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 EMOIR AND 
 
 
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 1860-1945 
 

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CHARLES HENRY BRIGHAM. 
 
 MEMOIR AND PAPERS 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 LOCKWOOD, EJtOOKS & COMPANY. 
 
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 Copyright by 
 LOCKWOOD, BROOKS & CO. 
 
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CONTENTS. 
 
 I. MEMOIR 
 
 I 
 
 IL PAPERS. 
 
 
 I. 
 
 Ambrose . . . . . 
 
 • 59 
 
 2. 
 
 Augustine .... 
 
 79 
 
 3- 
 
 Symbolism . . . . • 
 
 . 104 
 
 4- 
 
 Gregory the Great 
 
 . 125 
 
 S- 
 
 Moham7ned . . , . . 
 
 . 144 
 
 6. 
 
 Hildebrand .... 
 
 164 
 
 7- 
 
 Abelard ..... 
 
 . 185 
 
 8. 
 
 6"/. Domijiic and St. Francis 
 
 208 
 
 9- 
 
 Copei'niciis . . . . . 
 
 . 231 
 
 lO. 
 
 Martin Luther 
 
 244 
 
 11. 
 
 St. Theresa ..... 
 
 . 277 
 
 12. 
 
 Loyola ..... 
 
 299 
 
 13- 
 
 ^/. Charles Borromeo . 
 
 . Z^Z 
 
 14. 
 
 77z^ Socifii .... 
 
 349 
 
 15- 
 
 77z<? Puritans of England 
 
 . 368 
 
 16. 
 
 Ujiitarian Principles 
 
 392 
 
 17- 
 
 Characteristics of the yews . 
 
 . 413 
 
 18. 
 
 Christianity the Universal Religion 
 
 435 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The literary executors, appointed by Mr. Brigham 
 in his will, offer to his friends and the public the 
 following' volume as the result of their labors. It 
 consists of a Memoir by his classmate. Rev. E. B. 
 Willson, and such selections from his manuscripts 
 and printed papers as would, it was thought, best 
 illustrate the range, quality and faithfulness of his 
 work and scholarship. He left, printed and unprinted, 
 a large mass of materials for more systematic and 
 homogeneous volumes, in his critical reviews, his- 
 torical, biographical and geographical lectures, 
 European and Oriental travels, educational, reform 
 and hygienic articles, and sermons, but the rapid 
 transition of opinions and the speedy superannuation 
 of critical and literary judgments by later investiga- 
 tions and maturer thought, render it difficult in 
 general to use for present purposes to-day what was 
 written even ten or twenty years ago, without modifi- 
 cation or cumbersome notes. Probably even in what 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 we have published, Mr. Brigham's own quick eye 
 would have detected many things to change or 
 qualify. But the object primarily has been to repre- 
 sent the man, not opinions. 
 
 With these explanations we contribute the volume 
 as another not unworthy addition to the increasing 
 treasure-house of American letters and biography. 
 The old, old story of character, faith, consecrated 
 labor and immortal hope can never pall on human 
 interest, but renews itself, like the fresh seasons of 
 Nature herself with never-tiring attraction, and gives 
 lessons ever new and stimulating to mind and heart. 
 His parishioners, his brethren in the ministry, and 
 his numerous pupils at Ann Arbor and Meadville 
 will recall with gratitude many a word which helped 
 them to higher faith and nobler living. 
 
 ABIEL ABBOT LIVERMORE. 
 
NOTE, 
 
 Rev. Charles Henry Brigham laid upon two of 
 his friends the double and delicate duty, first, of 
 determining whether any, and if any, what, of his 
 unpublished papers should go to the press ; and, 
 secondly, the "preparation of a brief memoir." 
 
 The two friends living far apart, agreed that a 
 memoir could not conveniently be their joint work. 
 Thus it has come to be undertaken by one of them ; 
 and whether fitly or ill done, the responsibility for it 
 rests with him. 
 
 The memorialist would never have thought of 
 nominating himself for this office, nor have accepted 
 it under any less constraining commission than Mr. 
 Brigham's supposed wish. At the moment of taking 
 up the pen, he has his eyes upon this sentence : 
 "Few men would choose their own biographers well," 
 and believes that it contains the truth. 
 
 He is happily able to supplement his own imper- 
 
viii NOTE. 
 
 feet sketch with some touches by other friendly 
 hands, notably two, which he has set by themselves 
 in the form in which he found them standing, because 
 they seem to him specially worthy to be preserved 
 unchanged, as well on account of the truth and 
 justness in them, as of the close relations in which 
 the writers stood to their subject. 
 
 E. B. WILLSON. 
 
MEMOIR 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 Charles Henry Brigham, son of Dennis and Roxa 
 (Fay) Brigham, was born in Boston, July 27th, 1820. A 
 child of good parts, he made easy progress through the 
 schools which he attended in his childhood and boyhood, 
 and went from the Latin School to Harvard College at the 
 age of fifteen, graduating in the class of 1839. 
 
 Of his early childhood we have but a glimpse or two. 
 A kinswoman of about equal age with him, remembers that 
 when he came on visits to her father's house in the 
 country, as he frequently did, " the boy cousins cared noth- 
 ing about him, as he could never interest himself in any of 
 their sports. The chickens were his chief attraction, and 
 very soon he knew every one (although we had a large 
 flock), and would know if one was missing. He seemed 
 to make a study of them, watching all their ways." 
 
 The memory for which he was distinguished in after 
 years showed itself early, laying hold, with swift and sure 
 grasp, of the facts of history and experience, and of the 
 literary treasures of good books. 
 
 In his literary training, as in his moral, he owed more to 
 his mother than to all other masters and models. " To 
 her," he wrote when assuming his first pastorate, '' I owe 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 my ambition to excel, my fondness for study, and mental 
 culture." 
 
 One with whom he maintained a warm and close friend- 
 ship for almost fifty years. Rev. Amos Smith of Belmont, 
 furnishes some interesting facts and pictures, falling within 
 this portion of his life : 
 
 He entered, when advanced enough, the Bowdoin 
 school, corner of Temple and Derne streets. Its site, and 
 the lots which adjoined it, are now covered by the West 
 Boston Reservoir. He completed in 1830 the course of 
 studies pursued in that school, receiving a Franklin medal. 
 He then entered the Boston Latin School, at that time 
 kept at the corner of School Street and Chapman Place. 
 Horticultural Hall afterwards covered, but the Parker 
 House now covers, that space. It was then (in 1830) that 
 my acquaintance with him commenced, I having entered 
 the school in 1829. I remember him well, as a bright, 
 intelligent, wide-awake, compactly-built, rather short, mus- 
 cular boy, as fond of fun and play as any of his mates, 
 but obedient to the rules of the school, of uncommon in- 
 dustry, of great power of perseverance in the studying of 
 his lessons, of high scholarship in all departments, and 
 greatly liked, as a good and faithful pupil, by all the 
 teachers. I suspect that no boy of that school ever com- 
 mitted to memorv Adams's Latin Grammar more thorou2:hlv 
 than he did. Many a time, here in Belmont, he has 
 amused me, and called back the old Latin School days, by 
 repeating- with glib tongue large extracts from that de- 
 lectable volume, and especially some of the long "lists" 
 with which it abounds, and which at school we had to learn 
 by heart. Forty-five years had not erased them from his 
 memory. What he learned of Latin from Masters Dilla- 
 way, Gardner, Streeter, and the other instructors of that 
 school, increased by what he subsequently acquired at 
 college, enabled him to read the language with pretty nearly 
 the same facility with which he read English. And his 
 acquaintance with Greek, though less, was large. He 
 graduated from the school in 1835, having ranked through 
 his whole career in it, among the highest in his class. 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 In college, as in school, he was studious, maintained a 
 high rank, and identified himself with all that was best in 
 scholarship, and worthiest in character. A high ideal of 
 the scholar's vocation held him to a lofty aim and an un- 
 flagging patience in work ; and to the end of his life he 
 remained a loyal son of the University, watching over her 
 good fame with a jealous pride, and justly holding it an 
 honorable distinction to have had her culture, and to have 
 received her well-won credentials. 
 
 Of the vear that intervened between his sfraduation and 
 the commencement of his professional studies, six months 
 were passed in teaching in a private school kept by a 
 French gentleman in the city of Baltimore, Maryland ; the 
 remainder at his father's house in New York. When at 
 home he was not idle. He had no capacity for idleness. 
 He read industriously, did some writing daily, and mean- 
 time weighed seriously the question of his life's calling, 
 which he settled by entering the Divinity School in Cam- 
 bridge in August, 1840. 
 
 Although, even after this choice was made, we find him 
 sometimes expressing a doubt whether he had chosen 
 wiseh'', and half regretting that he had not pursued another 
 vocation, he permits us to see in a "Thought Book," which 
 he kept through the year 1840, how steadily and positively 
 his mind was setting all this time in the direction of his life- 
 long labors. And we must go even farther back to perceive 
 fully the unity and consistency of his character, and to see 
 how strongly all the indications had been pointing this 
 way from the first. His mother's influence has been men- 
 tioned. That of the church is not to be overlooked. 
 The family regularly attended worship in the West Boston 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 Church, of which Rev. Charles Lowell was the minister 
 while Charles Brigham was growing and plastic. Mother 
 and son were there together. The apostolic dignity of the 
 preacher, his deep seriousness of manner, the exacting and 
 inspiring standard of life which he held up to view as the 
 Christian ideal, and his pastoral closeness and fidelity to 
 the households of which his congregation was made up, 
 could not fail to impress the imagination of this quick- 
 minded and observant boy. They did impress him deeply, 
 and are to be counted among the most undoubted and 
 effective of the causes that gave bent to his mind, when 
 the time came to fix upon a profession. 
 
 About the time he went to Baltimore he began a careful 
 and consecutive reading of the New Testament, making a 
 record from day to day of the results, both as to their 
 practical lessons and as establishing the character of their 
 writings. At the close of the survey, which ran through 
 nearly a year's time, he came to the conclusion that the 
 evangelical history was trustworthy, and accepted the 
 New Testament " as a guide book in the way of duty." 
 " If I walk by its precepts I am secure against falling. It is 
 a practical book, the most practical I ever read ; eminently 
 fitted to be a lamp to my feet and a light to my path .... 
 I am going now to enter upon the study of divinity. 
 . . . . I shall ever remember this year as being the occa- 
 sion of my first reading of the New Testament." He 
 had omitted the "Revelation" from his reading as "a 
 book which is perhaps apocryphal, and certainly not con- 
 nected with, or subsidiary to, the original design of the 
 book in general." 
 
 It was at Divinity Hall, Cambridge, and at the begin 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 ning of the academic year in 1840, that I first met Mr. 
 Brigham. The next three years were passed in ahnost 
 daily and intimate intercourse with him. 
 
