘Why depart without wishing me adieu! Tam tarde notus, tam cito recedis?’’t Men of chivalrous honour, who pro- fess to feel such admiration at the spectacle of moral greatness, would you behold constancy of love in death? Friendship was on the tongue of the martyrs in their passion. ‘Then drawing from his finger a ring, he steeped it in his blood, and giving it to Pudens. ‘+ Receive it,’’ said he to him, *“‘as a pledge of our friendship, and let the blood which stains it remind you of that which I have shed this day for Jesus Christ.’’|| And in fact, who than sainted fathers of the holy church have ever recognised with greater clearness the value and excellence of friendship? ‘The consolation of this life consists in possessing a faith- ful friend who may rejoice with you in prosperity, condole with you in sorrow, and exhort you in persecution.”’ It is St. Ambrose who speaks thus. Who does not know that the express rules of holy societies pre- scribe companionship, and point out like the ethic page the comparative helplessness and inefficiency of man in an isolated state? Priests and religious persons of different sacred orders were not to go forth alone for Svy ve dv’ texouéyw men are more powerful both to think and to per- form,§ a maxim which experience and the Homeric wisdom had taught to Diomede. Gan’ eb Tee moot dyiip ape’ Errotro xak GAROS Maarov Gaarrwed nat Qrgrarsuregoy tora, ** The great Homer has the wisdom and piety to make Agamemnon declare, in reference to Achilles, that a man who is loved by God is equivalent to a multitude of people.tt And religion found nothing in the sentence which was unworthy of the discipline of truth, that recognis- ed a principle most dear to an heroic nature, that friends and compan- ions are from God. Jacob, being asked by his brother concerning those * Vita V. Wale Abb. Corbiens. iv. lib. i, 467 apud Mabillon Acta S. Ordin. Bene- dict. Secul. iv. p. i. t Voigt. Geschichte Preussens i. b. 4, ¢. + S. Hieronym. Vita S. Pauli Eremit. | Acta Martyr. in S. Perpetua. § Aristot. Ethic. lib. viii. 1. ** TI. x. 222, tt U. ix. 116. 148 MORES CATHOLICT; OR, that were with him, replied «Parvuli sunt quos donavit mihi Deus servo tuo.’’* The respect which was shown to friendship, and the earnestness with which its demands were urged, form a characteristic of the ages of faith, from which these latter ages of the world have sadly declined. Cicero says that friendship ought to be preferred to every thing excepting vir- tue, but many at present seem to esteem it a mark of superior ability and of honourable diligence, nay even of a more manly and philosophic na- ture to prefer the most trifling object of domestic or professional care to its advances, however earnest, as if, forsooth, it were evidence of wis- dom and perfectness of life to be insensible. We find no trace of this severity, which in truth, however men may talk of philosophic disci- pline, savours more of the counting-house than of the cloister, in the manners of the middle ages. Their spirit was expressed by Bayart, when he said to his noble hostess at Brescia, ‘Toute ma vie ay plus aymé beaucoup les gens que les escus.’*+ It seems also as if men were loved more than books, more than the dearest and most familiar pursuits, for humanity was always uppermost in the affections of those who held that only the love of Jesus Christ is durable.t Petrarch, describing his reception in the Carthusian monastery of Montrieu, says in his letter to those holy men, ‘the activity, the ardour with which you rendered me all sorts of services, the agreeable conversation I had with you in gen- eral and in particular, made me fear I should interrupt the course of your devout exercises.’’ When St. Adalhard, abbot of Corby, was re- called from exile and restored to honour by the emperor Lewis, who had been persuaded by his enemies to banish him to the island of Heri off the coast of Aquitaine, on the day of his departure all the brethren of the abbey, in which he had spent an angelic life in close confinement for the space of seven years, were moved to tears at losing him, though they could not but rejoice that he was to be restored to his own. Ragnar- dus, who was afterwards abbot, being of a fervent spirit, was above all overwhelmed with affliction. So that when the holy servant of God was about to depart, and all the brethren were kissing his feet and his foot- Steps, watering them with their tears and wishing him farewell, he alone remained shut up in his cell, in order that he might not see the man de- part who was dearer to him than his own life; but when the other had long inquired for him, he was at length discovered in the obscurity weep- ing and lamenting: being called to come forth and wish the old man fare- well, he entreated the messenger to leave him to weep alone. The holy man, on hearing this, left the ship, on which he was already embarked, and returned, that he might not depart without a kiss from that brother whom he knew was holy. So he found him weeping, and they em- braced and then separated. The brethren then accompanied him back to the ship. The sails were soon raised, and as long as she remained vsible they stood on the shore looking after him; for the spirit of love constrained them and they could not resist it.|| The ereatest saints, re- freshed with heavenly visions, did not pretend that the being deprived of friends and the being left solitary on earth made no sorrowful impres- ste rae recreate TE THE MME DAS Ee alt. i ll * Gen. xxxiii. + Chap. li. t De Avilla, Epist. Spirit. x. | Vita Adalhardi, Mabil. Acta S. Ordinis. Bened. Secul. iv. § 1. AGES OF FAITH. 149 sion upon their souls. ‘* What is the reason, my brother,’”’ writes St. Hilda to one of her correspondents, ‘ that you have been so long absent, and that you delay to come to me? Why do you not consider that I am alone in this land, that no other brother visits me; that not any one of my relations comes to me? And if you hold back because hitherto I have been prevented from executing what you desired, you ought, on the ground of charity and relationship to forget this, and without requir- ing any persuasion to change your mind. O my brother, my dear brother, how can you afflict the mind of my littleness with constant sor- row, with weeping and sadness day and night? Do you not know for a certainty, that of all living persons I prefer no one to your love? Be- hold, I cannot explain all things to you by letters. Now I am assured that you feel no concern about poor and humble me.”* Among the epistles of St. Boniface, there is one addressed to Baldhard, in which is an affecting complaint: ‘the presents which were brought to me by your faithful messenger Aldrad [ have embraced with fervent charity ; and now, by God’s assistance, I would fulfil all that you require of me, if it might be your pleasure to come to me; for I cannot in any manner stop a fountain of tears when I see and hear of others who are going to their friends. ‘Then I recollect how I was forsaken by my parents in my youth, and how I have remained here alone, and yet I was not for- saken by God, but I return thanks to God for his immense goodness in preserving me. And now, my brother, I ask and implore you to take away sadness from my soul, because this greatly injures me. For I say although it were to be but for the space of one day, and that then you would depart by the will of God, yet that would be sufficient to make this sorrow pass from my mind and this sadness from my heart; but if it should displease you to grant my petition, I call God to witness that it is not I who have forgotten our love.”+ St. Boniface writes many letters in the same spirit, and similar may be found in the correspondence of St. Anselm. Mark how deeply these men felt any omission in exchange of letters. Petrus Cellensis writes as follows, to remonstrate with his friend for not having written to him: ¢ Charity, which is patient, strange to say, only drives me to impatience. How is this? Have you no such things as charts, or is your love shortened? What is the cause of such along silence? Is there a failing of hearts as well as bread in Britain? Of the one indeed I had heard, but I never believed that the other would succeed it. A bishop may be excused, on account of his incessant labours and the solicitude for all the churches, and his care of the afflicted and his reconciliations of enemies, but what forbids a clerk to write letters to his friend? It remains to condemn your negligence. Quia igitur oleum non misistis, aculeum sumitis.”’{ And again to anoth- er friend he writes, «‘ Am I to believe you a different man? or that I am changed? Friendship cannot dissemble, cannot flatter. O my dearest friend, am I to ascribe it to oblivion or to negligence that you have ab- stained so long from coming to salute your friend? Is it that you are occupied? But it is not gracious to be always occupied.’’| On the other hand, the earnest affectionate excuses made by monks for not hav- * 8. Bonif. Mart. et Archiep. Epist. lvi. t Id. Epist. lxiv. + Petri Cellensis, lib, i. Epist. xv. | Id. Liv. i. Epist. xix. N 2 150 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, ing written answers to the letters addressed to them by friends in distant monasteries, leave nothing incomplete in this contrast to the cold form- ality and proud indifference of later manners. It is not, however, to be inferred from these passages that the sincere piety and fervent spiritual- ity of the ages of faith would have countenanced the selfish and unrea- sonable exaction of those triflers who imagine that their conversation ought to be always of paramount interest, so that every occupation, however holy and important, should give place to it. St. Peter, the venerable abbot of Cluny, wrote to St. Bernard, testifying how he loved and revered him, though he had never been in his presence, and saying how he had long desired to converse with him, but that his many em- ployments and sufferings had prevented him,* and in a letter to the abbot Suger he laments, in most feeling terms, that while he is often obliged to see persons whom he has no desire to see, and to be engaged with secular applicants whom he would rather fly from, he can scarcely ever behold his beloved friend the abbot of St. Denis, Suger, who has never been at Cluny but once.t Holy priests in those ages, dearly as they prized friendship, and profoundly as they admired genius and sanctity, could not sometimes find leisure for the company of a Suger or a St. Bernard, and every door-knocking trifler in our times would call in question the charity of learned and laborious men, if they were not always prompt to listen to them. It is not the justice of such com- plaints that should be advocated, but there does seem occasion to look back with complacency to the manners of those ages which were char- acterized by the fervour as well as by the prudent and reasonable regu- lation of friendship. Friends are great thieves of time, but as Petrarch says, no time ought to seem less stolen, less squandered than that which, after God, is expended upon friends.t It is not every vile cir- cumstance or interest of money that should take precedence of them. Tyndarus enabled his poor fellow captive, whom he had known a boy when himself a boy, and whom he had ever loved from that time, to escape, and when his furious master demanded of him where was his fidelity, he quietly and wittily replied, «« What, do you require that I, who have been your slave since one day and night, should be more attentive to your interests than to his with whom I have passed my life from boyhood?”’|| But most men are now the captives of masters who would answer instantly that they do require them to show that prefer- ence, and who would find no great difficulty in making themselves obeyed, and men, whose employments are all about money or the objects of political ambition, receive their inexperienced friend with such looks as if they presumed that he must have read the inscription of the elder Aldus over their door. But how engaging, how holy are the expressions of affection which we meet with in the writings of the ages of faith! Witness the following letter, addressed to Lullus the bishop: ‘I entreat you, O beloved brother, forget not, but always cher- ish in memory that ancient friendship which we entertained for each other when living in the city of Maldubia, where the abbot Eaba nour- ished us in amiable charity, when he used to call you by the name of *S. Petri Ven. Epist. lib. i. 28. t Epist.lib. iv. 15. t Petrarch. Epist. ad Vir. illust. | Plautus Capteivei, iii. 4. AGES OF FAITH. 151 Irtel, by which now the abbot Hereca salutes you in holy salutation, as well as the whole congregation which dwells in your monastery. He that shall persevere in peace unto the end, the same shall be saved. Farewell then my beloved, and for ever fare thee well. My beloved, chosen of God, because charity has no price. ‘This is the sign of the abbot Hereca.”* That disposition to make little presents, which is found so prevalent in Spain and Italy, has come down from the primi- tive ages of Christianity, when the pagans used to say, See how they love one another. In the latter country I seldom departed from a mon- astery or from a casual visit to a holy man, without some book or devout print, which was forced into my hands. You cannot open any volume of correspondence which dates from the ages of faith, without finding some allusion to the interchange of modest gifts, as tokens, not of vanity but of love. /®lred, abbot of Riveaux in Yorkshire in the twelfth century, has left a beautiful book on spiritual friendship, to show the vanity of all friendship which is not spiritual, and sanctified by a devout reference to the eternal love of Christ. ‘*Some men,’’ he says, ‘are irrationally moved and inclined in mind towards a person by discovering his vices. For many can draw the minds of others to themselves, on account of a vain philosophy or some foolish boldness in military affairs ; and what is worse still, many because they are prod- igal, luxurious, betrayers of modesty, favourers and followers of base men or vainly fond of silly spectacles, entice others to be inclined towards them.”t To these allude the words of St. Augustine, «Si male amaveris tunc odisti, si bene oderis tunc amasti.’”? Here occurs a reflection on the vanity of a friendship which is not according to God, in which the maxims of a heartless and selfish philosophy under the name of liberality, tend constantly to engage men. Even a heathen had the piety to say, You are my friend, but I cannot think with you, or wink at your error. Luerapeovely yap cuxs guvvoreiv eu. St. Bernard said in his letter to Master Guido de Castello, the disciple of Peter Abailard, «‘I should do you an injury if I were to suppose that you so loved any man as to love his errors with himself. Whoever thus loves any one does not know yet how he ought to love. Such love is earthly, animal, diabolic, equally hurtful to the person loving and to him who is loved.”} This wisdom passed even to the friendships of chivalry in the middle ages. Of Bayart the old writer of his life says, *‘oneques ne fut veu qu’il ait voulu soustenir le plus grant amy qu’il eust au monde contre la raison.’’|| But to return to the treatise of our fElred. ‘* You say,’’ he continues, ‘* what greater peace than to love and to be loved? If indeed in God and for God, I do not deny this; nay, I approve of it: but if according to the flesh or the world, see what envyings, what suspicions, what flames of an ardent spirit exclude rest of mind. And if none of these should occur, death, which all must endure, destroys this unity, bearing grief to the survivor and punish- ment to him who passes.’’§ ‘+ While I was still a boy in the school, * 8. Bonif. Epist. lxxxviii. + Id. iii. 12, t Epist. cxcii. | P. 597. § Id. Speculum Charitatis, lib, i. cap. 25. 152 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, and delighted with the society of my companions, my whole mind gave itself to affection and devoted itself to love. So that I thought there was nothing sweeter or more useful than to be loved and to love. So fluctuating between diverse loves and friendships, my mind was borne hither and thither, and not knowing the law of true friendship, was often deceived by its similitude. At length there came into my hands the book of Tully de Amicitia, and I congratulated myself on having found a certain formula of friendship. I was delighted with the gravity of the sentences, and with the sweetness of the style; but afterwards, when it pleased my good Lord to correct the devious, raise the fallen, and cleanse the leper, renouncing worldly hope, I entered the monas- tery, and devoted myself to the study ef the holy scriptures, and in a short time I found this so sweet, that all worldly science became, in my eyes, comparatively vile. Then when that book, De Amicitia, came back to my mind, I wondered why it did not any longer give me the same pleasure as before, for now nothing could excite the whole of my affections which was not seasoned with the salt of the holy scriptures. Wishing then to strengthen these remarks on friendship by the authority of scripture, and to spiritualize them, I undertook to compose this little work on spiritual friendship ;’? and where he represents his pupil allud- ing to the book of Cicero, he repeats this testimony in reply: «I am not unacquainted with that book, which used at one time to delight me, but from the days that I became sensible of the sweetness of the holy scrip- tures, and that the mellifluous name of Christ claimed all my affection, nothing that I ever read or hear seems sweet or lucid to me, however subtilly arranged, which has not the salt of the heavenly letters, and the seasoning of that sweetest name.’’* We must not, however, suppose from the gravity of these sentences, that the joys of friendship were included among those things which became to him weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable. Hear how he speaks of the society of Rievaulx. «Three days ago, as I went round the cloisters of the monastery, when I had seated myself in the midst of a beloved crowd of brethren, I fell to admiring the leaves of each tree, the fruits and flowers, which bloomed as if ina paradise of pleasure. Finding no one in all that crowd whom I did not love, and by whom I did not believe that 1 was loved, I experienced such joy that it surpassed all the delights of this world. For J felt as if my spirit were transfused into all, and the affections of all infused into me, so that I might say with the prophet, ‘ Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitare fratres in unum.’ ’’ ‘Then, after alluding to two persons, who were more espe- cially joined to him in intimate affection, his friends from early youth, who had continued with him through all the stages of his religious life, he proceeds as follows: ‘* What then? was it not a certain portion of beatitude thus to love and to be loved? Thus to assist and to be assist- ed? And thus, from the sweetness of fraternal affection, to fly aloft to the more sublime splendour of divine love on the ladder of charity, at one time ascending to the embraces of Christ himself, and at another descending to rest sofily on the earth, in the love of one’s neighbour ?”’t MattieanEmEaremenrm 2 EL anin ener sens ana, * Ailred. Abb. Rievallensis de Spirit. Amicitia Prolog. T De Spirit. Amicit. lib. iii. in Bibliothec. Patrum, tom. xxiii. AGES OF FAITH. 153 Thus did he enjoy friendship with all the sweetness of humanity and all the unction of a spiritualized and illuminated heart. «* Ecce ego et tu,’ he writes to his young friend, ‘et spero quod tertius inter nos Christus sit.”’ But this third course has already exceeded all just proportion, and I must hastily bring it to an end. Enough has been produced to show how richly the pleasures of friendship were included in the inheritance of the meek, who in sooth could hardly have been said to possess the earth, if the grant had not comprised them. ‘Homer did well,’’ says Plutarch, ‘‘ in making Telemachus reckon among his calamities that he had no brother.’’** And just was the remark of Pindar, that all kinds of advantage are derived from friendly men. veces St ravrol- att pbawy dvdeay.t And though the Christian philosophy would contradict the poet’s sen- tence, that honour departeth from him who is deprived of friends,{ (for few mortal men, he himself admits, are faithful in times of misfortune, so as to be partakers of suffering; and how can the infidelity of hypo- erites be charged upon their victim,) yet it would sanction the opinion that friendship supplies, to spirits perfect and already chosen, a bliss which might constrain meekness itself to cry, ‘ Behold, the earth is mine.”’ Such, then, are the observations suggested by a view of history rela- tive to the meek in ages of faith, and to their enjoyment of that posses- sion which was promised to them from the Mount. With hearts only bent upon the attainment of heaven, the earth was in abundance given to them, while the proud and foolishly deliberate race, of which were those who cried, ** What shall we do? If we let him go, all men will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away our place and nation,”’ feared to lose temporal things and thought not of eternal life, and thus, as St. Augustin remarks, lost both.|| Mild in all the manners that secured the order and the harmony of social intercourse, imbued with the principle of obedience, meekly submissive to the Church, to the rulers of the state, to the laws which they either received or admin- istered, meek amidst power and riches and nobility, meek in the hum- bler ranks of the common family, they inherited the earth and derived from it all that could sweeten or dignify the existence of men. Degree was maintained in their Christian warfare. Therefore, conformable to the wise distinction of St. Augustin, the rich were not humbled to piety, so as to exalt the poor to pride; for in no manner would it have been right that in that life, where senators were laborious, there workmen should have been idle, that rusties should have been delicate where came, abandoning their delights, those who were of the Lord’s vine- yard.§ Stability was infused into the political as well as into the eccle- siastical order, for the rule of truth and the knowledge of the end of good and evil, put an end for ever to the uncertainties and vicissitudes of speculation, respecting both the one and the other: it was not sup- posed that a society, which no heresy or impure superstition had ever * De Amicit. frat. + Nem. Od. viii. t Nem. x. } Tract. 49. in Joan. § S. August. Num. 33. Vor. IT.—20 154 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, disorganized, required from age to age a succession of changes and refor- mations, the occasions and the plan of which were to be determined by the caprice of sophists, to whose judgment each generation was to sub- mit, in concluding when and how it was to revolutionize the whole frame of its constitution; as if there was nothing fixed or eternal in the principles or end of a Christian government, and as if manners alone were exempt from the necessity of constant vigilance, as if they alone could never perish or require change. As in time of sterility or excess of rain, and the other evils of nature, so men were patient under the luxury or avarice of rulers; for they knew, as the wise historian of Rome observes, that there will be vices as long as there will be men, that neither are these continual, but that they are compensated by the intervention of better things.* Delivered from the anxieties and enmi- ties which would attend continual alterations in the form of that govern- ment, whose object, as Seneca explains, was to secure to every man leisure, not labour, recreation and not toilsome pain, the earth to them yielded its choicest treasures, both of material and intellectual good. Innumerable objects of almost infinite variety ministered to their plea- sures and necessities ; cities rose in the desert, and the beauty of divine temples formed a paradise of pleasure in every spot to which the provi- dence of God might conduct their steps. Nature, sanctified by religion, and restored to harmony by faith, for them was delivered from its ancient malediction. The intellectual world was granted to them as a boundless and inalienable domain. ‘T'o them poetry offered its sweetest incense, and learning gave up all its accumulated stores. Spirituality threw a resplendent light on every object around them, and developed for their advantage the riches of a mysterious and unfathomable creation. Mind _ and body were associated to produce the concord of an universal order, and friendship gave them a foretaste of that everlasting communion, for which they were destined in the regions of supernal joy. Blessed in the hope of heaven, blessed in the possession of the earth, these gener- ations of the poor in spirit and of the meek, fulfilled their appointed course, and passed on from time and things finite to that destination which exceeds all human thought, and all utterance but what is merely negative, to announce with trembling awe and adoring love, what they cannot be,—eternity and God. a eT Be * Tacitus, Hist. iv. '74. AGES OF FAITH. 155 THE FOURTH BOOK. CHAPTER I. No more discourse of earth and all its fair possessions, promised from the mountain, which heard the heavenly voice disclosing the way of happiness tomen. I now must change the notes to tragic; for such are those which tell of mourners, though they were in mourning blessed. Solemn task! yet argument, not less concerned with beatitude than that which described the lives of those who secured, by meekness and pov- erty of spirit, both earth and heaven’s eternal kingdom. Deep, myste- rious theme! more than speech can tell, attractive, announced as it was in tone so soft and mild, as one might have thought never before met the ear on mortal strand, sounding as if from the voice of some angelic marshal, fanning us with swanlike wings, while the gates of lucid man- sions opened to the music of this unearthly strain, which affirms that those who mourn are blessed, for that comfort shall be their’s. All generations of men have mourned; but how vain would be the search into ancient history, in hopes of discovering that they were there- fore blessed! Here is however.a new voice, and sweet, indeed, in mor- tal ears, which consoleth those who mourn with the assurance that they shall be comforted; and since this is the voice of Him, whose know- ledge is the law of nature and of grace, we may be sure that henceforth the study of history will bring new results, and present a very different phenomena from any thing that philosophers had ever before observed. It seemed no less strarige to affirm, that the poor in spirit and the meek were blessed; and yet, what striking illustrations and evidence of that fact have we discovered in the history of the ages of faith? Let us feel emboldened, then, by his experience, and resume our study, giving it this new direction, investigating the annals of these ages of the world in especial reference to the tenor of man’s woe, whether proceeding from the incidents to which he is obnoxious by nature, or from the influence of supernatural causes, which are the consequence of the light and life of faith. But ere we proceed it may be well to remove the objection which some might advance against our intended course in general, from sup- posing that it obtruded upon them melancholy themes. Such persons must be reminded, that it is not religion’s voice, transmitted in the writings of the middle ages, which first makes men acquainted with mourning, and that they will not be the less constrained to remember woe by attempting to banish the principles and associations of faith. To say nothing as yet in proof that it is faith which alone affords a remedy for the wounds of life, but leaving them to think as gloomily as they will of the influence which it sheds upon history, they must, not- withstanding, admit at once that by nature, as men, independent of all tradition and revelation, they are, sooner or later, compelled, either by 156 MORES CATHOLICI; OR the experience of present sorrows, or by the fear and anticipation of future evils, to fall into the ranks of those who mourn—or, rather, as Cicero says, of the miserable. Do what they will, depart as far as they please from the philosophy of the middle ages, there is no avoid- ing this. As reasonably might they hope to be dispensed from death, as to pass through life, short as it is, exempt from the experience and the thoughts of woe. If they look at the world which surrounds them, and mark the countenances that front them on every side, they will find the greatest and most heroic men, visibly written mourners in their looks, like Spencer’s gentle knight, who was armed, indeed, with glori- ous panoply— “But of his cheere did seme too solemne sad.’’* Melancholy is ascribed as an heroic quality to Hercules, Lysander, Ajax, Alemzon, Bellerophon, Socrates, and Plato. ‘There is no escap- ing it by taking refuge in boldness and absolute war against goodness. Cain was melancholy, as St. Augustin says;t and who is not? It ig propagated from Adam. Mourning, then, by itself, formed no distinguishing characteristic of the ages of faith— ** From time’s first records the diviner’s voice Gives the sad heart a sense of misery.” f®schylus delivers this testimony; and what a solemn melancholy breathes in the chorus of the Edipus Coloneus, which sings the mourn- ing of the human course! Never to have been born is best of all; but after having appeared, to descend again, as soon as possible, to the lower regions, while young, is next in degree of good. ‘The happiness of man lasts not long,” says Pindar.|| Would you hear the father of heroic poetry himself announcing his own conviction in the solemn words of his ideal hero. «O, Amphinomus! truly you seem to me to be wise, being the son of so ereat a father, whose fame is so widely spread ; and they say that you are his son, and you resemble him; therefore, to you, I say, but do you hearken and consider it in your mind, that the earth produces nothing, not one animal breathing and moving upon it, more wretched than man.”§ You have here the affecting testimony of the human race to the misery of its condition, before it had beheld the light of Christ. In whatever direction we turn through the world, we shall hear mourning’s voice, whether it sound of sharp anguish, or breathe in sighs. Orosius, the historian, whom Alfred translated, and made so well known to our ancestors, diffused a tone of great melancholy over his history, which he had intended first to entitle, “‘ De Miseria Homi- num’’—a title which, Bonarsius says, might be given to all history.** Hesiod says, that a thousand woes wander amidst men, that the earth is full of evils, the sea full of them.tt Profound was the sense entertained by the ancients of the vanity of all human prosperity and joy; amidst their delights, they always felt as if, to use their own expression, there was something cruel that would strangle them— SE LET) VON: ET etal a! alee, hse eT * Faery Quene. t Epist. 105. + Aischyl. Agam. || Pyth. Od. iii. § Od. xviii, 125. ** In Preefat. ad gesta Dei per Francos. +t Op. et Dies. AGES OF FAITH. 157 Toke pay "Beya modagnns dpaéort Onxe naraiza’ Graph xoprctts. Remark what an instance is here furnished by Pindar in celebrating the glories of Xenophon of Corinth—‘‘ That one single day which passes so quickly! placed around his head these three illustrious deeds, or the crown, which was the reward of his victory in the Stadium, the Dia- lium, and the armed course.’’** And, again, the same expression occurs the day taxurac wediy eeierat;t so that even when commemorating the glory of a conqueror, he deemed it right to remind him of the shortness of the day which procured it, and consequently of that in which he could enjoy it. Indeed, the Pan, as a song of rejoicing for victory, always bore a mournful sense in reference to the battle, as well as a joyous sense in reference to the victory. Dionysius, after relating the combat of the Horatii and Curatii, and the joyful triumph of the victor, adds, ‘* but it was necessary that, as a man, he should not be happy throughout, but should excite the envy of the demon; who, when he had exalted him, contrary to the expectation of all, and, in a moment, even to the highest pinnacle of glory and happiness, cast him down the very same day into the miserable calamity of killing his own sister.’’} Cicero, in his oration for the Manilian law, furnishes a similar example of the scrupulous timidity and extreme caution with which it was deemed right to speak of the happiness of the prosperous, so fearfully uncertain was its stability, and so necessary did they feel it to be always prepared against what they termed the stroke of envious fate. ‘This, too, is what the lofty grave tragedians taught— in Reiree reayuar’ evruyovrre, [ey oxide The ay TeeLetey’ eb d: DUeTUYX El Borate vyedoowy omoyyos uaerey yeadiy. Kat TAUT’ exelyoy GACY olxrsiec Tony. || Let no one, then, ascribe melancholy to the history of the renovated race. Bitter and profound has been the mourning of men in all ages, who enjoyed not the consolations of faith, as antiquity will avow; and even our own times bear witness; for many of the modern writers have raised again the desolating voice of the heathen lamentations, if not with that Philocteteean clamour which old philosophy deemed unbecoming, yet often in a strain of even still more wild despair. What is the tone of modern literature and modern poetry? Does it indicate smiling hearts, elate with peacefulness and joy? ‘Truly it expresses only that sadness of the world which, in the language of the Holy Spirit, worketh death.§ Only those suggestions which proceed from anguish of the mind and humours black, that mingle with the fancy, distempered, dis- contented thoughts, inordinate desires, like those which moved Diceopo- lis to exclaim, *‘How many things devour my heart! very few things delight me; truly not more than four. What torment me are as numer- ous as the sands of the sea shore.’’** In fact, without the Catholic piety, the Catholic type and hope to support one, life must necessarily * Olymp. xiil. t Olymp. i. ¢ Antiquit. Roman. lib. iii. cap. 21. || Asch. Agam. 1327, § Epist. ad Corinth. ii. 7, ** Aristoph. Acharnensis. 158 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, grow every day, in the estimation of the heart, more flat, stale, and unprofitable; for there is constantly something dropping off, something dying, something happening for the last time, so that every man will have the sad experience of the troubadour and warrior, Bertram de Born, who complains of this constant and rapid decay, saying, ‘‘'Tous les jours vous verrez qu’ aujourd’hui vaut moins qu’ hier.” Age itself disa- bles the mind from supporting the calamities of life, as is confessed by Dante in an affecting allusion to his own power of enduring the mis- fortunes which befell his country— “That chance Were in good time, if it befell thee now. Would so it were, since it must needs befall ! For, as time wears me, I shall grieve the more.’’* The dismal lucubrations of modern philosophers and poets can only inspire the idea of a gloomy consistory, composed of persons who, in their disdain of the holy discipline, sit, like Michol, full of scorn and sorrow,t disfigured, more than can befall spirit of happy sort. Alas! if men in ages of faith could, in a dream, have been brought, in presence of this present intellectual world, after searching with fixed ken, to know what place it was wherein they stood, they might have supposed themselves for certain on the brink of the lamentable vale— the dread abyss, that joins a thundrous sound of plaints innumerable. Dark, and deep, and thick with clouds o’erspread, their eyes might in vain have sought to explore its bottom, but would have discerned nought. What bitterness is expressed in that exclamation— “There are words of deeper sorrow Than the wail above the dead !” What approximation to despair in that avowal of hope being subject to contingency, when it is said— “ Circumstance, that unspiritual god And miscreator, makes and helps along Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod, Whose touch turns hope to dust, the dust we all have trod.’’t What a contrast to the bright visions which cheer the way of those on earth who afterwards are blessed, when the poet says— “ Standing thus by thee Other days come back on me With recollected music, though the tone Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan Of dying thunder on the distant wind.” Such is the revelation which the modern poet and modern philoso- pher continually makes of the state of his own heart; and is it for such men to shrink from consulting the history of the ages of faith through fear of its inspiring them with melancholy? Alas! what deeper gloom can come upon this poor soul than that which already encompasses it ? ‘¢ Dost thou not hear how pitiful his moan, Nor mark the death which, in the torrent flood, Swoln mightier than a sea, him struggling holds.” oe A A EE A ROE he ee * Hell, xxvi. t Dante, Purg. x. t Manfred, iv. | Hell, ii. AGES OF FAITH. 159 Thus do these tender and elevated souls move along, thirsty, wander- ing, like those shades deprived of sepulture, and condemned to an eternal restlessness. ‘They can find no place of repose or refreshment in the sterile desert of the world; they sigh, without ceasing, for some, I know not what, mysterious power, which they call liberty or progress, hu- manity or reason, a kind of liberating divinity, who they think must eventually prevail, and it is with this vain hope that they seek to con- sole themselves. The Catholic poet, in ages of faith, trained to communion with the holy, assiduous at the early sacrifice, and accustomed to walk unno- ticed amidst the evening crowd of faithful which surrounds the divine altars to receive a benediction, hoped hereafter, in a future world, to consort for ever with the saintly spirits he had seen on earth, and to join the choir which keeps eternal festival in heaven: the genius of his song was that of one who is happy—who has no morbid peculiarities of thought or temper. The modern poet, nursed only amidst the wild and lonely scenes of nature, and familiar rather with the howl of winds, and the fall of mountain torrents, than with the hymn of saintly fervour, whose soul hath only known the sublime but sad delight of gazing on pathless glen and mountain high— ‘¢ Listing where from the cliffs the torrents thrown, Mingle their echo with the eagle’s cry ;” though, having often felt how that sad loneliness loaded his heart, and how that barren desert tired his eye, when he would have wished to trace something that showed of life, though low and mean, yet, for the future, has no brighter hope, while gazing upon the ocean flood, but that it will be a pleasant thing to die— ‘¢' To be resolved into the elemental wave, Or take his portion with the winds that rave.” Such was the spirit of the chorus of A’schylus— “ Oh! that I could as smoke arise, That rolls its black wreaths thro’ the air, Mix with the clouds, that o’er their skies Show their bright forms, and disappear ; Or, like the dust, be tost By every sportive wind, till all be lost !”’* And such is the spirit of the king of modern poets, in that most inhu- man aspiration : ———_-—_— “TJ can see Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be A link reluctant in a fleshy chain, Class’d among creatures, when the soul can flee, And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain, Of ocean or the stars mingle, and not in vain,” The testimony of Palinurus, indeed, who had experience of this kind of dissolution, might have sufficed to show them how delusive were such anticipations. ‘« Nunc me fluctus habet, versantque in littore venti, Eripe me his, invicte, malis ae -* Supplies. } Childe Harold, iii. + Mneid, vi. 362. 160 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, The genius of melancholy must not be confounded with the melancholy of genius ; but to the latter it is only the ages of faith that can lay claim. The former, the burden of Babylon, has been the lot of humanity in every period of the world’s history, from the time when sin with vanity had filled the works of men. ‘To this fact there is express testimony in all ages; although, without doubt, many of these mourners, from the effect of anticipations, having a certain infinite evil in life, might, like Niobe, have been imagined turned to stone on account of eternal silence in affliction—voiceless because so profound, of whom the Book of God aftirmeth that he had stricken them, but they had not sorrowed, thatis, had not confessed their sorrow, yet had he brought down their heart through heaviness ; for to walk sorrowful all the day long is the state of sin. William Schlegel observes, that the conduct of the greatest portion of mankind who live confined within the monotonous circle of little insignificant occupations, can only be accounted for by the necessity which they feel for endeavouring to escape from that secret discontent which presses them down, as soon as the passions of their youth which made their life run like a rapid torrent, have become weak and motion- less. Therefore these means of distraction are employed, which are all designed to put in motion their slumbering faculties, by offering to them light difficulties. O Christ! how deep and bitter is the mourning of these men when they say with Montaigne, I have seen the verdure, and the flowers, and the fruit of life, and now I behold the withering, the sear and yellow leaf; or, with Philolaches in the old play, ‘“‘my heart bleeds when I consider what I am and what I was; that formerly no youth excelled more in gymnastic art, in throwing the quoit, the spear, and the ball, in the course in the field, and that now I am nothing.’’* This mourning sounds like the lugubrious cry of the birds of night, not the sighs of the dove which represent the blessed mourning, and than which nothing is more calculated to inspire peace, recollection, and internal joy. The world’s children professedly indeed pursue a life of pleasure and festivity, but if we can credit one who knew them well, their ** mirth hath less of play than bitterness.” “For many a stoic eye and aspect stern, Mark hearts where grief hath nought to learn ; And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost, In smiles that least befit who wear them most.’’+ Truly when there is a penetrating eye this reflection will be often sug- gested. The laugh of pleasure’s children may remind one of that inhu man saying of the heathen Demenetus, “may all that wish me evil laugh so !”’ Such mourning was a thing impossible to mix with blessedness. Nay, with spirits under its influence, as Shakspeare says in Hamlet, the devil is very potent, making use of those phantoms and images of memory, which, according to Aristotle,t melancholy persons are most apt to discern, in order to abuse and damn them. These are they who do violence to themselves and to their own blessings, wasting their talents in reckless lavishment and sorrowing there, where they should dwell in joy;|] wearing their days in wilful woe, and despising the bance cia ne ee RLS ETDS eel ER Oyen! OS aa * Plautus Mostellaria, 1,2. Byron } Tiegh aioGnzéws. || Dante, Hell, xi. AGES OF FAITH. 161 grace of their Creator, sitting like the Harpies in the Hell of Dante, and wailing o’er the drear mystic wood; whose melancholy springs from no other source, as ancient writers well have shown, but the passions which they have not learned in their youth to master.* This is the mourning which mixes with the inextinguishable laughter of the suitors of Penelope, of whom Homer says, that while revelling with great triumph on the eve of their destruction, though shouts of merriment resounded through the hall, yet at intervals their eyes were filled with tears and their minds with sorrow : — aroe bY den opceoy Saneuopi wiemravro® ydoy J” dtero bupeos* Theoclymenus regards this as an omen, and predicts their destruction. Thus all mourning, all poetic melancholy, is not the presage of a bless- ed end. Beati qui lugent. But not those who mourn with the world, or who weep through vanity at feigned misery. St. Augustin knocked his breast for having wept on reading the death of Dido in Virgil, who slew herself on being abandoned by her lover Aineas ; because he knew well that such tears were without any emotion of charity, and consequently that they were not in any degree agreeable to God, who demands from us only tears of love, in confirmation of which judgment the world itself can be adduced in evidence, for its poets affirm that the wretched are malevolent and envious. “ Est miserorum, ut malevolentes sint atque invideant bonis.”’f Far, indeed, then, is such mourning from the blessing promised. It is the sorrow which dwells for ever upon the cursed strand that every man must pass who fears not God. Let us move onward, for faith has no entrance here. CHAPTER II. Now we are arrived at the point where our inquiries must return to the domain of history, in order to ascertain what was the character of mourning during the ages of faith, and how far the woe of the human heart was affected by the supernatural condition of man’s life in relation to the knowledge conveyed in the mysteries of religion. In the first place then a retrospect of Christian history will prove, that the mourn- ing commended from the mountain was understood to be something very different from the spirit which we have been observing—the mourning of animal men, the mourning of Babylon, without charity and without —_—_—_—_— ee * Christine di Pisan, Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage Roy Charles V. chap. x. + Plautus Capteivei, iii. 4. Vou. Il.—21 o2 162 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, peace. Sooth, to hear the admonitions of those whose writings influ- enced mankind during the ages of faith, and to mark their countenances as described so graphically in ancient books, one might at first suppose that the blessing had not been pronounced in their estimation upon the state of mourners ; but upon that of those who always rejoiced, and who, like the followers of old Pythagoras, considered sadness a vice and a disgrace to be hidden from the eyes of men, for if it ever came upon a Pythagorean, he was to withdraw himself from all observation, and set about removing it by using the remedies prescribed by his dis- cipline, remedies which indeed could hardly have been efficacious, but the recourse to which proves the just abhorrence in which melancholy was held. What was the character of mourning during the ages of faith? ‘Truly one may feel at a loss how to answer this question ; for the first impressions consequent upon a study of their history, as far as it is comprised in the thoughts, and doctrines, and manners of men, would lead us to conclude, that the race of mourners had disappeared ; and that within the promised land, nothing was ever found but smiles and joy. Where shall we look for mourners? We may conceive at once that the task is difficult; for how can there be melancholy where the Catholic religion sways, which ever invigorates men with hope that leads to blissful end? How great is that hope, and how it doth flourish in them, even its adversaries admit; for the only question with them, they say, is to account for the exemption of Catholics from despair and trouble of mind?* Hope excludes sadness, and the church militant hath in every age armed all her sons with hope. Let us, however, investigate more narrowly. Burton, who wrote a professed treatise upon melancholy, would direct us to the abodes of monks and friars, as being men whom he affirms to be continually under its dreadful influence. But lo! the fact is so con- trary to his representation, that cheerfulness appears as one of the first results from entering the pleasant cloister’s pale. ‘Do you see these novices ?”’ asks St. Bernard, ‘they are but just come, but just converted. What appears in them is only a flower, for the season of fruit is not yet arrived. ‘This new conversation is a flower. They assume a face of discipline and a good composition of their whole body. I grant that what appears is pleasing—that greater negligence of exterior dress— fewer words—a more joyful countenance—a more bashful look; yet these are but flowers, and rather the promise of fruit than fruit itself.’’t Does length of time, think you, and a progress in that course of perfect life, produce a change in this respect? Hear what instructions and doctrines belonged to the monastic discipline. «'The Holy Ghost can- not suffer the odious sadness of the children of the world to remain in the soul of his servants.”” He who thus speaks is the monk who wrote that discourse to a nun which is commonly ascribed to St. Bernard. ‘‘Let a spiritual joy remain always within you as a testimony that you are at peace with God. This innocent and tranquil joy is an assured mark of virtue and an earnest of sanctity. If it were not so, David would not have said, rejoice ye just in the Lord and leap for joy.”