 The life of a student in a theological school is, to exter- 
 nal observation, monotony itself : a round of exercises at 
 appointed hours, quiet study, much writing, much reading, 
 solitary walks and walks in pairs, the professor's learned 
 lecture and paternal advice, argument and discussion around 
 the recitation tables, accidental groupings at odd hours, 
 when fun and banter, wit and story rule ; and at other hours, 
 when in more serious conference conscience makes in- 
 quisition of motive, and young men, not without anxiety, 
 forecast the future of their hopes and fears — such, to exter- 
 nal observation, is this life of the student of theolog\\ It 
 is a great deal more, to be sure, to the eye reading with 
 more insight. It is far from monotonous ; it is as excit- 
 ing as the career of the explorer in unknown countries, or 
 the struggle in the thick of business for the great prizes of 
 fortune. 
 
 In the retrospect of that time no figure is more constant 
 to my eye or mind than Mr. Brigham's. Foraging 
 widely, he was the foremost and most diligent of readers, 
 most abundant of writers, faithful in attendance upon all 
 prescribed exercises, never backward in debate, no laggard 
 at a walk, sincere and serious always in his approach to 
 serious themes, and in his treatment of matters of moral 
 concern and religious experience never otherwise than 
 earnest and reverent. 
 
 Neither at that period, nor later, was he usually credited 
 with the religious sensibility which he possessed. This 
 was owing not to reserve, nor to any mask of manners 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 that he designedly wore, for he was frank to a fault. But 
 he was naturally self-assertive, and set a high value on 
 scholarly acquisition, and on some personal advantages of 
 opportunit}', in which he was affluent. With a pretty large 
 self-esteem he was sure, therefore, to offend at times by . 
 assumptions of superiority and all-knowingness. Along 
 with this, but overlaid and hidden by it, went a genuine 
 humility and an honest self-depreciation, of which abun- 
 dant autographic proofs exist. Better proof than self- 
 reproaches — of which there was no lack in his private 
 notes — he took sharp criticism, when it came from a 
 friend and one whom he respected as a competent critic, 
 with an unsparing self-application, making no defense of 
 himself nor complaint of injustice, though he felt it with 
 a wincing keenness. 
 
 After graduation from the Divinity School, Mr. Brigham 
 preached in several vacant pulpits from one to eight Sun- 
 days each. His longer engagements were in Watertown 
 three Sundays, in Greenfield four, in South Boston eight, 
 in Taunton six. Having received a call to settle as Pastor 
 of the First Congregational Society in Taunton, he ac- 
 cepted it on the 20th of February, 1844, and was ordained 
 on the 27th of March, the same year. In his letter of 
 acceptance he said: ''I can only bring you the talent.s 
 wdiich God has given me, a willingness to labor, and a sin 
 cere interest, I trust, in the work of the ministry." Sucii 
 words, common in such communications, are no common 
 places here. "A willingness to labor and a sincere inter- 
 est in the work of the ministry : " proper and modest words 
 for the occasion, but not much color in them then ; how 
 loaded with meaning and warm with life, as we read them 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 now, with the record of a completed ministry of twenty- 
 two years throwing light upon them ! Willingness to labor? 
 It was an irrepressible, exulting eagerness with him. 
 Labor was his delight. No brief spasms and spurts, fol- 
 lowed by panting lassitude. It went on steadily from the 
 beginning of the year to the end : from year to year. He 
 carried about him no air of being hurried or flushed by 
 overwork. He was always fresh : one dav was like 
 another : busy, but with room for new claims. He had 
 leisure always for social occasions and for recreation, 
 as men of industry and method usually have, because, 
 mastering their work, their work does not master them. 
 To enumerate his preachings, lectures, meetings, pastoral 
 visits, school visits, journeys, gives but a faint idea of it, 
 though they indeed astonish by their number and variety. 
 His labor at his books and pen was not abridged nor 
 slurred because he had so many calls abroad. His love 
 of study took care for that. Up to midday, and past — 
 to be precise, his rule was "till 4 o'clock, p. m." — he was 
 steady at his work-table. He needed less sleep than most 
 men, and was a late sitter at night. One of the most tire- 
 less of men, both as to bodily activity and mental labor, 
 his high praise of a fellow traveller who was his compan- 
 ion through some European lands, was, that he was one of 
 the best men to travel with that he ever knew, "because 
 he possessed so much learning and 7iever got tired^ 
 
 Better than any words of mine to characterize or de- 
 scribe the fullness of this ministry of Mr. Brigham in 
 Taunton, will be the grateful and warm-hearted testimony 
 of some of his friends and parishioners, whom he won »and 
 bound to himself by his manly sincerity, his incorruptible 
 
8 MEMOIR. 
 
 fidelity to truth, and his generous gift of himself to the 
 service of all. It is to be remarked, moreover, that this 
 is a character which wore well, as the tributes we cite to its 
 worth come late. It is not the enthusiasm of a young 
 friendship that speaks. It has run through many years of 
 close and familiar contact, and has survived other years of 
 separation. The judgment is of one tried in all weathers, 
 showing impressions not newly made, but growing deeper 
 with time. They are not neutral men who leave such long- 
 lasting, and deep-cut traces where they have been. 
 
 One who knew him intimately and had best opportuni- 
 ties to discover the quality of his central purpose, says 
 of him that from the time of his coming to Taunton in 
 1844, a young man of twenty-three years, to his leaving in 
 1865: 
 
 His course was an unvarying one of devotion to his 
 work as a minister, friend and citizen. When he went 
 away not only his own society, but every society of what- 
 ever denomination, in fact the whole town, mourned his 
 departure, for they felt that the main prop in every good 
 work was taken. His opinions upon all subjects, social, 
 moral, intellectual and religious were sought, so that he 
 was like an oracle. If any vexed question occurred, " ask 
 Mr. Brigham," was the current suggestion. His preaching, 
 in the opinion of most persons was of the highest, because 
 of the truest order. He had decided beliefs upon all sub- 
 jects which he treated, and just what he believed, felt, or 
 knew to be true, he preached without fear or favor. I 
 think he never strove to make "great " sermons, that is, 
 high-sounding, sensational, or eloquent, though his style 
 was eloquent, I think, for it was true, simple, and con- 
 cise. 
 
 As to his every-day life, the writer adds : 
 
 He entered with enthusiasm into every work connected 
 
MEMOin. 
 
 with his parish. No dut}^ was ever neglected. Reserving 
 full time for his studies, he still had time left for social 
 intercourse ; and oh ! how welcome he was everywhere. 
 Occasionally his somewhat brusque, abrupt manner would 
 offend an over-sensitive person a little, but it was soon for- 
 gotten in the pleasure which his presence gave. A careful 
 housekeeper would say that some article of food was not 
 quite good, and he would echo her own words by saying : 
 " No, it is not so good as you have sometimes ; " or if a 
 new picture with a bright, gilt frame was subjected to his 
 criticism, the frame, its chief fine point, he would perhaps 
 say : " It is not so handsome as the wall-paper behind it." 
 He might have left that first thing that came into his mind 
 unsaid, but he could not say, if he saw no merit, that there 
 was any : it was not in him. These are light things to tell, 
 but they are the ones which sometimes caused the imputa- 
 tion of rudeness. I make a distinction and say they showed 
 his truthful, straight-forward manner of speaking just what 
 was in his mind .... He was a most unsuspicious per- 
 son, believed every one was as single-minded and truthful 
 as himself ; and if brought to believe that any one was not 
 his friend, bore no malice .... He liked bright young 
 people, and they were fond of him. Occasionally there 
 were young men who seemed not to like him, but they were 
 sure to be young men who were not quite right, whom his 
 strons:, honest words or manner rebuked, I never knew 
 of a bright, upright young man who did not admire hrni, 
 and I think his influence over such persons was admirable. 
 
 Mentioning: a familv whose house was more a home to 
 him than any other, the writer observes that : 
 
 The son and daughter always welcomed his coming with 
 delight. When they were young, he would play games, 
 solve puzzles, and enter into their youthful sports ; and 
 when they were older, was always interested in their studies, 
 music, etc. Their vouns: friends who collected there 
 depended upon him for amusement and instruction. If 
 they wanted to learn anything about any subject, it was a 
 joke with them to say: "Now we'll wind Mr. Brigham 
 up — ask him a leading question — then off he'll go;"" 
 
 »> 
 
lo MEMO IB. 
 
 and in an liour thev would learn more than in anv other 
 way. I have often heard one of my nieces say : " He is 
 the sweetest-tempered man I ever knew." He always 
 appeared in the morning bright and cheerful, and his 
 last words at night were the same. My sister (at whose 
 house he spent some part of every summer) would 
 say that he was the least trouble in the house of any 
 man she ever knew. Everything was just right. Her 
 manner of living was simple, few courses of wholesome 
 food, and although he enjoyed, what he often had at 
 the houses of friends, a luxurious dinner, I think he 
 really liked the simplest fare best. The impression was 
 sometimes given that his appetite for food was large. 
 I think he had a natural healthy appetite for a strong 
 man, and nothing more. He had a strong mind in a 
 
 strong body Stimulants of any kind never passed 
 
 his lips. He once had a slight attack of dyspepsia and 
 spent six months at my sister's, and it seemed no sacrifice 
 to deny himself all but the simplest food, and when asked 
 if it was not hard, would say: " What, hard to live on good 
 graham bread, boiled rice, and once a day a piece of 
 steak.? " . . . . Since reading over what I have written, I feel 
 as if I had dwelt too much upon trifling things, and had 
 not said half enough of his power and good influence in 
 everything, and of how much he was loved. It was my 
 privilege often to walk or ride with him when he made calls, 
 especially when he came, after he left Taunton, for his 
 yearly visit, which I think he could hardly have lived with- 
 out. Old persons would greet him as if he were a son 
 returned, and I have seen plain, elderly women burst 
 into tears, and even embrace him, in joy at seeing him 
 
 again His presence in times of sickness or 
 
 trouble was always welcome. He was always bright 
 and cheerful, and if he offered a prayer it was full of 
 hope and consolation. His services at funerals were 
 such that after he left, many felt as if they could hardly 
 bury their dead without his strong words of sympathy 
 and comfort. His own emotion would often be so great 
 that he could hardly speak. His prayers on such, and 
 on all occasions, in church, at marriages, in all seasons 
 of sorrow and of joy, were an outpouring from a devout 
 
MEMOIR. II 
 
 'leart, of gratitude and love to God for every joy, and for 
 stren2:th to bear sorrow. Not so much askinij for favors 
 or blessings, as giving thanks for mercies and blessings 
 received. His love of nature was intense. He would 
 repeat fine poetry suggested by a beautiful scene, flowers, 
 or anvthinof lovelv or g^rand in nature. He was full of 
 faith in a communion of spirit when separated in body 
 from friends. He spent many Thanksgiving and other 
 anniversaries at my sister's, and never after he left Taunton 
 would he ne2:lect to write and refer to the old times and 
 memories both in her own and other families. He was a 
 modest man. I think he never wrote or preached for fame 
 or popularity. He wrote and spoke what he thought was 
 needed for the work in which he was engaged ; and his 
 whole strong, healthful body and soul were enlisted. He 
 never spared himself. 
 
 In a few passages taken from the letters referred to 
 in the above communication, written some years after 
 Mr. Brigham had left Taunton for Ann Arbor, his graphic 
 pen reveals almost pathetically how deep the roots of his 
 early friendships and' first pastoral affections had struck 
 . throu2;h this Taunton soil, and how hard thev found it to 
 take hold and grow again in a new place after transplanta- 
 tion : 
 
 Ann Arbor, March 26th, 187 1. 
 
 My Dear Friend — I have been expecting in all this 
 week to get a letter from you ; and though I have been 
 disappointed, I can't resist the impulse to answer the letter 
 which has not come. I feel rather in the meditative mood 
 this afternoon. The skies are dark, the wind is from the 
 East, There are snowflakes flying in the air, and premoni- 
 tions of a coming storm. I ought to be cheerful and 
 buoyant, for this morning at the last meeting for the sea- 
 son of the Students' Class (which now numbers 284 !), one 
 of the Seniors, who has been three years a member of it, 
 in a very feeling and complimentary speech, presented me, 
 in behalf of the class, with two sets of books, elegantly 
 bound, 17 volumes in all, as a testimony of their regard 
 
12 MEMOIR. 
 
 and appreciation. But in spite of this, it has been run- 
 ning in my head all day, that this is the last day of the 
 27th year since I was ordained in Taunton, and I have 
 been musing on the old home, and the strange changes 
 which these years have brought there, and have been 
 counting the shadowy procession of the vanishing forms, 
 which I shall there see no longer. More and more all that 
 life of twenty years seems like a dream, as one and another 
 who were parts of it, drop out of its picture. I look back 
 upon that experience as something almost disconnected 
 with the life I have now, as far apart from this as the Old 
 World is from the New. The friends of that time were of 
 a different kind from the friends I have now, and every 
 one that dies seems to cut another sensitive nerve, and 
 weakens sensibility. I used to feel then pained at the 
 least sign of the ill-will or the vexation of any friend in 
 the Church. Now I do not care, when they call me Anti- 
 Christ, a friend and emissary of the Devil, and all sorts 
 of hard names. It does not give a particle of pain, and 
 seems more like a jest. It troubles my congregation more 
 than it does me. I am getting case-hardened to these im- 
 pressions of the passing time, and all my emotions are for 
 the scenes that are behind, and for the friends from whom 
 I have parted. I attended a funeral a few days ago in a 
 neighboring town, but I did not feel the occasion, as I used 
 to in the former days. I visit some sick persons here 
 almost every week, but the visits are rather like those of a 
 chance acquaintance than of a pastor. It does not seem 
 as it did once that I belong to these people and that they 
 have a right to my sympathy. They are simply men and 
 women who happen to know me and come to hear Sunday 
 discourse, while I happen to be here. I am not in any 
 sense, as Paul says, ' their servant for Jesus' sake.' And 
 yet I like these people. I never had in the old parish 
 more genuine supporters, and none of them have proved 
 to be false friends. But, after all, it will be impossible to 
 revive the life that is gone, or to get such attachments 
 again as made the charm of the old pastoral relation. I 
 was, twenty-seven years ago, ordained pastor of a parish. 
 For the last half dozen years I have been only the propa- 
 gandist of ideas, only a teacher, and have not wished or 
 cared to be anything more. 
 
MEMOIR. 13 
 
 Ann Arbor, April 9, 1S71. 
 
 My Dear Friend-— It is Easter Sunday, the high 
 Festival of the Christian year. The sun is shining 
 brightly ; the air blows cool ; the birds are singing ; just 
 under my window the blue birds are building their nests 
 in a hollow trunk ; the bells are ringing for the afternoon 
 meetings of the children ; I have held my last interview 
 with my Bible Class, have preached an Easter sermon, 
 have celebrated the Lord's Supper, with seventy attend- 
 ants upon it ; and now sit down to answer your letter. In 
 spite of the beauty of the day and the hopeful feeling 
 that belongs to the season of opening spring, I have a sad- 
 ness which cannot be kept back, and this morning my 
 mind was so full of memories that my voice was broken 
 and my eyes were dimmed all through the service. I told 
 the people, in illustration of the power of death to bring 
 the departed near, how constantly the thought of a friend 
 of mine, who had recently gone on to his home in the 
 world of spirits, came to me as I had been visiting the 
 sick and seeing the ''good physician" by the side of the 
 suffering; — for there is a good deal of sickness here now, 
 and this afternoon I am going to see a sick man, an old 
 man, whom I shall probably never see again. It is very 
 difficult to make the brethren here appreciate my idea of 
 the communion service. The old prejudice clings, and 
 they will only see the superstition of the ceremony, and 
 not its spiritual meaning 
 
 Do as you please with my books. If you can find 
 room for them, and for the desk and other things, where 
 they will not suffer harm or be exposed to prying eyes and 
 lingers, I shall be content. I would transport them to the 
 West, if I could get the feeling that this is home, and that 
 I shall be a fixture here. But I often feel as if I ouirht to 
 go back to New England, and wait there the coming on of 
 old age. For I begin to feel like an old man, when I see 
 that all the workers around me are younger men, and 
 realize how few among the Unitarian ministers, who are 
 efficient, are before me in age 
 
 The Doctor's* death practically breaks up my home 
 
 * Ira Sampson, M. D., to whose widow this letter was addressed. To 
 husband and wife, Mr. Brigham was " like a brother." Dr. S. is " the 
 good physician " of a foregoing paragraph of the letter. 
 
14 MEMOIR. 
 
 in Taunton, and I shall now be only a visitor there from 
 house to house. I seem somehow now to realize that line 
 of the hymn, 'Only waiting till the shadows.' .... But 
 I have no spirit to write anything more, and feel brain- 
 weary. Remember me kindly to all, to Mr. H. especially, 
 to whom I was intending to write to-day, as I always asso- 
 ciate him with the communion service here. I have you 
 all in my thought, even if the words which express it are 
 not very fluent, and wish that eight hundred miles were not 
 
 between our places of abode 
 
 Truly your friend, 
 
 Chas. H. Brigham. 
 
 This, surely, was not coming old age, nor fainting with 
 labor, nor yet "brain-weariness." It was simply the yearn- 
 ing for old friends, and a softening into a passing mood of 
 sadness at the recollection of days busy and joyous, now 
 gone by. Long after this his life was brimful of work, and 
 his heart was light after the manner of the industrious. 
 
 We select some passages from another letter coming 
 from a former parishioner of Mr. Brigham, to show how 
 positive, wholesome and enduring was his influence ujoon 
 young men : 
 
 Although I was but a child of ten years when he was 
 settled, his influence was near me during the formative 
 period of the character, the fixed purpose of which I shall 
 always remember him gratefully for. His life, as a young 
 man, bore the exemplification of two mottoes that always 
 seemed to be impressed upon me by his presence, — Duty 
 and Faithfulness. The well known variety of his untiring 
 labors, that have made so many men in the profession 
 stand aghast at his industr}^ may best explain the sense of 
 
 his always being alive to the duties next at hand 
 
 Having a place in the Sunday School from my earliest 
 recollection, either as scholar or teacher, till the year of 
 Mr. Brigham's leaving Taunton, I cannot forget the stimu- 
 lus his example afforded in a/ways doing his full duty to 
 
MEMOIR. 15 
 
 the extent of that rare thoroughness and faithfidness that 
 left an inward censure to any one falling back in a work 
 or obligation once begun. Of a zealous student with an 
 eager grasp for knowledge from every possible source, it is 
 no slight thing to say that he was always in the Sunday 
 School, the conference meeting, the committee room, and 
 the Bible class, and never late. A punctual care and 
 attendance upon these, with a score of other tributary in- 
 terests pertaining to the life and welfare of denominational 
 affairs, secured a heartiness of cooperation that would 
 have been feeble or unknown without his earnest leadinof, 
 . . . The force of continued example v/orks wonders in a 
 community .... The result of the first ten or fifteen years 
 of Mr. Brigham's ministry was certainly this. His private 
 and public efforts as preacher and teacher were many 
 times too stimulating, often being so much in advance of 
 the common reader. Helpfulness came very largely to 
 the younsT who came to his studv for the weeklv Bible 
 lesson. Fact and authority and information rolled in upon 
 us till we were often too full for utterance ; the more timid, 
 as I can testify, being awed by the knowledge we had not 
 dreamed of. 
 
 Unswerving in exactness of speech and act as we felt 
 him to be, the obligations of men and women to the most 
 sacred interests of life, were continually shown to be the 
 first in importance. If never really intolerant towards 
 immorality, a certain contempt for failures in character 
 appeared severe, when niuch latent pity was in his heart. 
 Truth, uprightness and dignity wercthe virtues he expected 
 in men, and being very slow to distrust, honest and out- 
 spoken always, he had nothing to conceal, believing most 
 to be as honest as himself. The loss of confidence in 
 men, through the narrow opinions that could not bear the 
 light nor the clash that comes from honest difference, I 
 never knew to grow into a shadow of enmity, nor to alter 
 the manliness of his external courtesy .... Happy are 
 they whose religious sentiment finds strength and encour- 
 agement in the example of an able and upright man. In 
 him the profession was always dignified, if sometimes 
 magnified. But the conscientiousness of care over small 
 and great things alike showed the man, " faithful in every- 
 thing.'* 
 
MEMOIB. 
 
 It was a habit with Mr. Brigham, in which we presume 
 very few preachers have preceded or followed him, to 
 write out an abstract of every sermon that he preached, 
 usually from a half page to a full page in a large ledger- 
 like blank-book, whose record now shows the subject of 
 every Sunday^s lesson, and the main points in its treatment. 
 Many abstracts of the discourses of other preachers, who 
 occupied his pulpit in his absence, are also recorded. 
 
 After he had carried on for nine years his multifarious 
 labors in Taunton, he saw the time come when he might 
 fairly claim the recreation of a period of foreign travel. 
 He knew by books, and much inquiry, a great deal of the 
 lands, the peoples, the treasures of art and literature which 
 the other continent held, and desired to see with his own 
 eyes its monuments of the past, to taste on its own soil the 
 flavor of its historical associations, and to study by per- 
 sonal observation and contact the characteristics of the 
 nations now occupying its territories. 
 
 On the 23d of Ma}^, 1853, he embarked at New York 
 on the ship "Constitution," a sailing vessel, for Liver- 
 pool. In name this was leisure before him. He did not 
 want leisure : did not know how to use it, — as leisure. 
 Scarcely was he out of sight of the American shore 
 before he was taking the dimensions of his ship, inven- 
 torying its nautical equipments and passenger accommo- 
 dations, gauging the capacities of its officers, rating its 
 seamen, -classifying his fellow passengers, describing the 
 families, individuals and nationalities occupying the steer- 
 age, noting the phenomena of sea and sky, laying his own 
 unaccustomed hands to the ropes for exercise, and when 
 other resources failed, turning to the ever familiar pen to 
 
MEMOIR. 17 
 
 indite the daily occurrences and emotions that marked his 
 new experience, in journal or letters to home friends, not 
 omitting to record — with a little pardonable exultation, 
 perhaps — that "all the cabin passengers except Mr. B., 
 the Scotchman, and myself, were sea-sick, my Yankee 
 chum worst of all." Later, however, he had some experi- 
 ence of that as yet unknown malady. 
 