— “There is even a joy natural but innocent, which is a gift of heaven ; * Burton Anat. of Mel. iii. 4. { S. Bernardi super Cantica Serm. Ixiii. AGES OF FAITH. 163 a precious fruit of peace with God,” says the holy Capuchin friar Lom- bez, in his treatise on the joy of the soul. ‘* You destroy the divine image in your soul by sadness,’’ he continues, ‘*God is joy.* ‘Servite Domino: in letitia.’? All nature rejoices in its Creator, and would you remain in asad silence? ‘The saints are always full of joy and cheer- fulness ; in the midst of vast deserts and solitudes, under persecution and suffering, joy is on their countenances. Itis joy which makes the heart fear God. ‘ Letetur cor meum, ut timeat nomen tuum.’ ’’T John, the monk of Cluny, in his life of St. Odo, the second abbot of that house, says, ‘‘ His words were always full of rejoicing; insomuch, that he used to constrain us, through excess of joy, to laugh, which mirth he would moderate with admonitions ; but his spiritual cheerful- ness diffused internal joy through our hearts. Not being allowed to tes- tify our feelings openly, we used secretly to kiss his vestments.” But this is an investigation which may be terminated without waiting to con- sult history; for, if in the present age, the manners and countenance of the religious in monasteries bespeak invariably the sweet influence of constant internal rejoicing, and no other inference is possible after ob- serving them, there can be no danger of error in concluding that it was the same in the ages of greatest faith; for then the world was more fre- quently opposed by forms of attraction, and consequently there were fewer obstacles to the peace and joy which religion can impart to men. Will the moderns look for sadness in the air of those pilgrims, who are the objects of so much of their pity? Let them refer to the portrait of one who was a saint, a model and example of all pilgrims. St. Wil- frid, afterwards Bishop of York, made a pilgrimage to Rome, and it is expressly related, that on the way he was to all men affable, and that he never contracted a sad countenance.|| If they repair to the solitary hermit’s dwelling in the woods and caves of the rocks, they will not have better success. Sebastian Francus Von Word, in the third part of his Chronicle, expressly testifies of the holy hermit Nicolas Von der Flue, that he was never melancholy, but always joyous. But surely it will be said, we cannot be at a loss for examples of sadness, if we turn to the solemn Doctors and Holy Fathers of the Church, who spent their lives in the defence and illustration of the Chris- tian faith? The very aspect of their volumes denotes men abandoned to the cloom of interminable toil. Truly the difficulty remains the same as before. St. Gregory reckons sadness among the seven capital sins.§ St. Chrysostom’s chief object in writing to Olympias, the deaconess, is to extirpate the melancholy to which she had been unhappily a prey. ‘* Not only do I wish to deliver you from sadness, but also to fill your soul with a pure and never-ending joy;”’ it is thus he writes to her. ‘* Sadness,” he continues, ‘is the most intolerable torment of the soul,—a grief be- yond all expression,—a punishment more cruel than all punishments. It is like a worm, which gnaws not only our body, but whatever is most intimate within us. It is a night never-ending, a horrible tempest, a fever which consumes secretly. ‘To those seized with it, the sun, the ee * Traité de la joie de l’ame, 2. 4. fT Ps. 85. t Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, 33. | Mabillon, Acta S. Ordinis Bened. Sze. iv. pars. 1. § C. xxxi. lib. xxxi. in Exod. 164 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, air, however pure, the most beautiful azure of the sky, become a burden, and the day becomes night; which made the prophet say, ‘The sun shall set for them at mid-day.’* No, the deep shades of night are not deeper than those of sadness, horrible night, insupportable night, night sinistrous and threatening, refusing to yield to those who would dispel it, but attaching itself to the soul which it has once seized upon, and © never letting go its hold until this soul chooses to make use of its wis- dom to escape from its power.”? You have heard how they speak. Nor is the result different if we refer to those ecclesiastical canons, which, from their title at least, might lead one to think that they had relation unto mourning. In the ancient Penitential of Angers, which happens to present itself first to my view, I find reckoned among the capital crimes ‘‘the sadness of the world, worldly sorrow.’ Not even the ascetic dis- cipline will yield us any different result; for universally it rested upon the principle of that sacred text—« Piety will fill the heart with a joyous spirit and with gladness.”’t ‘Sadness proceedeth from self-love; and joy from the love of God.’ So we read in the Meditations for the En- glish College at Lisbon: «The fruit is like the tree; that is, the joy is like to the love whence it proceedeth: true love is like to the thing loved; that is, like to God; and hence true joy must be like to God: that is, immortal, most copious, most beauteous, and most sweet.”’t The Church herself, in her solemn offices, prays to be delivered from pres- ent sadness, and to be conducted to the possession of eternal joy. That faithful spouse of Jesus Christ never mourns long without returning to the expressions of transport. Thus, in the middle of Lent, she changes the penitential tones to sing Letare Jerusalem ; and, in a similar manner, she interrupts the solemn chaunts of Advent to sing Gaudete. What is very remarkable too, the world itself, if considered in reference to the scenes of chivalrous life, seems, during these ages, to have ceased to fav- our the melancholy which is its natural companion; so that its maxims were directed to the same end as those of the spiritual society, and its ways delivered from all horrid exhibitions of desperate woe. If you will hear fable, which, at that epoch, peculiarly borrowed its language from living manners, you will find King Pharamond, in Gyron le Courtois, re- proving Messire du Lac, for indulging in a sorrow which was unbecom- ing. ‘Se Dieu me sault si bon chevalier comme vous estes ne deveroit mye trop penser pour nulle avanture de ce monde. Et certes vous pen- sez orendroit plus que a preudhomme ne convient.’’—« Sire, (replied Messire du Lac) mon cueur si est seigneur de moy, mais je ne suis mye seigneur de luy.’’|| You will hear the hermit Peter reproving the vain grief of Tancred on the death of Clorinda, as offending against the spirit of his order : “ His vanity with grave advice reproved, And told what mourning Christian knights behoved, -O Tancred, Tancred! how far different From thy beginnings good these follies be! Thou dost refuse of Heav’n the proffer’d grace, And ’gainst it still rebel with sinful ire; O wretch! O whither doth thy rage thee chase ? Refrain thy grief, bridle thy fond desire : Se hess ass NEeNNEe * Amos, viii. 9. t Eccles, i. 18. t Part iv.c. 2. | F. Ixxxviii. AGES OF FAITH. 165 At hell’s wide gate vain sorrow doth thee place. Sorrow, misfortune’s son, despair’s foul sire : O see thine ill, thy plaint and woe refrain, The guides to death, to hell, and endless pain.”* During the middle ages, rare was the crime of Piero delle Vigne, who, when his glad honours changed to bitter woes, with soul disdainful and disgusted, sought refuge in death from scorn, and became, just as he was, unjust toward himself. It was so rare, that men considered it in the light of a prodigy. Peter Damien mentions that Hugo, abbot of Cluny, used to relate to him a strange example of a certain stranger, who destroyed himself through the impulse of the demon. ‘There was a Bishop,” he says, ‘travelling, who came to the banks of a river, where he halted to repose for a short time. As he was resting there, he thought he heard a voice, proceeding as if from the flood, which said, ‘Hora venit, homo non venit.’ The Bishop shortly after observed a man on horseback, who came galloping to the brink, as if resolved to make his horse plunge into the stream. By the Bishop’s directions the attendants, who rushed forwards, succeeded in preventing him, though he persisted in crying out, ‘Let me go—I must hasten on the king’s errand; an inevitable necessity bids me proceed.’ The holy Bishop constrained him-to take up his abode with him that night. When every one was sunk in sleep, the stranger plunged his head into a vessel of water which stood in the chamber, and suffocated himself.’’t The epoch of the great apostasy of the sixteenth century was distin- guished by the frequency of this fearful crime. Petrus Crinitus men- tions that in France certain women had lately committed suicide, throw- ing themselves into rivers, which gave occasion to several learned men to investigate the cause of such a phenomenon, which could only be ascribed to the power of the stars, and to some influence of the air im- pelling men to madness, and he is obliged to recur to the ancients for similar instances. He mentions, indeed, that a philosopher at Florence, Peter Leonio, and another scholar, deeply versed in Aristotle and Hip- pocrates, had lately drowned themselves, but it was through an excess of madness, in which they ought to have been bound with chains.{ What, then, becomes of our project, to illustrate the manners of the blessed race from the history and learning of the ages of faith, if on the one hand we are told, by the voice of unerring wisdom, that they who mourn are blessed; and on the other, if we can find no trace or sanction of mourning in the ages when we suppose faith to have principally flour- ished? Softly, my gentle comrade; all is not yet seen: we have as yet been confronted only with the mourning of the world: and how should it be wonderful, or a source of inquietude, that we should have met with no trace of such a spirit in the manners or discipline of those who had renounced the world, during ages of faith? It has not been demonstrated, that the third blessed sentence from the Mount fell a powerless sound upon the ear of the humble and the meek, or that it found nothing in their character or existence to which it was applicable. They were cheerful and full of joyful peace: but it does not follow that a a a anne eS ie aaa * Jerus. Deliv. xii. 86. + Bibliothec. Cluniacens, 438. + De Honesta Disciplina, lib. iii. c. 9. 166 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, they were deprived of the third beatitude : they did not mourn with the world; but we must not infer that they rejoiced with it. Neither earth- ly sorrow nor earthly joy, in the perverted sense of that expression, be- longed to them, but the mourning of holy exiles, resting in this Inn of grief, the sighs of the innocent dove, longing after its home and country, were no less characteristic of their whole existence than were the peace and joy of renovated and Spiritualized creatures restored to the favour of their Creator, and destined to dwell hereafter in everlasting gladness. It is not to be imagined for an instant that their cheerfulness bore any resemblance to the disposition of those persons whose lips seem always moved to laughter, or to provoking it in others. Though totally free from that Jansenian gloom, which pervades the thoughts of a celebrated philosopher of later times, there was nothing vulgar or ignoble in their Sweet and joyous serenity: it would lead no one to conceive that they could ever inwardly breathe a prayer like that of the parasite of Plau- tus: **Grant me riches, praise, profit, play, mirth, festivity, feasting, pomp, pleasure, revelling, satiety, joy:’’* but it might remind one of the tone of those solemn quires described by Dante,— “and lo! A sound of weeping and a song: < My lips, O Lord!’ and these so mingled, it gave birth To pleasure and to pain.” + Even the ancient sages, who, like the Pythagoreans, declared open war against melancholy, would not have approved of the former temper: they indeed pretended to possess divine remedies against the wounds of sadness!+ and Aristoxenus affirmed that they used to refrain from all lamentations and tears; but as a general and pervading tone, they would have rejected utterly and with scorn the pert and nimble spirit of mirth, at least as it appears in the common laugher. Socrates, showing that at the last the souls of men will correspond in appearance to their char- acter in life, says that Thersites will be seen in the form of an ape. || “It may be well,” says the Athenian in Plato, ‘‘to make oneself ac- quainted with things ridiculous, in order that one may the better learn what is opposed to them; but it is not possible to practise both, and par- take in the least degree of virtue.” § Plato would not allow the inextin- guishable laughter of the Homeric gods even among the men of his re- public. "AAAG Maly Godt pirophawras ye deh eivett. overs dee dyGeuzreuc aZious rdyou xeaTou~ Hevous Ud yerwrce dy Tie molt doredenréoy, ** While on earth, heroes of his type bore that countenance which Dante ascribes to those four mighty spirits which he beheld within the awful porch, which were of semblance neither sorrowful nor glad.tt The sweet countenance of blessed spirits, bespoke, no doubt, an abundant felicity; but still, it indicated the con- stant exercise of mystic joy, tempering the sweet with bitter. « The joy of the just,” says Drexelius, ‘is not that of the gay and frivolous, occupied with Saturnalian festivities and Bacchanalian orgies.”’ ‘+ Pla- cidum et occultum illud gaudium est, et cum gravitate, imo severitate conjunctum.”’tt Thus St. Jerome describes that perfect priest, Nepo- * Capteivei, iv. 1. t Purg. xxiii. + Jamblich. de Pythagoric. vita, cap. 15, 16.31. | De Repub. lib. x. § De Legibus, lib. vii. ** De Repub. lib. iii. Tt Hell. iv. ++ De Conformit. Voluntat. Hum. cum Div. lib. iii. 2. AGES OF FAITH. 167 tianus—‘‘ Gravitatem morum hilaritate frontis temperabat.’’* In the restored and sanctified nature was discernible, to the more instructed and penetrating eye, a mourning that may be termed natural, inasmuch as, although nature was repaired and assisted in them, it was not unmade or condemned utterly in any of its principles as false and vicious. There was discernible also the mourning of wisdom, the mourning of love, the mourning of piety, the mourning of penitents, the mourning of exiles, who had to meet death before they could reach their country. On each of these points, with history and the learning of the ages of faith for our guide, let us briefly dwell. And first, what is to be said respecting this natural mourning, distinct from the mourning of mere animals of earth, and yet which, in some respects, was of it, since it grew out of the relations and circumstances of the present existence ? It would be difficult to find words more exact and beautiful to describe it than those which the Church uses, in that sublime prayer of prepara- tion offered by the priest, when he confesses his unworthiness to dis- charge so holy an office, and beseeches God that his sins may not be the means of rendering the great. sacrifice unprofitable to others: “ for, O Lord,” he adds, ‘I bear, if thou vouchsafest to behold favourably, the tribulations of the people, the perils of nations, the groans of cap- tives, the miseries of orphans, the necessities of those that travel, the wants of the weak, the despair of the languid, the defects of old men, the sighs of youths, the vows of virgins, the lamentations of widows.” Such is the view of the state of humanity which the Church presents to her minister when she supposes him about to celebrate her consoling mysteries; and it does not appear that philosophers or poets, during the middle ages, were inclined to take a different, even in their lightest compositions. Gouget remarks of the celebrated poet, Alain Chartier, that he alludes to the calamities of life, even in those pieces which he seemed at first intending to consecrate to joy alone. ‘Thus one of them concludes :— «‘ Adieu chansons que voulentiers chantoye Et joyeulx dicts oti je me delectoye Tel rit joyeulx, qui aprés dolent pleure Rien ne m est bon, n’ autre bien n’ assaveure Fors seulement I’ attente que je meure ; Et me tarde que briefment viengne Pheure Qu’ aprés ma mort en Paradis la voye.”’{ “Grief” prompted him, as he says, to write his most considerable work in prose, which is entitled ‘‘ Hope, or the Consolation of the three Virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity.” “ Par douleur ay commencé ce livre Je souloye ma jeunesse acquitter A joyeuses escriptures dicter. Or me convient autre chose tissir, De cueur dolent ne pouroit joye yssir.” Under a joyous title, we are often presented with serious meditations, as in the work entitled Le Passetems de tout homme et de toute femme, composed by Brother Guillaume Alexis, commonly called the good es Se ee ae a a ee i i de in ei a ae eb os abel * Epist. xxxv. + Bibliotheque Frangais, tom. ix. 164, 168 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, monk of Lire, an abbey in Normandy. The pastime alluded to proves to be nothing else but the miseries belonging to the human condition. The author follows man from his cradle to his death-bed, and shows that, in every stage of his course, he is called to suffer.* Such strains used to echo under the chivalrous halls of our ancestors, even at the festal hour: for perfectly in character with them was that simple lay of Albert Graeme in Branksome Tower, when he sung of the English lady bright, that would marry the knight of Scotland.— “Blithely they saw the rising sun When he shone fair on Carlisle wall ; But they were sad ere day was done, Though love was still the lord of all.” Do you mark how they correspond with the religious view of life? “They touch the chords of joy, but low And mournful answer notes of woe.” Indeed this view of man’s condition corresponds with Nature in her noblest estate; for they whose spirits seem most elastic, cheerful, and buoyant, by a certain apparent contradiction in their structure, are always fond of what is solemn, and of lingering amidst the tombs. And hence, to such minds, the charm of the Catholic religion, which is at one time joyous as the lark singing at heaven’s gates beneath the morning cloud; and at another, solemn as the sound of the distant bell, or of the waving grove under the wind of night: while Protestantism is always sad or always dissipated. The spirit of Catholicism is in harmony with that of a genuine drama, which is tragic and yet infinitely mild,—a mixture of joy and sorrow. What means the Church in bidding the priest to bear in mind the sighs of youths? It is that she has deeply observed nature ; for youth the most joyous season in life,—is that in which men are enamoured with seeing sad pageants of men’s miseries, with tales of woe,—and when they take more delight in weeping than in words; when, according to Shakspeare, they are sad as night only from wanton- ness. As if they who were most capable of enjoying the rich banquet of life, found a pleasure all the while in knowing that, even on such an earth as this, they were in a world of woe. As poor Duncan says, ‘Their plenteous joys, wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves in drops of sorrow.”” The poet’s child is one who has, like Wilfred, “A heart too soft, from early life, To hold with Fortune needful strife ; Hour after hour who loved to pore On Shakspeare’s rich and varied lore, But turn’d from martial scenes and light, From Falstaff’s feast and Percy’s fight, To ponder Jacques’ moral strain, And muse with Hamlet, wise in vain ; And weep himself to soft repose O’er gentle Desdemona’s woes.” > It is one who might say of himself to Ossian, in the words of Dela- martine, ‘* My heart is yet warm with the fire of youth; I have not thy years, but I have already thy sadness.” In fact, all passions to which * Massieu, Hist. de la Poesie Frangaise, 35. t Rokeby. AGES OF FAITH. 169 youth is subject, end like a tragedy: as Novalis says, ‘All defective things to which nature introduces them, end with death. So the philos- ophy of sensation, of fancy, and of ideas. All poesy, which is to them so dear, has a tragic tenor. All genuine jest, for which they have so true a perception, has a serious foundation.”’* ‘In the primitive time of fancy,’’ says Frederick Schlegel, ‘‘ we find that the elegiac was the predominant tone of poesy, as if a melancholy remembrance of the past godly world, and heroic age, or as a sorrowful echo of the lost paradi- siacal innocence and heavenly state; or in a still higher and more gen- eral sense, as the forlorn lamentation over the blessed childhood of the whole creation, before the spiritual world had been torn asunder by divi- sions,—before the beginning of all evil, and the consequent calamities of nature.’’t A similar tone may be traced in the poetic compositions which were most passionately loved during the middle ages. Many of those wild and tender chaunts were sad as the song of Linus, or the melancholy Carian strain on Phrygian flute—sad as the song of Hylas sung at foun- tains in the Mysian land, or the song of the beautiful Bormus, whose watery death was deplored by the husbandmen of Mariandyne on the flute in the middle of summer. The thoughts of men were then but little occupied with the present in comparison with the past and future; and in this respect, the spirit of the Catholic religion would subject every one to the sneers of such writers as Atheneus, who laughs at Plato, calling him «‘memory’s friend,” ¢ +i semuordvn giass. Religion, indeed, ex- pressly recommended the mourning which springs from memory, and, in the beautiful words of St. Augustin, distinguished it from the sadness of the world. <«‘Let us sit and weep, remembering Sion. For many weep with Babylonian tears, who also rejoice with a Babylonian joy. We ought to weep but from remembering Sion. The waters of Babylon flow and pass. Let us weep by them, but beware how we enter them, lest we should be borne away and swallowed up in them. Let us sit by them and weep; and we shall weep if we remember Sion. O that peace which we shall see with God! O that peace and holy equality of an- gels! O that beautiful spectacle, that transcendant vision !”’t Music, poetry, and painting, during the ages of faith, seem only the expression of desire, of longing; and if any should adopt the opinion of Winkelman respecting the effects of such melancholy, which he ascribes to the Etrurians, and by which he attempts to account for their not having surpassed mediocrity in the fine arts, and should, on the same grounds, deny that our ancestors could have possessed the soft emotion which renders the spirit perfectly susceptible of the beautiful, I would refer him to the reply which is made by Pignotti, in his «‘ History of Tuscany,” where he observes, ‘‘That the acute and deep sensations which Winkelman acknowledges belong to the melancholy disposition, are so far from being, as he pretends, incompatible, that they are, on the contrary, inseparably connected with a lively imagination, the first ori- gin of the fine arts, and that melancholy and religious compassion char- acterize the greatest masterpieces which enrich the Vatican. ‘To the * Novalis Schriften, ii. 233. + Philosophie der Sprache, 123. + S. Augustini Tractat. in Psalm. cxxxvi. Vol. I1—22 170 MORES CATHOLICI; OR deep humanity of the Catholic religion belonged necessarily the melan- choly of compassion for the natural calamities of man. That sorrow, to which kings would bow, was a worthy cause for defiling the serenest eye. Every cloister and every castle had its tale, that had made mourn both wise and simple; for, however calamitous, all events were to be related, that none of the gifts of Heaven might be concealed from men. And now, if I were to select examples from the chronicles of the middle ages, ‘‘ methinks,” as Homer says, ‘the light of the sun would set up- on our weeping.” Lionel Woodville, Bishop of Salisbury, died through sorrow and pity for the fate of others. ‘This member of an illustrious and unhappy family, was brother to Edward the Fourth’s queen, the most unfortunate in English history. His own fortunes, being a Church- man, were not overthrown in the wreck of that family ; but when Buck- ingham, who had married one of his sisters, was beheaded in the market place of Salisbury, the Bishop did not long survive the grief of this last affliction. Life was full of lamentations, which found an echo in hearts, which only had more concern for others, from having renounced self- love. Who knows not these things?—who has not pity ?—would be the language of those who might ‘feel themselves,” as Dante says, ‘on all sides well squared to fortune’s blows.” ** Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora.” We shall see, in a future place, that this was not a sterile compas- sion; but it will serve, at present, to explain why, even from natural causes, the noblest spirits, during the ages of faith, appeared in the character of mourners; and that they did so, we have the express attes- tation of history. ‘ He was of a melancholy turn of mind,” says Fon- tenelle. of the great Pierre Corneille ; and, speaking of John de Medicis, Machiavel says, ‘‘ Though there was a little melancholy in his disposi- tion, he knew how to please in conversation.”’* «+ Rard quidem letus,’’ says Petrarch, describing the state of his own mind during the course of his correspondence with Socrates, * mcestus sepe.’’t Le Banni de Liesse was the title assumed by John Meschinot sieur de Mortieres, a French poet, contemporary of Chastellain, to express his affliction for the misfortunes of the dukes of Bretagne.t Antonio Fulgoso, that noble poet of Genoa, was surnamed Fileremo, on account of his fondness for seclusion ; and Hugues Salel, in the reign of Francis I., in his poem *¢Qn the Misery and Inconstancy of Human Life,’ lays it down as a maxim, that we should often choose mournful subjects for contemplation, because long continued joy becomes wearisome.| It is questionable, whether Shakspeare meant to convey a censure when he speaks of one ‘¢so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth.” Triste et pensif was the device adopted by Michael Marot; and the same tone of melancholy which Charles Duke of Orleans ascribes to himself, in that affecting poem, which begins— ‘ Laissez moy penser A mon aise; Helas! donnez m’en le loisir—” and which seemed so constant an attendant on pre-eminence, that every eatin ethctelagc ees vali ASE GT See ee * Hist. of Florence, lib. iv. { Pref. in Epist. Pam. t Gouget Bibliotheque Francais, ix. 404. || Id. tom. xii. 8, AGES OF FAITH. 171 man in high honour seemed, in his very countenance, to proclaim the justice of S. Bonaventure’s exclamation, ‘‘ Quis in honore sine dolore esse poterit?”’ ‘That tone is spoken of by Fenelon, in describing James Il. of England, as something full of dignity and meekness: he terms it, ‘¢Son sérieux doux et complaisant.’’* Dante had no need to paint from his imagination in that affecting description of one spirit that he meets in purgatory— ‘“‘ Behold that lofty shade, who this way tends, And seems too woe-begone to drop a tear, How yet the regal aspect he retains.’ If these few instances are not sufficient to show the general character of noble minds, in this respect, during the middle ages, it will be easy for any one to multiply them, by referring to our ancient literature, which supplies similar portraits at almost every page. ‘This melancholy of Catholics during ages of faith, whether considered as the melancholy of genius, of honour, of compassion, of love, or of piety, had a distinct- ive character, which totally separated it from the gloom of heathen or modern times. It was the melancholy recommended by the Apostle, ‘‘ quasi tristes, semper autem gaudentes:’’ it was without malice, ran- cour, pusillanimity, despair, tepidity, or wandering of mind; and, there- fore, it was not involved in the condemnation passed by holy men, like the Abbot Raban Maur, though that were directed against melancholy.t The necessity for human suffering, so obvious to reason, that the Pytha- goreans used to say, ‘‘Men ought to welcome punishment, since they came into the world only in order to be punished,”’|| is involved in the mystery of the fall; and during ages of faith, the light affliction which arose from it, for a moment, was received by mourners with pious re- signation. Let us hear them speak of it, that we may understand what a deep sense they entertained of this mystery. ‘The Master of the Sen- tences, in laying down a threefold liberty, observes, that the last which he terms the liberty from misery can only be obtained in the future beautitude.§ Hugo de St. Victor wrote a treatise, entitled, «Cur flet qui gaudet,” alluding to the joy of the Church, which in this valley of tears, is never without weeping; and the holy Fathers teach, that the perfect prayer is mixed with joy and sadness. ‘The sweetness of honey,”’ says St. Jerome, ‘‘ was to be tempered by art before it could be offered in sacrifice to God, for nothing voluptuous pleases God— nothing which has not in it something of austere truth. The paschal of Christ was to be eaten with bitter herbs.”’** Nay, even in relation to the mere temporal felicity of man, mark how mysterious a thing is woe. Cardan could attest the fact, which furnishes an axiom in the science of the saints; for, he says, ‘‘sine malorum experientia nihil esse dulce homini.” tt The poet goes further still, where he shows how soon men begin to loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof ‘‘a little more than a little is by much too much.’”’ Unheeding such refined considerations, men, * Epitres de Fenelon, 103. + Purg. xviii. + Rabani Mauri de Institutione Clericorum, lib. iii. cap. 38. || Jamblich. de Pathagoric. vita, cap. 18. § Petri Lombardi. lib. xi. Distinct. 25. ** S$. Hieronymi Epist. xxiii. tt Prudentia Civilis, cap. 4. 172 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, in the middle ages, were at all times ready to welcome sorrow as a blessed thing; either receiving it in the spirit, and, with the words of S. Lupe, when he saluted Attila, exclaiming, ‘+ Salve, flagellum Dei,’’>— or in reference only to the future compensation which would follow it. If they pretended not to be able to walk erect on the waves of the tribula- tion of this life, as our Lord walked on the sea, yet, at least, they felt that they could (as St. Augustin says) be borne over them on the wood of the cross, and on the model of Christ crucified. «Scientia sancto- rum est,” says St. Bernard, ‘hic temporaliter cruciari, et delectari in eternum.”’* <«« Lazarus, merely because he bore sadness and affliction with courage, obtained the same abode as the great patriarch, whose life had been one series of the most brilliant actions. I will add to this,”” continues St. Chrysostom, ‘one consideration which, from being new and perhaps foreign from the common manner of thinking, is no less true; it is this, that even when we should have accomplished some eminent deed of virtue, if labour, if danger, if misfortune, be not, in some measure, mixed with it, the recompence will not be great. The Scripture does not say, that each one will be recompensed in proportion to his virtuous actions; but rather in proportion to the quantum of adversity which he will have supported. ‘Thus, St. Paul enumerating the subjects of his glorying, gloried chiefly in his having suffered so much; for, after saying, ‘Are they ministers of Jesus Christ? TI dare to say it, fam more;’ and to prove that he is really superior to them, he does not say, I preached the word of God to so many millions of men; but, keeping silence as to his virtues and his other merits, he gives a picture of all the calamities he has endured:—*1I have lived in the midst of labours, in prisons, and the rest.? Do you see what suf- ferings were here, and how many occasions of glorifying? Presently, he adds to these the acts of virtue, and, in enumerating them, he makes us see that still sufferings are to him a more solid title than all the rest, for it is always in the same sense. ‘ Which of you is sick, and I am not also ;’ he does not say, and I do not endeavour to heal him; but, and I am not also. ‘Which of you is scandalized, and I am not consumed interiorly:’ he does not say, and I do not deliver him from the scandal: but, and I do not take share in his pains, and in his sorrow.’t— ‘There is no motive,” says St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his letter to _ Thecla, ‘‘more proper to make us courageously endure calamities, and to raise us above the generality of men in affliction, than the remem- brance of the promises which we made to God, and the hopes which we conceived when we first embraced the true philosophy. Was it, then, our object to live in abundance and in riches, to taste the vain joys and the insane delights of the world, to strew our path with flowers ; or rather, on the contrary, did we not expect tribulations, pains, anguish, and to endure all things in hopes of future good? Anh! it is this last lot, not the former, which we were taught to reckon upon. Let us take care, then, how we violate the covenant that we made with God, by wishing to possess, at the same time, the advantages and the goods of this world, and to preserve the hope of the future. Let us leave our conventions standing, and let us support all the woes of life, in hope of re eh tepinreinir pion fn! ED AN SS Se * Serm. 21. de divers, + St. Chrysostom, Epist. to Olympias Deaconess. ° ’ AGES OF FAITH. 173 the joys of eternity.’’ Although the whole subject of human suffering was involved in mystery, yet the advantages resulting from it were most clearly discernible with the light of faith. «One single ‘ thanks be to God!’ and ‘blessed be God!’ uttered in adversity, is of more avail,’’ says Father Avila, ‘¢‘than a thousand thanksgivings in the day of prosperity ;’’ and, therefore, as St. Aloysius Gonzaga used to say, ‘There is no more evident mark of a man’s being a saint, and of the number of the elect, than to behold him of a devout life, and, at the same time, exercised with desolations, sufferings, and tribulations.”’ Ah! how much wiser Job in calamity than Adam in Paradise! The one says, **Sicut Domino placuit ita factum est!’ the other, «‘ Vocem {uam audivi et abscondi me!”’* But as this will appear still more clearly when we have proceeded further, let it be observed here, that the advantages of suffering were not altogether concealed from the an- cients, who could only judge by the light of reason. Would you hear the heroic chaunt of the poet, whose lofty muse was to inspire conquer- ors? QO, son of Philanor! you would have led an obscure life, and have never won a glorious renown, wasting your strength in ignoble contests in your domestic circle, like the cock that conquers in its fami- liar court, unless banishment, consequent on an insurrection, had driven you from your country— Ei fan TraTkS ayTIAvEes nyo hes GueeTe TaTeds, Now you are a glorious victor in the Olympic contest, as well as hav- ing received twice the Pythic, and once the Isthmian crown.t With- out labour, no one was ever illustrious nor ever shall be.t If there be any happiness with men, it does not appear without labour;|| but a life void of danger was granted neither to Peleus acides, nor to the divine Cadmus, yet they are both said to have obtained the highest felicity of mortals; who both heard the Muses singing in the mountains, and within the seven-gated Thebes; who both entertained the gods with hospitable rites; who both beheld the kingly sons of Saturn on their golden seats, and received from them nuptial gifts.§ The lessons of the ancient sage were to the same effect. Socrates speaks of banish- ment and bad health, as among the few causes which can enable men to pursue philosophy with a true spirit. <‘*'There remains, then,”’ saith he, ‘* but a very small number of men consorting with philosophy in a worthy manner; either men who have been punished with exile, of generous manners, and well educated, through a want of the causes which corrupt, so that the philosophic nature remains in them, or else men whom the bridle of our dear friend Theages is able to restrain ; for 'Theages is surrounded, and furnished on all sides with things suffi- cient to make him fall from philosophy,’ such as riches, friends, hon- ours, &c.; ‘*but the continual suffering of his body from bad health, restrains him from political affairs and corruptions.”** Poets might have found examples in their own walk to justify a similar conclusion respecting what the child of the muses ought to desire. ‘The ancients * Drexelius de Conformitate Human. Voluntatis cum Divin. lib. iv. 2. t Pindar, Olymp. xii. t Id. Pyth. Od. v. || Id. Pyth. Od. xii. § Jd. Pyth. Od. iii. ; ** Plato de Repub. lib. vi. le 174 MORES. CATHOLICI; OR, had instances before them, like that of Dante, who finished his sub- lime work while in exile, wandering and unhappy, through the differ- ent states of Italy. The disputants in Plato’s VIIth Book on Laws, agree in the opinion that the right and most happy life takes a middle course between pleas- ure an@ grief, neither pursuing the former nor avoiding the latter, but desiring the medium; and that all men should fly from the life of unmin- gled pleasure, as well as that of pain. Aristotlé admits, that in suffer- ings the beautiful may shine forth, when any one bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility, but through greatness of mind.* And Plutarch lays it down as a criterion to determine what progress we make in virtue, to see whether we prefer mourning to fes- tivity; or, to use his own words, whether we incline to excess in the Dorian harmony, which is grave and devout, or in the Lydian, which is gay and joyous. With respect to the ideas of the heroic world, if, on the one hand, the Homeric heroes speak of the gods having given them evils, and having ordained such things wishing them evil; on the other, the hero of Sophocles, Polynices, recognizes in his misfortunes the hand of an avenging deity;+ and Archidamus, the Spartan king, proclaims adversity to be the school of virtue. «Let us not suppose,”’ said he, “that there is any great difference between one man and another ; but that he is the best who has been brought up in the greatest necessities.”’+ Finally, let those who object to the Catholic view of suffering and penance, hear the remarkable words of Plato, explaining in what man- ner it may be often for the eternal advantage of men to choose mortifi- cation. ‘A person,”’ saith he, ‘acting unjustly and escaping punish- ment and all suffering on account of his injustice, and congratulating himself upon such exemption, would be more miserable and deluded than a sick person who should rejoice in not undergoing the operation which alone could effect the cure of his body. In fine, the not receiv- ing punishment for evil is the first and greatest of all calamities ; so that if rhetoric be of any use to one who is unjust, it can only be by ena- bling him to expose fully and manfully his own injustice, in order that it may receive the proper punishment, whether of chains, or banish- ment, or death; that so his soul may be healed in the same manner as he would offer his limb to the knife or fire of the surgeon, in order to have it restored to soundness. Therefore each person should be his own accuser, and should beware of concealing his wickedness, and should employ all his rhetoric to this end, that he may be loosed from the greatest evil of injustice.”’|| But to return to the phenomena presented in the Christian life, we have observed, that in the restored and sanctified nature, during ages of faith, was discernible, not only this natural mourning from a sense of the sufferings of humanity ; but also a mourning which may be termed of wisdom, as if belonging, of necessity, to all peculiar depth and penetra- tion of mind. St. Thomas says, that the third beautitude, or that of tears, answers to the gift of science; implying, that wisdom and philo- Seesaw ne i a neni NO de ee * Ethic. Nic. i. 10. + Gd. Col. 1299, + Thucydid. lib. i. ¢. 84. | Plato Gorgias. AGES OF FAITH, 175 sophy prepare us for sorrow. ‘ The gift of science,” says St. Augus- tin, ‘brings the third beatitude, beati qui lugent; for it enables men to learn the evils to which they are bound.’’* Many philosophers have remarked with Rhasis, that the finest wits and most generous spirits are before others obnoxious to melancholy ; ‘‘qui sunt subtilis ingenii et multe perspicacitatis de facile incidunt in melancholiam ;”’ and one ancient author affirms that melancholy advan- ceth men’s conceits more than any humour whatsoever. The love of wisdom, indeed, is said in the unerring text, to dispel sadness like wine and music;t but yet we read in the same, that the heart of the wise is where is sadness. In fact, as St. Anselm remarks, ‘¢quamvis delectabiles et dulces sint sapientia et dilectio, tamen in hujus vite lubrico generant dolorem et amaritudinem aliquando: que quanto veriores et majores sunt, tanto hoe faciunt rarius, et tanto gravius.’’t Albert Durer’s celebrated design representing melancholy personified, shows a woman surrounded with the instruments of science, and occu- pied with its problems. Such was that sage of whom the poet says, ———— *‘ His aspirations Have been beyond the dwellers of the earth, And they have only taught him what we know, That knowledge is not happiness, and science But an exchange of ignorance for that Which is another kind of ignorance.” | Yet, to the discerning and attentive eye, nature herself seemed to indi- cate mourning in characters that the wise could read. In some flowers, like that of the bean, Varro says, lugubrious letters are visible, and some suppose that it was on account of them the bean was forbidden food to the Pythagoreans. ‘* Whither goest thou, grief?’ say the Spaniards, ‘¢where I am wont;’’ and again they say, ‘*when born I wept, and every day shows why.”’ ‘‘In the nations of the south,” says Don Savedra, who could judge from long observation, ‘‘the men are melancholy and profound in pene- trating the secrets of nature.”’§ But so itis with man; and his noble nature, undaunted by the prospect of sorrow, impels him no less to con- template; and as the poet says, ‘‘ while the same honour ceases to belong to the flowers of the spring, and the moon shines not with one unchanging countenance, he fatigues his lesser mind with eternal coun- sels.”’** Hence, the rapid course of life afflicts the wise man more than others, ** for who knows most, him loss of time most grieves.’’ In the middle ages, the term sad was generally applied to every one who made profession of learning ; for it was remembered then by all, that wisdom is not found in the land of those who live a sweet life.tt Without any indication of a troubled mind, a student might expect to have been often designated as was Hamlet by his mother: ‘ But look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.’” Painters would represent him making of one hand for his cheek a couch, with frequent sighs. Reading in the middle ages was not pursued as a light desultory amusement; it was the food of those thoughts that wander through eternity. * De Serm. Dom. in monte. + Eccles. xl. 20. {S. Anselmi, Epist. lib. xi. 50. } Manfred, ii, | § Christian Prince, ii. 380. | ** Hor. Carm. lib, ii. 11. Tt Job. 176 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, A French writer of great eminence has made the remark, that when nature bestows sublimity of genius, she accompanies it with that condi- tion, ‘¢ Be a great but an unhappy man.” Religion herself held out no other prospect. ‘‘ False prophets,”’ says St. Jerome, ‘“ always promise sweet things, and please for a time. Truth is bitter, and they who preach it are filled with bitterness. In the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, the Pasch of the Lord is celebrated, and it is eaten with bit- terness.””* Hence the shallow and ignoble sentence that ‘it is better sometimes to rejoice in error than always to grieve on account of truth.” ‘There was observable also, it has been said, the mourning of love; which, as St. Anselm says, “like wisdom not unfrequently gen- erates in the present life bitterness and sorrow.’’ Plato said, that love and melancholy are near relations.t If one might venture to illustrate this theme, renewing the memory or custom of love-tuned song, I know indeed that full many piteous stories do remain from the period of these extraordinary ages when every aspiration of the human heart was often sanctified and pure. But it would be long and out of place to speak of those who, like Tancredie, had no other fault but love; which, by unad- vised sight, had been “ Bred in the dangers of adventurous arms, And nurs’d with griefs, with sorrows, woes, and harms.’’ Since, of such love, it is not fitting here to speak, let us turn to a more fruitful source of mourning during the ages of faith, which will enable us to penetrate far deeper than we have hitherto done into their spirit and genius; for as yet we have but merely touched, as it were, upon the surface, and seen nought but what the history of men at all times might be found to supply. CHAPTER III. ‘‘O THov Almighty Father! as angels of their will tender unto thee meet sacrifice, circling thy throne with loud hosannas; so may the offer- ing of theirs be duly made to thee by saintly men on earth;’’ such was the prayer that rose incessantly to heaven wherever the catholic church had children, and these few words are sufficient to show with what spirit and conduct they regarded and received sorrow. The mourning of piety is a new and abundant theme, which to philosophers them- selves, might be presented as one full of interest, and abounding in matter for observation and profound thought. Faith taught men the necessity for mourning, as a means of spiritual purification and of ascent to God. To the eye of faith the state of mourning was therefore a privi- RS ask: Oe i OL ee ee * Advers. Jovin. lib. ii. t De Repub. lib. ix. AGES OF FAITH. 177 leged and blessed state; and hence the priest, when about to celebrate the sacred mysieries, on taking the manipule uses this prayer: ‘* Merear, Domine, portare manipulum fletus et doloris, ut cum exultatione reci- pliam mercedem laboris.”’ All writers of the spiritual life have shown, that those who are to be united to God must suffer many afflictions, internal as well as external, spiritual as well as sensible, in order that both parts may be perfectly purified; for, without such suffering and crosses, there cannot be the complete union and joy of the blessed.* ‘+ 'The perfect,”’ says St. John of the Cross, ‘‘ have to pass through the night of the senses, the night of the spirit, the night of the memory, and the night of the will, which four nights represent the four kinds of mortification which they must endure. Because they are accepted of God—temptation must prove them.’’ How wondrously conformable to the dictates of Divine wisdom was that maxim of Pythagoras,t where he said that ‘‘ conquerors and those on whom leaves are thrown are polluted.’’ Hence, no doubt the phenomenon which has so often elicited the remark which is found in even the ancient poet, that «the wicked are sometimes more fortunate than the good.’ What examples were beheld in the calamities which befell St. ‘Lonuia, René of Anjou, Count Elzear de Sabran, St. Elizabeth, Henry VI. of England, many of the popes and other saintly personages during the middle ages. ‘Those arms of the Braschi family, Boreas blowing on the rose, so symbolical of the life of the holy Pope Pius VI., might be adopted as a general emblem of the lot of goodness in this perverse world. ‘The history of St. Francis Xavier furnishes a memorable instance. The king of Japan, who was converted by the preaching of the saint, had enjoyed the utmost prosperity while an idol- ater. No sooner did he renounce idolatry, and embrace the Christian faith, than it pleased God to visit him with all kinds of calamities. Two months after his baptism, his subjects rose against him and drove him from his throne. When the Gentiles reproached him with having changed his religion, and said that this was the cause of his misfortunes, he made a vow at the foot of the altar to live and die a Christian; add- ing, ‘‘that if all Japan and all Europe, if the fathers of the society and the Pope himself were to renounce Jesus Christ, that he would confess him to the last hour of his life; and that he would be always ready to shed his blood in testimony to his faith.””