 If he did not find leisure on ship-board, it is not sur- 
 prising that he found none after landing. Covering more 
 miles in travel by his activity, and seeing more objects, 
 and more in those objects, than would almost any 
 other, he nevertheless found opportunities to write long 
 and frequent communications to his parish, his Sunday 
 School, a Taunton newspaper, and to his friends. In the 
 summer and autumn of 1853, he explored such countries 
 of Europe as time would allow. Near the end of the 
 year he crossed from Sicily to Malta and Egypt, ascended 
 the Nile to the foot of the Libyan mountains, and on the 
 i8th of February, 1854, set forth from Cairo in company 
 with a large and well-appointed caravan of twenty-two 
 camels for Palestine, across the desert. He visited Da- 
 mascus, and on his return way Baalbec and Bairout, sailing 
 thence on the 20th of April, 1854, for Symrna. The 
 Oriental languor never overtook him, nor arrested his 
 steps. On the lazy Nile he was alert in every sense, 
 ready for an excursion to right or left, as famous places 
 attracted him. But though always moving on when 
 possible, he was never in such a hurry as to pass by, 
 without attention, objects or places worthy of observation. 
 Crossing the sandy desert, or toiling through the snow 
 that obstructed the mountain paths of Leb:inon, he v/as 
 2 
 
1 8 MEMOIR. 
 
 never too worn to take notice of scenery or inhabitants, or 
 too indifferent to recall the history which the land illus- 
 trated. At the end of his Syrian expedition he wrote that 
 he had " never been sick or tired out on a single day of 
 the long two months journey." 
 
 Letters from clergymen, travelling in the East and in 
 Europe, to their Sunday Schools and congregations have 
 become so common as to be no longer novelties; but 
 seldom has it been my good fortune to read any so com- 
 plete, so graphic in detailed description, and so accurate 
 and full in information as are some of Mr. Brigham's 
 letters to his Sunday School in Taunton. When in a Cath- 
 olic country, he described minutely, and in terms intelligi- 
 ble to the young, the modes of worship of its Church, its 
 famous church buildings, and the local traditions and his- 
 tory of the place from which he happened to be writing. 
 In lands where the Greek Church represented the estab- 
 lished religion, he noticed its peculiarities and divergencies 
 from the Catholic Church in its claims and usages. In 
 Jerusalem and Palestine the Moslem faith and its votaries, 
 as well as the Christian and Jewish antiquities, and the 
 natural features of the country are drawn forth on pages 
 as carefully and correctly written as if they had been pre- 
 pared in his study in Taunton for the printer — lucid 
 descriptions, combining the life-likeness of an eye-wit- 
 ness's recital, with a learned scholar's competent and 
 assured statements. "^ 
 
 * Some passages from these letters might naturally be looked for 
 either in this Memoir or in the accompanying selection from Mr. Brig- 
 ham's writings. Unfortunately, while the letters which have passed 
 through my hands fully warrant what is said of them above, they are 
 written usually on both sides of the thinnest of paper, the sheets are 
 
MEMOIR. ' 19 
 
 There were those amons: his hearers who thouirht that 
 after his return from abroad, the character of his preach- 
 ing changed somewhat; that he became more interested 
 in extra-parochial labor, and that as his writing and study 
 for the press very considerably increased, his engrossment 
 with his special w^ork as the minister of his own parish 
 became less dominant, and that his preaching was less 
 direct and tender, dealing more with subjects of a specu- 
 lative, intellectual and universal scholarship. Others seem 
 not to have been conscious of such a change. Certainly 
 it came from no cooling of his affections for his own peo- 
 ple, if it was a reality. Nor was there any falling off from 
 his high ideal of pastoral fidelity. More than ever dear 
 to him seemed his parish and home after he had seen 
 other lands. Without wife or children, those affections 
 which usually find their expression, resting-place and satis- 
 faction in domestic ties and duties, in his case seemed to 
 wed and bind him to his place and parish. He was proud 
 and happy to belong to them, and to claim them as his 
 home. His home thoughts were associated only with them 
 and theirs : the words of Ruth might have told his loy- 
 alty : — " Entreat me not to leave thee, .... whither thou 
 goest I will go ; and where thou lodgest I will lodge \ thy 
 people shall be my people, and thy God my God ; where 
 thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried." His 
 yearning fondness for this first scene of his labor in the 
 ministry shows itself in his desire to be buried in the 
 
 unpaged, and by passing through many hands, some of which were not 
 careful to preserve their orderly arrangement, they have become 
 almost hopelessly dislocated and mixed ; so that the task of making 
 them available for use proved too severe a strain upon the eye-sight, 
 and taxed too heavily the time at my command. 
 
20 MKMOlli. 
 
 beautiful ouclosuro iu whicli stauils tlio Taunton church: a 
 desire, however, which for reasons (.leenuul ciMUrolliuir by 
 those with whom tlie decision rested, could not be com- 
 plied witii. 
 
 Early in 1S65, perhaps earlier, the otlicers of the AnuMi- 
 can Unitarian Association hail their attention turned to 
 the Lireat and irrowiuir State Universitv of Michiijan at 
 Ann Arbor, as a field favorable for bringing- liberal theol- 
 ojrv into contact with western minds. When the man was 
 looked for to represent this theology and faith, Mr. lirig- 
 ham was an easy and a natural selection. The opportunity 
 was one that appealed strongly to his scholarly tastes, his 
 consciousness of adaptation in manv important respects to 
 the teacher's ollice ; while his interest in the faitii of h.is 
 fathers and in the creed of liis own well -tested anil 
 matured convictions, and his persuasion o\ the great 
 worth of the Unitarian interpretation of religion and life 
 to the free and forming West, went heavilv into the scale 
 in favor of the enterprise. The only hindrance was the cord 
 of triple strength that held him to his place and people 
 in Taunton. After consideration and some delay, he came 
 to see it to be his duty to accejM the post, provisionally, 
 lie would try it. and if it proved that he was the man 
 wanted, would stay. That his society might be disembar- 
 rassed of all reference to his future plans, liowever. he 
 resigned his ministry on the 23d of April, 1S65. His 
 resignation was not accepted, but leave of absence for six 
 months was granted, it bcinir voted that his salarv should 
 go on meanwhile. He declined the salary, but consented 
 to the continuance of the connection for the time specilied. 
 Finding upon trial that it was his duty to remain, he 
 
MEMOIR. 21 
 
 rtincvvcd Iiis resignation of his Taunton ministry on the 
 26th of I'chrnary, t866, and it was accepted, 
 
 J>y this transplantation Mr. Hrigham fourifl himself in a 
 social climate in m.iny ways different from that to which 
 he had been accustomed from his youth \\\>. Horn in lios- 
 ton, the chief New England city, half his forty-five years 
 spent in it or in its near neighborhood, the other li.ilf in a 
 large parish situated in the f;ld I'lymcjuth colony, with a 
 history running back to 1637, where the flavor of the old- 
 est New JMigland life lingers if anywhere, he had all the 
 typical New l^nglander's prejudices in favor of the ancient 
 order, the arts, conveniences and culture of an old com- 
 munity, with its long -established institutions. Distaste 
 for the raw, crude anrl mixed social elements which go to 
 the compounding of the people of a new country, was 
 strong in him. Of course he knew he should find what he 
 did find, most congenial associations under the shadow of 
 the broadly-conceived, well-endowed, nobly-manned and 
 equipped University, to which already great numbers of 
 the most promising young men of the Western States were 
 flocking for instruction. Mis mission was to these young 
 men. }Ie scarcely looked beyonrl them as he surveyed 
 the new field before him. He was to become the pastor 
 of a church in Ann Arbor, it is true; anrl he would be 
 conscientiously faitliful to every duty he undertook to per- 
 form in its behalf, as it was his nature to be in whatever 
 lie did. But he never expected to feel again the fresh 
 ardor and the kindling hope with which he had entered 
 into his first youthful ministry, nor would he believe that 
 any people could ever be to him what those whom he was 
 leaving behind had grown to be in twenty years. Perhaps 
 
22 MEMOIR. 
 
 this feeling was too strong in him, and was too much in- 
 dulged, and produced a needless languor of interest on the 
 parish side of his work. But it was a natural feeling 
 under the circumstances, and for such as he was. He was 
 not by nature a pliant man, especially in regard to his 
 intellectual tastes, and, as he considered them, necessities ; 
 it was not easy for him to shape his habits and demands 
 to new conditions. He was not one whom, on the whole, 
 it would seem easy to transplant to an unaccustomed soil. 
 Yet he went into his new work with no half-heartedness. 
 He had enthusiasm in it, and his enthusiasm increased as 
 he went on. He was pleasantly and greatly stimulated by 
 the presence of a group of eager inquirers after truth, which 
 he at once began to draw about him from the students of 
 the University. No obstacle or discouragement to the 
 freest access to them was for a moment thought of by the 
 distinguished President and able Professors of the Univer- 
 sity, who rather welcomed the presence and influence of 
 so ripe, full, and honest a mind among them. This was 
 not exactly like the general habit and policy of orthodox 
 New England ; and it was better. He felt the bracing air 
 of this free and courageous thinking ; it was tonic and 
 wholesome, and he breathed it with a rejoicing conscious- 
 ness of strength and health, girding himself at the same 
 time to meet the claims now made upon him for his best 
 thought. His roots took hold. His work extended. 
 He was wanted to help at many things, to lend a 
 hand at manv constructive businesses where his trained 
 mind was capable of rendering valuable service, and he 
 was always ready if the thing to be done was good. His 
 times and employments were all fore-assigned : just as much 
 
MEMOIR. 23 
 
 the hour for recreation and society as that for study or 
 lecture ; his assignments were not made as an ideal 
 to be feebly aimed at, but as appointments to be kept, 
 only to be departed from for cause. The amount of 
 work which his method and his industry enabled him to 
 accomplish, was astonishing. The secret of it was that 
 there had to be no whipping himself up to labor for which 
 he was reluctant. He rejoiced in it. Therefore his work 
 was done well ; not only in time, not only in full measure, 
 but in quality it was thorough. It will show more clearly 
 if we particularize. The eye sweeping the whole broad 
 field at a glance, does not see what it covers. 
 
 Here was first, his society. It was new : or rather as yet 
 it was not. Its organization was to be his care. Its con- 
 stituency, composed of elements unused to coalesce, were 
 to learn the possibility of a common worship, of unity of 
 spirit, of co-operating diversities. No long history of a 
 memorable past, no honored traditions of loyal genera- 
 tions were here to hold a church together, when antagoniz- 
 ing opinions and conflicting tastes should kindle strife and 
 threaten cleavage, till the strain should be over. They 
 were to find in him, if at all — in the tone of his spirit, the 
 quality of his manhood and his interpretation of truth — the 
 bond that would make their union possible and their 
 growth sure. How it proved is best shown by quoting the 
 words of Mr. James B. Gott, who, more than an eye-witness 
 and recorder, was a living member of the body : 
 
 Mr. Brigham's ministry here was a constant and steady 
 sunshine. You could not designate any discourse as being 
 pre-eminent, for there were no contrasts. He never wrote, 
 nor delivered, to my knowledge, a poor or unfinished dis- 
 
24 MEMOIR. 
 
 course. They were always fair, impartial, logical and 
 exhaustive .... He was never sensational. His courses 
 of lectures in the church on representative and historical 
 men connected with the Christian Church, and on the 
 religions of the world, were very instructive and interest- 
 ing 
 
 In regard to Mr. Brigham's work and influence: when 
 he came here he was the pioneer of the Unitarian body in 
 this place. There had been a few discourses delivered in 
 the Court House before he came, but no organization, I 
 believe. Mr. Brigham perfected the organization, and 
 meetings were held in the Court House for a time. The 
 new Methodist Church was completed soon after, and 
 through the aid largely of the Unitarian Association, the 
 old Methodist Church was secured for the Unitarian 
 Society, and services have since been held there 
 
 Mr. Brigham was transparently honest. No one could 
 have in him an ally for trickery or questionable practices. 
 Those who came to his church in expectation that their 
 bad morals were to be glossed over, soon found their mis- 
 take. 
 
 All the while he rightly understood that the main reason 
 for his being in Ann Arbor was that there was the Univer- 
 sity with its students, many hundred intelligent young men 
 gathered from widely-separated communities, and destined 
 on the completion of their studies to be scattered again 
 yet more widely. The end, to be sure, which he kept in 
 sight as that with which he was specially charged, was to 
 do missionary work on this spot and in the region round 
 about: it was the dissemination of Christian truth as he 
 held it, and as it was generally held by the Unitarians. 
 Of the means at his command by which to accomplish that 
 end, he accounted a hearing by so many of these students 
 as he could interest in his word, his chief reliance. At 
 the renting of the pews in the church when the society 
 
MEMOIB. 25 
 
 first occupied its building in February, 1867, it was "voted, 
 that not more than sixty pews should be rented in all, the 
 rest beins: free for the use.of the students of the Univer- 
 sity." 
 
 In November, 1865, he began a course of Sunday after- 
 noon exercises, for college students especially, more than 
 forty joining the class which he thus instructed. Taking 
 up first the Gospel of Matthew for exposition, he gave a 
 series of essays the following year on the character and 
 authenticitv of the books of the New Testament, which 
 were followed by oreneral conversation and discussion. 
 This year the class numbered over sixty. The next year, 
 with about the same number, he considered the doctrine 
 of the Future Life, reading essays upon the teachings of 
 the Scriptures concerning it. This Bible class continued 
 to receive his most careful and thorough teaching during 
 the whole time of his residence in Ann Arbor. He gave 
 ample time and study to preparation for it ; wrote out his 
 papers fully ; carried inquiries on through successive exer- 
 cises, laying plans for weeks and months forward. One 
 year he had eight essays on Proverbs, nine on the Law of 
 Moses, and eight lectures on Palestine ; while the whole 
 number belonging to the class went up to "two hundred 
 and sixty-four, from more than one hundred and eighty 
 different towns and cities in twenty States." Another year 
 the whole number was two hundred and forty-nine ; yet 
 another, three hundred and twenty-four. In nothing that 
 he did, did he regard himself as effecting so much in the 
 line of missionary work, as in the teaching of his Bible 
 class. 
 
 " Mr. Brigham's influence with the students," says Mr. 
 
26 MEMOIB. 
 
 Gott, " in disseminating liberal views cannot be estimated. 
 He was the teacher of a large Bible class which assembled 
 at half-past nine each Sunday morning to hear his essay, 
 and to ask questions. Many of them at the close either 
 went to other churches or to their rooms; some remained 
 to attend church services ; but all over the land are scat- 
 tered the members of Mr. Brigham's Bible class ; many of 
 them editors of secular journals; and I have no doubt 
 that the liberality of many such journals in the West is the 
 natural outgrowth of this Bible class." 
 
 Rev. Mr. Shippen, in a memorial sermon preached at 
 Taunton, presents a pleasant and suggestive picture of the 
 harvest that has come of this widely scattered seed. He 
 journeyed with Mr. Brigham across the State of Michigan 
 to attend a Chicago Conference. " On the same day's 
 journey came forward in the train a young physician, set- 
 tled in an inland city, gratefully testifying of the valued 
 instruction of the Bible class that has enabled him, amid 
 his fresh studies of the new science, still to cling to his 
 faith in the living God. One hears of some young man 
 eager to plant a new church of the liberal faith in the 
 Northwest, or perhaps a pillar of strength in some strug- 
 gling church already started, and discovers, as the secret 
 of his enthusiasm, that he was a member of that Bible 
 class. One hears of a young editor on the Pacific Coast, 
 giving his secular paper a tone of liberal religious faith, 
 and discovers that he also graduated at Ann Arbor and 
 listened to this preacher. In the editorial service of the 
 Northwest, with deep satisfaction, Mr. Brigham counted 
 thirty of his pupils." 
 
 In November, 1870, he formed a Bible class of ladies, 
 
MEMOIR. 27 
 
 which he taught in private houses, numbering in all twenty- 
 seven, the first, year, and increasing afterwards. Weekly 
 social gatherings were held in private houses, or in the 
 vestry of the church during some or all the winters of his 
 residence in Ann Arbor, and were largely attended. 
 Throughout the community and among clergymen and 
 people of all denominations, by his character, breadth of 
 learning and industry, he acquired a continually increasing 
 personal respect, and commanded for the before unknown 
 and much misrepresented doctrines of his Church a far more 
 respectful attention and examination than they had been 
 accustomed to receive. Appointed by Governor Bagley a 
 member of the State Board of Health, for which position 
 he had shown admirable fitness by his interest in sanitary 
 questions and his knowledge of them, he wrote and 
 labored in this field, as in all others, as if it had been a 
 leading study among the subjects of his investigation. In 
 this, as in everything he undertook, he was a worker. Sin- 
 ecures were not for him — would not know what to do 
 with him. If offered any place for the honor of it merely, 
 he would disappoint expectation by directly finding some- 
 thing to do in it, if that was possible. Common schools, 
 institutions of education of every grade, measures to pro- 
 mote temperance and social benefit in all kinds, had all 
 his steady and efficient aid. 
 
 He was blamed sometimes for making his parish work 
 secondary to his efforts to be heard and felt by the young 
 men of the University, to his lectures at Meadville, and 
 perhaps to missionary work at large in the West: not 
 only secondary some would say, but placing it so far after 
 the others that he seemed not to take a warm interest in it. 
 
28 MEMOIR. 
 
 thus neglecting an opportunity to strengthen the Church 
 he represented in that place. An intelligent parishioner 
 already quoted, who says, to be sure, that he was " a mis- 
 sionary to the students in the University more than a pas- 
 tor to the Unitarian Society," yet intimates no felt want in 
 the latter sphere of duty, and testifies to his perfecting the 
 organization of the society, and to his very strong hold 
 upon his hearers by his preaching. Answering also, as he 
 did, faithfully and conscientiously every claim upon him for 
 the usually appointed services of a pastor, making many 
 warm friends among his parishioners, and respected by all, 
 it seems but just to allow such a man, on the ground, never 
 lukewarm, never sparing himself, conscientious in the use 
 of his time and powers, to have been the best judge of 
 how his labors should be apportioned and bestowed. 
 Another might well have preferred other methods, possi- 
 bly. He knew where his own strength lay, and very 
 probably chose wisely. 
 
 Next to his interest in the students at x\nn Arbor, was 
 that he took in the students preparing for the ministry at 
 Meadville, Pennsylvania. They were fewer, but they were 
 recruits for the ranks of his own profession, of which he 
 had had a large experience and cherished a very high 
 ideal. His appointment as non-resident Professor of Ec- 
 clesiastical History and Biblical Archcelogy in the school 
 at Meadville, in 1866, foUowed close upon his removal to 
 Michigan. '* He gave lectures twice a year for ten years, '^ 
 writes President Livermore " embracing in all more than 
 one hundred and fifty lectures upon Ecclesiastical History, 
 Palestine, the other Bible lands, the laws of Moses, the 
 Psalms, the book of Proverbs, the book of Job, and the 
 
MEMOIR. 29 
 
 books of the New Testament, besides many miscellaneous 
 addresses, in the school, the church, and before the Literary 
 Union." 
 
 We may fitly add here what President Livermore has said 
 more generally of his traits of character, his acquirements 
 and labors in other professional and non-professional fields, 
 as they display the sources of his power, and of the wide 
 and lasting influence which he exerted upon the young 
 men who came under his instruction during their training 
 for the ministry, and whom he never failed to inspire with 
 a genuine respect for his integrity of mind and his high 
 and rigorous moral standard, and with a cordial admira- 
 tion for his great knowledge and industry. 
 
 We deeply feel his loss in Meadville In tem- 
 perament he was a happy combination of English sturdi- 
 ness and bottom, with the mercurial vivacity and quickness 
 of the French, from whom he was descended on his 
 maternal side. This conjunction gave him at once rapidity 
 and endurance in his work. 
 
 Few of our ministers swept a wider field of accom- 
 plishments or effected as much in solid work as our de- 
 parted friend, 
 
 A critic and lover of music, enjoying wit and humor, 
 sincere in his social sympathies and friendships, stalwart in 
 his profession and denomination, an omnivorous reader of 
 books and periodicals, a keen observer and high-toned 
 judge of current events in Church and State, loyal always 
 to the highest principle, and indignant at every wrong and 
 outspoken in denouncing it, his word and his deed were 
 uniformly cast into the scale of Christian progress, liberal 
 but not lax ideas, and the universal welfare of mankind. 
 
 Without being eminent as a specialist in any one 
 department, he was able and distinguished in his wide 
 grasp of scholarship in history, biography, politics, ethics, 
 theology, literature and the arts. 
 
 Where shall we be able to match his encyclopedic 
 
so MEMOIR. 
 
 attainments, or find one, at least, in our clerical brother- 
 hood, at once so exact and trustworthy in details, and at 
 the same time so comprehensive in his outlook! 
 
 ■ Not naturally endued with a brilliant or poetic imagi- 
 nation, nor predisposed to an easy faith, his strength lay 
 in a solid understanding enriched by choice culture, and 
 in unswerving convictions of moral and religious prin- 
 ciples to which he adhered in all circumstances of life. 
 
 We shall miss him much and mourn him sincerely in 
 many quarters, in our church and denominational gather- 
 ings, our literary associations, our periodicals, in our 
 sanitary and other reforms. He has left his mark on 
 many young men whose influence will not soon pass away, 
 but extend in widening circles into the future." 
 
 Mr. Brigham highly enjoyed his visits to Meadville. 
 The welcome which he received from its cultivated and 
 hospitable society, as well as the quickening contact with 
 the professors and students of the Theological School, 
 refreshed him, and gave him the only recreation he knew 
 how to enjoy, change of employment. 
 