|| Still more remarkable is the answer which St. Theresa made to a devout merchant from whom she had received an alms, and the events which followed in that man’s life. ‘*I have recommended you in my prayers as you desired,” said she to him, ‘‘ and it has been revealed to me, that your name is written in the book of life, and as a sign of the truth of what [ say, you will never prosper again in your worldly affairs.” So it turned out: his ships were successively wrecked and sunk; be- coming unable to pay his debts, he was delivered from prison “only through the esteem which his creditors entertained for his piety ; and being thus stript of all worldly goods, but contented with the grace of * St. John of the Cross. The Ascent of Mount Carmel, the obscure night of the soul. + Porphyrius de Vita Pythagore, xxxi. + Eurip. Helen. 1218. || Bouhours, Vie de St. F. Xavier, ii. 230. Vou. I.—23 178 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, God alone, he closed his days in the odour of sanctity ; thus disproving too the testimony of the Greek poet when he said, that «the soul of the man who was once prosperous, when he falls into calamity, wanders over the past pleasures.”* To facts of this kind, however, the holy fathers allude in words that denote how easy it was for men to misun- derstand the phenomena. ‘The winds,” say they, ‘rise upon this ocean; you behold the evil prospering and the good in distress. There is a temptation, there is a flood, and your soul saith, ‘O God, God, is this thy justice, that the wicked should prosper and that the good should be in distress ?” and God will reply to you, «Is this your faith? Is this what I promised to you, or is it for this that you are a Christian, that you should prosper in this world?’ ” ‘Be not astonished,” says Louis of Blois, «*and murmur not against God. Refer to the scriptures; there you will see how the devil was heard and the apostle not heard! In what manner were the demons heard? They sought leave to enter the swine, and leave was granted to them. The devil sought leave to tempt Job, and he received it. In what manner was the apostle not heard? ‘Thrice he besought the Lord that the cause of his suffering might be taken from him; and his answer was, ‘Sufficit tibi gratia mea, nam virtus in infirmitate perficitur.’ He heard him whom he intended to condemn, and he heard not him whom he wished to save.’’t As far as respects external calamities, reason itself can discern their utility. Heaven has many ways of conferring happiness, and adversity is one of them. This, no doubt, Pindar saw when he sung, Tloaaat 3” od ot Luv Jecte evrenyias.¢ ‘Tt is in the nature of things,’’ says De Haller, «‘ and all history at- tests it, that a too long enjoyment of the highest fortune contains in itself the seeds of destruction, that by the softness, the luxury, and the indiffer- ence which are its usual results, it ends in enervating the most vigorous races, and in extinguishing that force of soul, along with which all other goods of the earth are lost.”” If this was often true in reference even to the interests of the present life, much more frequently was it so with regard to the more important concern of the soul’s health and condition for eternity. The deep sense which men entertained of this fact during the ages of faith, has given rise to a tone in their whole literature, which has often struck the modern readers, who are constrained to admire the imperturbable resignation with which the most unforeseen and dreadful calamities were endured. The page of history is often suddenly illu- minated with bright examples of this kind, which seldom fail to charm even the most insensible: and certainly the contrast which is presented in this respect by our annals to the whole of heathen literature, must excite a surprise not unmixed with the highest pleasure. The ancient poets seem never to have conceived the idea of a spirit of resignation and sacrifice, which would soften and sanctify calamity. Hecuba be- comes impious in her misfortune, and says, that to call upon the gods is to invoke evil allies, though it may have a certain form of propriety to * Burip. Troades, 640. + Ludovic. Blosii Tractat. in Ps. lxxxv. + Olymp. viii. AGES OF FAITH. 179 appeal to them in misfortune.* In the poet’s mind it was impossible that any feeling but that of the utmost horror could be excited in the breast of one who, having been the mother of Hector, might now in her misfortunes and subjection, be doomed to guard the keys of the gate, or to prepare food.t It is easy to see what an advantage the poet of the middle ages would have had here in following the common inspiration of religion. In fact, there is nothing more remarkable in their whole history and literature, than the astonishing change which Christianity had wrought in the hearts and understanding of men with regard to the contemplation or experience of misfortune. ‘ When Fouquet’s mother heard of the arrest of her son, she threw herself on her knees,”’ says the Abbé de Choisy, ‘and raised up her hands to heaven. ‘1 thank you, O my God,’ she cried, ‘I have always prayed to you for his salvation, and lo, here is the way opened!’ Catharine, queen of England, used to say, that she would rather have adverse than prosperous fortune, for that the former never wanted consolation; whereas, in the latter, both mind and judgment were often wanting. When the venerable Mother de Chantal came to Moulins, she had much conversation with the Duchess de Montmorency, who was there residing in the convent of the Visitation. The holy woman expressed her joy that the duchess should have made such good use of her misfortunes. ‘© My misfortunes,” replied Madame de Montmorency, ** have not been the sole cause of my retreat: I have always felt an indifference for the world, even when I was at the court. My misfortunes found me in this disposition, and I have received them as means granted by God, to ena- ble me to fulfil the wish of my early youth, to live in retreat, unknown, and without other care, but that of my salvation. I have endeavoured to place myself in this state, and I have lived now for many years as you see me in this house, hoping that Heaven will have pity upon me.’’t The chief of modern bards who, in tales of prose, without a rival stands, has chosen for matter of his song, the wisdom and peace of a blessed mourner contrasted with the sadness of one who judged with the world’s mind, where he describes the meeting of Bruce and his royal sister, the Abbess Isabel, in her Convent of St. Bride: «The Bruce survey’d the humble cell, And this is thine, poor Isabel! That pallet-couch, and naked wall, For room of state, and bed of pall; For costly robes and jewels rare, A string of beads and zone of hair; And for the trumpet’s sprightly call T’o sport or banquet, grove or hall, The bell’s grim voice divides thy care, ’T'wixt hours of penitence and prayer ! The noble abbess consoles him respecting his past misfortunes, adding, ‘“< And grieve not that on Pleasure’s stream, No more I drive in giddy dream, For Heaven the erring pilot knew, And from the gulf the vessel drew. Tried me with judgments, stern and great, My house’s ruin, thy defeat, era ETE eT a ee ee St GPE SR SR > a * Eurip. Troades, 473. Ibid. 494. { Marsollier, Vie de Mde. Chantal, ii. 1810. 180 MORES CATHOLICI; OR Poor Nigel’s death; till, tamed, I own My hopes are fix’d on heaven alone ; Nor e’er shall earthly prospects win My heart to this vain world of sin.” Finally, she sends her reply to Lord Ronald, who knew not of her having taken the veil— “This answer be to Ronald given: The heart he asks is fix’d on heaven. My love was like a summer-flower, That wither’d in the wintry hour; Born but of vanity and pride, And with these sunny visions died. Brother, for little space, farewell! To other duties warns the bell.” ‘Then follows the lament cf the worldly heart— “ Lost to the world, King Robert said, When he had left the royal maid— Lost to the world, by lot severe— Oh! what a gem lies buried here; Nipp’d by misfortune’s cruel frost, The buds of fair affection lost,?* Would you observe the same resignation in the mourning of heroes ? When the master of Santiago beheld his forces overwhelmed by the Moors on the mountains of Malaga, his cry was, «*«O, Lord of Hosts! from thy wrath do I fly, not from these infidels; they are but instru- ments in thy hands, to chastise us for our sins!” « This defeat,” says one of the devout historians of Spain, ‘‘ was to teach them, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the Strong, but that God alone giveth the victory ;”’ and Father Antonio Agapida asserts it to be a punishment for the avarice of the Spanish warriors, who were intent upon spoil. It is the same spirit in the Saxon Chronicle, where it describes the dreadful pestilence and famine which desolated England in the year 1087, concluding with this reflection, « Alas! how wretched and how rueful a time was there! Who isso hard-hearted as not to weep at such misfortunes? Yet such things happen for men’s sins—they will not love God and justice.”” While recording the temper and views with which sufferings were borne by St. Louis, by Alfred, and by many other heroic and saintly kings of the middle ages, history is constrained to assume a tone of sanctity which is Strangely at variance with its gene- rally profane character. Sometimes the details are very attractive: as those relating to that affecting scene which was presented at the Coun- cil of Rheims, in which Pope Innocent presided, and before which St. Bernard preached. Philip, the eldest son of King Louis-le-Gros, had lately met with a tragic death by an accident; and the King was now proceeding to Rheims to have his second son crowned, but the loss of the former had overwhelmed him with affliction. ‘The King, Queen and young Prince, attended by the Abbot Suger, and by the whole court, arrived in that city on the 23d of October. The next day the King came to the council, followed by a crowd of nobles, and leaning on the shoulder of Raoul, Count de Vermandois, Grand Senéchal of France, Re hail oe * Lord of the Isles, iv, AGES OF FAITH. 181 like a man oppressed with sadness; he mounted into the Pope’s tribune, and after kissing his feet, sat down in a chair, which was a little lower than that of his Holiness. He spoke of the death of his son in few words, which drew tears from the eyes of all present; at every word he spake his tears flowed fast, and all the bitterness of his heart appeared in his countenance. ‘The Pope replied before the council— Great King, you must raise your mind and all your thoughts to the King of kings, to adore his judgments, and receive with perfect submission the events of his Divine Providence. It is he who has placed the crown of France upon your head; it is by his will that you command this noble and generous nation; but he requires you to believe that every thing occurs by his permission, for it is not a blind divinity which can be ignorant of any thing that passes here below ; and though there are often great injustices, these events are always just on his part, and the effects either of his justice or of his mercy. You know, great Prince, that prosperity and adversity are the ordinary means which he employs in conducting his children; and this alternative, which he sheds on the whole course of our life, is an effect of his highest wisdom, in order that man may not attach himself to the figure of this world which passes away, lest, if he were always prosperous, he might forget that this is a place of exile, and that all our vows and desires should tend to the celes- tial Jerusalem. We have no secure dwelling in this world: we are only like travellers, who pass on, and who proceed to their country, which is Heaven. . Then, all who have lived according to the spirit, and who have mortified their passions, will reign with God, in the possession of eternal happiness. Your son has been taken, while he was yet in sim- plicity and innocence; and the kingdom of heaven is particularly des- tined for those whom the corruption of the world hath not infected. Consider how David ceased to mourn as soon.as his son was dead, and how he wisely submitted to the ordinance of Heaven. I conjure you, then, to moderate this excessive grief, and to banish this overwhelming sadness, which appears on your countenance, and which arises only from an affliction which is a little too human. Remember that Heaven has left you other sons. It is for you to console us strangers, driven from our country, and become, as it were, wanderers from land to land. You have already done so, in a manner worthy of your piety. You are the first of the Christian Princes to whom we are indebted for hospital- ity. May Heaven recompense you as you deserve, and crown you with an everlasting happiness, and a happy life, which will be no more sub- ject to death, and a holy joy, which no sorrow shall ever more disturb.” With these words the Pope arose, and absolved the soul of the deceased Prince ; and then the council was adjourned till the next day. The King appeared consoled. ‘The discourse of the Holy Father had made an impression on his understanding and on his heart. He retired, in great peace, to the Abbey of St. Remy, where he had taken up his lodging. The sages of the cloister kept men mindful of the end for which all human felicity is chequered with sorrow. I remember once, while spending some days in a certain monastery, where I was received with wondrous benignity, that one venerable Father, of great age, used to come to my chamber every evening, when he would converse with me 182 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, for a short time. <‘‘ Our sovereign,”’ he said to me one night, «« who is beloved by all his subjects as a pious, just, and amiable prince, has no son. Ah! see how the condition of man, in his best estate, has always some dark side, in order to remind him that his true country is not in this world. Again, with respect to ourselves, what a happy land is our beloved country—what an industrious innocent people! During thirty- seven years that I have lived in this forest, no deed of violence has ever been committed. What a combination of blessings do we enjoy? A wise, humane government; no national debt; no want of freedom; a de- licious climate; a fertile soil! Such is our state to-day; but when our sovereign dies,—dies without an heir,—what is to be our fate? This only we know for certain, that bliss may not remain long with mortals,— that here we have no abiding home, that here is nothing secure—nothing durable.”? To cite instances of misfortune having been the means of con- ferring great spiritual good, would be an unnecessary task ; but yet there is one example in the history of France so remarkable, so associated with themes that should be dear and precious, that I cannot pass on without first attending to it. Pélisson, confined in a dungeon in the Bastile, ap- plied himself to the study of the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers, and became convinced of the truth of the Catholic religion. He and La Fon- taine, who was wholly depending upon patronage, were the two young men who came forward to defend Fouquet, the moment he was thrown into prison and proscribed, when all his creatures and all the courtiers abandoned him. Pélisson, from the Bastile, sent forth Discourses in his favour, which have been compared with those of Cicero: he left nothing untried to help his friend—«‘le premier entre les généreux.” Poetry, eloquence, glory, religion, even menaces, were employed to move the king. Perhaps, if it were lawful to indulge in such speculations, it was for this noble virtue, that Pélisson was rewarded by conversion, and La Fontaine by the gift of repentance. The former, from this happy mo- ment, abandoned his former trivial compositions, and wrote no more, except for God and his Church. As he had neither paper, pens, nor ink, he used to cut off little pieces of the lead casement with which he used to write down his thoughts. While in prison, many learned per- sons dedicated their works to him. Nothing could disturb the tran- quillity of his soul, for mourning had enabled him to view every object from the height of faith. One of his Odes was written during a great storm, in the Bastile:—<‘ Rude and terrible blast, thou only assaultest my prison ; while on the sea, how much greater cause of fear! Celestial faith, whose ardour elevates and inflames me; thou teachest me that this weak body is nothing but the dwelling of my soul. Others may well fear a cruel shipwreck. Rude and terrible blast, thou only assaultest my prison.” Another Ode is addressed to the sun:—*‘‘I behold thee, O Sun! advancing with royal splendour; but another object, greater than thee, occupies all my thoughts: I feel it; it is in my heart; before it, thy splendid beams grow pale, and thy light resembles a shadow. By it I live; by it thou runnest thy course, and bringest night and day. Depart, O Sun! whither thou art summoned; I have no regard, no dis- course, excepting for its immortal light.’ Again:—‘ Rise, my soul, above the earth, and above the pride of profane mortals. Contemplate the saints, whose long fervour, imitating the labour of the heavenly AGES OF FAITH. 183 Saviour, sustains their spirit of celestial hopes.”” Again ;—‘** The exam- ple of Godeau has inspired me with the desire of consecrating my genius and my voice to God. I behold a thousand learned men, whose verses have power to reign over kings, and to give to their names a deathless renown. Mortals, who possess this precious gift, too long have ye flattered the princes of the earth; begin at length to praise the Monarch of Heaven.” Again:—‘‘ Sweet nightingales, who return every year to sing in these groves, consecrate your charming voices to the glory of God, who has endowed you with them. Bright flowers of the fresh season! do not present yourselves to my sight—you render the earth too lovely : I wish to love only heaven.”’ Again :-—* Double bars, with bolts unnumbered—triple gates, strongly locked, to souls truly wicked, you represent hell!—but to innocent souls, you are only wood, stone, and iron.” Upon his deliverance from the Bastile, after some delay, in consequence of hearing of the intended promotion which awaited him, he, at length, embraced the Catholic religion, in the subterraneous church of Chartres, in the year 1670. The same day, he wrote an affecting letter to the King; and on the following, retired to the Abbey of La Trappe, and remained there during ten days, leading the life of a holy anchorite: his piety affected every beholder. Ever afterwards, he was in habits of hearing mass daily,—of receiving the communion on all festivals,—of making frequent retreats,—of delivering some prisoners every year: he was the father of orphans, and the protector of the weak : he made considerable presents to several churches, chiefly to mark his veneration for the mystery of the eucharist. Amongst others, he gave a silver lamp, weighing two thousand pounds, to the Sisters of the Visita- tion, to burn night and day before the blessed sacrament. «¢ Happy captivity !’’ cried Fenelon, alluding to him in the discourse which he pronounced on entering the French Academy, ‘‘ Happy captivity ! salu- tary bonds! which reduced, under the yoke of faith, this mind, too long independent. During this period of leisure, he sought in tradition for arms to combat truth; but truth conquered him, and revealed itself to his soul, with all its charms. He left his prison, honoured with the esteem and graces of his King; but, what is much more, he left it, being already in his heart, a humble child of the Church.’”* Of the necessity for mourning in the spiritual life, men were well convinced in the ages of faith; but its source was far deeper and more mysterious than the mere present utility which resulted from it to the soul. ‘Augustin and Jerome belong to these latter ages of the world,”’ says a philosopher, in casting a glance over the history of the human mind. ‘One discovers in them an order of ideas, and a manner of thinking, unknown to antiquity. Christianity has made a cord to vibrate in their hearts which till then had been mute. It has created men of revery, of sadness, of disgust, of restlessness, who have no refuge but in eternity.’’—** The present life is sweet, and full of much pleasure ; * He wrote “ Réflexions sur les Différends de la Religion,” which Leibnitz pronounced an admirable work ; also, “ Traité de ’ Eucharistie,” in which Bossuet said, ** That char- ity was joined to truth, and that unction was added to light: it contained prayers, which he had composed for use during mass; which are so fine, that Father Judde can find none more suitable to insert in his book of instructions.” Tom. iii. 330. 184 MORES CATHOLICI; oR, yet not to all men, but to those only who are attached to it.” It js St. Chrysostom who speaks thus:—< For if any one were to look up to heaven, and contemplate what wondrous things are there, immediately he would despise this world, and esteem it of no value. ‘The beauty of bodies, so long as no greater beauty is discerned, excites admiration ; but if any thing more excellent were to appear, the former would be despised. And if we should wish to behold that beauty, and to consider the form of the celestial kingdom, we should thenceforth be loosed from the bonds of this world.”* «0 quam sordet terra,” cries @ great saint, ‘quando celum aspicio!”’ And so says St. Augustin, after conversing with his mother, Monica, at Ostia, on the beatitude of the saints in Heaven, «* Mundus iste nobis viluerat cum omnibus delectationibus suis.”"—“ The bonds of this world,’’ he Says, in another place, ‘‘ have a true asperity and a false sweetness, a sure grief, an uncertain pleasure, hard labour, timid rest, things full of misery, and a hope void of happi- ness.”’+ ‘Thus, «+ Not alone the creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, but also they who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan within them- selves, expecting the adoption of the sons of God 3’ t «He who does not mourn as a stranger,” says St. Augustin, « will never rejoice as a citizen.’’|_ The holy Church, in her prayer to God, says, that his peo- ple labour under continual tribulations.§ Let us proceed to inquire what were these tribulations which faith recognized as the legitimate source of a mourning that is blessed. In the first place, then, we are told, by writers of the middle ages, that when the soul is awakened to a sense of spiritual things, the mere contemplation of its fallen state is a worthy cause for sorrow and for profound mourning. Hear the words of St. Vincentius, in his celebrated tract on the contemplation of. God : —O Lord! thou art my God and my Lord; and I have never seen thee. Thou hast made and restored ime, and all that I possess of good, thou hast granted to me, and I have not yet known thee. For seeing thee I was created, and I have not fulfilled that for which I was created. O, miserable lot of man, when he lost that for which he was created ! O, hard and dire calamity! Alas! what lost he, and what found he? What departed, and what remained? He lost beatitude, for which he was made; and he found misery, for which he was not made. That departed, without which nothing is happy ; and that remained, which, of itself, is only wretchedness. Man used to eat the bread of angels, for which he now hungers ; and now he eats the bread of sorrow, of which he once knew nothing. Alas! the common grief of men, the universal woe of the children of Adam! driven from their sweet coun- try, from the pleasant light, from the vision of God, from the bliss of immortality into darkness, and the bitterness and horror of death, amerced of heaven, and from eternal splendours flung.”** Hear, again, how St. Bernard speaks, in his first Sermon on the Epiphany :— The benignity and humanity of God our Saviour hath appeared, thanks be to God, by whom thus abounds our consolation in this pilgrimage, in this exile, in this misery. For this end we are the more careful often to admonish you that you may never forget how you are pilgrims, far * Hom. ce. in Joan. Tt Epist. 30. + Rom. viii. | Tract. in Ps. 148. § 3d feria, Fourth Week in Lent. ** Tract. S. Vincentii ad contempl. Deum. AGES OF FAITH. 185 removed from your country, driven from your inheritance; for, whoever does not know desolation, cannot acknowledge comfort; whoever is ignorant that consolation is necessary, it remains that he be left without the grace of God. Hence it is that men, who are engaged in the occu- pations and crimes of the world, while they do not perceive their mis- ery, do not look for merey. But you, to whom it hath not been said in vain, ‘ Be still, and see how sweet is the Lord;’ and of whom the same Prophet says, ‘ He will announce the virtue of his works to his people,’ —you, I say, whom secular affairs do not detain, are able to know what is spiritual consolation: ‘ Hearken! you who have known exile, because assistance is come from Heaven: for the benignity and humanity of God our Saviour hath appeared.’ ’’—** There is a certain kind of tribu- lation,” says Louis of Blois, ‘which we ought to seek and find ; that which results from remembering that we are not as yet with God, that we are surrounded with temptations, that we cannot be without fear. He who does not experience this tribulation of his pilgrimage, thinks not about returning to his country.”’* «The weight of sin,” says a holy friar of the Seraphic Order of St. Francis, ‘is only felt when it is out of its centre. Water and earth are heavy; and yet, when they are in their proper place, they are both without weight. ‘Thus it is with sinners. ‘They are as joyous as if they had never done any thing but served God, and led a life of innocence. The reason is, that sin repo- ses in them as in its proper element; but let them forsake it, and then they will soon discover that its weight is intolerable.”+ Reason itself can discern this, as may be seen with Seneca, who puts this difference between the sickness of the body and that of the mind; that with respect to sickness of body, the greater it is the more painful ; but in diseases of the mind, the greater they are, the less they are felt and complained of.{ Then, indeed, deceitful is the calm, so deceitful the silence, that even 2 heathen philosopher says, that the guardian angels speak not to all souls; for when men struggle in the waves of the sea, those on the shore behold in silence as many as are at a distance from the land irremediably lost, but run and succour, with their hands and with their cries, as many as are approaching the land; so these minis- tering spirits suffer in silence such as are sinking afar off in the flood of wickedness, but sustain and guide to a happy port those who are strug- eling to practise virtue—That the first recovery from sin is attended by a sense of sorrow, is shown by St. Bernard, in language of wondrous sublimity :—‘‘ Lazarus is dead four days, and now stinketh. This answereth,” he continues, “to the state of sinners. The first day is that in which we die by sin, and are, as it were, buried in our con- sciences; the second represents that temptation of evil habits, and those fiery darts of the devil, which can scarcely be extinguished ; the third is, while we meditate on our past years, in bitterness of heart, and yet labour not so much to avoid future sins, as we deplore what we have already committed. ‘These are days of burial, days of clouds and dark- ness, days of sorrow and bitterness. Next follows the day of shame, not unlike the other three, when the wretched soul is covered with hor- rible confusion, while it considers what it hath lost, and revolves black ee eS Se i 5 ee * Tractat. in Ps. 49. + Le Sacré Mont d’Olivet. 136. t In Sentent. 186 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, images of sins before the eyes of its heart. In this State the soul dis- sembles nothing, but judges and aggravates all things, spares not itself, but is its own stern judge. Nevertheless, Lazarus, come forth ! Delay no longer in this abomination, in this despair, which is like putrefac- tion; Lazarus, come forth! abyss calls upon abyss. The abyss of light and mercy upon the abyss of misery and darkness. Lazarus, come forth !”* In no stage of the spiritual life was the mourning conse- quent upon the sense of sin excluded. Thus, Paschasius Radbert men- tions the soliloquy of his friend, the holy abbot Wala, who said, on one occasion, ‘¢ Why does he appear so sorrowful, as he walks alone ? Because he is with himself, and he discerns what is within himself; and therefore he has no joy excepting what springs from hope.’’f The infant new born is not exempt from sin. * Hence,”? says Ori- gen, “we find, in the sacred history, no personage of distinguished sanctity, who regarded the day of his birth as a day of festival and rejoicing.”’*t It was to complete the triumph of a birth-day feast, that the holy John the Baptist was martyred.|| Birth-days were not cele- brated in the middle ages, but men rejoiced on the festival of their respective patrons. The Church guided them in this judgment, for she did not rejoice on the day of man’s creation, which is the sixth. It soon became unhappy; ‘But admire the mystery,’’ adds Bossuet: ‘*the day when the first man, Adam, was created, is the same as that on which the new man, the new Adam, died upon the cross. It is, therefore, for the Church, a day of fasting and of mourning—a day which is followed by the sad repose of Jesus Christ in the sepulchre, and which, nevertheless, is full of consolation, by hope of a future res- urrection.”? The Church does not even celebrate the nativity of the saints. ‘What is this, brethren?” asks St. Augustin, alluding to St. Cyprian. ‘We know not when this saint was born, and yet we cele- brate his birth on this day, which was the day of his passion. But even if we did know the day of his birth, we would not celebrate it, for on that day he was born in sin.” These sentiments were universally adopted during the ages of faith. «The day of birth,’? says Michael Angelo, in a letter to Vasari, ‘fought not to be celebrated with festi- vals; they should be kept for the death of the man who has lived vir- tuously.”’ Protestantism was a soil in which every weed or plant of the ancient heathen life was able to revive and strike root, precisely because the supernatural influence of faith was withdrawn, and the observance of birth-days in the ancient style, on the anniversary of which men would render honours to Bacchus, like the Pagans,§ furnishes a remarkable example. Sometimes they would celebrate their birth-day as a reli- gious festival. Heriot, who founded a hospital at Edinburgh, in the Statutes of his foundation ordered his birth-day to be kept solemnly, and himself to be on that day commemorated in his chapel; and the minis- ter who officiated was to receive five pounds and a bible, which day the Presbyterians continued to celebrate, though they had abolished Christ’s EE ee it reel, emi en aliiy ibe age eames * In Asstimptione B. Marie, Serm. iv. { Vita ejus apud Mabill. Acta S. Ordinis Benedict. Secul. iv., pars. i. ; t Hom. Levit. viii. 3. | Matt. xiv. 6. § Eurip. Io. 1137. AGES OF FAITH, 187 birth-day, and the festivals of God’s saints. With the moderns, the associations of the natural were stronger than those of the supernatural life, or rather, the latter were entirely abandoned: and here we shall do well to remark the difference in regard to real cheerfulness between the festivities of the middle ages, and those of our times: the former were designed to commemorate a glorious and happy triumph, in which no image was seen but what had connection with life, and everlasting glad- ness; the latter to please men whose hopes extend not beyond the pres- ent life, where they place all their happiness, have for subject of rejoic- ing, an event which is fraught with the gloomy idea of change, of depar- ted youth, and of by-gone years, and of death approaching with rapid step, beyond which this pompous festivity of nature has nothing to promise. So true is it, that even the rejoicings of the world are full of its sadness and bitterness. But it was not only a sense of their own condition that could inspire men of spiritual life with mourning; a regard for the eternal lot of other men, and of humanity in general, would have conduced to itno less. ‘+ Consider the multitude and the greatness of the miseries which oppress children,” says St. Augustin, ‘‘and how the first years of their life are full of vanity and suffering, illusions, and fear. Then when they grow up, and begin to serve God, error tempts them to their seduction; labour and sorrow tempt to other discouragement ; concupiscence tempts them to inflame their passions ; pride tempts them to exalt themselves; and who can find words to represent the various pains which belong to the yoke of the children of Adam ;’’* hence another source of mourning to the just, in the consideration of the evils which are in the world, and of the obstacles which the perverse wills of men present to the beneficent designs of God. “Signa tua in fron- tibus virorum lugentium,’”? says Ezechiel. «See how good it is to mourn for evils,’’ adds St. Odo, of Cluny, “since it makes men worthy of receiving the stigmata of the cross.”’t ‘The soul of a true Christ- ian,’ says Louis of Blois, ‘ought, after the example of Jesus Christ, to feel a profound sadness in considering the great number of men who not only do not honour God, but whose impiety despises him, and who lose themselves by sin. How is it possible without grief to behold the ruin of such noble creatures ?’’{ “*O ye misguided souls! Infatuate, who from such a good estrange Your hearts, and bend your gaze on vanity, Alas for you !”’|| And here I am tempted to borrow a similitude from history, which may place this matter in a stronger light than could be derived from mere discourse of reason; for what must have been the desolation of those few Syracusans, who, as Thucydides relates, believed Hermocrates, and feared for the future, when all the rest of the people were divided, some affirming that the Athenians would in no manner come, and that what was said could not be true; and others, that if they did come it would be to their own greater loss; and others, wholly despising the news, turned the matter to a jest and laughter.§ We have here an * S. Augustini cont. Julian. lib. iv. 16. + S. Odonis Collat. lib. ii. Bibliothec. Cluniac. + Institut. Spiritual. cap. vi. | Dante, Parad. ix. § Lib. vi. 35. 188 MORES CATHOLICI; or, emblem of what passes in the world at all times with regard to the pre- dicted vengeance of Heaven; and can it be strange that the insensibility of the majority of men, should fill the hearts of the prudent with mourn- ing and dismay? How can they not mourn when they behold men at variance with the truth, who, as Dante says,— “ Dream, though their eyes be open; reckless some Of error: others well aware they err, To whom more guilt and shame are justly due. Each the known track of sage philosophy Deserts, and has a by-way of his own: So much the restless eagerness to shine And love of singularity prevail.” * Alas, in every age the desolation caused by heresy has afflicted the hearts of the faithful. In the fifth century, we are told that so great and innumerable were the horrors of heresy, that not only it was difficult to enumerate, but that it was disgusting to name them. ‘The subtlety of diabolic fraud had so immerged them in the sense of those who per- ish, that even heretics believed that they had their heretics. Thus men abandoned apostolical tradition, and followed masters of perfidy.t If this were true in the fifth age, what must have been the mourning in that which beheld the commencement of the last great schism, when Christ’s holy Church, her divine faith, and her tremendous mysteries, were in so many places « disglorified, blasphemed, and had in scorn by the rebellious rout amidst their wine 2?” ‘“«'Pruly,”’ says the mild and humble Louis of Blois, «« when I consider the arrogance and impiety of the heretics of our age, I can scarcely refrain from tears: for they will not obey the Church; they refuse to be subject to its superiors ; they esteem as nothing the primacy of the chief Pontiff, who is the supreme vicar of Christ ; they petulantly insult the Apostolic See: followers of a monstrous confusion, and revilers of the divine ordination, they wish the visible Church to be without a visible head on earth; they abolish and deride the solitary sacramental confession; heaps of blasphemies against the sacred eucharist, that fountain of divine love and of all good, and against that celestial sacrifice of the mass, I say against that mys- tery of ineffable dignity, they produce with a barbaric and pagan irrey- erence.’’{ To make no mention as yet of those persecutions, which must be spoken of in reference to a different beatitude from what we are now considering, sorrow was unavoidable on a view of the injury inflicted on the Church by the conduct of false disciples. Alas! there has been no age in which this was not a fruitful source of mourning to the just. ‘‘ We have internal as well as external combats,” says St. Boniface, writing to the bishop Daniel, describing his missionary Jabours in Sax- ony, ‘‘as when some priest or deacon of the Church departs from the faith and from truth. Tune deinde prorumpit cum paganis in contu- melias filiorum Ecclesia, et est obstaculum horrendum evangelio gloria Christi.”’|| St. Francis Xavier found that the greatest obstacle to the * Parad. xxix. T Consultatio Zachei Christiani et Apollonii Philosophi, lib. xi. cap. 11. Apud Dacherii Spicileg. tom. x. t Ludovic. Blosii Collyr. Hereticorum, lib. ii. cap. I. | S. Bonif. Mart. et Archiep. Epist. iii. AGES OF FAITH. 189 establishment of the faith in the great kingdoms of Asia, came from the Christians themselves—those false, worldly-wise Christians, who pro- test against fanaticism.* ‘The love of gain induced some of the richest Portuguese merchants at Sancian to put a stop to the intended voyage of St. Francis Xavier to China—for they said that no doubt the governor of Canton would revenge his boldness upon them by seizing their ships and goods.t Wherever there wereeminent piety and service, there was reason to expect the enmity and attacks of men professing virtue, who would argue upon the dangers of excess of zeal. A fearful example of this fact is attested on the sides of the Rocky Hall, which served for refectory to the monks of St. Benedict at San Cosimato, where is paint- ed the miraculous preservation of the blessed Father St. Benedict from poison. There are always persons to whom the common dictates of piety seem like the ravings of fanaticism. Catharine de Medicis termed it bigotry to desire that the theatres should be closed in Lent.{. Plato says that if a man judges well, he will be of opinion that there are few men very good or very wicked, rods d& perakd waeizrovs.|| No doubt, this continued to be the case even in happier times; and it is no less cer- tain, that from those persons who profess and desire to remain in a me- dium state, the most afflicting embarrassments proceed, which present obstacles to the advancement of truth, the extension of happiness, and the greater glory of God. According to the circumstances of men does the enemy lay his snares; and thus he labours to inspire those who are within the pale,—where none perish by a false belief,—with a secret hate and disrelish for their own brethren, and with a corresponding ineli- nation to esteem their adversaries. St. Peter the Venerable, the fourth abbot of Cluny, was accused by some of the monks of Clairvaux of not following the rule to which he was bound,—of composing laws himself, and of casting aside the precepts of the Fathers,—of breaking the vows which he had made to St. Benedict, and of despising the authority of Bishops in the government of his abbey,—of being too severe and too merciful. Without looking farther into this dark volume, methinks here was enough to make many say with Hesiod, that it would be bet- ter to die than to have lived to know of such things. Moreover, if we reflect upon the influence of the Catholic religion upon the human mind, and upon the new relation in which it places men with regard to the events and circumstances of the world, we shall easily understand why Catholics, even during the ages of greatest faith, should have mourned more than other men: for, being imbued by their divine religion with the principles and the love of order, they necessa- rily feel more intensely the disorders introduced by sin into human soci- ety. Having the knowledge of truth, the prevalence of error,—which they know to be such,—must unavoidably fill them with more afflic- tion; and having to maintain positive principles, which are unceasingly attacked by the power of darkness, their life, in an intellectual as well as in a moral sense, becomes a continued combat. The moderns, on the other hand, from being imbued with no principles or love of order, are consequently indifferent to the reign of confusion and disorder. Having a * Bouhours, Vie de S, F. X. I. 138. + Id. ii. 8. $ Journal de Hen. III. 3. p. 180. _ | Pheedo. § S, Pet. Ven. Epist. lib. i. 28. 190 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, no certain apprehension of truth, they are not grieved at the support which is given to a thousand errors, all of which, for any thing they know to the contrary, may be truths, since, from their own highest authority, there may be always an appeal to the suggestions of every man’s own mind; and, having no decided ground to maintain, it matters little to them what principles men choose to attack, for they feel an interest in none. They can immediately shift their position as an Opponent advances, for they place their glory in believing that there may be equal truth in opposite systems,—so they stretch out their hands to all fraternal nullities, and lay claim to the favour of all men alike. Hu- manly speaking, therefore, they have fewer intellectual causes for mourning than those of the faithful fold; who cannot but feel disorder and recognise error, and stand to meet the enemy, whose momentary victories they can never celebrate as their own. If to this consideration we add the effects of the new relation in which Catholicism places many men with regard to the circumstances of the world, we shall dis- cern still further reason for the mourning of the just. Ah! how must he mourn, in lands which heresy has devastated, whose eyes are sud- denly awakened to the divine light of heavenly truth, enabling him to judge rightly for the first time of the character of past events, which before, perhaps, had been the theme of his pride and rejoicing. When led by grace divine to hear the old instructors, their sanctity so wins upon him, that while kings and penal laws pursue them, he mixes his tears with their’s, and has thence no desire left on earth but still to suc- cour them. What must be his bitterness, to whom the accumulated woes and horrors of more than three centuries are presented suddenly, in all their nakedness and terror! In an instant, all that ideal of beauty and excellence, which his mind had so long nourished, perishes, and he beholds in its place revealed the secrets of Heaven’s vengeance. ‘‘ Wretched man !”’ with hand against his breast he cries, **in what blindness hast thou hitherto lived! The friends and martyrs of God thou didst esteem fools, and their life and death without honour; the cruel persecutors, the unjust judges, the base and hypocritical ministers of tyranny, have had all thy esteem: the sorrows of the just have been unknown to thee ; their holy discipline thou didst despise. Alas! thou hast misconstrued every thing. Who then can wonder at thy tears and desolation? the burden of many ages on thee light at once, by thy retro- spect reviving to torment thee with the thought that they have been”? With regard to themselves, too assuredly such men are not long in discovering, that there is a woe reserved which will affect them person- ally in the nearest and dearest affections of their heart; for, from the hour that they declare openly for the Church of Christ in Opposition to the profane city and to the innumerable sects of false religions which are made subservient to its interests, calumny, suspicion deep, and hatred, will be directed against them. They are but just converted ; and see already how their ancient friend, perhaps their brother, doth begin to make them Strangers to his looks of love. «+ Extraneus factus sum fratribus meis,’? we may hear them mournfully sing ; ‘‘ et peregri- uus filiis matris mez.’”* There will not be wanting, perhaps, even in * Psalm Ixviii. AGES OF FAITH. 191 the circle of those who once appeared most to esteem them, persons grave and seeming holy, who will traduce them in the minds of men, “« Blighting their life in best of its career, Branding their thoughts as things to shun and fear.” Moreover, to Catholics, who desire that the glory of the Creator should be extended over the whole earth, and who feel for the calamities of the most distant members of the city of God as intensely as for those of the persons nearest to them, the course of human events of itself presents a more tragic and melancholy aspect than to inconsiderate and selfish men, who care for nothing but what immediately concerns their own interest. What an affecting description do we find in the chroni- cles of the middle ages, of the mourning in which all Europe was plunged, whenever any calamitous intelligence came from the East! It was in the reign of Henry VI. that the news arrived at Crowland Abbey of the fall of Constantinople, that most celebrated Christian city. ‘* Woe to us Christians who have sinned,” exclaims upon this occasion the monk of Crowland. ‘Why, O Lord, were we born to behold with weeping eyes the desolation of our people and the affliction of our sacred religion? ‘The patriarchal seats, worthy of such veneration,— Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem,—are oppressed with the yoke of slavery or occupied by Saracens and Turks. Chris- tianity is reduced as if into an angle of the world!”’* The fall of Jeru- salem, the profanation of the holy city, the loss of the holy sepulchre, the sufferings of the chivalry of Palestine, the calamities to which all the Christians of the East would be subject,—these were reflections which turned into houses of mourning every castle and every cottage in France and England. «Vox turturis, vox doloris et gemitus fines Chris- tianorum usque ad mundi ultima Jamentabili novitate rumoris perculit,”’ says Godfrey the monk.t When to this common grief was added the pastoral solicitude for the Church, the mourning exceeded the endurance of mortals. Pope Urban III. died of grief on hearing at Ferrara of the fall of Jerusalem. Nicholas V. never recovered from the melancholy which seized him on hearing of the capture of Constantinople by the Turks; and Clement IX. died of grief in consequence of the capture of Candia by the infidels. But we have not yet glanced at the most mysterious and yet most general cause for the mourning of the devout heart during the ages of faith. The master of the sentences says of holy men, ‘“ that in con- templating the great event of the death of Christ, they both rejoice and mourn. ‘De eodem ergo letabantur et tristabantur.’ ”’f «‘ Religion,’ says a philosopher, ‘“ involves infinite mourning. In order to love God, (he means not with love of preference, but with affection) he must require help. How wondrously is this problem solved in Christianity !’’|| Hear how St. Theresa speaks : «The pains of death have encompassed me,” said the royal prophet, speaking in the name of Christ, ‘«O what a dreadful evil is sin, when it can cause such pain and even death toa God! Christians, now you are called a * Hist. Croylandensis, 529, in Rerum Anglicarum Scriptor. tom. 1 + Godefrid. Monach. ap. Freher. Script. tom. i. p. 250. { Petri Lomb. lib. i. Distinct. xlviii. | Novalis Schriften ii. 305. 192 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, upon to fight in defence of your King. Now you must follow him in this great desertion. There remains to him but a very small number of subjects, and the crowd follows the standard of Satan; and some who wish to be styled his friends in public, betray him in secret, and there is hardly any one left in whom he can perfectly confide! O thou only true friend, what ingratitude in him who betrays thee! O ye who are true Christians, weep with your God: the tears which he shed were not for Lazarus alone; but also for all those whom he foresaw would refuse to rise when he should ery to them with a loud voice commanding them to come forth from the tomb.’’