 Though he sought not the honors of authorship in any 
 extended work, he wrote much — few more — and much 
 that he wrote had solid merit. He contributed abun- 
 dantly to the higher periodical publications of the Unitarian 
 denomination, the Christian Examiner and the Unitarian 
 Review, in elaborate articles, and furnished both to them 
 and to the newspapers almost numberless critical notices 
 of books, some short, some quite extended and full. He 
 wrote for the North American Review, the New American 
 Encyclopedia, and for the Journal of Health. A member 
 of the Oriental Society, the Philological Society, and the 
 Social Science Association of the countrv, elected also a 
 member of the German Oriental Society (which he is said 
 to have considered the greatest honor ever conferred upon 
 
MEMOIR. 3 1 
 
 him), he wrote, as he read, in amount almost past belief, 
 on the most varied topics. " He was fond," says the 
 editor of the Unitarian Review, "of gathering up unusual 
 and out-of-the-way facts bearing on the religious doctrines 
 and usages of remote localities and peoples, many ac- 
 counts of which he contributed to the editorial department 
 of this Review. Besides this he prepared several elaborate 
 and extended papers which appeared over his own name. 
 Those on the Samaritans, the Jews in China, and the 
 characteristics of the Jewish race, are among the most 
 valuable that occur to us. At the time when his health 
 gave way he was planning an article on Japanese life and 
 literature, for which he awaited a consignment of books 
 from Japan." 
 
 We pr-esume upon the indulgence of one of his friends 
 (whom we cannot reach with a request for permission), to 
 cite a passage here from a private letter written soon after 
 the death of Mr. Brigham, to the Editor of the Unitarian 
 Review. It is Prof. E.. P. Evans, of Michigan University, 
 who writes : 
 
 Florence, April 9, 1S79. 
 
 The death of our friend Mr. Brigham, 
 
 although not wholly unexpected, was a great shock to us. 
 We knew him so intimately and prized him so highly that 
 his departure has left a painful vacancy in our lives. He 
 was, in many respects, the most remarkable man I ever 
 knew, a full man in every sense, in the vastness and 
 variety of his learning and in the breadth and universality 
 of his sympathies. He was interested in every branch of 
 knowledge, and could enter into and appreciate alike the 
 aspirations of the medieval ascetic and the aims of the 
 most radical of modern scientists. In addition to his 
 intellectual vigor, there was something grand in the robust 
 moral character of the man. Even those who had no 
 
32 MEMOIR. 
 
 sympathy with his ideas did reverence to his earnestness 
 and uprightness. A gentleman in Michigan once re- 
 marked to me that there was to him something awe- 
 inspiring in Mr. Brigham's sturdy and uncompromising 
 inteo;ritv. 
 
 I wonder what disposition is to be made of his MSS. 
 He left much behind which ought to be preserved in print. 
 He was singularly devoid of literary ambition for one who 
 was capable of achieving so much in this direction. He 
 delivered courses of lectures at Ann Arbor and at Mead- 
 ville, which ought to be preserved in some permanent 
 form. He was convinced, as he once told me, that he 
 could exert a wider influence and do more good by writing 
 for the journals of the day, than by putting his thoughts 
 into books, although he admitted that the latter kind of 
 literary labor would probably secure for him a more en- 
 during reputation and greater posthumous fame. 
 
 Though he worked easily and with a free will that made 
 toil a pleasure and not a task-work, no constitution even 
 of iron could stand the strain at which he held himself to 
 it, while sedentary habits and the neglect of imperative 
 sanitary laws were also impairing his strength. Perhaps 
 he knew it, but thought some warning more decisive than 
 he had received would tell him in time when to desist. It 
 came, but not in time to allow him to retrieve his lost 
 health. It was not only peremptory but final. He 
 preached for the last time in Ann Arbor, Sunday, May 13, 
 1877. 
 
 There were a few successive days in May, 1877, says 
 his friend, Mr. Amos Smith, on which the weather was 
 like the hottest days of July or August. That Sunday was 
 one of them. He told me that he never was so overcome 
 with the heat, — that he never, in fact, so recdly su^ered 
 from it while preaching, as on that 13th of May. But I 
 have no doubt that part of this suffering was owing to the 
 state of his own system. If he had been in his usual 
 
MEMOIR. 33 
 
 health, he could have endured it as easily as he had done 
 many times before. He told me that he had not been 
 feeling well for several days. It was unfortunate that just 
 at this time, while feeling thus ill, there was a more than 
 usual amount of literary work of one kind, or another, 
 waiting to be attended to by him, so that he was kept hard 
 at work at his desk day after day. Then again, most un- 
 fortunately for him, that period of extreme heat, — almost 
 unprecedented for a date so early, set in. The illness, 
 the extra work and the heat cominsf toirether, were too 
 much even for him. He manasred, however, to carrv 
 through the forenoon services without experiencing anv 
 serious discomfort. When the hour for the evenins: service 
 arrived, he had become very ill, but resolved to fight his 
 way through it, and did so. 
 
 After a wakeful and restless night he rose, though feel- 
 ing very ill, and succeeded in partially dressing himself. 
 But the fight was over ; his strength was broken ; his reso- 
 lute will was overpowered. He became unconscious. The 
 physicians, when summoned, could not but take the most 
 serious view of his case : perhaps looked with but little 
 hope for his return to consciousness. He rallied, how- 
 ever ; became able to travel, and returned East to the 
 house of a sister in Brooklyn, N. Y., where he gradually 
 improved so far as to read, write occasional letters, travel 
 short distances, and visit a few friends ; and he entertained 
 the thought of a possible resumption of his work at Ann 
 Arbor. But to his physician and friends it was but too 
 evident that this was a vain hope. The recurrence of ill- 
 ness became more frequent and prostrating. The utmost 
 care and kindness of friends could not stay the falling 
 stroke. On the 5th of September, 1878, a fresh attack 
 laid him helpless, in which condition he remained till the 
 19th of February, 1879. when the scene closed. 
 
 3 
 
34 MEMO IB. 
 
 Mr. Brigham did not marry. Yet the society of sensible 
 and pleasing women attracted him strongly, and he sought 
 it as one of his chief pleasures. When he needed social 
 recreation, he looked for it in its purest and most perfect 
 forms in domestic life. Never a taint of reproach is known 
 to have sullied or touched his good name. " Although a 
 bachelor," writes a parishioner in Taunton, already quoted, 
 " he was very fond of woman's society. His manner was 
 always frank and cordial, never flattering or delusive." 
 " He was received," says Mr. Gott of Ann Arbor, " into 
 the homes and society of all denominations ; he was a wel- 
 come guest at the family board and in the family circle ; 
 yet there was a kind of dignity and reserve about him 
 which never let you feel assured that you were quite in 
 contact with him. He was not a favorite with the ladies. 
 One who had seen much of him said to me, ' I am never 
 so near Mr. Brigham as when he is in the pulpit, and I in 
 my pew.' " 
 
 In paying this tribute to the memory of a friend, I would 
 not be blindly eulogistic ; but I cannot, in justice to him, 
 forbear to say that he was a man not only likely to be mis- 
 understood in some things, but very open to certain 
 misunderstandings which told against him unfairly. Peo- 
 ple thought him so easy to read, that they read him 
 carelessly; half read him; not half. He was easy to read, 
 as they thought, but too often they only read the few large 
 letters and lines of the title page, — his manners, — which 
 gave a very inadequate and, in some respects, misleading 
 idea of the book. And the hasty judgment which such 
 readers tossed off now and then, gave pain to friends who 
 had read him more attentively and closely. 
 
MEMOIR. 35 
 
 For example. We have said that he had large self- 
 esteem. This caused him to assert himself more forvvardly 
 than those of another temper, but with an equally high 
 estimate of themselves, might have done, or might have 
 thought becoming. He was not unconscious of this man- 
 ner. He began to detect in himself when a young man 
 " a tendency to be positive, dogmatic and decided. I am 
 too apt by a sentence to settle very doubtful questions ; 
 too apt to give my own opinions as if that settled the case. 
 This defect, I have no doubt, leads in a great measure to 
 that abruptness noticeable in my manner of speaking and 
 reading." Thus he lowered himself, as many of large self- 
 esteem do not. And, withal, he was modest in his 
 self-valuation. Some who thought they understood him 
 did not know it, and would have said it was not so : be- 
 cause he had not tact. He had as little as any man I ever 
 knew who was so wise. The art and grace of approach- 
 ing another's personality acceptably, with a skillful defer- 
 ence to his prejudice, or mood, or special pedantry, he 
 entirely lacked. He had not in his make the fine instru- 
 ments of a sympathetic perception, by which to read 
 sensitively character in its more timid and delicate organi- 
 zation, its secret affections and motions : did not perceiv^e 
 when he trenched upon a self-reserving pride or privacy, or 
 stop aloof from the door of a soul's penetralia. With a 
 clumsy, frank unceremoniousness, he dropped down upon 
 the tender places of another's conceit or feeling without 
 warning, blunt, dogmatic, impervious to the silent resent- 
 ment, or good-natured retort which he sometimes received 
 in return. But if he gave offence at the beginning by his 
 assumptions, he was before long found to be thoroughly 
 
$6 MEMOIR. 
 
 genial, kind and chivalrously honorable, and his seemingly 
 self-exalting comparisons were soon recognized as not so 
 much the claim of superiority, as the guileless overflow of 
 an exuberant and joyous consciousness of wealth and a 
 glad exhibition of his treasure, without a thought that he 
 could be humiliatins: the listener. 
 
 He was never the envious detractor of the learning of 
 others. He honored genuine scholarship wherever he 
 found it. His enthusiasm for men of great and good 
 learning was as hearty as his criticism of the pretentious 
 was pungent and unsparing. His pride took the form, 
 not of showing that the justly famous thought highly of 
 him, but of showing that he honored them, and knew how 
 to appreciate them. His boast was of his advantages and 
 opportunities, not of any distinction they had reflected on 
 himself. 
 
 The infrequency with which he volunteered extempo- 
 raneous speech before public assemblies, or even in the 
 larger gatherings of his professional brethren, I am sure is 
 rightly ascribed by Rev. Dr. Bellows, in his discourse at 
 Mr. Brigham's funeral, to his modesty and self-distrust. 
 
 He was very transparent. He knew not how to hide 
 himself. Conscious of being habitually under the guidance 
 of a pure and honest purpose, he had small occasion to do 
 so, and never seemed to think of it. His guilelessness 
 and freedom from suspicion were almost childlike. "I 
 like men who are open," he wrote in his Thought-Book, 
 " who have no concealment. This is my own nature, if I 
 know anything of myself. I like to be on good terms 
 with everybody. And if there are any over whose success 
 I rejoice, it is those noble souls who carry their hearts in 
 
MEMOIR. 37 
 
 their hands. God bless G. ; he has his minor faults, but 
 his nature is of the noblest." 
 
 Some would have said that he was a self-indulgent man, 
 because a lover of g^ood dinins^ and of creature comforts 
 be3"ond what strictly comports with the ideal character of 
 the self-denying and spiritually-minded clerg\nTian. 
 
 He certainly did not affect indifference to the good 
 cheer of a bounteous table. But they who suppose that 
 high or free living: was a necessitv which controlled him, 
 or that it had a foremost place in his thoughts, or that the 
 prospect of missing a sumptuous entertainment and find- 
 ing a plain and frugal meal in place of it would seriously 
 disturb his equanimity, were far from knowing lijm. We 
 have already cited some words of a Taunton friend, who 
 knew his tastes and habits in this respect if anybody did, 
 and who, it was seen, warmly protests against such a mis- 
 taken judgment of him. Many another one, privileged to 
 be his host, would gratefully testify how easy a guest he 
 was to care for and to content. He partook of the profuse 
 luxuries of the rich and open-handed, with a keen zest and 
 a healthy enjoyment, but he never avoided the simpler fare 
 of the board at which a just economy compelled a narrow 
 range of choice, or pained the hospitality that did the best 
 it could with limited means, by w^ord or look that implied 
 discontent. His activity of mind was incessant, his body 
 vigorous and full of life. The working brain must be 
 nourished as well as the laboring muscle. His appetite, 
 hearty and healthy, was not gratified at the expense of his 
 intellect, which it did not stupefy or becloud, but, judging 
 from his extraordinary mental energy and restless dili- 
 gence, to its repairing and support. 
 
38 MEMOIR. 
 
 After a social evening entertainment in New York, when 
 once at home on a vacation, we find this note in the 
 "Thought Book : " "There is one custom, however, on such 
 occasions which, if I should ever attain the dignity of a 
 housekeeper, I certainly would have corrected. I mean 
 the custom of passing round eatables. This stupid idea, 
 which has its origin in desires wholly sensual, is worthy to 
 be banished from the house of every decent citizen. In the 
 first place, are there not three meals, a number amply suf- 
 ficient, and more than sufficient, to satisfy the appetite and 
 support life comfortably? Why do we need a fourth meal.'* 
 For nothing else than to pamper the appetite with useless 
 and perrwcious luxuries. Immediately before sleeping, we 
 all know that eating must be extremelv hurtful : more 
 especially when the articles are of a rich and delicate kind. 
 Yet strange to say, and true as strange, everybody thinks 
 that he must fall in with this senseless idea, and we see 
 everywhere the evening parade of eatables to a greater or 
 less extent luxurious." 
 
 Mr. Brigham lived a bachelor. We pass the term " vol- 
 untary celibate," applied to him by Dr. Bellows without 
 challenge. But we cannot accept as sufficient proof of his 
 indifference to the satisfactions of domestic privilege and 
 the happiness of having a home of his own the fact that 
 this friend never heard that he had " a single temptation 
 or disposition to change his bachelor state," or that he 
 never knew of his having " a desire to yield up the satis- 
 factions of learning to any domestic yearning." He had, 
 we are persuaded, and the persuasion rests on grounds we 
 think substantial, at times positive and strong yearnings 
 for the home society and sanctities. Had it happened to 
 
MEMOIR. 39 
 
 him to assume, under fit and favoring circumstances, the 
 obligations, and to experience the felicities of domestic ties, 
 to which there was no barring incapacity or disinclination 
 in his nature, he would not, we believe, have been found 
 always preferring the study to the nursery. He would have 
 been neither insensible to the supreme earthly blessing 
 flowing from family affections, nor unaffected by their bene- 
 ficent influence upon life and character. He was made 
 to be even a completer man than he was. We presume 
 that he knew that, and knew what would have helped to 
 make him such. In 1852, he wrote to a friend : "This is the 
 first day of my ninth year of service in this ministry, and I 
 am frightened at the retrospect. The awful pile of manu- 
 scripts realizing almost the old suggestion of the 'barrel,' 
 the children grown to be men and women, the families 
 removed and broken up, the parish calls counted by 
 thousands (I have made six thousand in these eight years), 
 the long list of marriages, the longer list of deaths, all 
 the simple common-place phenomena of a country minis- 
 ter's life, what a varied, strange picture do they make ! I 
 know a little of your old complaint, and confess for the 
 occasion that it makes me feel rather blue. And yet, I 
 have not got tired of the ministry, have you ? With all its 
 drawbacks I love it, I enjoy it, I would not change it for 
 any other. I get low-spirited sometimes with the feeling 
 that I am growing rusty, dull, and hopelessly selfish ; but 
 something or other comes up to clear the atmosphere, and 
 it is all right again. One thing I envy you, and that is 
 your enjoyment of a home. It is vastly convenient, but I 
 am convinced that it is not good for man to be alone. 
 This boasted freedom is a humbug after all." And a 
 
40 MEMOIR. 
 
 month later to the same : " O ! domestic martyr, rival of 
 that mythical old matron, whose children abounded within 
 the narrow compass of a shoe, I pity and I envy you. The 
 nox child greets with filial confidence.* Lonely I tread 
 the desert land, and can only send love and kisses to 
 the children of friends." He found the most congenial 
 society, that to which he always turned spontaneously as 
 most refreshing and wholesome, not in the club house, but 
 in the family circle. He had a livelier sympathy with 
 children than was generally known, and understood 
 them better, perhaps, than he did any other class of per- 
 sons. He was mirthful and full of animal spirits, and the 
 children acknowledsred him to be of their oruild. His 
 enjoyment of the society of pleasing and cultured women 
 has been alreadv remarked, and it was one of the most 
 constant and obvious traits in his character. 
 
 No attempt will here be made to" analyze Mr. Brigham's 
 mental traits and powers, or to estimate the quality of his 
 intellectual and professional work. This is most admira- 
 bly and sufficiently done in the discriminating, just and 
 affectionate funeral discourse of Rev. Dr. Bellows, which 
 follows this memoir. I will onlv mention one or two traits 
 of which I happen to have had opportunities of close 
 observ^ation in the days of our young manhood, which linger 
 still as salient points in the memory of that time. 
 
 * I do not presume to say what this sentence may mean. A whim- 
 sical pretence of pedantry often substituted a Latin for an English 
 word in Mr. Brigham's conversation, or correspondence with his inti- 
 mate friends. I venture to interpret his reply to the father of a 
 family complaining a little of loss of sleep caused by the night cries 
 of his children, thus : " The child at night greets [grieves — cries] 
 with a filial confidence that his calls will be heard by parental ears. 
 
 and answered." 
 
MEMO IB. 41 
 
 He had a great love of humor ; his fund of spirits was 
 seldom low ; his sense of the ludicrous rarely slept long. 
 These qualities, combined with his extraordinary memory, 
 made him a most agreeable companion for a walk or a 
 social hour. He was a sincere, though not an indiscrimi- 
 nate, admirer of Dickens. It was only necessary' to 
 indicate the point at which a recitation from this author 
 should begin. He would take it up at the designated 
 place, and with an astonishing verbal accuracy, especially 
 not missing the least of those little felicitous turns of 
 expression in which lay and trickled the fun, would go on 
 for pages through the descriptions of Dick Swiveller's 
 grotesque gravity, or shrewd Sam Weller's observations on 
 men and things, inclusive of the domestic crises in the 
 Weller family. His hilarious jesting was sometimes fol- 
 lowed by twinges of sharp regret, and called forth 
 expressions of sincere penitence from his sensitive con- 
 science ; for his conscience was very true and tender, his 
 self-arraignments were frequent, strict and honest, and his 
 merry moods were balanced by a sincere and unfailing 
 reverence. He was serious and altosrether earnest when it 
 was befitting to be so. No untimely levity marred the 
 dignity of his speech or manner when grave subjects 
 were under consideration, or weighty duties were to be 
 enforced. His religiousness was simple, natural, healthy, 
 and of his central self. It was never as to an unwelcome 
 or an irksome office that he turned from social freedom 
 and pleasure to any occasion demanding sober thought or 
 sober utterance. It was not he who sought to give to the 
 conversation in which he participated a turn from high 
 themes and deep questions to mere pleasantries and empty 
 witticisms. 
 
42 MEMOIR. 
 
 His mental processes must have been very swift without 
 being loose and inexact. His rapidity of reading was 
 inconceivable to common minds. He took the new book 
 or the fresh Review aside for a little while, and in an 
 incredibly short time came back to report what he had found - 
 in it, and to give an opinion of its merit. We doubted if 
 he had had time to get through it in any fashion, much 
 more, time to possess himself intelligently of its contents. 
 We proclaimed the doubt. "Question me," he would 
 answer, "on any part from the first page to the last." We 
 were compelled to admit at the end that he had borne the 
 examination triumphantly. And he had seized the mean- 
 ing. It was his own, henceforth, ready for use. His 
 knowledge did not encumber him, nor befog his sight. He 
 had passed a judgment on the worth and truth of what he 
 had read. His thought was free, firm and strong, as well 
 as nimble. His acquisitions were assorted and available. 
 He could pack his discourses close with fresh, apposite, 
 suggestive instruction as few could. 
 
 One likes to know what he himself thought of his much 
 reading. At the age of twenty-one and a half years he 
 wrote : " From an observation of my own mental habits I 
 am sometimes inclined to think that a great deal that I get 
 over is transitory to me. I find it often difBcult, even 
 immediately after I have read a passage, to recall it. Cer- 
 tainly the words escape me : — usually all but the principal 
 meaning. It is physically impossible, I know, for one to 
 recollect much of what one reads ; it may be doubted 
 whether one would not find it better to think more and 
 read less. A few ideas, daily pondered over, would, w^e 
 might think, do more to enlarge the mind, than stores of 
 
MEMOIR. 43 
 
 lore gone through, whether rapidly or slowly." We meet 
 with the same thing again in his notes, months later, 
 in nearly the same form. He thought that the demands 
 for the composition of sermons, when he should be actu- 
 ally at work in his profession, might correct this dispropor- 
 tion between his reading and his thinking, as it probably did 
 in some degree. I cannot but think that he was right in 
 his judgment that he read too much: — unless we conclude 
 that the result of reading less would have been, not more 
 thinking, but less, which is possible. His reading no 
 doubt stimulated his mind, but whether it strengthened it 
 may be questioned. Self-compelling, sustained, indepen- 
 dent, wilful, concentrated thought, I suppose, was not a 
 characteristic habit of his mind. If it could have become 
 that, it must have increased his power, and would have 
 made him, if possibly less learned, greater. But this is 
 perhaps only saying that if he had been, not himself, but 
 another, of different natural forces, he would have sur- 
 passed himself. 
 
 Yet, maybe not. How few have filled so large a pat- 
 tern of manhood, of scholarship, of noble integrity, 
 of ministerial work and loyalty. Who has reached so 
 many, so healthily, leaving such memorable and perma- 
 nent impressions .'' How far he has sent abroad his 
 instructions ! How sure the seeds of his sowing, wherever 
 they spring, to heal, strengthen, and help humanity ! 
 
 Before laying down the pen, I cull a few sentences, or 
 fragments of sentences, from his note-books and diary, 
 which, while they have no immediate connection with each 
 other, or with the topics already treated, have some value 
 as throwing side-lights upon the man and his labors. 
 