* Here then was a source of mourning in comparison with which all other afflictions were unworthy of men- tion; for, “Upon such a shrine, What are our petty griefs? Let no man number his.” ‘Suffer me to be an imitator of the passion of my God,”’ says St. Ignatius the Martyr in his epistle to the Romans. What an amazing and sublime rule is that which St. Bonaventura proposes as the first fruit of meditating on the passion of Christ, that the highest and most perfect religion, the rule of all perfection of life and virtue, consists in imitating the passion and death of Christ, and endeavouring to be conformable to him in all his sufferings.t «* Abhorreo videre cor meum non vulnera- tum,”’ saith he, ‘‘ cum videam te Salvatorem sic pro me vilissime cruci afixum. Nolo enim, Domine, sine vulnere vivere, quia te video vulne- ratum.’’t So the Church prays, ‘ that we who celebrate the mysteries of our Lord’s passion may imitate what we commemorate.’’|| ‘* The ascent of the soul by wisdom from the passion is in this manner,”’ says St. Bonaventura, ‘‘ when a man considers that most. blessed passion which I am not worthy to name, in which He of almighty power was trampled upon for us, He, of infinite wisdom, treated as a fool, and He, the best and highest, filled with bitterness and condemned to a shameful death, from this the mind rises to an admiration of such divine condescension and benignity; and then, when it masticates that passion of its Lord Jesus, all the ardour of its love begins to be directed towards him ; it feels a taste of a certain ineffable sweetness, and its appetite is, as it were, appeased with bitterness. The whole interior of man is thus alienated from itself, and rests in Christ. O mira et a seculis res inau- dita! In ineffabili amaritudine, dulcor indicibilis reperitur.§ Nay,” continues this seraphic doctor, «in mourning, men fulfill all the virtues to which beatitude is promised.”>—< The splendour of the beatitudes shines forth in the blessed passion of our Lord, which is properly their fountain and origin. For who is poor in spirit unless Christ naked upon the cross? Who is meek unless he who was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and who, as a lamb, opened not his mouth? Who mourns, unless he who, with a great cry and tears, offered up supplications for his enemies, who lamented for our sins, and had compassion on our miseries ? Who hungered and thirsted after justice unless Christ upon the cross, satisfying for our sins and thirsting after the salvation of ee! eee * Exclamat. x. tS. Bonaventur. Stimul. Amoris. pars. i. cap. 4. + Id. cap. 2. || Secret. 2d Septemb. § Stim. Amoris, pars i. cap. 7. AGES OF FAITH. 193 souls?) Who is merciful unless that Samaritan who bore our infirmities upon his own body? Where is cleanness of heart seen unless in him who cleansed our hearts with his precious blood? Who is pacific, unless he who is our peace, and hath reconciled us to God in his blood? Who suffers persecution for sake of justice, unless he who was cruci- fied by the Jews, against whom men blasphemed and bore lying testi- mony ?’’* The writers of the middle ages say, ‘‘ that the heart which loves God is overwhelmed with affliction at the thought of having ever preferred the vain joys of the world to the sweetness of present sorrow, that it mourns and despises itself for having ceased to mourn, that it mourns for having left the cross to go to the house of merriment. ‘True,”’ say they, ‘‘ our sweet adorable Lord went to grace with his presence the marriage feast: he would even contribute to its hilarity and assist the poverty of the bridegroom; but all the while he knew that he him- self was advancing to his passion; that his repose was to be the bloody cross, and his feast the vinegar and gall. O divine Jesus! how hard is it for one who loves thee to seek for joy. It is permitted him. Yes, thou smilest upon his youth and biddest him’ be happy and holy ; but ah! he would follow thee to that dread garden where thou wert be- trayed, he would follow thee to weep and knock the breast, and to kiss thy bleeding wounds; he would remain at thy sepulchre weeping with the holy women. My sweet adorable Saviour is in agony, and do you bid me join the rout of revellers? he is betrayed and condemned, and do you bid me rejoice with the world which rejected him? O no; better is it to remain apart and pour forth pitying tears with holy Mary, the queen of heaven and mistress of the world, who stood by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, full of sadness! Happy senses of the blessed Virgin Mary,” exclaims the Church, ‘“ which, without dying, deserved the palm of martyrdom beneath the cross of our Lord.”’t Ah suffer me to mourn with her, tear me not away from this cross, from this tomb: “Eia mater, fons amoris, me sentire vim doloris: Fac ut tecum lugeam. Fac me vere tecum flere, crucifixo condolere Donec ego vixero.” Wounded with these strokes, inebriated with this blood, may I be guarded by the cross, and delivered by the death of Christ. ‘‘ Perish the joys that would separate me from those who mourn; per- ish the honours, the triumph, that would require smiles not tears, rejoic- ing, not mourning. Ah, for a little while I was enticed to join the mirth- ful crew, and my soul was filled with a different kind of bitterness. It seemed as if I had been condemned to mourn no more with the just, con- demned never more to make one of those who sing the pathetic ‘ stabat mater,”’ the ‘‘ inviolata,” or ‘salve Regina,”’ or ‘ vexilla Regis,” and that seemed equivalent to the sadness and the whole weight of sin and death. O with what transport did I hail my first sweet returning tears ; and how was my spirit dissolved in an ecstacy of delight, when I found that I might become again a mourner, and lose the memory of ungrateful joy. * Stim. Amoris, pars i. cap. 8. + Commun. fest. of the 7 dolours. Vou. I.—25 R 194 MORES CATHOLIC; oR, Flow fast my tears, flow fast for my having wished to banish ye, for my having forgotten and betrayed my infant Saviour, my despised Sav- iour, my crucified Saviour. What joy is comparable to the sweetness of these tears! Certainly not the world’s joy; not for all that it can offer would I ever again exchange them. Only Paradise, only the blessed face of Christ, only the ineffable beatific vision of God in his eternal glory can make my soul forget them.”’ They are the expres- sions of mourners, but the foretaste of heaven; belonging to earth, but never to be wiped from the eyes of those who aspire after innocence, till the day of glory comes, that day of joy which shall never end. Here we are naturally directed to inquire respecting those penitential exercises of which we find such repeated mention in the history of the ages of faith; for we must already have touched at the source from which they sprung, and this is a subject which belongs intimately to the his- tory of ancient manners. CHAPTER IV. Tuar the spirit of mortification, of self-sacrifice, and of penance be- longed to the mourning of the faithful, is manifest from what has been already seen respecting the order of their life and the natural desire of their hearts; but independent of incidental causes, it was of necessity characteristic of the Christian discipline, in consequence of the express requisition of God, and of the positive advantages which resulted from it in the progress to spiritual perfection. 'The words of Christ admitted of no exceptions, ‘‘ Abneget semetipsum, et tollat crucem suam quoti- die.”’* ‘* What is the question,” asks Tertullian, «you are anxious to know—if your penance will be useful to you or not before God? What does it matter? God commands you to do it; is not that enough to oblige you to obey him? When there should be nothing but the respect which is due to his authority, he deserves that you should have regard to him in preference to your own utility.”*+ The command is without exception. ‘The vessel of election was not dispensed from this law, and hence we read ‘‘Castigo corpus meum.’’{ David who sinned had no escape, though he was the man after God’s own heart. It was penance which rendered him so, as St. Ambrose intimates. ‘* Peccavit David,” says he, ‘quod solent Reges: sed penitentiam gessit, flevit, ingemuit, quod non solent Reges.”’|| Cause some find for doubt in that the Pagans _ have been known to practise austerities with the view of appeasing their deities ; but reason and tradition have enabled men in all ages to discern some truths, and if the consent of philosophers were a proof against a SS? Tiueix 23: t De Peenitent. { Epist. ad Corinth. i. cap. 9. | Lib. de Apolog. David. AGES OF FAITH. 195 practice or a doctrine, there would be few points of Christian discipline, or faith secure. Besides there is a wide distinction to be observed here. There have been superstitions among the heathens, which induced their votaries to practise mortifications beyond which human nature cannot attain; but as Bourdaloue remarks, ‘the difference between Christians and the followers of Pagan severity consisted in this, that while these men mortified their flesh, they abandoned their minds to all the impulses of passion. Whereas the mortification of Christians was chiefly that of the heart, as a means to reform and purify it.”’** Otherwise, it was of no avail, insomuch that in relation to men who were truly contrite or truly inflamed with the love of God, the opinion of Fichte, at least in one sense, was correct, that for them there was no longer any self-de- nial; no longer any sacrifices; for the self which is to be denied, the objects which are to be sacrificed, have been removed from their sphere of vision, and enstranged from their affections. ‘This denial, these sacrifices, can only excite wonder in those who continue to value the objects of them, and who have not yet given them up; when once they are given up, they vanish into nothing, and we find that we have lost nothing. ‘he holy Fathers universally maintain the vanity of all corporal austerities, unless the mind and heart be cor- rected. with ‘«‘ Beware,” says St. Jerome, ‘lest your fasts become a source of pride. You fast, and ill-humour makes you insupportable : another does not fast, and he is gentle to all the world. You lose by your vices the fruit of your mortification.”’t In what used to be styled the dark ages, St. Columban reminds his monks of the same distinction. ‘Do not suppose,” saith he, ‘that it is enough to fatigue the dust of our bodies with fasts and watchings, if we do not also reform our manners. To macerate the flesh, if the soul does not fructify, is to till the ground without ceasing, and never to reap fruit from it. What signifies it to carry on a distant war, if the interior be a prey to ruin? A religion, all of gestures and movements of the body, is vain. The suffering of the body alone is vain; the care which man takes of his exterior is vain, if he do not also watch and preserve his soul. ‘True piety consists in humility, not of the body, but of the heart. It is not enough to speak and read about virtues. Is it with words alone that a man cleanseth his house of filth? Can any work be accomplished without labour? Gird up your loins, then, and never cease to combat.’’{ Besides, after all, it is quite clear that the Christian spirit of self-sacrifice was unknown to the Pagans, and in vain shall we look for it in the scenes which recall the most renowned deeds of their heroic devotion. When we are led to expect an instance of this pure and noble spirit, it is rather a calcula- tion of evils, and the choice of the least, which gives rise to the appar- ent offering. ‘Thus, it is not until after a long examination of the indig- nities which await her, if she continue to live, that Macharia, in Eurip- ides, resolves to embrace death. It is better to die, she concludes, than to suffer such things;|| and, in like manner, in the Iphigenia, in Aulis, the spirit of the victim is completely opposite to that of sacrifice in the * Serm. sur la Sévérité Chrétienne. +S. Hieronym. Epist. ad Eustoch Virg. j S. Instit. ii. Bibliothec. Patrum, tom, xii. cap. 10. | Heraclid. 524. 196 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, Christian sense. ‘* What is the marriage of Paris and Helen to me? It is the sweetest of all things to behold the light’? — palveres bd”, O¢ eu eres Save’ nance Civ ueciooov, i Savely xeace.* So also Polyzena consents to die; but it is because she perceives that longer life would not be to her advantage, since she has lost the dignity of her ancestral rank, and all her hopes of being married to a king, since she is now a slave, a humiliation to which she is not accustomed, and in her situation it is a much more happy thing to die than to live, for to live not in honour is the greatest misery.t The Antigona, of Sophocles, presents, indeed, an instance of very high sentiment, but then it is mixed with hatred and contempt for the unjust decree of the tyrant, who has presumed to meddle in what concerns him not, the discharge of her do- mestic duties.{ But, say the Protestants, is not the indulgence in the spirit of sacrifice and mortification, and is not the whole doctrine of pen- ance an injury to the atonement, and a rejection of the grace of God? And besides this, surely, to use the words of Fichte, «* The voice of phi- losophy does not call upon us to mortify ourselves: O, no; it calls upon us to cast away that which affords no enjoyment; that when we have done so, that which is a teeming source of endless enjoyment, may come and take possession of our souls?’ The voice of philosophy, to reply in brief, has, no doubt, often pronounced things very sweet in compari- son with the bitterness of truth. Its error here does not consist in an over fine spinning of truth. It is essentially an error. The voice of God, whatever that of philosophy may say, calls upon men to mortify their corrupt nature upon earth, and to take up their cross daily; and, with respect to the theological arcument, it is quite a sufficient answer, that, if it were valid, Christ himself would not have required self-mortifi- cation in the words above cited, nor would his Apostles have practised it. It would be more to the purpose to inquire respecting what has been transmitted by the voice of the ancient Fathers, than concerning the affirmations of philosophy ; though Calvin might say, “he was not moved by what was every where found in the writings of the ancients on satisfaction.”’|| «* Dominus orandus est,”? says St. Cyprian, ‘‘Domi- nus nostra satisfactione placandus est. Qui sic Deo satisfecerit—letam faciet ecclesiam, nec jam solam Dei veniam merebitur, sed coronam,’’§ To the like effect speak Tertullian, St. Ambrose, and all the holy fath- ers, as may be seen at length in Sardagna, or any other dogmatical the- ologian.** St. Augustin expressly says, ‘* That it is not sufficient to change our manners for the better, and to depart from evil, unless we satisfy God, by penance, for the things which we have done, by the sac- rifice of a contrite heart, with alms co-operating.”’tf That man should be called to suffer, does not derogate, as the modern sects pretend, from the merits of Christ, in whom, as the Council of Trent observes, is all our glory, and in whom we satisfy God’s justice.”+t Though original sin has been remitted, man still suffers temporal death. Do they think it would be fair to conclude, from this fact, that the satisfaction of Christ was not full and abundant? Mortal sin is forgiven, and yet temporal * 1237, + Hecuba, 340. t 48, || Instit. lib. iii. c. 4. § 38. § Tract. de Lapsis. ** Tom. viii. tt Serm. cccli. ++ Sess. xiv. cap. 8. AGES OF FAITH. 197 penalty is exacted by God. Adam was pardoned, and yet condemned to die. Moses and Aaron were pardoned,* and yet punished, by not being permitted to enter the land of promise. David was pardoned,t and yet to punish him his son was condemned to die. St. Augustin draws the conclusion ;{ and the holy fathers, on similar ground, press the necessity for penance, to avert the punishment of God.|| Remission of temporal punishment is gratuitous, although man is to give satisfac- tion, because it is the free gift of God which enables his works to be sat- isfactory through Christ, and because these works are themselves the fruit of Divine grace. Our satisfactions are the means by which the price of redemption is applied to us; and this is a point which ought to present no difficulties to the Protestants, who admit that, without faith, the merits of Christ are not applied, although their value is independent of it. All theologians firmly believed, and clearly taught, that the satisfac- tion of Christ was sufficient, as far as price, to expiate all the sins of men, and that the private works of satisfaction were not required to sup- ply any defect in that price, but on account of the reasons thus explained by the Council of Trent:—*‘«It becomes the Divine clemency, that our sins should not be remitted to us without some satisfaction ; lest, taking occasion from lighter sins, we should fall into greater, becoming contu- melious to the Holy Spirit, treasuring up wrath to ourselves against the day of wrath. Without doubt, these satisfactory penalties recall men powerfully from sin, restrain them as if with a bridle, and make them more cautious and vigilant ; heal the wounds of former sins, and of for- mer vicious habits. In addition to this, by suffering for sin, we are made conformable to Jesus Christ, who satisfied for us—ex quo omnis nostra sufficientia est; and we have a pledge, that if we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified along with him.’’§ St. Ambrose says, ‘¢ That he has heard of persons who deny the merit of abstinence and fasting, and conti- nence,’’ whom he refutes, by reminding them of the sentences of St. Paul; and then he adds, ‘ Qui non castigant corpus suum, et volunt predicare aliis, ipsi reprobi habentur.’’*** The advantages derived from mortifica- tion of the senses, were clearly discerned during the ages of faith. ‘The wisdom of God explains why mortification should be good for man— ‘‘Quoniam in igne probatur aurum et argentum, homines vero acceptabiles in camino humiliationis.”’tt There is a pain which purges and purifies, and a pain which consumes and devours: this last is the portion of the wicked. Pain, without penance, is the fire of hell. ‘‘ Woe to the here- tics,’ cries St. Ephrem, ‘‘ who say there is no such thing as penance. They deserve to be likened to those insane men who say there is no God; for to say that there is no God, or to annihilate his mercy by saying that there are no remedies able to cure the wounds of weak unassisted men, are one and the same thing. On the other hand, I grant to you, that there is no such thing as penance; but I mean for those who abuse * Num. 20. t Reg. 12, 13. tin Ps. fo || Tertull. de Peenitent. 4. 8. Cyprian. de Lapsis. St. Jerome in Joelem. 8S. Chry- sostom. Hom 41. ad. pap. Antioch. § Vide La Hogue Tractat. de Incarnatione, 92. Sardagna de Satisfactione. Theo- log. tom. viii. p. 217. ** Epist. lib. x. 82. tt Ecclus. c. 2. 5 R 2 198 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, penance, that they may sin, for this is to mock God.”’* «O divine clem- ency,’’ exclaims Basil, bishop of Seleucia, “to what a dignity does peni- tence attain! Men weep and God is changed; mortals lament, and the immortal decree is cancelled !”+ The reason of the early philosophers and the judgment of the ancients generally, pointed out to them the advantages of mortification. The Pythagoreans observed abstinence from flesh as conducive to purity of mind, health of body, and prompti- tude of understanding.t Aurelian, the Emperor, ascribed his constant health to a custom of abstaining one day in every month from food and drink. Augustus Cesar was remarkable for his abstinence, as Sueto- nius relates. Plato adopted an austere life. Hermodius arrived at the age of an hundred, Democritus and Hippocrates at that of an hundred and five, by a life of abstinence. Drexelius mentions, as among the many fruits of fasting, «« The rendering serene all the senses, external and internal ;”’ || so the Church, in her prayer at the beginning of Lent, speaks of ‘* This solemn fast, which is a wholesome institution, to heal both our souls and bodies.” In the primitive Church, fasts were enti- tled stations. ‘Our fasts are camps to us,” says St. Ambrose, ‘‘ which defend us from diabolic attacks ; and they are called stations, because, standing in them, we repel our enemy.’ How remarkable are the fol- lowing words of the sacred text, “ Jejunium nescit foeneratorem, non sortem fceneris novit: non redolet usuras mensa jejunantium.’’§ In the history of the middle ages, we have this sentence illustrated ; for it was not so common then, as in modern times, to witness the fall and ruin of ancient and noble houses, to hear of their being stript of their ancestral domains, or become the spoil of usurers. The spirit of the Catholic discipline, which they observed, was unacquainted with the terms mort- gage and interest ; and we find, in consequence, that patrimonial estates were retained through a long succession of ages. St. Basil the Great, says, ‘That all the saints have rendered their lives worthy by fasting.’’** All the most holy and approved persons that we read of in the sacred pages, Moses, Elias, Juditha, Esther, Sarah, Job, Tobias, Esdras, David, Ezekiel, are expressly recorded to have fasted. Daniel fed on pulse, and wisdom gained. In the new law, our Saviour Christ set us an example. St. Paul, Barnabas, Simon, Lucius, and other followers of Paul, were in many fastings. St. Gregory Nazianzen says, ** That St. Peter almost always fasted, and ate only beans.’’ St. Matthew, as St. Clemens Alexandrinus testifies, lived upon herbs and roots. It is recorded of St. James the Greater, of St. James the Less, Bishop of Jerusalem, and of St. John, that they always abstained from flesh meat. Honey and locusts were the food of the Precursor in the Wilderness ; and Hegesippus relates, «*’That the first Christians were taught to ab- Stain, by the blessed Mare Pontif, of Alexandria.” Passing on to later ages, we find Theodosius the Younger accustoming himself to fast twice every week, and to abstain from wine in Lent, Charlemagne fasting even to the risk of injuring his health, Otho the Great, making his whole army observe a fast, before giving battle to the Hungarians, Lothaire, King of ringette POR lle i * S. Ephrem. Tractat. de Posnitentia. t Basil Sentent. or 12. + Jamblic. de Pathagoric. Vita, cap. 16. || Hier. Drexelius de Jejunio, lib. ii. cap. 5. § Judith, cap. 1, 2. ** De Laude Jejunii. AGES OF FAITH. 199 the Franks, continuing to observe a fast during a dangerous illness, and the Emperor Ferdinand I. adopting a rule of great abstinence after the death of his excellent wife. Of the abstinence and self-control of Ro- dolph the Emperor, history relates an heroic instance; for being on an expedition with his army, and oppressed with thirst, a vessel of water, which a peasant was carrying, was immediately seized upon, and brought to him as a great treasure; but he ordered it to be restored to the peasant, untouched, saying, ‘‘I thirst not for myself, but for my army.’’* In a future place, when I shall come to speak of the festivals and sea- sons of the Church, it will be necessary to return to this subject, and describe at more length, the manners of the middle ages, in relation to the ecclesiastical law of fasting and abstinence. Solemn public pen- ance, instituted on occasion of the Novatian heresy, which accused the Church of being too indulgent in receiving back sinners, was abrogated earlier in the Greek than in the Western Church. In the latter, it ceas- ed with the seventh century, when alms, pilgrimages, and confinement in monasteries, were substituted for it, which alteration is, by some, ascribed to Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was a Greek. The ancient severity, however, did not begin to be relaxed until after the eleventh century. In the times of greatest fervour, the discipline of the Church respecting the greatness and duration of penance was never invariable. Each age, each province, had its customs. In one place, public penance was reserved for very few crimes; in another it was required for a greater number. ‘The same sins were not punished with equal rigour, but much depended upon the local judicature. Uni- versally, however, the fundamental parts of penance were the same; so that the objection advanced by heretics, against the use of the word pen- ance, is a mere quarrel about words. ‘That a change of mind was requisite, every one knew without having studied Greek, or heard their pedantic eloquence. The first thing required in penance was the ordination of the mind to God: but, says St. Thomas, ‘‘the mind cannot duly be converted to God without charity.’’*t And elsewhere he says, ‘* Omnes virtutes par- ticipant aliquid de charitate.”’{ And St. Benard says, ‘‘ Charity con- verts the soul.’’|| Hence, St. Augustin says, that unless the Holy Spirit should make man a lover of God, he will not be transferred from the left hand to the right.§ It would require but a slight acquaintance with the history of religion to be able to detect the error of those modern writers, who, speaking of such men as the Count of Anjou, apply the term ‘‘miserable’’ to the penitents of the middle ages. If penitents,— in the sense in which the word was then used,—no men were less mis- erable. Assuredly it was not an unhappy state for man, born the child of wrath, and fallen from baptismal innocence, to be dismissed from the sacred tribunals as were Adam and Eve from Paradise, “Sent forth, though sorrowing, yet in peace.” It was in allusion to spirits far more grievously afflicted, though resembling these penitents of earth, that the great poet of the ages of faith exclaimed, * Drexelius de Jejunio, lib. i. c. 3. + Lib. iv. cont. Gentes, cap. 72. t In iii. Dist. 26. art. 2. | De diligendo Deo, 12. § De Trinitate, lib. xv, 18. 200 MORES CATHOLICI; OR “O spirits! secure, Whene’er the time may be, of peaceful end !””* And of whom he elsewhere says, “‘ He show’d me many others, one by one: And all, as they were nam’d, seem’d well content, For no dark gesture I discern’d in any.”’+ In the air and countenance of one of these penitents of the middle ages, if suddenly one of them could be introduced into a circle of the most refined modern society, there would be nothing to strike the atten- tion as remarkable, excepting, perhaps, a more than ordinary gentleness and dignity. Hear how St. Jerome describes Asella: ‘‘ Nothing can be milder than her severity, nothing more severe than her mildness; nothing more melancholy than her sweetness, nothing sweeter than her melancholy. Her figure denotes mortification without the least parade ; her words are like silence, and her silence has words: her exterior is always the same; her dress exhibits nothing refined or curious; her ornaments consist in their plainness. The good speak of her with admiration, and the wicked dare not attack her. Let the priests of the Lord, on beholding her, be filled with profound veneration.’ ’*t In the ages of greatest fervour, a due and rational attention to health was never excluded in the most austere discipline of penitents. St. Jerome, in condemning immoderate fasts and austerities, quotes the saying of the seven sages of Greece,—‘« Nothing too much;” and de- clares it to be as wise and just a maxim as it is celebrated.|| St. Bona- ventura mentions that the blessed St. Francis would never suffer his fri- ars to injure their health by too much severity. Experience, indeed, would here suffice. St. Hilarion lived to the age of eighty-four; St. Augustin and St. Jerome, Paphnutius, Macarius and St. Francis de Paul, lived to ninety ; St. Anthony to one hundred, Udalricus, Bishop of Padua, to one hundred and five; St. Simeon Stylites to one hundred and ten; St. Paul the Hermit to one hundred and thirteen ; Arsenius and Romualdus to one hundred and twenty years: and all, after a life of rigid abstinence and fasting. Hear how St. Chrysostom writes to Olympias: ‘Neither the rigour of winter nor the weakness of my health, should inspire you with any fear. The winter, though as severe as in Armenia, and that is to say every thing, does not incommode me to excess, for we have taken measures against it, and we neglect noth- ing to secure us from its inconveniences. For that purpose we keep up a good fire—we carefully exclude the external air from our apartment— we cover ourselves with many clothes ; and, as a last resource, we keep within doors. After my example, venerable Olympias, attend to your health; I conjure you, I ask it of you as a grace. Direct all your atten- tion to keep off infirmities. Remember too, that sadness can cause infir- mities. Think of the misery of those whose body is worn down by sickness, and reduced to such a-state that they can no longer enjoy either the seasons or the things needful to life. 1 implore you then to procure the assistance of the most skilful physicians, and to apply the NAA MRM Ne ERMINE TUS Mayor ll * Dante, Purg. xxvi. ft Id. xxiv. t S. Hieronym. Epist. ad Marcellam. | Epist. ad Demetriad. AGES OF FAITH. 201 proper remedies to deliver you from these maladies.’’*—If some should come and say to you not to fast, lest you should be made weak, do not believe them nor listen to them,’’ says St. Athanasius, ‘for by them the enemy suggests this. Remember what is written,—that when the three children and Daniel, and the other captive youths, were led by the King of Babylon, and commanded to eat of his table, and they re- fused, and did eat only of the seeds of the earth, that, after ten days, when introduced into the presence of the king, their faces, instead of being squalid, appeared more beautiful than those of the others who had been fed at the royal table. See then,’’ continues this great saint, ‘that fasting does not produce what you dread. It cures diseases, it dries up the humours of the body; it puts the demon to flight; it expels bad thoughts ; it renders the mind clearer, the heart purer, the body holier ; and, in short, it raises man to the throne of God.”’ Finally: in the Father of the Scholastic Theology, we find the same counsels of prudence and moderation :—** Injure not your health,”’ says St. Anselm. ‘* Melius est enim ut cum salute corporis, leto animo ali- quid faciatis, quam per egritudinem ab his que cum letitia bene facitis, deficiatis.”’t ‘Thus, those extravagant and gloomy images of penance, which some men associate with the remembrance of the scholastic-ro- mantic ages, have, in general, no other foundation but the fancy of poets and the misrepresentation of the adversaries of the holy Church. But let us on; our length of way admonishes to speed, and we have to mark other instances of mortification and penance, as connected with the character of those who mourned with effectual grief. ‘To speak of the ordinary exercises which were recommended by the universal con- sent of the spiritually wise, would be long and needless. In this respect, the manners of the middle ages present nothing remarkable, excepting the fervour and sincerity with which the discipline of a penitential life was observed by men in every class of society. Behold that race of mourners, all downward lying, prone upon the ground, and weeping sore. ‘These are the elect of God, in whom repentant tears mature that blessed hour, when they shall find absolution from the holy Church, and with Heaven acceptance. ‘*My soul hath cleaved to the dust,” you hear with such deep sighs uttered, that they well nigh choke the words. But let us pass on to view still more remarkable fruits of pen- ance, undertaken by contrite sinners, some of whose voluntary penal woes are well calculated to excite our astonishment. Genebaud, Bishop of Laon, penetrated with a sense of the sinfulness of his conduct in having yielded to a foul temptation, sent to entreat St. Remi to come to Laon, at whose feet he prostrated himself, and confessed his fault. To repair the public scandal of his fall, the bishop shut himself up in a dark cell, more like a tomb than the abode of a living man, and there he passed seven years in prayer and fasting, tears and watching. During this time, St. Remi undertook the charge of his diocese, and at its expi- ration, he restored him to his episcopal see.t In the year 582, St. Hos- pice, a recluse, shut himself up in a tower to do penance, near a cele- brated monastery at Nice, in Provence. In that tower he lived a long * Letter to Olympias. + S. Anselmi Epist. cl. ad Goffrid. + Anquetil, Hist. de Rheim, lib. i. 50. Vou. I].—26 202 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, time till his death. Celebrated also was the example of Dominick Lo- ricat, or the Cuirassed, a renowned penitent at the end of the tenth cen- tury, so called because he wore next the skin a coat of mail, which he used to lay aside only for the discipline. The extraordinary austerities of this man furnished a striking lesson to the rude warriors who knew him, of the heinousness of sin. But as they were accustomed to a life of every kind of hardship, a moderate penance would have been counted for nothing: or rather, it would have seemed to them like a recognition of the lightness of sin. Some modern writers, who profess to philoso- phize, express the utmost astonishment at meeting with such acts of mortification in a religion which lays claim to peace and blessed charity : but such amaze will not be long the inmate of a thoughtful breast. If it had been evinced in ages of faith, they who expressed it would have been referred for solution to the Gospel which is read on the first Sun- day of that solemn season, when the Church sings ‘‘ Creator alme side- rum,’ and reminds men of the coming of our Lord to judgment; and of those dread words, ‘* And these shall go away into everlasting punish- ment, but the just unto life eternal.’’—*‘* What will be the tribunal of the Judge,”’ cries St. Augustin, ‘‘ when the cradle of the infant terrified proud kings.”** Who can think of the day of his coming? and who will stand to behold him? At that tremendous hour of last judgment, when, as St. Ephrem says, ‘the priest will be separated from the priest, the bishop from the bishop, the father from the son, the daughter from the mother,—when the reprobate, cast off from before the face of God, will find themselves alone, deprived of all assistance, abandoned even by hope,—when they will ery, ‘O how could we lose in indiffer- ence the time that was given us! What shall we do? Alas! we can no longer do penance! ‘The time is past. No more shall we see the innumerable legions of angels and saints, no more shall we contemplate that true light which enlightens the abode of the blessed! Behold us here isolated, rejected, far from God, far from joy. Farewell, ye just; farewell, apostles, prophets, martyrs. Farewell, all ye that are happy and holy !’’t These were the considerations which moved men with such force to do penance seriously ; for they said with St. Augustin, ‘‘ If man wished to punish himself, God would spare him. Sit oportet ipse severus in se, ut in eum sit misericors Deus.’’t Hear how St. Odo, the abbot of Cluny, speaks of the danger of sin; and consider what an impression such words must have made upon the simple, profound, and susceptible minds of men in the middle ages. «« Adam once sinned, and is dead. If you therefore should sin, expect not to be spared. If any one could have been spared, it would have been Adam, who was new-made, tender, and rude, and who had before known no sin ;—but as for you who wish to sin after the Law, after the Prophets, after the Gospel, after the Apostles,—what hope can there be of indulgence 2’ || There is one remarkable characteristic of the middle ages, which we should constantly bear in mind whenever we institute a comparison be- * Serm. ii. de Epiph. + Serm. Ixxii. t S. August. Serm. cclxxviii. | S. Odonis, Abb. Clun. ii. Collation. lib. ii. Bibliothec. Cluniac. AGES OF FAITH. 203 tween them and our own times, in relation either to literature, art, or religion,—it is, that these things were all taken seriously, taken in earn- est. While hearing the moderns converse on subjects of religious truth, one might expect every moment that some of them would have suffi- cient acuteness and consistency as to propose a question like that of Callicles to Socrates, who, after hearing his noble statement of the evil of sin, consisting in its nature rather than in its punishment, ex- claims, ‘‘O Socrates, tell us whether you say these things seriously or only in jest, for if you are serious, and it be really true what you now say, without doubt it follows that our whole life is perverse, and that we do all things exactly contrary to what we ought.’’* In the middle ages, it is true men did not seem to believe that the way to heaven was precisely the broadest and easiest that presented itself to the senses; they were impressed with the idea that their souls could not be saved without retirement, meditation and occasional renouncement of lawful pleasures ; many of the penitential austerities were no doubt great ; but who can hear without trembling what St. Gregory says, ‘‘ that more men perish by means of false penance than by impenitence itself; ”’ and after this, who can feel inclined to criticise the penitents of ages of faith ? It is not, however, to be denied, but that occasionally the spirit of human severity may have mixed itself with the austerity of penance, so as to have occasioned great and grievous abuse. When the passions of men are strong, they are sometimes fearful even in the deeds which spring from virtuous sources; and the facts of ancient history are not to be concealed because some men in modern times have chosen to exaggerate and pervert them thoughtlessly, or for malignant purposes. The horrible tale pro- fessing to reveal the secrets of monastic penance in the middle ages, which the genius of a modern bard has rendered so familiar, contains abundant internal evidence, that the author wrote from vague and general report, and without having ever studied the subject which he pretended to illus- trate. Who that has read the rules of the blessed St. Benedict, breath- ing nothing but seraphic love and sanctity, will not lift up his hands in astonishment, on hearing that account of the judgment pronounced upon Constance de Beverly in the abbey of Lindisfarn, where the three Heads of houses are feigned to have sat for horrible doom : ‘ All servants of Saint Benedict, The statutes of whose order strict On iron table lay!’ As if that boly book gave them authority to commit the barbarous deed which imparts such a horrible intent to this narrative. How grave and moral writers can be guilty of this strange readiness to admit and propagate slanders against the saintly and illustrious dead, I know not, nor is it necessary for us here to inquire. What we have to do is to examine the real facts which may have originally suggested the idea of this celebrated romance; and no one need shrink from such an investigation, through a tenderness for the character of former times, for it is no reproach peculiar to any age, that some men should have been found in it, who were without prudence or without charity. The a en nnn UE tthttdtEntttuEEESSSSnSSSnanS aE * Plat. Gorgias. 204 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, first mention of a penitential prison for guilty monks, occurs in the writ- ings of St. John Climachus, who was abbot of Mt. Sinai, at the end of the sixth century. St. Benedict, who lived before this book of St. John Climachus had appeared, prescribed in his rule various modes of eorrec- tion for monks who offended, but he makes no mention of a prison; al- though in the X VIIIth chapter, he enumerates accurately all the precau- tions and punishments to be used before expelling a monk as incorrigi- ble. **But,”? says Mabillon, in his treatise on the Monastic prisons, ‘the hardness of some abbots in subsequent times, was carried to such an excess, that they mutilated the limbs of some monks who were guilty of great crimes, so that the monks obtained from Charlemagne, an espe- cial decree for their protection. All the abbots being assembled at Aix- la-Chapelle, in 81'7, ordered that in each monastery there should be a retired house, domus semota, for the guilty, a chamber with a fire-place and an anti-chamber for work. This was ordained by all the abbots of the empire, France, Germany, and Italy. It was in subsequent times that Matthew Prior of St. Martin-des-Champs, according to the report of Peter the Venerable, invented a fearful kind of prison which was with- out light, and destined for those who were to be perpetually confined, and it was called the Vade in Pace. The abbot was guilty of this excess through his extravagant severity and hatred of sin; but he inflicted it upon only one criminal monk. Stephen, Archbishop of Toulouse, com- plained of these inventions to king John, ‘de horribili rigore quem monachi exercebant adversus monachos graviter peccantes.”’ This led to measures of prevention in future; Mabillon expresses his astonish- ment at such inhumanity in monks, who ought to be models of all gen- tleness and compassion; but it should be remembered how rare and iso- lated were such instances in the long succession of ages; how solitary they stand in history, and unconnected with any part of monastic disci- pline; and that after all, the immunities of the religious, who were not subject to the civil power, made some provision for the punishment of great offenders absolutely necessary. As for the story of Constance, it is utterly defective in regard to history, inasmuch as the extension of such penalties to communities of women is a mere invention; and even if the author had adhered to limits within which he would have had some foundation, the unwarranted assertions, to use the gentlest expres- sion, which are woven through the whole tissue of his poem, would, to any reader of moderate instruction, have destroyed all colouring of truth. This Matthew Prior of St. Martin-des-Champs, to whom he is so greatly indebted, was not to mankind but to sin a foe; ignorant it is true, but justifying no poet in the conclusion that he had retired into the cloister ‘‘for despite and envy ;” or «that he joyed in doing ill.””. The whole abuse is to be ascribed to the extravagant zeal of some well-meaning men in times of great severity of principles ; and we find that there was no obstacle or delay in providing against it effectual remedies. AGES OF FAITH. 205 CHAPTER V. We have already seen some of the works of mourning which were substituted for the solemn public penance of the ancient canons ; but that which in a literary or poetical point of view, is the most interesting of these works, remains to be considered, which consisted in the pilgrim- ages either expressly prescribed or voluntarily undertaken for the correc- tion of passions and the expiation of sins. Of the former, some were imposed for great offences as a more severe penalty than that which was enacted against them by the civil laws. Men who had committed hom- icide were ordered to go on pilgrimage to various holy places in foreign lands, bound all the while with iron chains, for in these ages capital punishment was rarely inflicted. These chains were worn round the neck and also on both arms; sometimes the pilgrims deserved to be freed from them, and then they were freed in the church.* The four misera- ble knights who murdered St. Thomas at Canterbury, after long wan- derings, were enjoined to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and there to live as penitential converts on the black mountain. Some were to be condemned to pass the whole remainder of their lives on pilgrimage. Such were degraded priests who should have discovered the secret of confession. Deponatur, et omnibus diebus vite suze ignominiosé per- egrinando pergat.’’ We read of others who were never “to remain more than one night in the same place. At Rheims disputes and combats between the citizens, used gener- ally to be terminated by the sheriffs, and the most usual penalty in- flicted was a pilgrimage. ‘The persons condemned were to set out on a fixed day, and to remain in the town indicated during three, six, or twelve months, and to bring back authentic certificates. It was gener- ally a pilgrimage to St. James in Gallicia, to Tours, Toulouse, Mar- seilles, or Boulogne sur Mer. The two enemies were often condemned to travel, but in different directions, which, as Anquetil remarks, ‘‘ was a simple and wise method of re-establishing peace between them, for time and new objects, and the interposition of friends to calm the minds of both parties, were always sure to heal the wounds.’’+t But the pil- grims who chiefly demand our attention at present belong to a different class from these: they were men who, without having rendered them- selves amenable to human laws, had undertaken painful journeys in obe- dience to what was prescribed to them by religion, as affording the means of correcting vices, and of atoning in the sense required for the sins of their past lives. The palmer differed from the pilgrim in having no fixed residence, but spending his life in visiting holy places, at the same time professing voluntary poverty. Spenser, without scorn, describes the former: ** At length they chaunst to meet upon the way An aged sire, in long blacke weedes yclad, His feete all bare, his beard all hoarie gray, And by his belt his booke he hanging had ; * Mabillon, Prefat. in ii. Secul. Benedict. § 5. + Hist. de Rheims, lib. iii. 155. Ss 206 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, Sober he seemede, and very sagely sad ; And to the ground his eyes were lowly bent, Simple in show, and voide of malice bad ; And all the way he prayed as he went, And often knockt his breast, as one that did repent.’”’* The church had introduced the custom of assigning a journey to the holy land as an efficacious penance; and there are not wanting even modern writers separated from its communion who can discern and point out the wisdom of what was thus recommended. ‘I know of nothing,” says one of these, ‘so likely to bow down a proud spirit, and soften it into deep and purifying thought, as a long distant jour- ney. ‘There is no heart proof against the solemn influence of solitude among strange and impressive scenes. The confidence which it has in itself, and in which its contempt for the future was intrenched, gradually gives way among them. ‘The new forms under which nature presents herself, are so many proofs that there is an existence and a power, of which, in the thoughtless uniformity of the past, it had received no idea, and with that new consciousness, rushes in a train of feelings, which, if not the same, are nearer than most others to those inspired by religion. For this effect of the long and often perilous journey which he prescribed, the priest might look with some degree of confidence; and no doubt experience taught him, that the hardiest of his penitents was not likely to come back from Syria with a mind unimpressed with the sentiments he wished to inspire. Other advantages also presented themselves in favour of this kind of penance. ‘To the natural influence of the journey through wild and distant countries, was added that of the example of many devout and enthusiastic wanderers. At every stage of his route, the traveller was sure to meet one or more of these humble palmers, either hastening to, or returning from, the holy city. Their humility, self-denial, and constant prayer, were powerful appeals to the haughty soul of the unwilling pilgrim. Generally also he was, by the nature of his expedition, far separated from his former compan- ions: for his proud knights and splendid retinue no longer followed him as a gay and gallant noble; and if they accompanied him, it was to be worshippers, like himself, at the holy tomb. He was thus led to form associations which materially aided the purposes for which the penance was imposed, and the priest knew that his instructions and exhortations to repentance would be repeated as many times as there were leagues between his parish and the sacred walls of Jerusalem. Nor are reasons of another kind wanted to justify the preference of pil- grimages over other penances. What could be more proper than to send him, who had broken the laws of Christ, to contemplate the scenes which had been hallowed by his sufferings? What could better per- suade to repentance, than the sight of objects which recalled to mind all he had done for the sake of mankind, and to bring them under the dominion of love and peace? The guilty violator of divine laws could not tread the streets of the holy city, without feeling as if the very stones cried out against him, to remind him, as his eyes turned towards the heights of Calvary, that he had ‘ crucified the Son of God afresh.’ ” So far this writer. But the moral advantages of this discipline were ere eT TY AN ARTE MOIR OL Cee * Fi Qi4 AGES OF FAITH. 207 well understood and explained with greater clearness at the time when it received the highest sanction. In all ages, many of those who thought seriously about their salvation, used at times to leave their home and family to have leisure to follow God, disengaged from domestic cares, going out of their own country like the Magi, to repair to Christ. We read of many saints who, by the inspiration of God, have aban- doned houses, and riches, and friends, to travel like pilgrims through strange nations, in order to serve him more at ease and freedom. In this conduct, they imitated not only Abraham but the apostles. They felt that the distractions and ties of a multitude of friends and riches, and worldly concerns, left them not sufficient leisure to attend to the interests of their souls, and the fruits of such pilgrimages were so noto- rious that it became a proverb. ‘‘Exeat aula qui volet esse pius.”” Many remarkable examples of this kind are found in the records of the middle age. Frodoard, in his history of the Church of Rheims, relates that in the time of Foulques Archbishop, who had succeeded Hinemar, there came into the province of Rheims, seven brothers, Gibrian, Helan, Tresan, Germain, Veran, Atran and Petran, with their three sisters, Fracia, Promptie, and Possenna, from Ireland in pil- grimage, for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ; and they established themselves each in a separate place on the banks of the river Marne. Gibrian, who was a priest, inhabited the village of Cosse, where he lived many years soberly, justly, and piously, applying himself till the end of his life to combat for his salvation.* In the seventh century, St. Giles seeing that he could not lead an obscure and retired life in his own country, where his piety and learning made him the object of general admiration, resolved to leave it to avoid the applause of men; he, there- fore, passed into France, and chose for his dwelling a hermitage in the desert, which was near the mouth of the Rhone. ‘Thence he removed into a place called Garde, and thence into a forest in the diocese of Nis- mes. The Saxon chronicle relates, that in the year 891, ‘‘three Scots from Ireland, came to King Alfred in a boat without any oars ; they had stolen away because they would live in a state of pilgrimage for the love of God, they recked not where. The boat in which they came was made of two hides and a half; and they took with them provisions for seven nights, and within seven nights they came to land in Cornwall, and soon after went to King Alfred. ‘They were named Dubslane, Mac- beth, and Melinman.’? From the same motives monks came from Rome into Ireland, being also drawn thither by the desire of a stricter life, or the love of sacred learning.t Bede relates of St. Hilda, ‘that after dedicating herself wholly to the service of God, she intended, from the province of the East Angles, to pass over if possible into France, forsaking her native country and all that she had, and there to live a stranger for our Lord, in the monastery of Celles, that so she might the more easily merit the eternal country of heaven.’’ ‘These motives were expressly approved of by the greatest philosophers of the middle ages. «¢ Change of place,”’ says St. Bonaventura, ‘‘is sometimes favourable to the spiritual health of novices. In changing place they change objects which may have led them astray. Men often become better and more a es er eee 2 es a eas * Lib. iv. cap. 9. + Monastic. Hiber. Introduc. 208 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, perfect by leaving for a time their country and their native land.”* St, Jerome goes so far as to say that a monk cannot be perfect in his own country.t In the last book, we observed that the interests of learning were thought to require absence in a foreign country, and now it appears that a journey to Strange lands was deemed no less conducive to those of a spiritual nature. ‘The moderns are for placing the summit of virtue and happiness in domestic repose, but after all, what skills it in this voyage of life, to cast anchor and say to one’s bark, «* Let us rest here ; behold the port which is appointed to you! here you shall sleep like an island of the sea, which the force of the bitter waves cannot disturb! On the wide seas of this world there is no port, and shipwreck alone casts us upon the shore.”’t St. Augustine treats at large upon the social life, and shows to how many evils and offences it is exposed, notwith- Standing all the wisdom and prudence which men may bring to it;|} and besides, he observes, «that after the example of their respective proto- types, the two cities into which the whole race of men are divided, Je- rusalem and Babylon, are distinguished from each other by the former being in a state of pilgrimage, and the latter in a condition of apparent rest. Cain, whose name signified possession, founded a city earthly, having this world for its fixed resting place, established in its temporal peace and felicity ; but Abel, whose name denoted grief, was a stranger and a wanderer. Seth and Enos were named after the resurrection, and the hope of those who invoke God. For thus the city of God in the time of its pilgrimage is only sustained by hope, which arises from faith in the resurrection of Christ.’ These are the profound views of St. Au- gustine ;§ but in a lower sense, and without reference to saints who ap- proach perfection, it is obvious, that in a foreign country the pilgrim or scholar has more opportunity for recollection. Separated from former companions and occupations, the days of his youth come back upon him like a plaintive strain of harmony ; a tone of mourning pervades his thoughts and looks. Neither personal merit nor family connections avail him there: he is left alone, and has occasion to think upon God and on eternal truths as well as to practise humility in an eminent degree. Introduced to a different language and to different manners, his former associations are broken, and the facilities to vice are diminished : he can hardly be so profligate as to begin the abuse of new words and of new manners. Such solitude was favourable to charity. Under the strong religious impressions which it was calculated to produce, every one seemed a friend, every face was loved, every one was believed to be pious, and just, and innocent. In society it is hard to retain such a temper; hatred, suspicions, and indignation, easily enter and possess the heart. Travelling was a school of humility, when a great man would wander like Ulysses, as a poor unknown stranger. We find the son of Sirach testifying that he has travelled much, and exhorting others to fol- low his example.** The ancients were not ignorant of the intellectual and moral good which resulted from leaving home, and visiting distant countries. Py- ae ctorme tamer acirac en eT Ee ee TT * S. Bonaventure Speculum N ovitiorum, cap, 2. _ fF Epist. v. t De Lamartine. | De Civitate Dei, lib. xix, cap. 5. (§ Id. lib. xv. cap. i. 17, 18, ** Keclesiast. xxxiv. 12; xvi. 235, xxxix. 5. AGES OF FAITH. 209 thagoras, we are told, finding himself loaded with gifts and occupations of public life by his countrymen, concluded that it was most difficult to sit at home and to philosophize, and remarked, «that all who had before him studied philosophy, had passed their lives among strangers: there- fore renouncing all political administration, he departed from Samos and repaired to Italy, where he established himself in Crotona.’’* ‘* Abdu- cendus est etiam,’’ says Cicero, speaking of him whose passions were to be corrected, ‘*nonnumquam ad alia studia, sollicitudines, curas, ne- gotia: loci denique mutatione, tamquam egroti non convalescentes, spe curandus est.”*t Sophocles introduces a king, acknowledging the bene- fit he has received from having been educated a foreigner in a strange country, where Theseus says to CEdipus, Ss oid Y avric, ds erraidedbuy Zévocy wore ov a And when Pythagoras returned to Samos after an absence of twelve years, we are told that he was received with admiration by the seniors ; for that he seemed to have brought home from his peregrination more beauty and wisdom, and greater indication of divinity.| With respect to the Christian pilgrimages, additional reasons would result in favour of them, from considering what was the particular object in view in their institution. The desire of visiting places, associated with the memory of persons dear and venerable, is a feeling of human- ity recognized in all ages by the universal race of men, and interwoven with the profoundest roots of the sentient principle of our nature. If it sprang from mere caprice or some particular error of any age, we should not find that its reasonableness could be every where and at all times understood, as we know that it is. When Chateaubriand was at Sparta, a chief of the law desired to know for what object he had come to Greece. Upon the interpreter replying that he had come to examine the ruins, the chief burst into loud laughter, and regarded him as a mad- man, until he added, ‘‘ that he was only passing on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem,’ when the other exclaimed, ‘ Kalo, kalo,’’ making no more questions, but seeming perfectly satisfied; for all the motives of religion are understood and respected every where. A striking instance of the intensity of this feeling is furnished by Father Bouhours, in his history of St. Francis Xavier, for he relates, ‘* that after the death of the saint, one of the Indians who had been converted by him, and who was a most holy Christian, not content with visiting the place of his death, made a journey across an immense country, and passed the seas in order to behold the castle of Xavier. Entering the chamber where he was born, he threw himself on his knees and kissed the ground and wept, after which, without paying attention to any thing else in Europe, he returned to India, considering as a great treasure, a little piece of stone which he had picked out of the wall of the chamber.’’§ ‘The pilgrima- ges to certain abbeys like Einsiedeln, or to Shrines, as that of St. Tho- mas at Canterbury, were themselves facts which, by attesting the truth of ancient prodigies thus transmitted from father to son, continually * Jamblich. de Pythagoric. Vita, cap. 5. + Tuscul. iv. { Gadip. Col. 562. | Jamblich. de Pythagoric. Vita, cap. 5. § Lib. ii. 282. Von. Il.—27 s2 210 MORES CATHOLICI; OR excited men to greater fervour. Visiting holy places also to kiss the spot which was darkened with the blood of martyrs, or to have a more lively apprehension of the great mysteries which were consummated in Palestine, by beholding a representation of the very places in which they passed, conduced, when performed with what a certain great German author calls ‘*the sacramental sense,’? from the enjoyment of which none but the race of sophists are excluded, to the experience of a kind of inspiration; and was an act which was known to be holy by its fruits. Generally, as we have already seen, the object of pilgrimages was to deliver men for a time from temporal cares and acquaintances, from the concerns of a family, and from all those solicitudes of the world which so engross the thoughts of men, that whatever they may pretend they cannot think upon God or the state of their soul, or meditate on the eter- nal years. It was also to give them opportunity of practising humility, the first step in the heavenly life, and of mortifying their bodies by fatigue, which of itself might overcome sensuality. ‘The very idea too that in going perhaps this journey of three days into the wilderness, to sacrifice to the Lord their God, they were also going to a place where thousands and millions had gone before, in circumstances like their own, for the sake of their souls, and where many of them had been per- manently converted to God, must have spoken to the heart in powerful language. Yet we find prudence and moderation along with the great- est fervour, as may be witnessed in the letter of Petrus Cellensis to the prior of Canterbury, where he says, ‘« My conscience accuses and excu- ses me for not going to the tomb of our holy Thomas, the precious mar- tyr of God. Tama monk, an abbot, and an old man, and as such I ought not to leave my cloister, nor neglect my temporal cares, but I should lean my staff against my fig-tree and have in mind the eternal years. It is pious to go, itis pious not to go. The journey is good which is attended with holy devotion; but the detention is religious which is joined with pious commemoration.’’* It was ungentle and unjust scorn in Milton to speak of « pilgrims that strayed so far to seek in Golgotha him dead, who lives in heaven;”? a Sentence comprising a most false testimony and a most sophistical ob- jection. It was well known by these men who strayed to Golgotha, that the only indispensable pilgrimage was that to our heavenly country, by the purification of the soul which might be obtained without leaving home. ‘* Non enim,” as St. Augustin says, ‘ad eum qui ubique pre- sens est locis movemur, sed bono studio bonisque moribus.”’t But yet in spite of Milton’s incredulity, the way, to the pilgrims, might not be in vain nor unfruitful. St. Paul desires that married persons should separate from each other for a time, and abandon the cares of wedded life, to give themselves to prayer.[ By a pilgrimage this separation was joined with prayer, and on this ground Wittwyler, in his history of St. Meinrod andthe pilgrim- age of Einsiedeln, defends the practice as beneficial and holy. But itis said abuses may have followed; undoubtedly it may have been so. But where have not abuses followed? and as Tschudi a German author re- a Ie ie ee * Petri Cellens. Epist. lib. vii. 21. ¢ De Doctrina Christiana, cap. 10. t 1 Corinth. vii. 5, AGES OF FAITH. 211 marks, ‘that is at once the greatest abuse when men destroy what is good in order to prevent abuse.” ‘* There went,’’ you say, ‘‘in the holy throng, men of little worth, and hypocrites most vile, who looked for nought but gold:” God alone, it is true, knows the pilgrim, but this uncertainty furnished no valid ground for objection against such a prac- tice. The devil led our blessed Saviour into the holy city, and we need not marvel to find him conducting thither whom he will. “Nor,” as St. Augustin says, ‘ought the sheep to lay aside their clothing, because wolves sometimes conceal themselves in it.”* Persons, you complain, used to desert their families to go on pilgrimage; ‘ But,” says the his- torian of Einsiedeln, who wrote from experience, ‘did they not return better fathers, better sons, and better men? Were not the proud be- come humble, the weak strong, the immoral pure, and was not the tem- porary loss recompensed an hundred fold ?”’ Let it be remarked, too, that the persons who condemn the pilgrims are themselves wanderers, only differing from them in having no reli- gious motive for their way. ‘They are wanderers, like that hero of Paganism, who was impatient to leave the people and city of the Phe- cians, and yet, no sooner is he departed, than we find him crying out, «Ah! whither have I come! Would that I had remained there with the Pheecians’’— al dency preivak weed pauixeroty aurou tT It is not for men, the sole of whose unblessed feet can find no rest, to speak disdainfully of the pilgrim’s course, impelled by a reasonable desire, and bounded by a holy vow. Granting that the places in gen- eral to which he repaired may have had no recommendation in the esti- mation of the world, and of those who remain in it, what then? Cannot religion give to particular places a charm, and an importance beyond what commerce or pleasure canimpart? ‘‘ Men,”’ saith Pindar, * speak of the Island of Delos, but the gods in Olympus call it, ‘‘The far-famed star of the dark earth.’’? Loretto and Walsingham make but a poor figure in the diary of an epicurean or commercial traveller; but in what a tender and hallowed light are they seen by the poor? In the year 1061, an obscure widow, inhabiting a small village, on the wild and tempestuous coast of Norfolk, by erecting a little chapel, resembling that at Nazareth, where our blessed Lady was saluted by the angel Gabriel, is able to impart a renown to that village which extends throughout all England; and such as not all the kings of the earth combined, with all the aid of parliaments to boot, could ever have given to it, Erasmus describes Walsingham in his light manner; and yet, even from his account, one cannot help regarding it with interest:—<‘ Not far from the sea,’”’ saith he, ‘‘ about four miles, there standeth a town, living almost of nothing else but upon the resort of pilgrims. There is a college of canons there, supported by their offerings. In the church is a small chapel, but all of wood, whereunto, on either side, at a narrow and little door, are such admitted as come with their devotions and offerings. Small light there is in it, and none other but by wax tapers, yielding a most dainty and pleasant smell; nay, if you look into it, you would say a nin a RR eT En eee + Lib. ii. de Serm. Dom. in Monte, cap. 12. ¢ Od. xiii. 204. 212 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, it was the habitation of heavenly saints, indeed, so bright shining it is all over with precious stones, with gold and silver.”’ Camden men- tions, that princes have repaired to this chapel, walking thither bare- foot. ‘These places are now plundered, overthrown, and stigmatiz- ed, as the proper objects of scorn to men of intelligence ; but is it just to prevent the poor from making their innocent journey to a cross,—to some spot, known in their annals as the far-famed star of the dark earth,—while such immense sums are squandered upon voyages of mere pleasure, to visit springs of mineral water, and brilliant cities, through idleness and vanity ? Why are the pious to be condemned for secking holy places for the sake of edification, in order that the visible and tem. poral may be made the means for them to gain eternity ? To the great Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln, it was the custom every year for whole parishes of Switzerland to repair, in solemn pro- cession, with cross and banners: vast numbers of nobles and princes also used to make this pilgrimage. More collected or saintly looks I never beheld than in the pilgrims whom I met along the roads leading to it. In the year 1826, there were, among these pilgrims, one hundred and fifty thousand communicants, which only exceeded by a small num- ber the average amount every year. Pilgrims, before setting out to visit holy places, were enjoined to hear mass, in which was to be said the prayer for travellers; and, at the end, the Roman ritual prescribed vari- ous psalms and prayers, which the priest was to repeat, in reference to them. In like manner, on their return, they were to receive a benedic- tion, the form of which may be seen in the ritual. Of the ardour for visiting the holy land in ages of faith, there are on record many affecting instances. Raymond, a young man of Placentia, having been early impressed with a veneration for the pious pilgrims who passed through his native city, fell into a profound melancholy, of which no one could discover the cause; at last, persuaded into a confession by the bitter grief of his affectionate mother, he told her that his mourning originated in his earnest desire to visit Palestine. He had concealed his desire till now, from the fear of afflicting her; but, instead of being grieved, as he had expected, she regarded him, for a time, with silent joy, and then embraced him, saying, «I am a widow, and I may imitate the example of St. Anne, who, in her widowhood, quitted not the temple of Jerusa- lem, neither day nor night.” Having then informed her son that she was resolved to accompany him on his holy journey, they immediately made their preparations. Previous to their departure, they received the episcopal blessing from the holy prelate of Placentia, who placed a red cross upon their breasts, and begged them to remember their country during their meritorious engagement, and to pray that it might be pre- served during the calamities with which it seemed threatened by signs from heaven. They then took up their staff and scrip, and set out on their journey, accompanied, for a short distance, by their friends and neighbours. Nothing remarkable befell them on the way; but when they came in sight of Jerusalem, they are described as weeping at the remembrance of the sufferings of the Lord of Life. ‘Their devotion, on approaching the holy sepulchre, was still more vividly excited; and as they knelt, pouring out their souls at the foot of the cross, they passion- ately desired that they might die there, where the Saviour himself had AGES OF FAITH. 213 poured out his blood. Having visited the other sacred objects in Jerusa- lem and its neighbourhood, they set sail for their native land; but scarce- ly were they embarked, when Raymond fell sick of a dangerous mala- dy, but he soon recovered, and they arrived safely at land. No sooner, however, were they thus near the completion of their long journey, than the fond mother was seized with a fatal illness, and expired in the arms of her son, spending her last breath in blessing him, and exhorting him to pursue a life of virtue and piety. Buta far more memorable example is furnished by St. Jerome, in his immortal letters, describing the pilgrim- age of St. Paula :—*‘ Before setting out, she divided all that she possessed among her children; then she embarked, weeping, and afraid to turn her eyes towards the dear objects that she was to leave for ever. She touched at the isle of Pontia, celebrated by the exile of Flavia Domitilla, who generously confessed Christ in the persecution of Diocletian. She visited-with respect the modest retreat, where this holy lady spent the long years of her martyrdom; but all her wishes were fixed upon arriving at Jerusalem, whither she hastened on the wings of faith. She passed between Charybdis and Scylla, in the Adriatic, and was obliged to stop at Mithon, to repair her exhausted strength. Thence she arrived, suc- cessively, at Cythera, at the promontory of Malea, at Rhodes, and at the island of Cyprus, where she had the consolation to find the holy Bishop Epiphanius, who retained her with him for ten days, which she em- ployed to the glory of God, in visiting the numerous monasteries which covered this island, and every where she left abundant alms to the mul- titude of holy personages, whom the renown of the illustrious prelate had drawn together from all parts of the world. From thence she passed to Seleucia and to Antioch, where the Bishop Paulin detained her for some time. ‘Thence she made a painful journey, during the depth of winter, through Phenicia and Syria. Arrived at the tower of Elias, on the banks of the Sarepta, she addressed her prayers to our Saviour Jesus Christ, and traversed the sands of Tyre. ‘Thence she passed to Cotti, which is now called Ptolemaide, where she entered the country of the Philistines. She saw the celebrated tower of Straton, and the house of that Cornelius who is mentioned in St. Paul’s Epistles, which is now a church. She passed through Lydda, where Dorcas and Enea were raised to life by St. Peter and St. Paul. ‘Then she saw the tower of Arimathea, to which belonged Joseph, who buried our Lord. Thence she passed by Emmaus, which is now called Nicopolis. Here the house of Cleophas is still shown: it is changed intoachurch. Paula remained some time at Gabaon. Thence, leaving on the left the sepulchre of He- lena, she entered Jerusalem. Now she gave proof of her great humil- ity ; for, as the proconsul of Palestine, who knew the family of the no- ble lady, had prepared an apartment for her in the Pretorian palace, she would have no other lodging but a little humble cell. Without taking any rest, she began to visit the holy places, with such an ardent piety, that, without the desire which pressed her to go to prostrate herself in those she had not as yet seen, she could not turn herself away from those which she beheld. O what tears did she pour forth at the foot of the cross and in the holy sepulchre! I call to witness the inhabitants of Jerusalem who were present. She then visited the citadel of Sion, and the place where the Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles. After 214 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, distributing all that remained to her between her servants and the poor, she departed at last for Bethlehem. She went a little out of her way to see the sepulchre of Rachel. Arriving at Bethlehem, and entering into the grotto, she contemplated the holy asylum of the queen of virgins. There I heard her say that, with the eyes of faith, she saw the divine infant, and the magi adoring, and the Virgin Mother, and the shepherds hastening to behold the Word made flesh. In the joy which accompan- ied her holy tears, she cried, ‘ Hail, Bethlehem, so worthy of thy name ; House of Bread! where the Bread of Heaven deigned to descend for us. Ah! how is it possible that I, wretched sinner, should be found worthy to kiss this cradle, to pray in this cave, where the Virgin Mother depos- ited her Divine fruit? ‘This shall be the place of my rest, since it is the country of my God; here will I dwell, since my God did not disdain to be born here: here will I give myself to that God who gave himself up for me.’ Descending then to the tower of Ader, she saw the place where Jacob fed his flocks, and where the shepherds heard the angels singing, ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo.’ ‘Thence she passed to Gaza and Bethsura, and to the house of Sara: she saw the cradle of Isaac, and the oak of Abraham, ‘Then she passed to Chebron, called Cariath, that is, the town of the four men, because it was supposed to contain the tombs of Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, and Adam. On the following day, at the rising of the sun, she stopped on the summit of Caphar Baruccha, whence she beheld the vast solitude, where once stood the cities of Sodom and Go- morrah. But I return with the illustrious traveller to Jerusalem. Paula visited the tomb of Lazarus: the house where dwelt Mary Magdalen and Martha. She then went to Jericho; and on the way thought of the good Samaritan. She stopped at the place where the blind received their sight. The next day, soon after midnight, she travelled to the banks of the Jordan; and as the first rays of the sun gilded its banks, she reflected on that Son of Justice which there began his divine mission. She contemplated with veneration the tombs of Joshua, and of Eliezer, son of Aaron; and she could not sufficiently admire this latter, which is at Gaban, in the territory of his family, because, being charged with the division of the conquered land, he had kept for his own part the country which was the most scorched and barren. She then visited Silo and Sichem. She entered a church, which has been built on the side of the mountain of Garezim, over the well of the patriarch Jacob, where our Saviour sat with the woman of Samaria. Thence she went to view the tombs of the twelve patriarchs. Weak as she was, she mounted on foot to the summit of the celebrated mountain where the prophet Abdias retired with the hundred prophets in time of persecution, living in cav- erns, and feeding upon bread and water. ‘Thence she went to Nazareth, to Chanaan and Capharnaum. She saw the Lake of Tiberiad, sanctified by the honour of having borne the Lord in his navigations, and the des- ert where he fed the multitude. From the top of Mount Thabor she discovered the mountains of Hermon and Hermonium, and the vast plains of Galilee. She was pointed out the city of Nain, where the widow’s son was raised; but time would fail me to describe all the places which the venerable Paula was prompted to visit by piety and faith. I pass, therefore, at once into Egypt, where she visited the church which is built over the tomb of the prophet Micah. Then passing over the im- AGES OF FAITH. 215 mense sands of the desert, where she had nothing to guide her but the print of steps, almost effaced, of the travellers who had preceded her in that perilous way, she arrived at the river Seor, and the plains of ‘Tanis. hence she passed to the city of No, which is now called Alexandria. She then visited Nitria, which had just recently embraced the faith of Christ. The bishop of this city, named Isidore, who had had the honour to confess his religion generously during a persecution, came out to meet her with a crowd of monks, many of whom were priests. At the sight of so many eminent personages, she rejoiced in the glory of the Lord, acknowledging herself unworthy of the honours there showed to her. Then it was that she became acquainted with the Macaires, the Arsetuses, the Serapions, and the crowd of other saints, who were the glory of Christ in these countries. She visited the holy solitaries with respect, and pros- trated herself humbly at the feet of each of them. In the least of these servants of God, she thought she beheld God : and it seemed to her that the honours she rendered to them were rendered to Christ, whose image they were to her eyes. O, wonderful ardour! O courage ! almost incred- ible in a woman, Paula would have wished to have passed the remain- der of her days with them, subject to their austere rule, if she had not been recalled to Palestine; so, embarking at Pelusa, she passed to Ma- gunia, and thence returned to Bethlehem; where, for the first three years, she inhabited a small house, until a monastery with cells had been constructed by her orders. There, by the way-side, she built an hos- pital, which was always open to poor travellers in the very place where Joseph and Mary had found no asylum. Here ended her travels; and from this period (adds St. Jerome) 1 shall confine myself to describe the progress which she continued to make in virtue.’”* The motives for visiting the holy land, as has been admitted by mod- ern writers, were reasonable and holy; and that Rome should have been another place to which pilgrims, from every part of the world were di- rected, can excite no surprise, when we consider the religious interest attached to that venerable city, and the indulgences which were extend- ed to those who visited it with a devout intention. We find repeated mention of the pilgrimages to Rome in the Saxon Chronicle ; Ina, king of Wessex, who founded the monastery of Glastonbury, afterwards went to Rome, and continued there to the end of his life. Again, in the year 709, we read that Cenred went to Rome, and Offa with him; and Cen- red was there to the end of his life. Alfred sent pilgrims to Rome: for kings used often to send pilgrims thither, and to Jerusalem, paying their expenses, as we see in the testament of René, King of Sicily, so late as in the year 1474.¢ On their return such pilgrims always carried their palms at the procession. In the remarkable letter which Canute addressed to the bishops and nation of England, he describes, in simple and affecting language, the motives which induced him to make a pilgrimage to Rome: and it is interesting to observe how precisely similar they were to those, which still actuate every devout Catholic who repairs thither. Independent of the advantage resulting to the traveller himself, there were reasons to recommend the custom of this particular pilgrimage to the judgment * S, Hieron. Epist. ad Eustoch. + Mem. de Comines, Preuves. 216 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, even of those who were politically wise: for, as Spedalieri shows, the Christian pilgrims meeting together in Rome from every country, brought back to their own land a kind of practical and personal convic- tion of all being children of one mother, so that afterwards every one felt within himself an additional motive for desiring to avert discord, and whatever might interrupt the concord of the common family .* To estimate justly the disposition of the pilgrim’s mind, we should consider what were the difficulties to be encountered on a journey, in the middle age, even, as Thucydides says, ‘‘ by a well-girded man.” It is true, nothing was then more common than travelling. Whata great traveller was St. Bernard! and how many journeys did even a St. Theresa make for objects connected with the different establishments which she founded throughout Spain! We find no trace, indeed, of men and families abandoning their native land to travel over the world, through the vanity of that knight in Ariosto, who has squandered his estate, and of whom we are told, “Ruined, at length he thinks he will be gone To other country, where he is unknown.” We have seen that some travelled in order to conceal their virtues, not their vices; but chivalry and the scholastic life corresponded with devotion in suggesting the advantages of travelling, like Homer, to dis- tant nations, to study, not alone the manners, but also the laws, customs, and institutions, which prevailed in different places; and the influence of the Catholic religion, far more than the wisdom of some of the an- cient sages, tended to overthrow those barriers, which national jealous- ies and pride have so often, and in so many countries, interposed between the mutual intercourse of men. As with the Dorians, who pro- hibited travelling, and excluded all foreigners, through an anxiety to keep up their national character and customs, and particularly as, under the laws of Zaleucus, who made it death to leave one’s country for another. Christine de Pisan deems it greatly in praise of Louis de Bourbon, fourth brother of King Charles V. that he was a great traveller: ‘* Moult a voyagé et esté en maintes bonnes et honnorables places.’’t George Chastellain could boast, in like manner, that he had travelled in France, Spain, England, and Italy ; and the poet Ronsard, that he had devoted a long time to this employment. “J ay long temps voyagé en ma tendre jeunesse Desireux de loiiange, ennemi de paresse.”’{ It was during his travels in Germany and his visits to all the great courts of Europe, that the noble and learned Spaniard, Don Diego Savedra Faxardo, collected the materials for his admirable work on the Institutions of a Christian Prince. Like him described by Dante, noth- ing could overcome, in the ardent spirits of the middle age, the zeal they had to explore the world, and search the ways of life, man’s evil and his virtue.|| Homer is represented saying, that he prefers wandering to remaining in the sacred streets of Cyme: a a ee a rt cre EE nn I OE ee eee * De diritti dell ’uomo, lib. v. 5. + Livre des fais, &c. ii. chap. 14. t Gouget, tom, xii. 225. } Hell, xxvi. AGES OF FAITH. 217 Méyas dé pus Gupeccs exretyet Simov eo Garcdasiv eves oatyov sep covree.* Petrarch, in a letter to Andrew Dondolo, doge of Venice, apologizes for his own wandering life, and says, ‘‘ Heroes, philosophers, and apos- tles, have led the same.”” He might have added, that the noblest works of human genius denote clearly that their authors were pilgrims and Strangers upon earth. Chateaubriand defends the plan of his Martyrs from those who condemned it as being only that of a journey, by observ- ing that the Odyssey is nothing but a journey; that the Awneid, the Lusiad of Camoens, the Jerusalem of ‘T'asso, and the Telemachus of Fenelon, are also journeys, or chiefly composed of journeys. But there was still a higher consideration which moved men in the middle ages in favour of travelling,—for they remarked, that the life of our Divine Master was like a continual journey and pilgrimage. Consider how often he and his blessed mother travelled, beginning with that jour- ney from Nazareth to the mountains of Judea, which, with the return, was a distance of twice ninety-five miles. Then there was the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem of Judea, which was ninety-six miles ; from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, with the return, which was twelve miles ; from Bethlehem into Egypt, which was about three hundred miles, and back again to Nazareth: from Nazareth to Jerusalem, which was ninety miles, and back again; from Nazareth to the Jordan, which was ninety- two miles. From thence to the desert, five; from the desert to Beth- any, fifteen; from thence to Cana in Galilee, ninety-four; thence to Capernaum, forty-five; thence to Jerusalem, one hundred and twelve; thence to Bethbesen on the Jordan, twenty-five; thence to Sichar in Samaria, forty-four; thence to Cana, fifty; thence to Bethsaida, forty- seven; thence to Capernaum, six; thence to the Gessarenet, with the return, which was ten; thence to Jerusalem, one hundred and twelve; thence to the Lake of Genesareth, one hundred and six; thence to Cap- ernaum, six; thence to Nain, with the return, which was one hundred miles. Thence to Nazareth, forty-seven; thence to Sephoris, fifteen ; thence to Capernaum, fifty; thence to Corozaim, with the return, six- teen; thence to the confines of Tyre, fifty-five; thence to Sidon, twen- ty-five; thence to Capernaum, fifty-five; thence to Dalmanutha, five ; thence to Bethsaida, five; thence to Casarea-Philippi, thirty-eight ; thence to Mount Thabor, fifty-eight; thence to Capernaum, forty-five ; thence to Jerusalem, with the return, which was two hundred and twen- ty-four; thence to Bethabara, on the J ordan, thirty-six; thence to Jerusalem by a circuit of one hundred and twelve miles; thence to Bethany, twenty-three ; thence to Ephrem, twenty ; thence to Jericho, sixteen; thence to Bethany, twenty; thence to Jerusalem and back to Bethany. Then twice again from Bethany to Jerusalem, with the re- turn thither. And lastly, the final return to Jerusalem.t In the middle ages, the manner even of ordinary travelling had many advantages. Young nobles, of high houses, would then make their way on foot ‘in forma pauperis,’’ with peasant’s shoes and staff in hand. Thus would they foster habits of simplicity and endurance, and that amiable taste for the beauties of nature, which is so closely allied to a ae eee es ee ee ee ee hl * Epig. iv. + Voyages de Jesus Christ. Vor. I].—28 218 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, many virtues. What delightful recollections were in store for him who used to rise before the sun, in order to find a more refreshing bed amidst the salt-sea billows of the Mediterranean, where, from amidst them, he would observe, thrown against the blushing sky, the dark and stately form of the pines, which line the rocky shore,—for him who used to wander beneath the marble steeps of Chiavera, or through the for- ests, on the shore of Chiassi, listening to the gathering melody which rolls from branch to branch, when Eolus hath loosed from his cavern the dripping south? What joy would fill his breast, when he beheld the snow-topt Apennines, like golden clouds, amidst the radiance of the rising sun; and below, far in the distance, for the first time, Soracte, and the ‘Tiber, who first unlocks near there his mighty flood, as they ap- pear to him who descends the Mount Ciminus, journeying on his way through Ronciglione to the eternal city! What a sweet, fond theme afterwards, for such as loved him, to hear of his ** moving accidents by flood and field, his hair-breadth ’scapes, and most disastrous chances that his youth had suffered.’”’ In the middle ages, even this rambling assumed a religious character. Along with their student and castle songs, dbex tpyav veorégav, as Pindar says,* these young wanderers could all sweeten their thoughtful hours with repeating some hymn of holy Church, corresponding with their state. He who was first risen would leave the town before his company, and, as he passed along the shore of the placid sea, spread out, in calm majesty, like the floor of a mighty temple, when already the rising sun darted his beams, and with his arrowy radiance, gave fearful note of provision for the ensuing hours, he would think of the dangers that might befall him during the meridian heat; he would be reminded cf the flames of anger and the sins of an impatient tongue, and then he would repeat, with audible voice, the primal hymn, which prays to God, at the rising of the star of day, ‘¢ Linguam refrenans temperet Ne litis horror insonet.” It is not a mere picture of the imagination which ascribes such man- ners to the common traveller. In a later age the Chancellor D’Aguesau mentions, that when his father and mother used to travel, they always began by reciting the prayers of travellers, which are in the holy book of Priests. The scenes of life too with which travelling generally familiarised men, conduced to the formation of a noble and thoughtful character. They were not led by it to associate with the wretched godless crew, which, in our own time, is annually discharged upon all the roads of Europe, from the pestilential dens of London or Paris. In general, a modern traveller is only transported from city to city, and from inn to inn, where the same atmosphere, the same dissipation, the same dis- course, the same faces, accompany him: he is escorted frequently by atheists and epicures, as if by demons— “¢ Ah, fearful company! but in the Church With saints, with gluttons at the tavern’s mess.’ A wanderer in the middle ages, like Dante, might be traced, in his * Olymp. ix. + Dante, Hell, xxii. AGES OF FAITH. 219 devious course, to an assembly in the sacristy of some Church, or to some knightly castle among the mountains, or to a chamber in some monastery, in a wild and solitary region, or to a tower of some lord near a river, or to a rock adjoining some castle, on which he used to sit, or to a palace of some splendid patron of learned men, or to some banquet hall in the house of some illustrious senator. ‘These journeys had even occasionally the character of a pilgrimage. Peruthgarius, son of Theobald, attached to the court of Count Gerald, being despatched on a journey by that nobleman, and coming near the Church of the Martyrs, in the town of Kentibrut.in Thurgau, was admonished by his page, who here showed himself no Pythagorean, to turn aside a little from the road, for the sake of prayer.* Express and avowed pilgrim- ages were, however, many of the journeys of the lay nobility. In the Mortuary Hall on the dead body of the knight which was there exposed, used always to be placed his sword and the staff of pilgrimage, which he had borne to different places during his life.t Thus far there might seem to be no reason for concluding that the life of a traveller, in the middle ages, had any connection with the character of mourners; but if we consider it with more attention, we shall find that not only, like other occupations of men, it was mixed with joy and sorrow, but that the latter must have predominated at least with the greater part of those who engaged in it. Young men, indeed, may have always rejoiced at the prospect of undertaking a perilous journey, through the same spirit which made the Athenian youth so eager to sail for Sicily : «the desire of seeing distant lands,”? «2# etarides ovres cwSicer Sat, as Thucydides says.{ No sooner returned than they may have been ready to second the proposal of Laertes: ‘* My thoughts and wishes bend again towards France.” But no such spirit or encouragement can we ascribe to the pilgrim who left his home and country through peni- tence and who was often of advanced years, and already bowed down with the weight of calamity. ‘In the age of the Crusades,” says Bonald, ‘‘ men endeavoured to expiate crimes which were easy to com- mit, by virtues which were painful to practise.’’|| We must remember ‘that, after all, the feudal life was especially domestic and sedentary. Long voyages, by men of mature age, were rare, and under all circum- stances, painful and difficult. A journey from one province to another was a great enterprise. Hénault relates, that the monks of Saint Maur- des-Fossés, near Paris, excused themselves from going into Burgundy, ‘on account of the length and dangers of the journey.” ‘Thomas Poucyn, elected Abbot of Canterbury in the year 1334, travelling to Avignon to receive the Pope’s benediction, arrived there after a journey of three weeks and three days, of which the expenses came to the sum of twenty-one pounds eighteen shillings. Frequently men had to travel over lands without a road, and through a people speaking a multitude of different idioms. It was not till the thirteenth century that some inns began to be found in Italy. Hence, before going on a journey, men went to confession. Thus Alcuin writes to Dametas: ‘‘ Make safe your journey by confession, and remember to guard it by alms.’’§ St. An- ee eer ee er enriEsanEraTAE UE UEEEESSERRIRNEIRIEIS 2 aE 9 RTE TEE LT * Mabillon, Acta Ord. S. Bened. Sac. iv. 5. + Tristan, tom. v. 134, } Lib. vi. 24. || Legislation Primitive, iii. 275. § Alcuini Epist. xlvi. 220 MORES CATHOLICI; or, selm writes in like manner to his brother, Burgundius, who was going to Jerusalem: ‘I advise and entreat you not to carry your sins with you, but get rid of them effectually by a general and exact confession of all your offences from your youth.’’* Since thou hast far to go, bear not along the clogging burden of a guilty soul. Abbot Rodulf, in the beginning of the twelfth century, describes his journey across those Alps, which saw pass, in the eleventh, that terrible red flag of the children of Rollo, which was to put to flight the eagles of the eastern empire. It was in winter, on his return from Rome, and scarcely, he says, was the suffering endurable by the human body. ‘‘ We were detained at the foot of the Mount Jove,t in a village called Restopolis, from which we could neither advance nor retreat in conse- quence of the quantity of snow which had fallen. At length ‘the Ma- roniers,’ or guides, conducted us as far as St. Remi, which is on the Same mountain, where we found a vast multitude of travellers ; and where we were in danger of death from the repeated falls of whole tracts of snow from the rocks above us. We remained some days in this unhappy village, till at length the guides said that they would lead on, but demanded a heavy price. Their heads and hands were guarded with skins and fur, and their shoes armed with iron nails, to prevent them from slipping on the ice, and they carried long spears in their hands, to feel their way along over the snow. It was very early in the morning, and with great fear and trembling the travellers celebrated and received the holy mysteries, as if preparing themselves for death. They contended with each other who should first make his confession; and since one priest did not suffice, they went about the Church confessing their sins to each other. While these things were passing within the Church with great devotion, there was a lamentable shout heard in the street—for the guides who had left the town to clear the way, were sud- denly buried under a great fall of the snow, as if under a mountain. The people ran to save them, and pulled them out,—some dead, some but half alive, others with broken limbs. Upon this, we all returned to Restopolis, where we passed the Epiphany. Upon the weather clear- ing, we again set out, and succeeded happily in passing the profane mount of Jove.’’t In these holy pilgrims, the spirit of self-denial and mortification was continually put to the test. St. Aderal of Troyes, in the tenth century, made twelve pilgrimages to Rome in honour of the apostles, travelling the entire way on foot: and once being obliged to pass a swollen river, he boldly entered the torrent, and swam across. He passed the Apen- nines in a season of intense cold, barefooted, that he micht suffer some- thing for Jesus Christ, and each time that he crossed the Alps, he beat the rocks with bare feet.|| One of the old chronicles, relating the cru- sade of Frederic Barbarossa, says, that to paint the sufferings and the heroic resignation of the crusaders, would require the tongue of an angel. Such pilgrims did not resemble these modern travellers, who would all follow Hercules to the infernal regions in search of the poets, but, like on a OI RE OE SOE) OER * S. Anselmi Epist. lib. iii. 66. t Great St. Bernard. t Chronic. Abbatia S. Trudonis, lib. xii. p. 496, apud Dacher. Spicileg. tom. vii. | Desguerrois, Hist. du Diocése de Troyes, 250. AGES OF FAITH. 221 Bacchus, taking especial care to bargain for a way that was neither too hot nor too cold.* 'Their’s was a way over the cold Alp, the nurse of snows through all the year, and through scorching deserts, where every shape of painful death surrounded them. Nicephorus relates that Eva- grius came to Macarius the Anchorite, about the meridian hour, asking for some cold water, being quite exhausted with the heat and fatigue, to whom Macarius placidly replied, ‘‘ My son, be content with the shade ; for many travellers and navigators are this moment wanting it.’’t Nor were sufferings wanting even in nearer lands. Many a pilgrim to Camaldoli might mourn while traversing those desolate scorched hills of broken earth, where wretched peasants spread before the sun, to be dried on the slaty bed of torrents, the little corn yielded by that ungra- cious soil. Hastening on their way to invoke God at the shrines of saints, these poor pilgrims would come to rivers, where they would have to give their last loaf to be transported across, having nothing else left to offer.t When a noble left his ancestral hall on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, if he had enemies they might rejoice, and say, like the suitors of Penelope, when they heard that Telemachus was setting out, ‘‘ that he went to perish far from his friends, wandering alone like his father.’’ ‘They might indulge such a hope; for there were not wanting grounds to make it highly probable that it would be realized. William, Duke of Guyenne, was a proud violent prince, abandoned to all kinds of profligacy, and so haughty, that he seemed to look down upon the greatest nobles. He chose to recognise the antipope Anaclet, notwith- standing the efforts of St. Bernard and of the Bishop of Soissons, who in vain endeavoured to draw him from the schism. St. Bernard after retiring for some time to his Abbey of Chateliers, wrote from there to the duke, ordering him to come to him. Though this letter was little respectful in appearance, it produced the effect intended. The duke, immediately on receiving it, set out for the abbey, where the saint, after receiving him with all the honours due to his rank, proceeded to remon- strate with him without sparing him, speaking to him, during the seven days that he retained him, with such force, of death, the last judgment, and the pains of hell, that William appeared touched to the quick, and departed in the best dispositions. After some relapses, he was at length finally converted to a holy life. So, after making a devout testament, he resolved to set out on a pilgrimage to Compostella: and in such obscurity did he travel, that, after leaving his states, he was never more heard of. Suger supposed that he died on the road. All that is known for certain respecting him is, that, after traversing Biscay and the north of Castille, he reached the city of Leon; but beyond that, all was con- jecture. The general opinion was, that God took him to himself to- wards the end of the first Lent of his pilgrimage, and that he received the viaticum on Good Friday. Many were the pilgrims who thus per- ished without ever having seen the day of return, the viortzov iuep, or without any thing having been ever heard of the manner, or place, or time of their death. If Eurylochus, in Homer, departed weeping, though along with two * Aristoph. Rane, 119. ft Lib. xi. c. 48, Hist. Eccles. + Mabillon, Acta Ordinis S. Bened. See. iv. 5, T2 222 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, and twenty companions, how must he have mourned, who had to set out, through unknown ways, alone! The sign of mourners was even prescribed to be worn by those who had charge of receiving the pil- grims, as at Paris in the Hospital of St. Jaques-du-haut-Pas, founded by Galligus, guardian of another house of the same order in Italy ; for there the members were enjoined to wear the sign of ‘Tau woven upon their breasts. Well, then, might one of these pilgrims hear words of affection addressed him on his departure like those which were directed to retain Telemachus. ‘‘ Dear child! what hath filled your mind with this desire? Wherefore, beloved, do you wish to go alone over much of the earth? bevetk TrOAAHY EE yetlay fecuvos guy, * Remain at home and enjoy what you possess. There is no necessity for you to suffer evils on the cruel sea, or to wander thus cud TL TE XEN movTey er arevyerov nana marvew oud” ddarnodas.” His reply, if made, as it well might be, in the Virgilian line, would not seem to deny the justice of ranking him as a mourner.— ‘ Vivite felices, quibus est fortuna peracta Jam sua: nos alia ex aliis in fata vocamur,’’> We read in the Life of Lietbertus, Bishop of Cambray, that when that holy bishop had resolved upon making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, in the year 1054, setting out from his city of Cambray, he was accom- panied for three miles by a multitude of people of both sexes and of all ages, who took leave of him with sighs and tears.{ Those who remember with what horror a sea voyage was contem- plated during the middle ages by the greatest part of those who travelled through devotion, can easily appreciate the degree of constancy which they must have possessed to undertake it. Perfectly in the style of Homer was their constant exclamation, cic 0” dy say torcovde dradeauot arpugoy idwp aOTETOY 5 When the king St. Louis and his host had embarked at Marseilles, Joinville describes how the priests and clerks came upon the deck, and ‘‘ began, with all the ship’s company, to sing aloud the ‘ Veni Creator Spiritus.’ Then the sailors, while singing, spread out the sails in the name of God, and the wind soon filling them, we began to make way, and soon lost sight of land, and saw only the water and the sky. ‘Et par ce veulx-je bien dire, (continues the brave Joinville) que icelui est bien fol, qui sceut avoir aucune chose de l’autrui, et quelque péché mor- tel en son ame, et se boute en tel dangier. Car si on s’endort au soir, l’on ne scest si on se trouvera au matin au sous de la mer.’”’? Undoubt- edly the pilgrim who returned from Jerusalem, or from some other dis- tant land, bearing his branch of palm, and then placing it as an offering on the altar of the Church of his home, coming back alone after wan- * Odyssey, ii. 363. + Mneid, lib. iii. 493. + Vita Lietberti, Episc. Cameracensis, cap. 31, apud Dacher. Spicileg. tom. ix. AGES OF FAITH. 223 dering for ten years, like Telemachus, or perhaps for twenty, like his great father, suffering many woes, might now with good reason have been felicitated as a man peculiarly favoured, to whom it was not destined, as Mercury says to Calypso of Ulysses, to perish far from his companions, but to whom it was still reserved to see once more his friends, and to come to his lofty-battlemented house, and to his fatherland.* Guizot, in affirming that the crusades could have invol- ved the chivalry of Europe in no painful service, because they re- quired no change of life from men who were always roving, seems to forget the express testimony of history to the mourning and afflic- tion of the crusaders in leaving their homes for these expeditions, which they undertook as a work meritorious.—Thus we behold one of them only persuaded after a long conversation with St. Bernard, who speaks to him on the passion of Christ, till, dissolved in a flood of tears, he conquers his preference of house and land, and resolves to take up the cross. Joinville, in quitting his home, cannot endure the sight of his ancestral towers, and so keeps his face turned from them. But among the instances on record of the penitential spirit in which many of the crusaders departed for the Holy Land, there is none more striking than that of William, Count of Poitiers, who speaks as follows, before setting out for Palestine; ‘*I wish to compose a chant, and the subject shall be that which causes my sorrow. I go into exile beyond sea, and I leave my beloved Poitiers and Limousin. I go beyond sea to the place where pilgrims implore their pardon. Adieu, brilliant tour- naments ! adieu, grandeur and magnificence, and all that is dear to my heart! Nothing can stop me. I go to the plains where God promises remission of sins. Pardon me, all you my companions, if I have ever offended you. LI implore your pardon. I offer my repentance to Jesus, the master of heaven; to him I address my prayer. ‘Too long have I been abandoned to worldly distractions ; but the voice of the Lord has been heard. We must appear before his tribunal. I sink under the weight of my iniquities.”’ I am not ignorant, indeed, with what bitter scorn and insulting cen- sure the modern writers speak of the influence which occasioned this wondrous progress of nations to the East; but neither am I in doubt respecting their unreasonableness in so doing. Pope Urban II. in the Council of Claremont, conceding the indulgence to all who should join the enterprise which was to deliver Jerusalem from the yoke of the Saracens, made this provision, which is read in the second canon : ‘*Quicunque pro sola devotione, non pro honoris vel pecunie adep- tione, ad liberandam ecclesiam Dei Jerusalem profectus fuerit, iter illud pro omni peenitentia ei reputetur.”—** Can one conceive, (asks Gui- zot,) that at present a people of proprietors would all of a sudden abandon their property and family, and leave their homes, without an absolute necessity, to seek such distant adventures? Nothing of this kind (he adds) would have been possible, had not the daily life of the possessors of fiefs been a kind of training for the crusades.’’t Nor would it have been possible then, he might have added, if religion * Hom. Od, v. 114. ¢ Discours sur PHist. Mod. tom. iv. 5. 224 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, had not imparted a sanctity to mourning, and taught men to embrace such sufferings as meritorious. Besides, without taking into account what this author had elsewhere admitted, that the feudal life was favour- able to domestic habits, and to the importance of women, it is a manifest truth, that by a law of nature and the very constitution of the human mind, men in general, with the exception of certain peculiar tribes, must in every age be similarly affected with regard to the love of home and of country. ‘To be driven out from one’s native land—a wanderer among foreign nations—seemed to the Greeks a greater punishment than death, and to be the appropriate penalty for an impious man.* Before the influ- ence of the universal Church had counteracted the pride and cruelty of the national spirit, which alienated man from man, the condition of a foreigner was truly wretched. St. Augustin says, that a man would rather keep company with his dog, than with another man who did not understand the language which he spoke.t And even had it been other- wise, who could be insensible to the feelings expressed by Hyppolytus, when he bids adieu to the land of his birth, the scene of his youthful sports, and the witness of his happy days? The Catholic religion, not- withstanding the universality of its sphere of action, had not destroyed or diminished these feelings. St. Ambrose, speaking of the eminent vir- tues of the patriarch Abraham, remarks in the first place the command which he received to go forth from his country, and from his acquaint- ances, and from his father’s house, and then he adds, ‘It would have been sufficient to say from thy country,’’ but the rest was added in or- der to prove his affection.t ‘“Why do you fly?” asks St. Ambrose, addressing those who dreaded the advance of the barbarians. «Per. haps,” he continues, ‘“ you fear captivity. Do you not know that this is the greatest captivity, not to behold your country? And what can be more grievous than the banishment of a journey.”|| How well is that described by the great poet—who passed so many years of his own life in wandering—where, describing the first glimmering dawn, he adds, ** That breaks More welcome to the pilgrim still, as he Sojourns less distant on his homeward way.”§ St. Bernard, in the age of the greatest fervour for pilgrimages, in the age of the crusades, himself the preacher of the crusade, reckons the love of our country among the fruits of justice.** Judge then, from all this, whether the pilgrim in distant lands, who could say of himself, like Ulysses, that he had never entered his country since he first followed Godfrey or Richard to Jerusalem to help the Christians, but had always been wandering full of sorrows, that his constant wishes and expectation were to arrive at his home, and to see the day of return— ” ’ \ 2 » oluadé +” enbieevas neat voorimcoy nuczp idéobas.tt Whether, I say, this pilgrim, be he layman or priest, knight or palmer, ought not to have been reckoned among the tribe of mourners? SE RT enema! Aen at ee MOE WIE MOTT WE ee gay ener SIT * Eurip. Hyppolyt. 1050. + De Civitate Dei, lib. xix. cap. 7. tS. Ambros. lib. de Abrah. Patriarch. || S. Ambrosii Serm. Ixxxv. § Purg. xxvii. ** De Ordine Vite. Tf Odyss. v. 220. AGES OF FAITH. 225 But let us note some details relative to the manner of their journey, and to the consolations afforded them on the way. Before setting out, the pilgrim provided himself with a commendatory letter, called a letter of communion, which was composed so as to pre- vent the possibility of its being forged. These letters used to be given, not only to all clerks who travelled to a different diocese, and who, by the canons of the Council of Tours, in the year 461, were prohibited from travelling without them, but also to all laymen, in evidence of their being at peace with the Church: for as Optatus Milevitanus says, ** The whole world was formed into one society and communion.”’* "Thus the testimonial of Catholic faith answered to the c¢ufoaz, or 'Tessera of the ancients, which were tokens of hospitality, made so that a person, by pro- ducing one piece, might be recognised by another who had its corres- ponding part. Jason tells Medea that he will give her these symbols to insure for her an hospitable reception from his friends in the country to which she is going.t 'Thomassinus alludes to this subject in treating on hospitality, to whose observations the reader may refer. Humility, simplicity, and charity, characterised the pilgrim’s way. In the old fabliaux of the two rich citizens and the labourer, the former going on a pilgrimage, and being joined by a peasant, they all three travel on lovingly together, and join their provisions in a common stock. The duty of the Teutonic knights as pilgrims was denoted on the seal of their order, which represented the mother of Christ seated on an ass, holding the infant Jesus in her arms, with Joseph walking and leading the animal, the star going before them as when they fled into Egypt.t Little difficulties were not to interrupt the course. “'The morning rain stops not the pilgrim,” is the proverb we have derived from these ages. In the rules given to the Knight Templars, they were directed to travel two or three together, and when they came to any place in which there was a house belonging to the order, they were obliged to take up their lodging there with the brethren, and they were directed to provide them- selves with a light, which should be kept burning during the night near where they slept. ‘* When you go ona journey, (says St. Bonaventura) live in great peace with him whom the superior will have given to you for a companion. Never engage in any dispute with him, although you should be in the right, but yield to him with tranquillity, and keep silence, because it is seldom that any one is convicted by disputing, or made to change his opinion. Preserve your own peace, that you may give peace to others, and begin by appeasing yourself, and then you may appease him; because, what you would say in trouble and agitation to him who is troubled and agitated, would only trouble and agitate him the more; and you will more easily win him by your gentleness and patience, than by all the reasons you could alledge ; for virtue is not taught by vice, nor humility by pride. Be accommodating and agreeable on the journey, but without dissipation or compromise of your duty.”’|| Monks, like minor friars, were bound to travel two and two. On their way they were commanded to show respect to every one, and to EEE ee ee ee * Vide Joan. Devoti Institut. Canonic. lib. ii. + Eurip. Medea, 613. { Voigt Geschichte Preussens, ii. 57. . ] S. Bonaventure de Reformat. Hominis exter. cap. 36. | Vor. II —29 226 MORES CATHOLICI; OR salute all strangers whom they met, to take every occasion of consoling, instructing, and edifying those in whose company they found themselves, and never to show harshness or rudeness in reproving such as acted wrong in their presence; but to admonish them with gentleness and hu- mility, so that in this way going through the world, they might literally accomplish the order of Jesus Christ, to preach the gospel to every crea- ture. St. Martin converted a robber who happened to travel along with him. They were always to endeavour to arrive at the place of sleeping before late, that there might be no hurry to themselves or inconvenience to their hosts.* Monks on a journey were advised to take little books with them, and Mabillon describes the volumes for this purpose, which were in a monastery of Cistercians. St. Gregory the Great says, ‘that the Abbot Aéquitius used to carry sacred pages in leather cases on each of his sides.”’ There were books expressly composed for the pilgrims, containing prayers, and hymns, and litanies suitable to their engage- ment. ‘The moral work entitled Le Dialogue du Crucifix et du Pélerin, was written by one of these pilgrims, William Alexis, the humble prior of the monastery of Bury, in the diocese of Evreux. He wrote it in the year 1486, at the request, as he says himself, ‘‘ of some pilgrims of Rou- en, who were with him on the holy voyage, for their spiritual consolation, and to excite them to devotion and patience.’’ Gouget observes, ‘ that it is a most pious work, and that the author had always in view the engagements of his state.’’t Companies of pilgrims travelling together recited the psalms and sung litanies on the way. St. Gerard, bishop of Toule, made a pilgrimage to Rome for the sake of devotion. So leaving not a little substance for the support of the poor, he set out on his journey with twelve companions of the clerical and monastic order, who with him might continually chant psalms or jubilations. They seemed to make the whole road to Rome one church, the standard of the cross always preceding them. Who could describe the abundant alms which they dispensed on the way? Upon arriving at Pavia, they were received by the holy Maiolus abbot of Cluny,t and the blessed Adhelbert, who was afterwards a martyr.|| ‘*O what spirit- ual exultation was theirs! What conversation on the supernal kingdom ever to be desired! What divine discourse upon the divine word! Each hung upon the other’s lips. Each believed that he heard Christ in the other, who certainly dwelled in them.’’§ When pious travellers entered a town, they used to visit first all the places of devotion which it con- tained; then they used to offer their alms to the hospitals, and serve the poor that were in them. In the time of Petrarch, when the emperor Charles and the empress came to Rome to be crowned on Easter Sun- day, arriving there on Maunday Thursday, on the two following days, he visited the churches in a pilgrim’s habit. Many travellers of the modern school feel themselves strangers and aliens as they pass through the nations of the Catholic church, and seem as if never to be at ease, or capable of perfect refreshment, till they arrive at that little city of Calvin, where the law at present forbids men to proclaim the divinity * S. Bonaventure Speculum Novitiorum, cap. 29, 31. + Bibliotheque Frangais, tom. x. 119. + Who ruled from the year 948 to 994. || Bishop of Prague, crowned with martyrdom in the year 997. § Acta Tullensium Episcoporum apud Marten. Thesaur. Anecdot. tom. iii. AGES OF FAITH. 227 of Christ; but the pilgrim of the middle ages had the consolation of find- ing his home in every church which he passed on the way. Every where he found the same holy rites, the same language which had been familiar to him from childhood. Did his heart for a moment fail at the thought of his course being unaccomplishable, and did the memory of home and the prospect of danger prompt him to return without seeing the place of his desire? in prayer, at the foot of the altar, he gathered fresh strength and courage to continue on his way, for he felt as if he were then but for the first moment setting out from home. The Missa Sicca or Nautica used to be celebrated on ship-board. When St. Louis was a prisoner in the hands of the Sarassins, he had a Missa Sicca ccle- brated in his presence. ‘The rubic prescribed that the priest should be clad as usual in the sacred vestments; that he should read the mass till the preface; that the canon was to be omitted; that the pater-noster was then to be said; but that all the secrets were to be omitted, and that neither chalice nor host was to be on the altar. In later ages Pope Ben- edict XIV. gave permission to have mass said on board the ships of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, provided the sea was calm and the sky serene.* Guido de Monte Rocherii, who wrote about the year 1333, approves of the custom of celebrating a Missa Sicea before trav- ellers who should arrive late and after the priest had said his mass. In this case he says, “that the priest after reading the mass of the day, should show relics instead of continuing the canon.’”? Even in desolate and benighted regions, religion supplied the wanderer with an idea which served as a substitute for home: for, as the Athenian general said to his soldiers in his affecting speech on the retreat from Syracuse, ‘that they were to consider it as if they themselves, wherever they happened to rest on the way, immediately constituted the city,’’t so these bands of Catholic pilgrims, when they had to traverse infidel lands, were con- soled with remembering, that wherever the hand of Providence might conduct their steps, they were themselves holy Sion and the walls of Jerusalem. Bounty to the poor was the virtue more than all others pre-eminently to distinguish the pilgrims, who never forgot that it was when travelling the good Samaritan practised that memorable work of charity, and that a hostel was the scene of it. The joy and devotion expressed by pil- grims on first coming in sight of Jerusalem or Rome, or the temple of their vow, was a subject which has employed the genius of the noblest poets and painters. Clarke thus describes his first view of Jerusalem: ‘«*Hagiopolis!’ exclaimed a Greek in the van of our cavalcade, and instantly throwing himself from his horse, was seen upon his knees bare-headed. Suddenly the sight burst upon us all. ‘The effect pro- duced was that of perfect silence throughout the whole company. Many of our party, by an immediate impulse, took off their hats as if entering a church, without being sensible of so doing. The Greeks and Catho. lics shed torrents of tears; presently beginning to cross themselves with unfeigned devotion, they asked if they might be permitted to take off the covering from their feet, and proceed bare-footed to the holy sepul- chre. We had not been prepared for the grandeur of the spectacle which SS SS ee ea * Benedict, xiv. de Sacrificio Misse ii. 48, ft Lib. vii. 77. 228 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, the city alone exhibited.’’ So also we read, that after the first trans- ports of joy on beholding Jerusalem, deep repentance succeeded through the whole host of the crusaders, for ‘Tasso, at this point, closely follows history. “Scantly they durst their feeble eyes dispread Upon that town, where Christ was sold and bought ; Where, for our sins, he, faultless, suffered pain, There where he died, and where he liv’d again. Soft words, low speech, deep sobs, sweet sighs, salt tears, Rose from their breasts, with joy and pleasure mixt: For thus fares he the Lord aright that fears, Fear on devotion, joy on faith is fixt: Their naked feet trod on the dusty way, Following th’ ensample of their zealous guide; Their scarfs, their crests, their plumes and feathers gay, They quickly doft, and willing laid aside.’’* The hill whence the pilgrims gain the first view of St. James of Com- postello, is called Montjoye, or Mons Gaudii. The number and devo- tion of the pilgrims at various holy places would be so great, that whole towns used to spring up and be established in consequence. At St. Maur, it used to be a great privilege to the inhabitants, who alone had the right to sell candles to the pilgrims for the procession.t The great- est concourse was always at the principal festival, celebrated at that particular place. Never shall I lose the memory of the devout multi- tude which flocked to the Seraphic mountain of Alvernio, when that simple and joyous family of Christ, dwelling there in great innocence, and ministering in all things to strangers, commemorated the stigmata of its blessed founder. ‘Thither came men and women, old and young, rich and poor, and all entered as if it were into their own house, so sure was the humblest pilgrim of receiving food, and fire, and welcome. Then when the bell sounded for the first vespers, this throng of pilgrims which had filled the courts, and cloisters, and corridors, and halls of the convent, hastened into the church, where they met before the altar like one family. On the evening of the next day, which closed the pious solemnity, these pilgrims descended from the mountain, if not like St. Francis, bearing the signs of our redemption on their bodies, yet assuredly as far as one could judge from their saintly looks and by their whole demeanour, having the cross in their hearts imprinted by the Spirit of God. Sometimes, without regard to particular festivals, the penitential seasons of the ecclesiastical year were spent in these pious journeys. King Robert of France used to spend whole Lents on pil- grimages. : With respect to the assistance afforded to pilgrims on their way, there are some facts which deserve notice. In the eye not only of religion but of the state, they were privileged persons. In the remarkable letter of Canute to the bishops and nation of England, after describing his pil- grimage to Rome, he mentions having taken occasion to obtain from the emperor Conrad and other princes, an exemption for all his subjects who should make the pilgrimage to Rome, that they might not be de- tained at the barriers, nor subjected to any exactions on their way. * Book iii. + Lebeuf, Hist. du Diocése de Paris, tom. v. AGES OF FAITH. 229 «As for pilgrims,”’ says a ecapitulary of Pepin-le-bref, «who make a pilgrimage with a view to God, let no toll be demanded from them.’’* In the year 1358, Rudolph Archduke of Austria and Lord of Rappers- weil, undertook the amazing work of erecting a bridge over the lake of Zurich, though the breadth in that place is eighteen hundred paces. This was done in order to assist the pilgrims who were travelling to Einsiedelin, as they used frequently to be prevented from crossing the lake by storms which opposed the fulfilment of their pious vows.t The erection of hostels for the reception of pilgrims was a work of char- ity to which communities and individuals devoted themselves. Cities and private persons made foundations to procure asylums for their fel- low townsmen in places of pilgrimage, or for such as were on their way thither. In the year 1752, the magistrates of Avignon wrote to the council of Rheims, to say that every native of Rheims or of Champagne passing by their city had a right to be nourished during three days, and to receive an ecu on proceeding forward.t At Lille, we read of two ancient hospitals for the pilgrims. There were five at Douai, and there was one at each of the towns of Orchies, Armentiers, and Seclin, where the gray sisters and other pious persons exercised hospitality.|| In the year 1353, several hostels were founded at Einsiedelin, for the gratuit- ous reception of pilgrims, rich and poor, who were all to be received without respect of person, for God’s sake.§ At Freyburg, in Switzer- land, shortly after entering the city from the side of Germany, and before ascending the steep hill, you see the small ancient hostel for the pilgrims of St. James of Compostello. ‘The image of a pilgrim with his bottle, cockle hat, and staff, stands in a gothic niche over the door. At Paris there was the hospital of St. James to receive pilgrims who should be going to Compostello. Some thought that it had been found- ed by Charlemagne, but it was not established till the year 1315, and it was the work of some Parisians, who, having made this pilgrimage, and wishing to perpetuate the memory of it, formed themselves into a fraternity. Every year on the first Monday after the festival of St. James the Greater, the brethren assembled in the church of the hospital, and made a solemn procession with the staff of a pilgrim in one hand and a lighted taper in the other. Over the gate of this hospital of St. James was the following inscription: ‘** Nullos fundatores ostento, quia humiles, quia plures, quorum nomina tabella non caperet, celum recipit ; vis illis inseri? vestem prebe, panem frange pauperibus peregrinis.’’** In the great hospital of the Knights of St. John, at Paris, there was an immense square tower which contained four vast halls, one over the other, furnished with beds for the pilgrims of Jerusalem, and for the sick who asked hospitality.tt At Milan, Barnabo Visconti founded an hospice for the entertainment of pilgrims. At Rome, besides the vast hospital for pilgrims where every one is received, there were a multi- tude of similar foundations, though of a confined nature, which were of * Cap. Pipp. A. 755. Baluz. tom. i. col. 175, + Einsiedlische Chronik by Tschudi 73. + Anquetil, Hist. de Rheims, lib. iii. || Hist. des Saints de Lille, Douai, &c. 672. § Tschudi Einsiedlische Chronik, 69. ** De Saint-Victor, Tableau de Paris, tom. ii. p. 490. ++ Lebeuf, Hist. du Diocése de Paris, i. 6. U 230 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, great antiquity. ‘The Hospital of the Holy Spirit still bears a name from its proximity to the hospice, which had been founded for their countrymen by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Alfred was the founder of this house, which, on the change of religion in England, was converted by the Catholics into a college. The French had also their hospitium for French pilgrims; and there was an hospitium for foreign secular priests of all nations who should be travelling. But, as connected with great events and illustrious titles, no foundation was so remarkable as the Pilgrim’s Hospital at Jerusalem, which gave rise to a renowned order, whose fame must endure as long as the world lasts. The Bull of Pope Honorius LI., speaks of it in these terms: ‘ Those who, with various perils by sea, visit, through devotion, the holy city, and the sepulchre of our Lord, know well how dear to God, and how venerable to men, is that place which affords an agreeable and useful asylum for strangers, and for the poor in the German Hospital of St. Mary at Jerusalem: for there the indigent and the poor are refreshed, obsequious attention is paid to the sick, and they who have been fatigued by diverse labours and dangers are restored and refreshed ; and in order that they may pro- ceed with greater security to the holy places, sanctified by the corporal presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, there are brethren especially appoin- ted, at the expense of that hospital, to wait upon them.” The hostels, or inns, which have succeeded in most places to these ancient foundations of charity, have, in Catholic countries, still retained an aspect which gives them an interest in the estimation of devout or of romantic travellers, ‘The inkeeper of the middle ages took care to have holy images in the apartments of his hostel for his guests. There was a room, or at least a table, separate for persons who were excom- municated.* All which did not prevent persons from fancying, that there were some inns which the demon had kept, and which were served by his imps. ‘The very signs of inns continued to favour the idea that every journey was a pilgrimage; for such were the associations con- nected with images of the three kings, of the flight into Egypt, and of the pilgrim, which were so generally placed over the gate to invite the traveller to pull his rein. At Bacione, the last stage to Rome, there is a lone huge inn, which, from the throng and variety of guests, may remind one of a pilgrims’ hostel; and on the bleak, wild mountain of Radicoffani, there is another solitary inn, in which is a chapel, where mass is said. Arriving here on the festival of St. Michael, I had the happiness of finding that a priest was just arrived for the purpose of saying mass, and all the people of the inn proceeded to assist at it with great devotion. Arriving about the Ave Maria, at any inn in the states of the church, where one so often meets companies of ecclesiastics tra- velling, the sound of their solemn voices, repeating their holy office aloud, seems to impart to the inn the sanctity of a cloister, and consoles the solitary pilgrim, who can feel himself as if domesticated under a holy roof; while the sacred dramatic show, which sometimes succeeds during supper, completes the charm, at least in the estimation of one who seeks in travelling, not luxury, but the simple and holy manners of the antique world. Lord Marmion’s train arriving at the hostel * Monteil, Hist. des Frangais, tom. iii. 487. AGES OF FAITH. 231 where the palmer sits by the fire, furnishes the poet with a picture, of which the colouring denotes a more northern clime, though the sub- stance is familiar to us all— “ Down from their seats the horsemen ee With jingling spurs the court-yard rung Soon by the chimney’s merry blaze, Through the rude hostel might you gaze ; Might see where, in the dark nook aloof, The rafters of the sooty roof Bore wealth of winter cheer ; Of sea-fowl dried, and Soland’s store, And gammons of the tusky boar, And savoury haunch of deer.” But not merely in the inns and hostels was the Eilatine: a welcome guest: every where alike, whether to the cottage, or to the castle, he might direct his steps, at any hour of the day or night, and feel secure of meeting with a kind reception. No where in a Catholic land would he find the ¢v72gev, whom Pindar mentions; nor the ‘stranger-hating house,’’ which Admetus speaks of in the Greek play. As in the primi- tive days of Christian society, if a stranger showed that he professed the orthodox faith, and was in the communion of the Church, he was received with open arms wherever he went. ‘To have refused him en- trance would have been thought the same thing as to have rejected Jesus Christ himself.* Even without any knowledge of his character, the wanderer was admitted to hospitality ; and the general sentiment of the host, on such occasions, may be learned from chivalrous tales, as from that of Gyron le Courtois; for we read there, that when Danayn le Roux and his varlet were riding one night in the forests, they espied a fire in the distance, and coming up to it, they found that it came from a tent, in which a knight was lodging with his company. ‘The squire went up to the knight in the tent, and said, ‘¢Sir knight, here is a knight all armed, and we do not know what he wishes to say.”” ‘Bien soit il venu,’’ replied their lord, ‘* par advanture vouldra il ceste nuyte demou- rer avecques nous. Se il est preudhomme, moult en suis lye et joyeux de sa compaignie avoir, et se il est autre, Dieu le conseille. Sa bonte le conduyra, et sa mauvaistrie luy demourra quant il se partira de nous.”’*+ The church took the lead here. St. Hildegard styles Pope Eugene, ‘“‘ The Father of Strangers.’’{ In fact, at Rome, on Maunday Thursday, the holy father shows himself the servant of strangers, repair- ing to the hospital of the poor pilgrims, who have come thither from every clime, and there humbly ministering to wash their feet. To secure the protection, not alone of pilgrims, but of all persons who travelled through the world, was a constant object of solicitude with the Holy See, and various councils raised their solemn voice to further it, in oppo- sition to local abuses, and even to the civil legislation. Vincent of Beau- vais cites a Council of Lateran, which says, ‘‘ They who with damnable cupidity pillage the substance of Christians suffering shipwreck, whom, by the rule of faith, they are bound to assist, become subject to excom- munication, unless they restore what they have taken. Nothing must * Benedict xiv. De Canonizatione Servorum Dei, lib. i. { F. 411, tS Hildegardi Epist. i. 232 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, be taken from shipwrecked persons, whether found on sea or on shore ; nor will any custom, statute, or prescription, excuse offenders in this case; for it is against the precept of our Lord, who says, ‘Do unto others what you would they should do unto you.’’’* In the year 1377, Archbishop Albert, of Prussia, published a charge, for the utility of the faithful navigating, to declare that such persons, merchants, or others, are placed under the protection of the Apostolic See; and, in the event of any of them suffering shipwreck, to call upon all who are near to bear them assistance, for God’s sake, and for the sake of natural equity, and as they would wish to be themselves assisted in similar circumstances.t Even in times of war, pilgrims always found an efficient protection in being under the safeguard of the Holy See, which gave them free liberty to pass into hostile nations. We must hope, therefore, for the honour of Buccleugh, that no credit need be paid to the old harper, who sings of the Lady of Branksome, gathering a band to surprise Lord Cranstoun, as he went on pilgrimage to the chapel on the edge of St. Mary’s Lake. ‘The general obligation of respecting and succouring the stranger was an express precept of the Almighty to his chosen people; and it was a primeval tradition, which we find transmitted in the writings of many of the ancients. «+ Adve- nam non contristabis, neque affliges eum,”’ is the command to the Jews, which is elsewhere repeated. ‘+ Advena sit inter vos, quasi indigena ; et diligetis eum quasi vosmetipsos.’’|| And the Athenian, in Plato, ob- serves that offences against a stranger, or host, are visited with a more severe punishment from Heaven than those committed against one’s own countryman, of which the reason is given, in the following most amia- ble words, which savour not the least of modern political economists— dennos yap cov 6 Levoc ereriowy re uxt Zuyyerciy ercetyoregos dySetarose nat Secie.§ But to return to the pilgrim, and to view him seated beneath the hos- pitable roof. Those vast chimneys of the feudal castle, over which used often to be carved the hunting of St. Hubert; and in which a whole cart-load of wood used to be burnt every day in winter, used to hear strange variety of sweet and solemn words,—the song of the page, the counsels of the chaplain, the fable of the troubadour, the wanderings of the palmer and his woes. What were those pilgrims’ tales of which the men in our age speak so scornfully ? Were they related by men resembling, indeed, those wanderers, who used to visit Ithaca, of whom the swine-herd says, in Homer, that they are apt to lie, nor do they wish to tell truth; but they have always some idle stories about Ulys- ses, by means of which they hope to gain the favour of Penelope; and she loves them, and, weeping, asks them a thousand questions,** or, like these modern writers of travels, these narrators of scandal, and calumniators of Catholic nations, who, if they were honest, might say with the Sycophant, in Plautus— ‘‘ Advenio ex Seleucia, Macedonia, Asia, atque Arabia, Quas ego neque oculis, neque pedibus unquam usurpavi meis.” tf Ah, no! it was a different race of men from all these. Jn their journeys * Speculum Doctrinale, lib. x. cap. 62. + Voigt Geschichte Preussens ili. 509. t Exod, xxii. |) Levit. xix. : § Plato de Legibus, lib. v. ** Od. xiv. 125. ++ Trinummus iv. 2. AGES OF FAITH. 233 they were never to affect to bear news, however good and probable : ‘‘For,” as St. Bonaventura said, ‘it was not the part of religious men to be news-bearers. The wise man had given them this precept, ‘Avoid spreading reports, lest men should say you are the authors of them.’ ’’* ‘‘Let him who wishes to hear good news,” Says a great writer of the time, ‘hear Christ speaking concerning the kingdom of God, the future judgment, the heavenly Jerusalem, the felicity of the supernal citizens, the eternal rejoicing of the angelic choirs. ‘Let him hear the prophets announcing the mysteries of Christ, and denouncing penalty against sinners ; let him hear the apostles and evangelists relating the works and miracles of Christ; let him hear the doctors and other masters beauti- fully discoursing, expounding the happy way, and refuting errors.” f Their journeys had no features to amuse the profligate, like those which belonged to that famous voyage to Brundusium, to the account of which the moderns are never tired listening. Travellers of the modern disci- pline would have had nothing to fear from landing upon Scythian ‘Taurus, while the Temple of Diana stood, if the daughter of Agamemnon said true, that nothing but what was holy could ever be offered to the goddess. She would refuse to sacrifice any one of these men, saying— ou wadaegoy oyra’ roy dD” bctoy diow pover.+ But the case would have been different in the middle ages; for the wan- dering scholar-boy, or the hoary palmer, would then have touched there to enrich the poet's mournful themes ; and, therefore, the tales and dis- course of those who had avoided that danger would be pure as the oracles of God. Their conversation also, though relative to foreign lands, had nothing to recommend it to the ears of that race of men most foolish, as the poet styles them, «who always vituperate things domestic, and look on all sides for distant objects, seeking vain things with idle hope.”’| Their devout and solemn narrations suited not the children of vanity, nor those who had not their treasure with them ; yet, though it was far from the gentle pilgrim to be a common laugher, still, as St. Bonaventura pre- scribes to the monk, in lodging with seculars on his journey, he was to be simple and humble, gentle without flattery, gay and affable without dissipation. It was his duty to moderate, on these occasions, the aus- terity of his manners; and for the sake of charity and honest utility, to lay aside his gravity for a time.§ To judge merely from what occurs in our age, it would be impossible to understand or credit the interest which these pilgrims could inspire in every circle of listeners, whose attention to their tales they craved, for Christ’s dear Church’s sake. Of all descriptions of men at present, the traveller is, perhaps, the most insipid and disgustful; it seems as if he can only add the description of eating and drinking to the common-place narrations which are to be found in every library made up of scandal, reviling of holy things, calumny and pretended discoveries in the in- trigues of government, and in the science of economy ; and besides this, if travellers were themselves of a higher order, men would be wanting in feeling to appreciate them: they would rather trust their pompous * S. Bonaventure Speculum Novitiorum, cap. 32. + Thomas @ Kempis, Hortulus Rosarum, cap. 12, t Eurip. Iph. in Taur. 1029, i] Pindar, Pyth. Od. iii. § Id. cap. 31. Vou. II1.—30. u2 234 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, journals than their unpretending guest. The truth is, that religion is the source of all deep and powerful interest, so that where there is no religion, there can be no really intense intellectual interest experienced on any subject; for, let the understanding be ever so anxious to create one, the heart will still prove, on its demands, a cold and powerless organ. Hence, no one now has sufficient regard for a wanderer, as even to ask him, in the Homeric style— ris rode sic dydecv 5 moss rot monde nde Toxines 5* It is only, How stood the exchange, and what majority had ministers !— or, rather, ten to one it is, if possible, more prosaic still.—what money have you in your purse? But in ages of faith, when the hearts of men overflowed with the love of Christ, when in thought and in the deepest affection of their souls they ever stood on Calvary, and wept at the holy sepulchre, no sweeter moment was there than that in which they listened to the pilgrims describing the wonders of Jerusalem. ‘To hear of Rome, too,—of sacred Rome,—and of Christ’s vicar, who meekly sways the race of pre-elected men, full of reverence and amaze, desire in their minds grew with satiety. He it was who could tell of such things that held both keys to their heart, turning the wards, opening and shutting with a skill so sweet that besides him into their inmost breast scarce any other could admittance find. As Martial says toa Roman, who was with him in the country, ‘* Romam tu mihi sola facis ;”’ so, he who had been in these sacred places was to them Rome and Jerusalem; and, like the Abbess of St. Hilda, they would style him holy Palmer; for, surely, they would add— “ He must be sainted man, Whose blessed feet have trod the ground Where the Redeemer’s tomb is found.” His very face was as a book, where men might read strange, mournful, yet beatific things. The ideal of noble chivalry, with all its sufferings, seem united there with that of the saintly life: and, in fact, the knightly pilgrim, like the Ulysses of the Odyssey, seems to be more in his gen- uine element when wandering in the midst of adventures and tempests, and in disguise, than when openly counselling and fighting on the plains of Asia. In Marmion, we have a fine description of the palmer, when Young Selby proposes that this stranger should be Lord Marmion’s guide— ‘¢ Here is a holy palmer come, From Salem first, and last from Rome: One that hath kiss’d the blessed tomb, And visited each holy shrine, In Araby and Palestine ; On hills of Armenie hath been, Where rest of ark may yet be seen ; By that Red Sea, too, hath he trod, Which parted at the prophet’s rod ; In Sinai’s wilderness he saw The mount where Israel heard the law ; He shows Saint James’s cockle-shell ; Of fair Montserrat, too, can tell; And of that grot where olives nod— EE eo ee tated ui Bs ee * Od. xiv. 187. AGES OF FAITH. 235 Where, darling of each heart and eye, é From all the youth of Sicily, Saint Rosalie retired to God. To stout Saint George, of Norwich merry ; St. Thomas, too, of Canterbury; Cuthbert, of Durham ; and Saint Bede, For his sins’ pardon hath he prayed. He knows the passes of the north, And seeks for shrines beyond the Forth; Little he eats, and long will wake, And drinks but of the stream or lake: This were a guide o’er moor or lake.” The English knight approves of the plan, and says, that he loves such holy wanderers, who can always cheer the way with some legendary strain; but young Selby, with an altered countenance, and finger laid on his lip, intimates that he is, perhaps, an over solemn and mysterious guide; and he is going on to describe his air and manner, when Mar- mion interrupts him, and says, that he will have no other guide but the palmer— “So please you, gentle youth, to call This palmer to the castle-hall. The summon’d palmer came in place— His sable cowl o’er-hung his face: In his black mantle was he clad, With Peter’s keys, in cloth of red, On his broad shoulders wrought ; The scallop-shell his cap did deck ; The crucifix around his neck Was from Loretto brought ; His sandals were with travel tore— Staff, budget, bottle, scrip he wore ; The faded palm-branch in his hand Show’d pilgrim from the holy land. When, as the palmer came in hall, Nor lord, nor knight, was there more tall Or had a statelier step withal, Or look’d more high and keen; But his gaunt frame was worn with toil, His cheek was sunk, alas, the while! Poor wretch! the mother that him bare, If she had been in presence there, In his wan face and sun-burnt hair, She had not known her child. Danger, long travel, want, or woe, Soon change the form that best we know.” The palmer consents to guide the knight, but observes that they must set out with morning-tide, adding— . ** For I have solemn vows to pay, And may not linger by the way, To fair St. Andrew’s bound, Within the ocean-cave to pray, Where good St. Rule his holy lay, From midnight to the dawn of day, Sung to the billows’ sound.” The remembrance of the palmer might turn our thoughts to muse upon the Platonic notion of the pilot, where Socrates explains what renders him so conscious of the little value of his services to those whom he 236 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, guides over the watery way ; for, if that passage be compared with the description of the saintly wanderer, there will be found the same coun- tenance and language in them both. ‘The latter guides the knight, and seems not to imagine that he has performed any great office; he partici- pates in his sufferings and success; and, though full of charity, yet, whether he sees him cast down or elevated, he changes not his tone. Alike to him seem the prosperous and adverse course of his companion; he rejoices with him as though he rejoiced not; and enables him to see at length the day of return, and no sound of congratulation passes his lips. What is this but the same phenomena which Socrates observed in the pi- lot? «* Witness the pilot,” says he, ‘by whose skill our lives and pro- perties are preserved from such great danger ; and yet how modest he is and humble, and how far from making great boast, as if he could perform any thing wonderful; but if he preserves us safe coming from A®gina, he only demands two obols; and if he leads us back safe from A.gypt or Pontus, with our sons and wives and riches, he asks but two drachms; and the man who possesses this art, and who can perform these things, goes down to the shore, and walks by the sea-side about his ship, in a lowly unassuming manner; for he perceives, I think, that it is very un- certain whether he has done a service or an injury to those whom he has saved from being drowned in the waves, knowing that he has put them on shore no better in body or soul than when he received them into his ship; he considers, then, that if any one, pressed with incurable mala- dies of body hath been saved by his means from perishing in the sea, the same is to be pitied, and has received no benefit from his hands; and if any one should have many incurable maladies in his soul, which is so much more precious than the body, it will be of no utility to him to preserve him from the sea; for he knows that it is not for the advan- tage of a wicked man to continue to live, since he must needs live ill; therefore, there is no law to ordain that a pilot should be honoured, al- though he saves us.’’* Many instances are on record of persons of profligate lives having been subdued and converted by a casual meeting with these holy wan- derers, whose dignified and saintly presence would strike even brute violence with adoration and blank awe. Here, again, one’s thoughts may return to what is told in pages of the old philosophy; for we read that, when Pythagoras descended from the sacred top of Carmel, where he had remained in solitary meditation, arriving at a bark, he uttered nothing but these words, Eis Aijurror 6 daéraovss Are you bound for Egypt? And they answering in the affirmative, he embarked, and remained silent during the whole voyage, for two nights and three days eating nothing, and constantly composed and motionless, so that the sailors concluded it was a demon that passed from Syria into Egypt; and they were care- ful to utter no bad words among themselves, and to abstain from all im- propriety till they had set him safe on shore.’’+ The licentious song- ster, or the rude and worldly knight, the lover of wine and minstrelsy, bent perhaps upon some dark deed, would little suppose that the palm- er’s presence could interrupt their merriment, yet, when confronted with him, “*how would one look from his majestic brow, seated as on the * Plato Gorgias. t Jamblich. de Pythagoric. Vita. cap. 3. AGES OF FAITH. 237 top of virtue’s hill, discountenance them, despised, and put to rout all their array.” It was not necessary to ascribe to the palmer that knowledge of more than could be learned by holy lore, of which young Selby spoke, in order to account for the solemn and half terrific scene at the hostel hearth— ** Resting upon his pilgrim staff, Right opposite the palmer stood : His thin dark visage seen but half— Half hidden by his hood. Still fix’d on Marmion was his look, Which he, who ill such gaze could brook, Strove by a frown to quell; But not for that, though more than once Full met their stern encountering glance, The palmer’s visage fell.” His silence was a commentary which made the song of Fitz-Eustace fall sad on Marmion’s ear; and when at length he spoke, though it was only these words, ‘‘ The death of a dear friend,”’ “Marmion, whose steady heart and eye Ne’er changed in worst extremity ; Marmion, whose soul could scantly brook, Even from his king, a haughty look ; Whose accent of command controll’d In camps the boldest of the bold— Thought, look, and utterance fail’d him now, Fall’n was his glance, and flush’d his brow : For either in the tone, Or something in the palmer’s look, So full upon his conscience strook, That answer he found none.” But it is time to return to our antique chronicles in search of instances that will illustrate the manner of a pilgrim’s life from real history. An abstract of the narrative of Brother Nicole, the Carmelite, will, perhaps, supply what is yet wanting in our conception of this character in the middle ages, and with this testimony the present chapter shall conclude. ‘In the prologue, he states that he has accomplished this very holy and meritorious voyage, by the mercy of our sweet Jesus. I wish (he adds) to make known these noble and glorious places, to warn you to be mind- ful of our Lord Jesus, and that this book may be an amusement to many lords and ladies, who are curious to inquire respecting the land of pro- mise. What I have seen, I will declare, to the best of my poor ability ; and though this treatise be vile, and in need of much correction, never- theless I pray all readers or hearers, who shall have made the same pil- grimage, if they should find any thing here contrary to our holy faith, that they will dispose it in good order through charity in honour of Jesus our Lord ; for I protest that, neither in this present treatise, nor in any other which I have made, or may hereafter make, do I pretend to say or write any thing whatsoever which should be against faith or good manners; and I pray them, therefore, by charity, to correct my labours; for, whatever is presented, ought to be well arranged.”’ Speaking of the holy sepulchre in Jerusalem, he says, ‘So often as any one being faithful, or loyal in faith, enters within to contemplate the place, as 238 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, many times does he behold, with the eyes of his mind, our Saviour Jesus there entombed.’’ And speaking of Golgotha, he exclaims, *« O, great God, who hast delivered us from hell and from eternal death, is there a spot on the earth more glorious, more virtuous, more worthy of honour !’? These are places which many Catholics kiss, shedding tor- rents of tears. ‘The devout visitation of the holy places leads to holy meditation, to good resolutions of amendment, and to compunction for sin; and, in my judgment, there is no Catholic pilgrim who does not return more virtuous, better, more perfect than he ever was before. What Christian, on entering that holy land, is not dissolved in tears ? Who is there that will not feel compunction, when merely from behold- ing that region, hearts are pierced, and laid bare with wondrous sighs? Let'a man be ever so wicked, it is impossible but that he must be changed at the mere view of what is before him. Sainte et salutaire progression et trés meritoire peregrination oultre la mer en Hierusalem: qui souffira a dicter ta value! Who is there that does not desire to amend his life, and to do penance for the time which he has lost, when he beholds before his eyes things so wondrous, and so calculated to in- cite to virtuous deeds! There, without doubt, is the grace of God dif- fused and imparted to all souls who do not place obstacles in its way by a malignant will. ‘Persons in all ages,”’ he continues, ‘have travelled far to see places and men that deserved reverence, witness Pythagoras, and Plato, and the noble queen Saba, and now we know, that after all the labours of men under the sun, one thing, and one thing alone is necessary to know, Jesus Christ crucified, and risen again, and ascended into heaven; and therefore St. Paul declares that he desires to know and to write nothing but only Jesus, and to glory in nothing but in his cross, by whom we are saved and delivered ; therefore no longer do any wise men glory in their wisdom, or in their riches, or power, or virtue, but all remember what St. John saith in his gospel, ‘ that eternal life is to know one only sovereign God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent.’ And although to attain this holy and salutary science, the gospel and the apostolic writings, and the daily preaching and proclaiming of the faith be widely sufficient, nevertheless to this not a little may contribute the said pilgrimage and the beholding of the holy places through simple love for our sweet Jesus, who in dying, has destroyed our death. Therefore, for the present, I conclude with St. Jerome, ‘that to have been in Jerusalem is not a very holy thing, but to have lived devoutly in Jerusalem, virtuously in holy conversation amidst a perverse genera- tion, is to be praised, and renders the pilgrim worthy of renown.’ After many vanities, alas, when the flower of my age had been lost, I began to consider the follies in which I had long slept; and the grace of Jesus awakening me to a sense of the worldly vanities by which I had been going to eternal perdition, I resolved from thenceforth to render testi- mony to the justice of the commandments of God and of my holy reli- gion. I set out on my pilgrimage from the convent of Ponteau, in the diocese of Rouen. ‘The reverend master Prior of the said convent, Geoffroy the Recluse, with a great company of the brethren of the con- vent, conducted me, during the space of three days, till we came to Chartres: en larmes et en pleurs fut nostre departement. There I waited for the setting out of a nobleman who is now a knight, the Seig- AGES OF FAITH. 239 neur de la Mouriniere, with whom I set out in Easter week, 1487, and rode through Savoy and Turin, till we reached Venice for the festival of St. Mark. We took up our lodging at the Savage Man in St. Mark’s Place. Here we found many noblemen and clerks of France, some of whom joined our company, and among them was a Seigneur de Roche- fort from Auvergne, and also there came to us a gracious and wise child, a native of Lyon, called Sir Henry de Encharmois. At Venice, they agreed with the patron of the galley, who was to supply all their expen- ses of journeying and food during the whole pilgrimage, both from and back to Venice, and each pilgrim was to pay him forty fresh ducats, half at Venice and the other half at Jaffa. He remarks, that at Cyprus one could procure twelve sheep for a ducat. They staid at Venice six weeks, in order to visit all the relics which are there and in Padua. At length setting out, they sailed to Corfu, Candia, Crete, Patmos and Rhodes. He found the inhabitants of Corfu ‘Devote a Dieu, gent tres- humaine, et de grant honneur pleine.? We arrived at Rhodes about ten o’clock in the night on the eighth of July, and passed under the castle of St. Peter, which is an impregnable fortress in the possession of the Knights of Rhodes. The dogs of this castle keep wonderful guard, for they go out at night, and if there should any Christians escape from the rocks, the dogs are sure to find them and to lead them to the castle; and if they find a Turk they kill him if they can, or they bark so loud that it is known within the castle.* It is wonderful how this castle can be preserved to Christendom, for it seems only six miles from Turkey, which is separated only by a narrow arm of the sea. The hospital of the church of Rhodes is a wonderful place, built like a monastery, and in the great hall there are thirty-nine beds for sick people of all nations and degrees, if they only believe in Jesus Christ; and in the middle is a beautiful chapel where masses are sung every day; and the poor sick people are all served on silver by the seigneurs of Rhodes moult curi- eusement, and besides this, there are twenty-four chambers surrounding the cloister to lodge the pilgrims, who are received most fraternally, and they are invited most affectionately by the hospitaler who refreshes them, and serves them very joyously. ‘On the Friday we had a fair wind in the stern, so that at six o’clock in the evening appeared the holy Jand. ‘Then you might have seen and heard the devout hearts; then were groans and tears, and chants of devotion. We had to remain at Jaffa thirteen days to wait for the father guardian, and so we tarried in good patience, praising our Re- deemer. At length we set forth; on approaching Rama, we were obliged to alight from our asses, and each pilgrim had to carry his bur- den with great pain, on account of the dreadful heat and of the dust, which was so thick that one could not see the other. ‘The Moors would not suffer us to enter Rama mounted, so we entered it thus on foot, and there we were lodged in the hospital founded by the money of Philip of Burgundy. May God absolve the noble duke! From Jaffa to Rama we were escorted by Mahometans, to protect us from the other Moors who kept throwing stones at us every step we made. Sometimes they have killed pilgrims: such was our peril. On the morning of Sunday, * Pin 240 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, the fifth of August, mass was said at four o’clock by one of the monks; and then at the offertory, the father guardian instructed us how we were to behave on our journey towards the people of the country, speaking to us from the altar in Latin, Italian and German. ‘ Dear and well-beloved brethren in Jesus Christ, take heed to the following advice, that you may not lose the fruits of this holy journey. First, if any of you should have: incurred sentence of excommunication, the father guar- dian of this place, by the power of the holy father, can absolve you therefrom, to whom you must apply, and take consolation in this rejoic- ing which our Lord has granted to you, in beholding with your eyes the places on which he has trod in accomplishing the salvation of all men by his sacred blood. Secondly, you must believe firmly the articles of faith, for otherwise you will lose the merit and fruit of the pilgrimage. Thirdly, you must have great confidence as to your con- science, that you will have remission; and you must have contrition and a true intention of never again returning tosin. Fourthly, you must consider for what end you are come, and it must be for devotion and contemplation to see the holy places, weeping after Jesus Christ. Fifth- ly, I say to all, take heed, that you walk honestly and that you commit no evil. You must make no more mention of wine, unless you can carry some from the ship; there is no cellar here where you can buy any.’ We set out from Rama on foot as we entered it, and under great heat. On coming to the place where our asses were waiting, each pil- grim claimed his own; so it was four o’clock in the afternoon before we began our march. We travelled till midnight. From Rama to Jerusalem is thirty Italian miles. On the fall of night, we entered the mountains which were very rude and hard for me, because I was obliged to leave my ass. ‘Oncques ne fus plus lasse.’ It is the greatest dan- ger for pilgrims when they are left too far in the rear, for the people would desire nothing more than to destroy us one by one. At midnight we stopped to lodge under the shelter of an olive grove near a fountain, which was very refreshing to our thirst. Here we made our collation, and then under these olive trees the knights slept for three hours. An hour before day we mounted our asses, and rode till we saw the town of Arimathea. It was nothing but up and down hill, and it was laugh- able to look at our train one after the other. On reaching the summit whence we had the first view of Jerusalem, every one kissed the earth and raised his eyes to heaven. So we all entered the city, and the brethren of Mount Sion led all the monks to their convent where we had refection. ‘The others were lodged in the vast hospital of Saint John, and there sufficient victuals were given them. God knew how weary they all were. The next morning all the pilgrims were sum- moned to Mount Sion to hear mass and the sermon. Regulars and sec- ulars each by devotion celebrated with great compunction. After the sermon there was a procession to Mount Sion. ‘Then the guardian invited all the pilgrims to dinner, and every one was seated, charitably and honourably served with abundance, and then we all went in very noble guise to the church to return thanks. After vespers, we spent the time in contemplating the holy places.’’ It appears that they pro- ceeded to visit each of the holy places in solemn procession, each car- rying a lighted taper, and a sermon was pronounced at each station. AGES OF FAITH. 241 Every year the good duke Philippe, of Burgundy, used to give 1000 ducats in compassion and devotion for the support of the true Christians there serving God. ‘That night after the procession, they remained in the holy sepulchre; the first part of the night was spent in confession, and after midnight the masses were said in order, some on the holy sepulchre, others in it, and others on Mount Calvary. Lastly, the Bishop of Cambray sung high mass with great solemnity, and many received the holy communion, and then each went about according to his devotion, and at eight o’clock in the morning the gates were opened, and the pilgrims returned to the hospital or to their brethren. «On the Assumption of our Lady, we went at midnight to chant at the holy sepulchre, in the crypt of the church at Josaphat; and then returned to high mass on Mount Sion, where she died. «Tout ce jour se passa en contemplation.” On going to visit the church of St. George near Rama, there were about sixty pilgrims, and the greatest part of them English- men. Horrible are the exactions and insolences of the Moors. One pilgrim was moved to strike a Turk, for which he was near forfeiting his hand. <‘ Pourtant Pélerins soyez tous enclins 4 tout endurer toutes les injures, griefs ou forfaictures au nom de Jesus, ear il endura.’ ‘Che poor Franciscan friars at Jerusalem live most virtuous and holy lives amidst these Sarassins and heretics.” The details on his return may be given in few words. For once he indulges in a poetic tale. ‘From the top of Mount Sinai,” says he, ‘you behold a region stretching to the Red Sea, and in this plain there is a monastery of holy men, but no one can discern the way toit. You hear the bells toll: and some, it is said, have reached it, but none have ever returned, ‘The monks of St. Catharine have gone in search of it, and have heard the bells, but have never succeeded.” During this pas- sage of the deserts of Mount Sinai, they seem to have carried a portable altar, so that mass used to be said even amidst those vast solitudes. ‘On returning, while at sea, on the night of the 12th of September, trespassed a noble knight, who had received the order of knighthood at Jerusalem. He was doctor in utroque, and named Master Symon, a gracious man and wise. God pardon him. And on the 16th inst. at six o’clock in the morning, trespassed a seigneur of the Church, sub- deacon of Angers, named Messire Gilles, a native of Brittany, a man of great virtue, and full of good manners. Jesus be propitious to him and to us all!’’ At lengh, after a long and stormy passage from Alex- andria, they arrived at Modoust, a city on the coast of Achaia; and now their long desire of hearing mass was gratified. Entrez en la cite on alla 4 la messe tres fort desiree a ouyr, car de long temps on ny avoit este. Such is the style of a pilgrim’s narrative; such were the sufferings and woes he had to endure: and yet a far deeper source of mourning to him was found in the reflections of philosophy, which were excited by what he had seen in journeying to the Holy Land. «O subject worthy of tears and bitter sighs ! (exclaims Nicole) that these beautiful countries of the East, once so carefully cultivated by the holy apostles, should be now subverted and lost! Ah! who can think without groans of Asia and Africa, which had such noble churches, which heard a St. Augus- tin, a Chrysostom, a Cyprian, an Athanasius, a Cyrill, a St. John Da- Vor. II.—31 4s 242 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, mascene, a Gregory Nicene, a Gregory Nazianzen, a Basil of Cesarea, and so many other great bishops? Helas Lucifer trebuscha du ciel a mis son siege present en orient. En orient sont les tenebres de peche qui ont tout aveugle et n’y voit on que l’ymaige de mort.”” They have broken unity, they have been rebellious to the see of Peter, to whom Jesus said, ‘* Thou art called a rock; and on this rock will I build my Church:’’ and therefore, without doubt, those who are disobedient to this mother and mistress of the faith, fall into the guilt of heresy. St. Ambrose in his time said, he wished to follow the Roman Church in all things ; so said St. Jerome at the time of the Arian heresy; so said St. Ireneus in the apostolic age; so say all good Christians: for where the body is, there will be the eagles: where is the chief, there will be the members. But the inhabitants of the East have left the ark, and there- fore is their glory perished: ‘*quiconques mangera laignel hors de l’Eglise Sainct Pierre necessairement est prophane.”’ These wise pilgrims of the middle age, who had found in the East Mahometans, Greek schismatics, Syrians, Jacobites, Nestorians, Abba- sins, and Eutychians, had meditated on the difficulty which is now so often adduced, founded on the variety of religions, and the comparative smallness of the number who hold the true faith: but the result of their observations only led to reflections which confirmed their faith. This poor brother Nicole, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, pursued the same argument from analogy which has been so well developed by later philosophers; and he shows that the same difficulty presents itself in the natural world, with respect to things noble and base, where the phenomena of external nature would lead to the same reflection on the wide existence of evil, as a fact which did not admit of being denied. Happiness, wisdom, and virtue, are not given to all men. Every kind of excellence is comparatively rare and precious, and we must be pre- pared, therefore, for finding that such is the case respecting that highest of all excellences, which consists in the splendour and eternal felicity of souls that attain to final beatification and glory. And, after all, he argues that we should be slow either to excuse or to condemn. We cannot presume either upon the innocence or the guilt of erring men. Negligence of inquiry and the evidences of our faith are great; and therefore, the ignorance of many must needs be highly sinful: and the apostle says, that the unknowing shall be unknown. God will never desert those who sincerely turn their hearts to him. And if any sedu- cer, under the habit or name of a Catholic doctor, should preach to any simple creature any error, and the simple ignorant creature should be- lieve it to be Catholic truth, in turning himself to God totally, he will be preserved, and his heart shall not be suffered to incline to folly: for David says that God will guard those who love him. But the under- standing of men is created for the embracing of holy and salutary truth, and negligence here is no doubt worthy of damnation ; and as every thing tends easily to its natural end, so our natural intellectual virtue is more near to find God than it is to find his contrary. For God is always ready to aid those who seek him with a good and honest heart; and thus we find that Cornelius, though a Pagan, yet living religiously and fear- ing God, St. Peter was sent to convert him and all his family.“ Il est a croire totalement que jamais Dieu ne laissa ceux qui veullent adherer AGES OF FAITH. 243 a luy diligentement.’”’ And therefore, all error that receives damnation springs from malice. <‘ L’homme n’est pas moins tenu a Dieu des ope- rations de l’entendement que des operations de sa volonte ou affections.” And there are laws to regulate his will and affections, and therefore we may be sure that there are laws to fix limits to his understanding, to determine what he should believe, and what he should not believe; and therefore ignorance is damnable, for they ought to believe what they do not: and they ought curiously to inquire what are these laws. Whereas the multitude run with all their strength to sin and death as their end; and it is not strange, therefore, that they should find it. And we know that the justice as well as the mercy of God will be the subject of eter- nal admiration and joy to the just in heaven. And the first and great cause of all these errors is negligence of inquiry, and the second is aver- sion to believe what ought to be believed of God, and a hatred for the things that would enlighten and convert the soul; and if they will not heed either holy words or miracles, it is not strange that they remain in error; and another cause is the folly and presumption of men in suppos- ing that their natural understanding is able to comprehend the mysteries of faith, and another cause is the abuse of the Scriptures, and another cause is a sensual life, like that of the Epicureans.* These are the sorrowful and profound reflections, suggested to the | traveller of the middle ages, by what was seen on the journey to the Holy Land. 'The reader will now pass on with a still more full convie- tion, that the pilerim was indeed a mourner. But there is another side, from which we must contemplate the mourn- ing of men in ages of faith, which will place us in the presence of scenes of great sublimity, yet not without the charm of a profound tenderness, We are come where I have said we should see the departure of exiles to their country, amidst the mourning of friends who remain behind. The approach must not intimidate us, though we should be at first confronted with a tribe like that which Dante beheld, that came along the hollow vale, in silence weeping. Let us imagine that we behold some reverend stranger, with finger lifted, placed against his lips. This will suffice to warn us, that we may enter as the spot requires—silent and devout. a ee ee ee ee ee ee ee Tne eee en ee * F, 40—44, 244 MORES CATHOLICI; OR CHAPTER VI. ‘‘Tr I were a maker of books,” says Montaigne, «I would compose a register of different deaths, with a commentary: for whoever would teach men how to die, would teach them how to live.’ It is not merely devo- tion that is interested in this theme; history itself must acknowledge its importance: for, as the same philosopher observes, ‘‘ death is the most remarkable action of human life. It is the master-day—the day that judges all the others.” The path which we are pursuing, leads us necessarily within view of death, towards which we must turn our eyes, For though the nature of death is changed since the accomplishment of man’s redemption, it is still the punishment which God has left to be inflicted upon sin; and whether considered in relation to nature or to grace, it is an event which involves mourning of one sort or other, ac- cording to the spirit with which it is received, or the previous prepara- tion which may have been made against it. Men of the modern school, indeed, seem practically to consider this whole subject of death as one, independent of a scientific observation of the progress of the physical malady, beneath the attention of philosophers. Viewing it merely as the dissolution of organs, the decomposition of a worn-out machine, which is incapable any longer of being subservient to animal existence, as an extinction of the powers of life, either through the nervous system constituting death by syncope, or through the circulation in the arteries of a different kind of blood, causing death by asphyxia,—in other words, examining it merely with the eyes of a physician, it is not strange that they should be insensible to the high moral grandeur which so often dis- tinguishes the closing scene of mortal life, or that they should be sur- prised and offended at the importance which religion ascribes to this last act in the combat of her children. Far differently, it may be remarked, did the monarch of sublimest song estimate the dignity of the human struggle, when, in the concluding scene of the Iliad, he represents the two heroes of Greece and Troy at length confronted with each other ; when all mortal beholders are dissolved in tears and horror, and celestial powers prepare to join in the conflict; when even the King of gods looks down from his high throne of heaven, to sympathize in the dangers of great unhappy men, to pity their dreadful labours, and to raise at last that awful balance, which is to determine their irrevocable doom.* I have said that the nature of death is changed since Christ dried up the fountain of tears by his resurrection: and this is a fact to which the history of the ages of faith bears such remarkable testimony, that if there were no other object in consulting it but merely to examine that testimony, there would be no hazard in affirming that the result would be more than sufficient to compensate for any labour that the inquiry might have occasioned ; fully justifying the opinion, that the study of no other period of the history of man can present so rich and solemn a spectacle for the instruction and correction of the human race. When we first set out upon this track, I observed, that men could not with any rinsed ck Ser een an al i a * Tl. xxii. 168 AGES OF FAITH. 245 justice accuse religion, or the history of the ages of faith, of leading them through dark and gloomy ways, which they might have avoided with other guides: and here I must repeat that remark; for it is not religion, but nature, which obliges all men, sooner or later, to be fami- liarised with the image of death. Nature takes care that even in youth they should be taught to feel its reality: and oh! if the heart be left to nature, how bitter, how terrible, is that stern lesson! Infinite is the youthful mourning consequent upon the first experience of the changea- bleness of earthly things, which, to the inexperienced mind, comes so necessarily, so unavoidably, that changeableness of things so closely and invariably interwoven with individual existence. A first announce- ment of death is a rent which is never forgotten, but which remains afflicting the soul like a night spectre, unless faith should change it into a joyful desire of that day, which will summon us to a securer world, and to a more consoling knowledge.* ‘¢ Here,”’ as a great French wri- ter observes, ‘‘ there is no need of consulting history. The Muse of sorrow is of every age. Who is ignorant of the funeral chant? Who has not followed to the grave some tender beloved relation, and felt the secret fall of that one pearly drop, which, from the manly eye, more than a flood of tears, bears witness to the affection with which a son _ can love his mother ?” The ancients, notwithstanding their superstitious language, seemed to have had a passion for dwelling on the thought of death, and of its necessity. Pindar makes it enter into the definition of man: for, speak- ing of the human race, he says, ‘¢ Those to whom death is inevitable.’’ The heroic world, indeed, had its boastful eloquence to reconcile men to this king of terrors. What madness to repine at death! What com- plaint is this? << dydece Oynray tovrety mares mrememtvoy tion, a eerete Bavarcso duonyéos teavarvoae st And yet this mortality, this fate, this death, how must they have been, to the feelings of nature, replete with images of terror, fearful, revolting, horrible! ‘To these unhappy men, with nothing to assist their frailty, death could not have appeared more amiable than it did to Adam, when he beheld, with looks of dismay, its first victim.— ** But have I now seen death? Is this the way I must return to native dust? O sight Of terror, foul and ugly to behold, Horrid to think, how horrible to feel !” Milton makes it an object of horror to the angel: «« ________ Death thou hast seen In his first shape on man: but many shapes Of death, and many are the ways that lead To his grim cave, all dismal.” Since the Son of God endured it on the cross, such language would not only be unworthy of an angel’s tongue, but, without recurring to what is related of Spartan fortitude, it would argue ignorance and pusillanim- ity inaboy. The author of the Martyrs describes the image of death as it appeared after the great fulfilment of primeval prophecy. ‘One * Novalis Schriften, i. 24. ‘ t Il. xvi. 441. Vv 246 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, hand of the skeleton, (he says) holds a scythe like a mower; with the other it attempts to hide the only wound that it has ever received, that which Christ inflicted upon it, when he conquered on the top of Gol- gotha.’’* Cruel enemy! well may it seek to hide that wound which has destroyed its sting irremediably. Unlike the formidable conqueror which it once hoped to be, only the weak and wicked can it affright or injure. We are so constituted, indeed, that this crisis naturally impres- ses every one with a feeling of awe. The pinched and pallid features, the cold, clammy skin, the heaving, laborious, rattling respiration, and the irresistible force of that disease which no earthly remedies can over- come, speak of something appalling, and suggest the idea of an Almigh- ty Power manifesting displeasure and inflicting punishment. Yet this is not the language which they speak to the Christian observer. He sees these formidable symptoms only as the means or the consequences of good. In the midst of all this apparent confusion, he can see much that he can understand, indicating the counsel and foresight of a wise and good Creator, by whom the progress and elevation of the human species is an object of constant care. Death, though something foreign from the original order of the natural world, has been converted into an agent of mercy: it has become homogeneous with the laws and consti- tion of a pure and innocent creation: it forms part of that great scheme, of which every discoverable purpose is marked with beneficence as well as wisdom. Death is still endured by the saints; for, as St. Augustin observes, there could be no faith, if immortality of the body were to be the immediate consequence of the sacrament of regeneration ; but, by the wondrous grace of our Saviour, the penalty of sin is changed, so as to serve justice. Formerly it was said, ‘‘ You shall die if you trans- gress ;’’ but now it is said, ‘‘ Die rather than transgress.”? Thus, by the ineffable mercy of God, the punishment of vice becomes the armour of virtue, and the just gain merit, where the sinner found his doom.t ‘Those penmen whom the Holy Spirit moved, in many a passage of their sacred book, predict or attest this admirable manifestation of our Crea- tor’s love. ‘They speak of death as being henceforth amiable in the eyes of men, sanctified in the estimation of angels, precious in the sight of God. ‘ Pretiosa in conspectu Domini mors sanctorum ejus.”? Their death is precious: it is their nativity: the entrance to rest, the exit to glory. And who can justly estimate the wondrous change which is here made manifest? Consider what poor consolation for the human heart was supplied in those eloquent treatises by ancient philosophers, which they entitled ‘‘ De Contemnenda Morte,” in which it is so grave- ly discussed whether death be an evil. And if they are so unsatisfac- tory when read in health, notwithstanding all the brilliancy and magic of their style, what must they have been if proposed to the dying, with the hope of dissipating the terrors of their departure? But since the Orient from on high hath visited the race of men, there is no longer occasion for engaging in such discussions, or for endeavouring to inspire contempt for that which is no longer an object of terror. During the ages of faith, the Catholic vision, the Catholic idea, that which shed a lustre over the whole course of human life, which consoled and exalted * Lib. viii. + De Civit. Dei, lib. xiii. 4. AGES OF FAITH. 247 the mind in every vicissitude, and in every stage of the mortal course, that which determined the direction of all the intellectual faculties, and the whole shape of men’s conceptions, that which alone gave a charm to prosperity and a value to existence, that vision had nothing to fear from the prospect of death. Unlike every thing that is subjected to human perception, it ended not there, but led on the soul to that passage, and enabled it to depart full of joy and confidence: while to the human philosopher, without the supernatural light and consolations of faith, every thing dear to his imagination, every thing interwoven with his mental habits, and with the very constitution of his heart, seems to end for ever, when he is clad in clay. ‘In death,’”’ says Durandus, «“ we pass from one Church to another, from the militant to the triumphant Church.’’* ‘For the just,” says another holy writer, ‘natural death is only a passage from God to God, from one Paradise to another Para- dise.”’t By the passion of our Saviour Christ, death was sanctified, death was become a holy and a blessed thing, a means of imitating Je- sus, and of entering upon eternal life. St. Basil says, ‘‘'The nature of sadness is changed since the cross of Christ. At first the death of the saints was honoured with lamentation and tears, but now, we rejoice at the death of the saints, for we believe it to be the passage to a better life.” Death, in the middle ages, had quite a different character from that in which it appears to Nature’s eye. Who has not made this remark on beholding those ancient paintings which represent dying men, like those of Le Sueur exhibiting the death of St. Bruno? What a placid smile on the countenance of the returning exile! With what peaceful rever- ence and wonder do the brethren stand or kneel round him! See that humble monk, who stands at a distance with clasped hands, on whose face one may read unutterable thoughts of love, so calmly regarding him as his spirit passes, while another still holds up the crucifix to his fading eye, though, by his attitude, turning round to those behind him, he seems to ask for assent to his own opinion, that he is already gone. ‘The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them.”’ Here are no bitter lamentations, or wringing of hands, or tearing of the hair, “ Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast ; no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise, or blame; nothing but well and fair.” St. Ambrose wrote a Treatise «On the Advantages of Death,”’ in which he shows the happiness of dying, because death has nothing ter- rible in itself, and is a deliverance from snares and sin. ‘+ With faith to enlighten you,” say the philosophers of the middle age, «* why fear death, which to you should appear only as a higher revelation of life ? How many things do men voluntarily undertake, which are more pain- ful and distressing than the act of death? Compare it with the setting out on a long and toilsome journey, alone, without friends, leaving all who are dear and familiar to you, going among strangers, where there will be no one to welcome you; and all this merely, perhaps, to satisfy * Durandi Rationale, lib. iv. cap. 6. T L. P. Judde, GEuvres Spirituelles, tom. ii. 2° 248 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, vanity, and with the hope of gain! What sleepless nights, what fa- tiguing days, what profane and disgusting associates by the way, what interminable troubles and interruptions, perhaps amidst wars and civil tumults and persecutions of the Church. Compare death to this. You are at home, in the bosom of relations and friends, with those you love around you; no cares to trouble you, no solicitude; you are going a journey of necessity, a journey sanctified by the Saviour, and by the passage of all God’s holy saints ; a journey you must accomplish if you would be with that which you seek, if you would follow where all that is amiable and good is fled: whither all your hopes are gone before: where, perhaps, you will have father, mother, sisters, brethren, and saints, to welcome you: where you will find the friends of your child- hood and youth, and where all your troubles will be at an end. ‘Hee peregrinatio mediocris vobis videri potest?” Why linger, why turn back, why shrink or fear to depart from earth’s shadows, which change and pass so quickly? How different the length of the two ways! How tedious, and difficult, and painful the one! how short, and easy, and calm the other! You fall asleep,—and when you awake, perhaps you find yourself in your country. You closed your eyes upon a flickering taper, and you may open them to behold Heaven’s light which will for ever shine. The last sounds you heard were the prayers of some priest, feeble and worn down with his labours in this valley of tears, perhaps the mourning of nature struggling with faith, the longings of desire, the sighs of the dove, and now you hear joyful hallelujahs and the music of exulting angels. ‘+ Let us reflect from time to time,” says St. Cyprian, ‘* that we have renounced the world, and that we live here below as guests and strangers. What man, obliged to dwell in a foreign land, would not strain every nerve to return to his native coun- try? What traveller journeying homeward, does not pray to heaven for a favourable wind, that he may the sooner embrace his dear parents ? Our country is Heaven. We have for fathers first, the patriarchs. Why do we not hasten, why do we not run to behold our country and to salute our parents? A vast number of friends are waiting for us, a crowd of relations, of brethren and children, sure of their own salvation and only anxious for ours, desire nothing but to behold us united to them for ever. What joy for us to meet them again and to embrace them! What a pleasure to die without fear! What profound and per- petual felicity to live in eternity!’’ ‘All my hope is in death. I die of regret that I cannot die,”’ says St. Theresa in her celebrated glose after communion, and the effusion of beatific light seen but in a vision, made the poet of the ages of faith exclaim, ** Whoso laments that we must doff this garb Of frail mortality, thenceforth to live Immortally above; he hath not seen The sweet refreshing of that heavenly shower.” * But methinks I hear some one reply, to die young is surely a calam- ity to be deplored even by the most spiritual? Indeed, what new doc- trine is this to be delivered by men professing wisdom? Bacchus was for deciding against Auschylus merely because in one verse he repre- * Dante’s Parad. xiv. AGES OF FAITH. 249 sented death as the greatest of evils;* and the fable of Silenus, alluded to by Cicero, conveys the deepest conviction of the ancient world, who, when he was taken by Midas, is said to have given for his ransom this lesson, ‘that it was the best thing for man not to be born, and that the next best was to die as soon as possible ;’’t the latter part of which sen- tence must remind every one of what is read in the sacred scriptures, that Enoch pleased God, and appeared no more, because God took him away.{ ‘It was because he pleased God,”’ says St. Cyprian, “that he was transported far from the contagion of the world.” ‘In the ages of faith, he who was to be dxymogirares dara,” as Thetis says of her son,|| ‘would not have been regarded as unhappy.”? In fable, indeed, a mighty king is made to exclaim, ‘‘haa mort villaine! comment as tu este si hardie dassailir un tel homme comme estoit mon nepueu qui de bonte passoit tout le monde.’ Yet not Orcus, as Eurip- ides says, but Heaven seemed to have greater glory when the youthful died.§ As far as relates to the thought of an untimely death, faith and reason clear, had undeceived men. Whether their flesh parted shriv- elled from them, or whether they died when the cheek was first clothed in down, or before the coral and the pap were left, the difference was to eternity compared, ‘a briefer space, than is the twinkling of an eye to the heaven’s slowest orb.”’ But death in years of boyish innocence, even to nature’s eye, was not a hideous or a fearful spectacle. What tender and even lovely scenes were those in which occurred the death of a St. Stanislas, or a St. Louis Gonzaga. ‘I die without reluctance, I die full of joy, though the gifts of youth are mine to make life grate- ful to me.”” There was here, enough to make men exclaim, ‘ Death! death! O amiable lovely death !” The heroic spirit of the scholastic romantic ages would not disdain to urge the motive which Achilles adduces to reconcile the youthful son of Priam to meet death. "ADAM iroc, Save nat od" Thy dropdecet obras 5 Kartave x2t Taregoxroc, ome oto mronady Gercelvav, Ov, cedac, cies naps xarde Te pepas Te; Tlareos J” elu’ dyabcio, Ser Je me pelvaro penrnp’ "Arn? Et rot nak euch Savaros ual Molex xearasi,** Why do you repine at death? Are not these dead in the flower of youth and beauty, cut off from beloved friends and brothers, from sweet and holy studies, from that golden world which is made joyful by piety and innocence, and yet did they not die with resignation and even with delight? Die then like them, and exult to follow such bright examples. For the generality of men to die young, was known to be, on every ac- count, an excellent lot. ‘* Priam,’’ as Callimachus remarks, « wept much oftener than Troilus ;”’ and in relation to spiritual good, Henry Suso observes, ‘that for the most part, with age sins are increased, and that you will find far more who become worse than who become better. Our blessed Saviour chose not to protract his life beyond the flower, and it was an Antipope who prolonged his usurpation beyond the years of Peter.’’tt Men never leave the world with such becoming grace as * Aristoph. Rane, 1393. t Tuscul. i. 45. + Gen. v. 24, | Il. i. 505. § Alcestis. +d) xxi 106. ++ Called by some Benedict XIII. Vor. 11.—32 250 MORES CATHOLIC; OR, when young; as when they seem to make death proud with pure and princely beauty. ‘To die young seems like a genuine heroic act. «Love is sweetest in death: for one who loves, death is a mystery of sweet mysteries ; it is a bridal night,” to use the expression of Novalis.* If it be the most beautiful art and gift, as the Greek poet says, eunreus Aurely Biav, t then assuredly we should die young. In the death of youth there is nothing hideous or revolting, but only a most sweet solemn form of love- liness. In allusion to her death, Beatrice speaks thus to Dante :— —————— “never didst thou spy In art or nature, ought so passing sweet As were the limbs that in their beauteous frame, Enclos’d me, and are scatter’d now in dust.” The death of youth, the striking down of these fair flowers, was often made the occasion of eternal good to men, by converting their hearts toa love of God. Adverting to this, Beatrice continued to admonish Dante: “If sweetest thing thus failed thee with my death, What, afterwards, of mortal, should thy wish Have tempted? When thou first hadst felt the dart Of perishable things, in my departing For better realms, thy wing thou should’st have prun’d To follow me; and never stoop’d again To bide a second blow.’’+ In the middle ages, men were conversant with what Frederick Schle- gel terms ‘‘the beautiful side of death.” They marked that full and perfect consciousness, that peculiar clearness and almost foresight which so frequently attend the soul in her last moments previous to departure, to which Shakspeare alludes in these lines: *“O, but they say, the tongues of dying men Enforce attention, like deep harmony.” They marked that courage with which she prepares to enter upon anew sphere, upon regions that never saw man that could after measure back his course,|| that higher clearness in hope and faith, nay, even that ex- pression of countenance which indicates a change to bliss, when they beheld with astonishment, a sweet melancholy smile steal over the face, like that which comes upon a sleeping child.§ The emblematical figure which is placed at the end of the sentence which this great Catholic phi- losopher was prevented from finishing by death, is quite in accordance with this view, and furnishes a striking contrast to the designs of that detested triumph which employed the pencil of the Basle Painter. It represents a beautiful figure with extended wings, and holding with out- stretched arms, the rings and links of a broken chain. It flies upwards through the serene air, as if it had just escaped, and the globe of this earth is seen below, half enveloped in clouds, while an eye at the sum- mit of the picture indicates the seat of God, towards which it is ascend- ing. St. Charles Borromeo ordered a painter to substitute the golden key of Paradise for the skeleton and scythe by which an artist had rep- * Schriften, ii. 312. + Eurip. Heraclid. 534, + Parad. xxxi. || Dant. Purg. i. § Philosophie der Sprache, 112. AGES OF FAITH. 251 resented death. In the chronicles of the middle ages, we read of many who made a swan-like end, fading in music, who died, as the poet says, ‘‘like a dolphin, whom each pang imbues “ With a new color as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, ’till ’tis gone.” So Shakspeare says of one who had passed from this world, « nothing in his life became him like the leaving it: he died as one that had been studied in his death.” ‘Speaking accurately and strictly,” says Frederick Schlegel, «« accord- ing to this Christian view of life, there is no such thing as death, but only a change of life and its passing form. ‘There is no death in nature, that is to say, death is not essential and original, but it has been intro- duced into the creation subsequently and by accident. For men, the immortality of the soul, and the idea of this immortality form not so much an article of faith and of the highest hope, as a real phenomenon of nature, an unquestionable matter of fact, which is attested by all his- tory.”* «To die,”? says Novalis, ‘is a genuine philosophic act.’ He alludes probably to that saying of the Pythagoreans, ‘that in three modes man could render himself better, by converse with the gods, by doing good to others, and by dying, which was the total separation of the soul from the body.”{ But whatever may be thought of this spec- ulation, we may appropriate to ourselves the sentence, and say, in refer- ence to death in the middle ages, that «to die was a genuine religious act ;’’ an act converted by the spirit of resignation and of love for Christ from a natural necessity, to be the voluntary offering of a devout and obedient heart. It must, however, be carefully remarked, that this “beautiful side of death” is connected essentially with the Catholic form of life. It is the manners and customs of the impious city which make sickness and death horrible. 'To the quiet retirement and contem- plation of nature, to the charity and spirit of obedience to God in which the Catholic was accustomed to pass his days, the silence of the sick room was no contrast; he had learned to live alone without visits, with- out cares, without political debates, and without flattery ; but from a perpetual tumult of pleasures or business, with some constant external excitement, the transition to it was undoubtedly something as dismal to the imagination as the idea of death itself to the natural eye. And this leads me to notice the objection which some may advance, who, though willing to admit that the act of death may have been stript of terror, cannot conceive how the passage to it through a long sickness could ever have been any thing but a fearful and unmixed calamity. Unquestiona- bly it belongs not to the principles of the true philosophy to imitate that stoical indifference which affected to deny that the sufferings of the body were an evil, or to adopt, as St. Augustin says, ‘the proud error of those who attribute to the strength of the human will that constancy which is derived from the Divine assistance.’’ «There are but few,’’ says that holy doctor, ** who are not punished in this life but only after it, The evils of diseases in the body are so numerous, that they can- not be all described even in the books of the physicians. Who does aE MEMENE Heiser IRUSEE Ce foreer Never Tn CLE te ee * Philosophie der Sprache, 269. t Schriften ii. 142, + Anonym. de Vita Pythagore. 252 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, not shudder at the bare recital of them? Life itself begins with weep- ing, for Zoroaster alone is said to have laughed when he was born, which monstrous act portended no good to this inventer of magical arts, who found them of no avail even to preserve the vain happiness of the pres- ent life from the power of his enemies, since he was conquered by Ni- nus, king of the Assyrians. ‘Grave jugum super filios Adam a die exi- tus de ventre matris eorum, usque in diem sepulture in matrem omnium.’ And yet such is the mercy of God towards the vessels of mercy, that even from this yoke of the present life, the grace of our Saviour Christ, in a great measure delivers them,”’* though not wholly, lest religion should only be loved for the sake of temporal advantages. What, let us ask, was sickness to members of the city of God during these supernat- ural ages? Like every other condition to which mortal life was subject, it had experienced the mysterious and gladdening influence of the clori- ous light of faith. Sickness now disproved the definition of a happy man, as given by Metrodorus; for like death, it was become amiable, sanctified, and precious ; it belonged to the condition not of wretched, but of blessed mourners; it was a holy condition full of instruction, full of peace; it was solitude, meditation, repose; it was the life of blessed eremites and of men perfect. Hear how a writer of the middle ages speaks to the sick. ‘We are commanded to weep with those who weep, and Jesus himself wept. Disobedience is inhumanity. I will weep therefore lest I should be dis- obedient and inhuman, and not an imitator of my Jesus. You are Op- pressed with sickness, my sweet son; you are perhaps about to go the way of all flesh. But whither? to life. By what way? You cannot err: the way is Christ. You cannot be deceived: Christ is truth. You cannot but live: Christ is life. But, beloved, confession and penance are necessary that you may be in perfect charity. The love of your neighbour worketh no evil. What shall I say of the love of God? These are the two wings with which you must fly to heaven. Love God and God will love you. Love God and you will love whatever he loves, whatever he sends you. Do you suffer from a cough, from inflam- mation, from weakness of stomach, from any of the innumerable diseases to which our frame is subject? These are the gifts of God. These are his chastisements for your good; condemn them not, but revere and love Him who, as a Father, corrects you not in anger but in mercy. O with what a joyful heart ought you to hail the Divine visitation, the spiritual remedy, the antidote to the sting of death! Lift up your heart to God and say, ‘Tu es spes mea, Deus meus: diffido de meis meritis, sed confido de miserationibus tuis: et plus confido de tuis miserationibus, quam diffidam de malis actibus meis. In manus tuas commendo spiri- tum meum.’’’t St. Chrysostom writes as follows to Olympias and says, ‘Do not suppose that you lead an idle, useless life for your salvation, when sickness confines you at home attached to your bed. What you support is above what they suffer who are delivered to the executioners. ‘In vestra patientia possidebitis animas vestras.’ He does not say,” adds St. Augustine, ‘your villas, your honours, your luxuries, your * De Civitate Dei, lib. xxi, 14. xxii. 22. ft De Visitatione Infirmorum, lib. incerti auctoris. AGES OF FAITH, 253 comforts, your health, but your souls; and if the soul can suffer, as is proved by experience, so many things for the sake of that by which it may perish, what ought it not to suffer that it may never perish? What ought it not to suffer, in order, by the tranquil endurance of pain and death, by a patient passion, to obtain the inestimable good of a happy immortality ?”’* ‘Jam egritudinem laudare, unam rem maxime detes- tabilem, quorum est tandem philosophorum,” says Cicero.t In fact, some of the ancient philosophers were able to discern the advantages which resulted from it, to the intellectual nature, and at least, in specu- lation to forestall the judgment of those happier sages, who directed their discipline to temper and moderate those excessive energies of the body which tended, by their full development, to weaken and impair the higher faculties. ‘*’The sickness of a certain friend,” says Pliny, ‘+ gave me occasion lately to remark, that we are the best men when we are infirm. For when does avarice or lust solicita sick man? He has no thought of pleasure ; he does not seek honour, he neglects riches; then he remembers that there are Gods and that he is a man; he envies no one ; he admires no one; he despises no one; and he neither attends to malignant conversation nor is he nourished by it.”’*t ‘These were a heathen’s reflections, but the Christian had far greater and holier consid- erations to cheer his hours of sickness. ‘* Let a wise man be brave in enduring pain; that is sufficient for the discharge of duty. That he should be joyful I do not require,’ continues Cicero, ‘‘ for unquestiona- bly it is asad thing, rough, bitter, hostile to nature, difficult to endure.””|| Yet faith enabled the Christian to find a source of satisfaction even in the pains of sickness, by reminding him that these supplied him with an opportunity of being more conformable to his divine Saviour. In health there were many distractions calculated to make him lose all simi- litude with that great prototype; but on the bed of suffering he lay stretched like the blessed Jesus on the cross, and in the offering up of these pains, he found a sweetness and a consolation that surpassed all the exhilaration and joy of the most vigorous health, ‘* as much,” to use the words of St. Augustin, ‘‘ as the wisdom of Job in sickness ex- ceeded that of Adam in the strength and freshness of youth wandering in the groves.”” This was a phenomenon which suggested many reflec- tions to men of philosophic observation, though, in their speculations, they too often overlooked the real secret cause of this mystery of the moral nature. The testimony to the fact which is borne by Novalis, is assuredly remarkable, when he says, ‘‘the moment in which a man begins to love sickness or pain is perhaps that in which the sweetest pleasure is-in his arms, and the highest positive delight runs through him. May not sickness be a medium of higher synthesis? The more fearful the pain, the higher the secret pleasure. Every sickness is, per- haps, a necessary beginning of the inward union of the two existences, a necessary beginning of love. Hence men can become enthusiastic for sickness and pain, and, above all, for death, as a closer union of the two existences. In general, do not the best things begin with sickness ? Half of sickness is evil, the whole sickness is pleasure ?’’§ * De Patientia. + Tuscul. iv. 25. { Epist. lib, viii. 26, | Tuscul. lib, ii. § Schriften ii. 287, Ww / 254 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, This passage, by a modern philosopher, would furnish an interesting commentary on what is related of many of the saints whose sentiments in sickness and death, are viewed with such contempt or incredulity by others of his religion who wanted the genius and penetration which he possessed. ‘I'he Spaniards have a saying, ‘‘ Where evil is, good is;’’ and these were occasions to demonstrate its truth. To the state of sickness in the ages of faith, there were certain duties and manners belonging, the observance of which gave rise to many lovely and astonishing scenes, which are described with beautiful simplicity in the ancient chronicles. The characteristics of the sick, like those of the dying, were changed, and wholly different from what they had been by nature. Like nectar now, men slowly sipped the most nauseous medicines, when they were reminded of the vinegar and gall. ‘The Nurse, in the Hippolytus, says, ‘*Tt is better to be the sick person than the attendant,’ the latter had so much to endure from the waywardness and impatience of the sufferer.* What a different portrait was seen in an Abbot Stephen, a St. Philip Neri, a St. Clare, a St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi! What a different one was drawn by the poet who had the experience of Christian ages! “‘ He faded, and so calm and meek, So softly worn, so sweetly weak, So tearless, yet so tender-kind, And grieved for those he left behind.” How changed, too, were those who attended on the sick! It was in ages of faith that arose those institutes of mercy in which holy women, like ministering angels, devoted their lives to serve the sick. Such are those sisters of charity, and those gray sisters, who continue to perform so many miracles of charity in our unbelieving age. Men visited the sick now, not only through humanity and friendship, but as an act of devotion. ‘*I was sick, and ye visited me,’’ said our Lord, meaning, as he proceeded, to explain that whosoever would visit the least of his disciples in sickness would be recompensed hereafter as having visited him. Hence the sickness of the lowest attendant would be enough to reverse the plans of a whole family, and to interrupt the progress of a man in the highest authority. St. Gregory of Tours, describes his dis- tress, on one occasion, as he was travelling, and one of his younger at- tendants fell sick :—*‘ ‘This event involved us in great loss, for the sick- ness of this boy put a stop to our proceeding further on the journey. [ prayed earnestly to God that he might be healed; for he was always most patient of labour, and most pious.’’*t This help of intercession, so consoling to the sick, and often through Heaven’s mercy so instru- mental to their recovery, was never wanting in these ages of love. When Bayard was sick in Grenoble, the writer of his life relates, that every one was praying for his recovery. Not only his uncle, the bish- op, but also all the noble citizens and merchants, with all the holy reli- gious people, monks and nuns, interceded for him, day and night. He was soon restored to health. ‘* Et nest possible,’’ adds this devout wri- ter, ‘*quen tant de peuple ny eust quelque bonne personne que Dieu ne voulust ouyr.’’t * Eurip. 187. + 8S. Greg. Turon. Miracul. lib. ii. c. 66. + La tres Joyeuse Hystoire, &c., chap. lv. AGES OF FAITH. 255 Among the advantages of sickness, even in the romantic ages of chiv- alry, was considered its exemption from the danger of a disturbed and unsanctified death. ‘To the eye of religion, it would have been a hap- pier end for Bayard to have died of the distemper which attacked him in the Episcopal Palace of his holy uncle at Grenoble, than to have per- ished as he wished, with the Duke of Nemours, in the slaughter on Easter Sunday, at Ravenna. Aristotle, indeed, will not allow that cour- age can be evinced in sickness :* so that with that idea the young knight might hold it in abhorrence: but, yet, experience in any thing, as the Stagyrite admits, may give rise to courage; and, therefore, Socrates used to call courage knowledge; and, for the same reason, they who were acquainted with sickness and death might have had occasion to evince courage. With regard to physical sufferings, the deep and loving familiarity in which men lived with nature enabled them to perceive that sickness and the approach of death are not what people in health imagine them to be. ‘* Nature, then,’ as Paschal says, ‘‘ gives passions and desires conforma- ble to the present state. It is the fear which we give ourselves, and not nature, which troubles us; because it joins to the state in which we are, the passions of the state in which we are not.”’t But let us now draw nearer to these mourners, and behold them stretched on the bed of sick- ness, that we may have proof that during the ages of faith their’s was truly a blessed sorrow. In the monastic histories, we have many scenes of this kind described in minute detail. ‘The author of that affecting book, which relates the deaths of certain monks of La Trappe, writes as if from the other world, for he had been sick almost to death, so as to have received the last sacraments of the Church; and he had made what he supposed his last discourse to the brethren, when it pleased God to delay his departure. He relates, that many of the monks of La Trappe had originally gone to that house of austere penitence, in a state of the greatest weakness and suffering of body, and had been admitted into it, from a conviction that they would give as much edification, by patience and resignation in their sickness, as others by the labours and exercises which belonged to those of robust health.t The father abbot of La Trappe asked brother Euthyme, whether he did not feel the solitude of the infirmary very wearisome, and whether he was not tired with having nothing to do? ‘To which he replied, «* My days seem very short. I pass them in prayer, in reading, and in working with my hands. Un chretien peut il s’ennuier?”’|| Yet these solitary men contemplated a state of real solitude, that which inevitably awaits the worldly race, with the utmost horror. Dom Isidore II., in his last sickness, said, on one occasion, to his brethren, ‘* How will a soul that has neglected its Judge, and which has chosen to serve the creature and not its Creator, be able to accommodate itself to that fearful solitude in which it will find itself at the hour of death?’ What nakedness! What dereliction! This soul, which reposed in the creature as its centre and its happiness, beholds itself all of a sudden abandoned and deprived of every support. It is not * Ethic. lib. iii. cap. 6. + Pensees 1, part. ix. t Relations de la Mort de Quelques Religieux de l’Abbaye de la Trappe, tom. ii. 147. | Id. tom. i. 102, 256 MORES CATHOLICI; OR sustained by God who has rejected it: neither is it by creatures, for they are without power to give it any succour. What a solitude! Whata void!”’** ‘The Abbot de Rancé says of Dom Paul Ferrand, when sick in the infirmary, ‘I used to visit him every morning at four o’clock. I used to find him on his knees saying his Breviary.”+ Dom Basile, in his last illness, though during severe cold, used to rise and say mass a little after four o’clock. So also Dom Isidore continued to hear mass every morning; and only two days before his death, he was able to hear it in the church without being supported.t In the middle ages, the sick had the consolation of being able to assist at the holy rites of the church till the last hour of their life. Hospitals were so constructed, that the patients who were in bed could each see the altar in the chapel; and those who were infirm in private houses were visited by the clergy, who were charged to administer this conso- lation to them. When sick persons were unable to leave their cham- ber, leave used to be given to say mass, even on the most solemn fes- tivals, in a private oratory.|| It was the custom also that the Psalms should be chaunted to every dying person, as may be collected from Morinus, the sacramentary of St. Eloy, and from other liturgical monu- ments: ‘*'The ministers of the holy church of God, with the utmost rev- erence, ought to sing before the sick every day, the office of vespers, matins, and lauds, with the antiphons, responses, lessons and prayers, pertaining to them.’’ St. Gregory of ‘Tours relates, that when St. Gall, Bishop of Arvernum, was at the point of death; just as the morning broke, he asked what was singing in the church? They said that they were singing the Benediction; and he, commencing with the fiftieth Psalm and the Benediction, proceeded to sing the whole office of matins. But we must proceed now to the consummation of earthly woe, to the last suffering of the blessed mourners. CHAPTER VII. «¢Wuen man,”’ said Simonides, ‘is in the sweet and precious flower of youth, having a light mind, he thinks of many unaccomplishable things: for he never supposes that he will either grow old or die; nor, when in health, has he any thought of sickness. Such is their foolish mind, nor do they know how short to mortals is the time of youth and life,”? Ovnriy J” open ris ayOos Ex wroaunearar Hus, Kovopov eycov Oumov moan’ arercora vee, ours pap earrid” exes yuerooesys oud Oaverrbat, Leche 3 SOME TINS SES TPIT OR eke eke ee a * Relations de la Mort de Quelques Religieux de l Abbaye de la Trappe, tom, aby ; Id. 1, 32. + Id. ii. 138. || Benedict. XIV. de Sacrificio Misse, i. 24. AGES OF FAITH. 257 did” vying Or” dv Hy peovrid” Exe xaparou. valor ravry usives yoos’ obde icacty ss xeoves €06" HGng uxt Biorau darizos Ovutets.* Were we to judge from the spirit and tone of the literature of the middle ages, we might suppose that these beautiful lines of the ancient poet had ceased to be a just representation of the human mind with regard to the remembrance and contemplation of death. The Abbé Gouget observes, that the greatest number of the old poets of France loved to recall the image of death, and that they used even to introduce it into those works which seemed the least serious. ‘The danse macabre was a common termination of their pieces.t ‘The ancients did not dare in common so much as to pronounce the word which denoted it; so that, with the Latins, to die was implied in that remarkable expression, **to rejoin the majority.”’{ Not so in Christian ages, when even by poets and orators, every particular instance of death is made an occasion for reminding men that they will themselves experience it, as in the words of Talbot, on the death of Bedford— ‘*A braver soldier never couched lance, A gentler heart did never sway a court; But kings and mightiest potentates must die, For that’s the end of human misery.” || And yet nothing extravagant, useless, or unnatural, was sanctioned by religion with regard to the importance which it attached to the remem- brance of death. It only said, to use the words of Lombez—* Live with the same circumspection and the same humility as if you expected death every hour, and think no more of death than if you were never to die.”’§ It is related, however, of the Archduke Leopold, of Austria, son of the Emperor Ferdinand II., that he used to repeat every night on going to bed the prayers for the dying in recommendation of the soul, as if his sleep were to be followed by death: but of the spirit of the ages of faith in all these exercises connected with the meditation of death, we may say, in the words of Cicero, ‘‘Quez non hoc affert, ut semper mereamus, sed ut numquam.’’** Who doubts, who denies that, in a certain sense, death is a solemn and awful subject for the contem- plation of man? From high descends the virtue, by whose aid alone he is able to meet it without terror. «In the first place,” as Montaigne says, ‘‘ we all come apprentices, not masters to death.”” We find our- selves presented with a multitude of thoughts, which are to the greatest part of men, wholly new. ‘+ Know this well, O Socrates,’ says the aged Cephalus in Plato, «that when any one thinks himself near death, a fear and reflection come to him concerning things about which he had never thought before.”"tt Of this fact poets have sometimes availed themselves, and I know not if this fearful picture be not sometimes more calculated than the gravest discourse to prepare men for contem- _ plating their end. Witness the account given by the Monk of Melrose respecting the last hours of Michael Scott— te a ora ara eter merrc ec ercee eR DRO Sy | 2 * Stobei Florileg. tom. iii. 288. + Bibliotheque Frangais, tom. x. 185. + Plautus Trinummus, ii. 2. 14. | Hen. VI. 11, p. 2. § Chap. ii. ** Tuscul. iii. 16. tt De Repub. lib. i. Vout. IIl.—33 we2 258 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, “When Michael lay on his dying bed, His conscience was awakened : He bethought him of his sinful deed, And he gave me a sign to come with speed. I was in Spain when the morning rose, But I stood by his bed ere evening close; The words may not again be said That he spoke to me on death-bed laid. I swore to bury his mighty book, That never mortal might therein look.” This account so wrought upon the imagination of the listening knight, that when the magician’s grave was opened, and he in terror took ‘From the cold hand the mighty book, With iron clasp’d, and with iron bound, He thought, as he took it, the dead man frown’d.” Fable and romance derive, after all, their greatest charm from their concordance with truth. Leaving them, however, for more austere studies, how fearful is it to hear a holy man, Adam de Persenna, of the Cistercian Order, speaking of the day of judgment, and saying, ‘“ Nes- cimus utrum dies illa nobis futura sit lucis eterne diluculum, an, quod Deus avertat, crepusculum eterne noctis.”? The dying man knows also that he will not have long to wait without being informed of this mo- mentous doom. ‘Hades, “Adu, is so called,” says Socrates, ‘not, as is generally supposed, from ‘not seeing,’ but much rather from ‘seeing and knowing all things clearly.’”’* Speaking of a man dead, the Greek poet says, ‘‘ He knows all about it now : ade J” ey Simore wadedereu.”+ The- ologians say, ‘that the secret judgment of God takes place in the cham- ber where a man dies.”’{ ‘The place of the particular judgment, which is passed the first instant after the soul is parted from the body, is commonly thought to be that wherein a man dieth. So that God be- ing immense and every where, raiseth in that very place his invisible seat, before which the poor soul, scarce yet out of the body, suddenly appeareth.’’|| ‘Then each one confesses all, and to judgment passing, speaks and hears his fate; thence is conducted to the dwelling which suits his condition. How terrible is the thought of such a speedy and short trial! We can estimate its fears by the impressions which we feel on merely reading of the fate of the Plateans, who obtained a simi- lar hearing from the Lacedemonians, who took their city, though upon them it was only a temporal punishment which could be inflicted. Each one of us may be reminded of what awaits himself when he hears the question that was proposed to these unhappy citizens as they came forth at the summons of their conquerors, one by one, and each was simply asked, ‘‘ Whether he had done any good service to the Lacede- monians, or to their allies, during that present war?’ They begged permission to be indulged in a few words, and not to be confined to giv- ing a direct answer; they wished “2xgéve~ cixeiv, and their chief speaker was for declaiming at length upon their ancient deeds of patriotism in resisting the Medes. But they were not allowed to avail themselves of * Plato Cratylus. } Eurip. Ion. 965. t Drexelius Tribunal Christi, lib. i. cap. 6. || Meditations for the Use of the English College at Lisbon, iv. AGES OF FAITH. 259 any past services, but still the one short and terrible question was pro- pesed to each as he came out; and as he was constrained to confess the truth, that he had done nothing, he was put to death, and thus they all perished.* Strange and terrible visions and events are recorded to have taken place in various ages of the church in attestation of this speedy doom which follows death, which are not the less solemn, if explained on the ground chosen by St. Augustin, who ascribes them to the operation of angels acting by divine command. Among the letters of St. Boniface there is one relating a most awful vision, which was described to him by a man who had been miraculously restored to life, who revealed to him what his soul had seen in the other world. Guilty spirits, too, were known to come forth from their sepulchre, and to start up from their biers to announce to the earth the punishments of divine justice, and to say to men, ‘‘ Pray not for me! I am judged, I am condemned!’? Who has not heard of that vision of Alberico, from which Dante is supposed to have taken the idea of his immortal poem? But while we are on such themes, gentle reader, as Socrates says to Theetetus, ‘* Look around and examine 44 tis tly duuitav eraxody, lest there should be present any of those persons who think that there is nothing existing but what they can grasp in their hands, and to whom 7a 70 dezrs is inconceivable and inadmissible. ‘Truly, replies the disciple, you speak of dry, hard, repul- sive men. O boy, they are not exactly the children of the Muses, (adds Socrates,) Eich yap, & et, man’ oo duovoct,” Trusting, however, that they are far from us at present, let us hear what was the substance of this history. Alberico, then, we read, born of noble parents at a castle near Alvito, in the diocese of Sora, in the year 1101, was seized, on completing his ninth year, with a violent fit of illness, which deprived him of his senses for several days. During this trance, he had a vision in which he seemed to be conducted by two angels through purgatory and hell, and then to be taken up into Paradise, to behold the glory of the blessed. As soon as he came to himself again, he was permitted to make profession of a religious life in the monastery of Monte Casino. As the account he gave of his vision was strangely altered in the reports that went abroad of it, Girardo, the abbot, employed one of the monks to take down a relation of it from the mouth of Alberico himself. Se- nioretto, who was chosen abbot in 1127, not contented with this nar- rative, ordered Alberico to revise and correct it, which he accordingly did, with the assistance of Pietro Diacono, his associate in the monas- tery, and a few years younger than himself, and whose testimony to his extreme and perpetual self-mortification, and to a certain abstractedness of demeanour, which showed him to converse with other thoughts than those of this life, is still on record. It is conjectured that Alberico lived to a good old age. There was a similar narrative that used to be told in Melrose Abbey, respecting St. Drithelm, whose relics reposed there. ‘This extraordi- nary man, the noble Thane of Cunningham, in Northumbria, subse- quently a monk and confessor, after a severe illness, rose, as it were, from the dead, and reported his vision of the other world to Hemgils, a _* Thucyd. lib. iii. 68. 260 MORES CATHOLICT; OR, priest, from whom Bede derived his information, as also to king Alfred himself. ‘This vision is also related by Alcuin. These are strange relations, but there are others more fearful still, which seem to confirm the belief of Origen, that God sometimes permits the spirits or souls of the dead to become visible to men;* notwithstanding the doubt of St. Augustin, who adduces but negative arguments to disprove it, as where he concludes from the fact of his mother having never appeared to him, that the dead can never really return to the living ;t though, in another place, in reply to Dulcitius, he reasons upon the ground of the possibil- ity of their appearing. In the year 1150, it is related that, on the vigil of St. Cecilia, a very old monk, an hundred years of age, at Marchiennes, in Flanders, fell asleep while sacred lessons were reading, and saw, in a dream, a monk, all clad in armour, shining like red hot iron in a furnace. The old man asked him who he was?—and hearing that he had lived among the monks of that convent, he stretched out his hand toward the spectre, but it charged him to beware how he touched it, adding, that he had yet to endure this fiery armour for ten years more, to expiate the having injured the reputation of another.|| ‘Those who are inclined to hear such narrations will observe, that the doubts of St. Augustin do not amount to denying that such a vision may have appeared, for he only infers that it was effected by the instrumentality of angels; however, Peter, the venerable abbot of Cluny, relates an event somewhat similar, which, from being attested by him, is more calculated to make a deep impression upon all. ‘There was a monk at Cluny,”’ saith he, ‘‘ named Bernard Savinellus. One night, as he was returning to the dormitory, after singing nocturns and lauds in the church with the brethren, he met Stephen, vulgarly called Blancus, Abbot of St. Giles, who had departed from life a few days before. At first, not knowing him, he was passing on, till the other spoke, and asked him, whither he was hastening? Bernard, astonished and angry that a monk should speak, contrary to the rules, in the nocturnal hours, and in a place where it was not per- mitted, made signs to him to hold his peace; but, as the dead abbot replied, and urged him to speak, the other, raising his head, asked, in amaze, who he might be? ‘To whom it was answered, I am Stephen, called abbot of St. Giles, who have formerly committed many faults in the abbey, for which I now suffer pains; and I beseech you to implore the Lord Abbot, and other brethren, to pray for me, that, by the ineffa- ble mercy of God, I may be delivered.’’ Bernard replied, that he would do so; but added, that he thought no one would believe his report; to which the dead man answered, ‘In order, then, that no one my doubt, you may assure them that, within eight days, you will depart from life:’? he spoke and vanished. ‘The monk, returning to the church, spent the remainder of that night in prayer and meditation. When it was day he related his vision to St. Hugo, who was then the abbot. As is natural, some believed his account, and others thought it was some delusion. ‘The next day the monk fell sick, and continued growing * In Cels. lib. ii. + De cura pro Mortuis. t Lib. de Octo Dulcitii Questionibus. | Hist. des Saints de la Province de Lille et Douay, p. 377. AGES OF FAITH. 261 worse, and constantly affirming the truth of what he had related, till his death, which occurred within the time specified.”** But we have wan- dered too far amidst this darksome wilderness, where every man would rather ask than pretend to point out the way. Let us regain our road. To all men, death comes in part as the fulfilment of the original sen- tence upon sin. ‘ Mors,” says St. Anselm, ‘*is derived a morsu pomi vetiti.”’ It is so far essentially connected with mourning, either from a consideration of sin or from a remembrance of what was paid to cancel it; or, in fine, from the natural impulse of our poor humanity. Our first mother had the consolation of hearing an angel, and of learning that glorious decree of Heaven’s mercy, which ordained that her seed was to overcome the serpent; but still, nature felt the terrors of the irrever- sible sentence, and we read, ue So much of death her thoughts Had entertain’d, as dyed her cheeks with pale.” Our all-perfect and almighty Saviour, Christ Jesus, wept over the grave of dead Lazarus: and when he heard of the death of St. John the Baptist, we read, ‘*Secessit inde in navicula, in locum desertum seor- sum.”’*t We find St. Paul saying that God had mercy on Epaphrodi- tus, raising him from sickness, lest, by the death of so dear a friend, he should have sadness upon sadness.{ We behold holy Mary too, the queen of heaven and mistress of the world, overwhelmed with sorrow beneath the cross, when ‘She saw her sweet and only child In desolation calm and mild, In life’s expiring throes.” ‘¢ Where is the man,’’ exclaims the holy Church, ‘‘ who would not weep if he beheld the mother of Christ in such suffering?’ Far be it from the humble followers of a crucified Saviour to profess a scorn for death, which he condescended to endure. It is disarmed, it is vanquished; yet its aspect still bepeaks its origin, and the eye naturally turns from it in mourning. But if death be thus solemn to the just, to the chosen ves- sels, to the highly-favoured of Heaven, what shall we say respecting it, as affecting those who die subject to the wrath of God? ‘The ancients were able to discern that there were two forms of death, widely different from each other, determined by the previous lives and character of those who suffered it. Plato speaks of these in the Phedrus, the Phedo, the Gorgias, and in the tenth book of the Republic. ‘*The way to Hades,” we read in the Phedo, ‘‘is not simple and only one; for, in that case, there would be no want of a guide, since it would be impossible to go astray: but it seems that there are many cross-ways and circuits—and those who have committed sacrileges or murders, or other great crimes, fall into Tartarus, whence they never get out. ev od wore exGxivovew.|| And Socrates would remind the wicked, that, when they die, ésivos méev o ray xanay uebagec vores, will not receive them, but they will have to keep com- pany for ever with those things that resemble them, 2x x2xMid morning’s sweetest breeze and softest dew, Is wing’d to heaven by good men’s sighs and tears !”” Hearken to that holy monk who is assisting the dying Marmion on the bloody field : **O look, my son, upon yon sign Of the Redeemer’s grace divine : O think on faith and bliss! By many a death-bed I have been, And many a sinner’s parting seen, But never aught like this!” * Lib. v, Hist. Anglor. cap. 15. _ - Lib. iv, cap. 38. + Lib. xix. 26. AGES OF FAITH, 263 «Mors peccatorum pessima ;”” I will look no more. Itis every where the same, and yet this horror is but the prelude to that greater dismay when the trumpet of the judgment angel shall sound within their sepul- chre crying, ‘‘Surgite, mortui!’’ already, however, are they made ac- quainted with their doom: «They have slept the evil sleep, That from the future tore the curtain off.”’ On the other hand, it is true that the judgments of God are sometimes seen in the profound obscurity in which the future is involved to the eyes of the dying and impenitent sinner, who is permitted sometimes to console himself with the epicurean’s affirmation, ‘* that death is the last line of things.”’* Pliny remarked the error of the common opinion, ‘that universally the testaments of men are a mirror of their manners, since Domitius Tullus appeared far better in his death than in his life.’’t But it is in the modern society that these examples of an ungrounded tranquillity are chiefly found, to which no parallel is furnished by the history of the middle ages. ‘The ‘Tartarus of the ancients, the cross and sinister ways that Socrates speaks of, the testimony of original revela- tion, and primeval tradition respecting the future inexorable judges, ‘‘ at whose bar,’’ as Cicero says, ‘‘no one can have a Crassus, or a Mare Antony, or a Demosthenes, for his advocate, but every one must plead for himself,” the terrible announcement of eternal fire by the voice of Him who cannot deceive, seem all alike to them, like idle tales to which they give no credit; they deny that there can be material fires, or spirits and bodies subject to them. Satan says to them, “* thou shalt not burn,” as he did to Adam, “thou shalt not die :”’ he prevents them from remark- ing, that there may be a doom to penal fire joining wicked souls that first had been with fleshly bodies united in ways equally wondrous and equally true. ‘The death of a distinguished member of the Huguenot sect in France, was thus described lately by his friend. ‘ His last words were respecting the things he had always loved: the joys and sorrows of his friends, literature, civilization, liberty, and the future prospects of France.”” What would Socrates have thought of one who confined his discourse to such topics at his death? When these exam- ples were first becoming known to Christian society, they excited a hor- ror mixed with astonishment, which is forcibly expressed by Madame de Sevigné, on relating the death of Charles Il.: I] me semble que la mort du roi d’Angleterre devient plus philosophe et Angloise que Chré- tienne et Catholique. Adieu roi me fait quasi un neud 4 la gorge.” ft But I must hasten on from the dark, and deformed, and sorrowful side of death, well pleased to leave so eruel sea behind, to illustrate from the history of the ages of faith, what we have alluded to as its beautiful side, and to view the fulfilment of this debt of nature in reference to the mourners who were blessed. Matter this not unbecoming even an heroic theme, as Homer will attest; for the question which Telemachus addresses to Nestor, after expressing the greatest reverence for his age and wisdom, was simply this ‘* how died Agamemnon ? mas Bay’ "Areeidis eheuxeciav *Ayapeuyay 5’ | ee * Horace, Epist. i. 10. + Epist. lib. vii. 18. Lett. Roy. 724. || Od. iii, 248. 264 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, and with reason, since it is by their death men can be known. ‘In fine hominis, denudatio operum illius.”? But who has a tongue to celebrate worthily the admirable and glorious triumph of the meek children of grace over death and the grave? Who is able to penetrate the depth of their mysterious consolations, or to conceive the ineffable sweetness and constancy of their hope? It is in reference to them that one may well be anxious to inquire from history ; for who does not feel impelled to ask, in the words of Echecrates to Phedo, ‘* What was it that these men said before death, and how did they die? for it would be a sweet thing to hear this.”* Let us look upon them as we find them lying on their death-bed, where, as in the instance of St. Dunstan, they saw so many strange visions of heavenly joys, showed unto them for their great comfort. Let us leave the history of the middle ages to speak for itself, and remain but mutes or audience to this act, while it displays before us, in the language of these ancient times, the form of death, which is pronounced to be precious in the sight of God. In the ancient monasteries, there are necrologies, in which the deaths of the brethren and benefactors are minutely described ; but besides these the monastic histories abound with similar examples. ‘+ Now that we have described the holy deeds of St. Richarius,”’ says a venerable chron- icle, ‘* what remains but to relate the death of the just? But that should not be called death which constitutes the birth-day of a saint; for when dead to the world, then he is truly born to Christ in heaven. It is miser- able to love the place of death any longer, and after experiencing its dan- gers, to seem unwilling to enter the port. Youshould rather rejoice with him, that being saved from the wreck of the world, he should now live secure and crowned with Christ, eternally safe and happy. ‘Therefore we shall not call it the death, but the transit of this Father, who on this account is truly happy, because, despising the world he had this transit always before his eyes. The day before his departure, when he was to receive the object of his long desire, and to be joined forever with God, he called Sygobard his fellow soldier, saying to him, ‘I know, my son, I know that my end is not far off, and that I shall soon behold my King whom I have long desired to see. Do you then prepare a vessel in which my body may be placed, not with superfluous study, but for necessary use, and my son, prepare also yourself with all diligence, that when that day, so near to me, and which is not far from you, shall arrive, it may find you prepared. I go the way of all the world, only may the Saviour of the world be gracious unto me, and defend me now from the enemy, who for- merly redeemed me from the enemy ; that whom I had as the consoler of my present life, may be a dispenser to me of eternal life.” The disciple hearing him thus speak, wept much, but obeyed his orders, and when he had prepared the sarcophagus, the holy father had scarcely breath; yet still he continued to pray and to give thanks, while he fortified himself for his passage, by receiving the body and blood of Christ: amid thanksgiving and words of prayer his spirit departed.t In the same chronicle occurs the following scene: * After four years of sickness, Gervin still continu- ing to perform all his service to God, being inflamed by a devotion which i rte a SL See oy ce * Plato, Phedo. ‘ T Chronic. Centulensis sive Richarii, lib. i. cap. xxi. apud Dacher. Spicileg. tom. iv. AGES OF FAITH. 265 nothing could interrupt, was apprized of his approaching deliverance in this manner. In the beginning of the year of our Lord mixxiv., on the day when the church celebrates the presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the temple, he said mass in the crypt of the church of our monastery, and being more afflicted than usual, it was with difficulty that he was able to complete the mysteries. However, by the grace of God, having accomplished them strictly, being fatigued by such exertion, the breth- ren supporting him on the right and left, led him back to his room, and then he said to them, ‘‘ My sweet sons, do you know I have received from St. Mary leave to depart this day?’’ And they asking him whither he meant to go? ‘¢ whither,”’ said he, ‘* but to that place to which I have always desired to go, and for which I have always besought God ;’’ but the brethren replying, ‘‘ that he could still live long, in order that sacri- _ fice to the omnipotent God might be offered by his hands,” he said, ‘never again will brother Gervin sing mass.’’ In fact, he never rose again from his bed, and in the beginning of Lent, on the fourth feria, he called together the elder brethren and such as were priests, and spoke to them as follows: ‘‘ As the blessed Germain said to his brother bish- ops, so I say to you, my sons; I commend to you, dearly beloved, my passage hence, for I perceive that the hour is at hand, when the salva- tion which I have long sought for from the Lord, will come to me; and this was always the intention of my prayers, that the merciful God would order my death to take place during the holy: days which have lately commenced ; and now since I trust that he is about to grant my petitions, I wish to confess before you, in the sight of God, all the evils which I have committed, and on account of which, I fear for my soul; believing that this confession, through the tender mercy of the Lord and your intercession, will cleanse me.’’ Having said this, while the breth- ren wept round him, he recited before them some grievous sins, which they all knew he had never committed; the brethren being astonished, having known the innocence of his life, said to him, ‘* But good father, you accuse yourself of things of which it is manifest you were never guilty. Certainly you never committed adultery nor homicide.”’ ‘* Spare me, brethren, spare me, I beseech you, and do not load my soul; for if any have perished under my care, truly in the judgment of God, I shall have to render an account of their souls; and as for adultery, hear what Christ says: ‘qui viderit mulierem ad concupiscendum eam, jam meechatus est eam in corde suo.’ With these and other words he com- mended the care of his exit to God and to their prayers. Still he caused one of the brethren to sing the whole psalter to him every day, because he was himself unable. ‘The brethren seeing that he approached his end, according to the mandate of St. James, anointed him with blessed oil, and asked him where he wished to be buried; but he would not point out any place, leaving it to their own choice, but being continually urged to do so, he said, ‘I will tell you what I wish you would do, but I know you will not fulfil it; fasten a rope to my foot, drag me and and throw me on the dung-heap, because I do not think that I deserve any other sepulchre. He besought them, however, to carry him in his last hour into the church of St. Richarius, that there he might render his soul to God. Accordingly, on the third feria of the second week of Lent, after matins, the brethren found him in the agony, which he per- Vou. I].—34 X 266 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, ceiving, with his hand he made signs to them to carry him into the church, and the brethren carried him there, and having spread sack- cloth, they placed him before the altar of St. John the Baptist. Then having placed the crucifix before him, the congregation began the lit- anies, and when they came to Sancta Maria, ‘ora pro eo,’ he repeated the words in death, and when they chaunted ‘S. Richari, ora pro eo,’ he let fall tears, and stretched out his hands, and repeated the words, and then he lapsed into quietness; and the litanies being finished the brethren began the commendation of the faithful; and when they came to ‘suscipiat te Christus,’ his spirit departed.’’* Ingulphus describes the last days of Turketul, Abbot of Crowland :—‘* Worn down by age and labour, he expected the day of his release, devoting himself with greater assiduity to vigils and prayer, and celebrating the holy mys- teries, allowing himself leisure for holy meditations, and relieving all the poor, giving food to all that sought alms, and to all the needy, and exercising every other act of charity, despising the present life, and de- siring the future, neglecting nothing of the regular observances, and yet always speaking of himself as an unprofitable servant, and from his heart imploring the mercy of Christ. Once every day he used to visit the schools of the children and sons of the nobles who were educating for the priesthood or the cloister, and to examine the reading and labour of each, bringing with him some figs, or raisins, or nuts, or apples, or other such little presents, to reward those who were doing well, that all might be excited, not only by words or stripes, but by prayers and rewards: he assisted divers old monks that were sick to death, and would never leave them by day or night, but would sing the regular office before them, and perform, like the cleverest youth, all proper service with his own hands. At length, in the year 975, after the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, he was seized with a fever; and on the fourth day, he assembled all the monks, forty-seven in number, with four lay-brothers, and ex- posed to them the state of the whole house. ‘Then, having communi- cated in the sacred mysteries of Christ, he embraced the crucifix within his arms, and kissed it, with sighs and tears, and spoke such devout words to each of the wounds of Christ, that the brethren who stood near, wept abundantly ; and from the hearts of many of them, as long as they lived afterwards, the memory of his devotion never departed. On the day before his death, he made a short sermon to his brethren, and warned them to be careful against accidents of fire. He departed on the day of the translation of S. Benedict, at the completion of the regular office, and passed from the cares of his abbatial government to the bosom of Abraham.’’t Serlon, Bishop of Séez died in the year 1123. Some days before his death, perceiving his end to be near, after celebrating mass in his ecathe- dral, he called the canons and officers of his church, and said to them, “