44 MEMOIR. 
 
 They all date earlier than the age of twenty-six or twenty- 
 seven, it must be observed, after which period he discon- 
 tinued the habit of self-reference in his mere business-like 
 journal of appointments and engagements, except during 
 the year of his travel in foregn lands : 
 
 Jan., 1841. [At home: vacation.] "My mind to-day 
 has been in a state of doubt and hesitation, and I have 
 
 not felt verv well either Mv doubts have been in 
 
 some degree the result of an apparent conflict between 
 duty and inclination. This time the subject was my duty 
 as a theological student and a poor man, and mv inclina- 
 tion as a Unitarian. By entering at this institution (Union 
 Seminary), I might save some two hundred and fifty 
 dollars per annum in money, and receive, perhaps, better 
 instruction, besides being constantly at home and under 
 familv influences. On the other hand, bv remaining at 
 Cambridge I contribute to keep up the Unitarian School, 
 I live in a more congenial atmosphere, and I have greater 
 advantages for studv than I should have here." 
 
 Nov., 1841. "It makes little difference what feelings 
 others have towards me to my own mind ; but I am, of 
 course, as all are, sorry that there should be any ill-feel- 
 ings between members of a Divinity School. We are none 
 of us perfect : far from it. But as an individual I am not 
 conscious of malevolence towards any one. I may have 
 disagreeable manners, I do not believe that I have an 
 unkind heart." 
 
 Feb., 1842. [At home : on vacation : dissatisfied with his 
 supposed want of success in addressing a Sunday School.] 
 "I believe that by constitution and habit, I am much 
 better fitted for the Law than any other profession." 
 
 Feb., 1842. [After a church "conversation" m.eeting.] 
 " I suspect, however, that I asserted some things rather 
 positively, and arrogated a great deal to myself. I was a 
 little too conscious of my own superior knowledge, and 
 talked faster than was necessary or proper." 
 
 Feb., 1842. Still at home: vacation: he mentions it as 
 a rare fact that he passed afi evening at home. 
 
 Feb., 1842. "In the afternoon I went up to take leave 
 
MEMOIR. 45 
 
 of my Sunday School, which I did as well as I could. But 
 I am always disappointed at my own efforts in speaking to 
 children, I always feel as if I ought to be silent. My 
 forte in speaking lies in heated argument." 
 
 Mch., 1842. [Has returned to Cambridge.] "Somehow 
 or other much of my theological zeal has cooled. My 
 mind has taken a more practical direction. I have not so 
 much desire to improve my store of knowledge, as to 
 enlarge my store of religious experience." 
 
 Mch., 1842 "I read, however, a portion in each 
 
 of the five books I am now reading;" [that is from the five 
 books in the same day.] 
 
 May, 1842. " How few are there, even of my most inti- 
 mate friends, that read my heart ! How few are there that 
 give me credit for half the virtuous desires that move my 
 breast." 
 
 Dec, 1842. After severe self-depreciation, he is certain 
 that he has "the natural gifts for a preacher. It is in me 
 and it shall come out." Yet, three weeks later — 
 
 Dec, 1842. " r begin to think that study and theology, 
 rather than practical matters, are my forte." 
 
 Feb., '43. " I have a most extravagant tendency to find 
 fault. Nothing satisfies me, and everybody else sees this. 
 I appear conceited, and I believe I am conceited." 
 
 July, 1844. '' I wish now to take moderate views, but 
 not conservative views," [apropos to a sermon he had just 
 heard, and deemed hurtfully conservative.] 
 
 July, 1844. "There remains now but one more step for 
 me to take to make my settlement complete." [Marriage, 
 no doubt.] 
 
 July, 1844. [At Horticultural Exhibition.] " I attended 
 far more to the show of ladies than to the show of 
 flowers." 
 
 Sept., 1844. "I feel, too, that the influence of my 
 present life is not what it ought to be ; that the influences 
 of my present position are bad, — that I cannot be so 
 religious as I ought in the midst of this society. I must 
 be at the head of a familv before I can be a reli2:ious man. 
 .... I feel the want of some friend more and more, — 
 some sympathy upon which I can rely." 
 
 Sept., 1844. " Her children, unlike most ministers' 
 children, behaved well, and were perfectly orderly." 
 
46 MEMOIR. 
 
 Sept., 1844. " It is the second good sermon I have 
 written." 
 
 Sept., 1844. [Six months after ordination.] "I have 
 become a proverb for bluntness." 
 
 Nov., 1844. "The dinner was a very feeble luncheon, 
 but it was just what I wanted." 
 
 Nov., 1844. [Thanksgiving. Finding a trembling 
 tongue, and starting tears in the pulpit] " I belieye that 
 my nature is not altogether hard and unsentimental. 
 There is more feeling in it than I am generally willing to 
 allow. I try to assume an indifference which does not 
 belong to me, and get the credit for carelessness, when in 
 
 reality I am all interested As for writing a real 
 
 sermon, it is a thing I have never done. Were it not that 
 I look before instead of behind, by nature and constitu- 
 tion, I should despair of ever becoming a preacher. I 
 dined at Mr. 's. We had the usual amount of Thanks- 
 giving cheer, but I did not enjoy it. I was not among 
 those near and natural friends with whom I could feel per- 
 fectly free. I longed for my comfortable quarters at Uncle 
 B.'s, and the genial group around his fireside. I had, too, 
 during the day a vague feeling of melancholy, partly 
 caused by bodily illness, partly by a feeling that I was not 
 doing my duty faithfully. I don't know that I ever passed 
 a more lonely Thanksgiving." 
 
 Apr., 1846. "A minister in a parish, I think, is placed 
 in an eminently favorable situation for judging impartially. 
 He sees every variety of character, and numbers men 
 of all shades of opinion among his personal friends. I 
 do not know any single prejudice or animosity which is 
 likely to warp my judgment." 
 
MEMOIR. 47 
 
 [From the Christian Register.] 
 BY REV. JOSEPH H. ALLEN, 
 
 A CLASSMATE OF MR. BRIGHAM. 
 
 A person of average capacity for work would be aghast 
 ■ at the industry of those years, — sermon-writing, preach- 
 ing, visiting, work in outlying districts, with eairer interest 
 in all professional associations, or local matters, or pro- 
 jects to promote morals and intelligence, and with the 
 running accom.paniment of his prodigious breadth of read- 
 ing. It seemed as if he had literally read everything that 
 was worth reading in all the tongues worth learning. 
 Without being a book-worm either, for he cared just as 
 much about out-door matters, wrote one of the best articles 
 on forest-trees, gave some of the best descriptions of cities 
 and countries he had visited, was acquainted by hearing 
 of the ear with all the best music, of which he was very 
 fond, was on hand at all important public occasions, and 
 always seemed absolutely at leisure for any chance conver- 
 sation or companionship. 
 
 His incessant and facile industry in writing has been 
 invaluable in many a close-pressed editorial experience, 
 and few names were better known or more welcome to the 
 readers of our best reviews. He was one of those men 
 whose ability to "turn off" work of excellent quality indif- 
 ferently in almost any given direction seemed positively 
 inexhaustible ; while at the same time he seemed wholly 
 free from the vanity which is the besetting infirmity of 
 smaller men of letters, so that he could join in hearty 
 praise of another man's work which he thought better than 
 his own, and could take, in frank good-humor, a criticism 
 or an emendation which another man might resent. These 
 are traits which will be better appreciated by " the craft," 
 but they are also very significant of the real quality of the 
 man. 
 
48 MEMOIR. 
 
 Mr. Biigham was a sharp critic himself, and not always 
 a sympathetic one. This sometimes showed itself in his 
 literary essays and his critical notices, which were incredi- 
 bly numerous and invariably good. It showed itself also 
 in a certain impatience at the turn and tone sometimes 
 taken by the fresher thought of the day. At one time, 
 this looked like a lack of sympathy and hopefulness 
 reo'ardino: the religious movement we are ourselves em- 
 barked in. 
 
 It was a happy event for Mr. Brigham, as well as a 
 valuable gift to a wider circle, when the American Unita- 
 rian Association fixed on him to occupy the post offered 
 at Ann Arbor. To him, judging from his correspondence 
 at that time, it was the beginning of a new mental life. A 
 certain sense of weariness and routine fell away at once, 
 and one felt a fresher vigor and hope in the tone of his 
 writing, which was the breathing of another climate. And, 
 with his characteristic energy, he was for some years busy 
 in taking in the features and capabilities of his larger field. 
 
 He gave solid dignity and respect to his work, and 
 through it to the good cause, by the amplitude of his learn- 
 ing and the mass of his mental industry. The opportunity 
 of Unitarianism in the West, as a movement of religious 
 thought, must be quite another thing from the fact of those 
 twelve years' labors. Once for all, any possible stigma of 
 narrowness, conceit, shallow radicalism, was forbidden to 
 rest on the name he represented. A scholar of the widest 
 range of reading, a man of the world, familiar with art and 
 foreign travel, a sober and somewhat conservative thinker, 
 a man of letters, of untiring industry, a writer and speaker 
 of more than average eloquence and force, — these quali- 
 ties were recognized and applauded in every form in which 
 the recognition and applause of man has its value. 
 
 Perhaps the central and most significant of the tasks he 
 did was the instructing, in yearly courses, of classes from 
 the University ; ranging, in the course of the year, from 
 one hundred to two hundred and fifty in number, consist- 
 ing mostly of young men who have made his name, word, 
 and work familiar (it is not extravagant to say) in every 
 part of the Mississippi Valley, and who are themselves a 
 
MEMOIR. 49 
 
 whole army of pioneers in the higher and freer Christian 
 culture of that great and superb country. 
 
 Mr. Brigham's health had been failing for some j^ears, 
 more plainly and alarmingly in his friends' eyes than his 
 own; when, a year ago last May, he was attacked, near the 
 end of his working year, by symptoms that made it clear 
 that his real task was done. The months of waiting since 
 have had less of pain and more of enjoyment than might 
 be feared. A year ago he was still almost buoyant in the 
 hope of returning to his place before another season. But 
 the cloud soon thickened ; and for several months he has 
 been so completely disabled for all part in the world that 
 his final departure must have been a welcome release. 
 
 ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL OF MR. BRIGHAM, 
 
 BY REV. HENRY ^V. BELLOWS, D. D. 
 
 We Stand here awed by the presence of Death, but 
 emboldened by the faith of Christians. It is not only a 
 faithful Christian, but a Christian minister, whose dust 
 we are committing to the rest wdiich his undying spirit, 
 never to be consigned to any grave, does not need. It is 
 not in the scene of his labors, not among the attached 
 people of his old flock at Taunton, nor the young men at 
 Ann Arbor and Meadville, that this last service takes 
 place. Were it so, there would be warmer and more 
 tender witnesses of this ceremony. But dear kindred are 
 here, and brother ministers of his own special faith, and 
 this sympathizing congregation, all of whom know his 
 claims to respect, and to an honored memory and a burial 
 worthy the value and importance of the life it closes and 
 marks with a monumental stone. 
 
 Complete, and full of labors and services, as the life was 
 of the man and Christian minister over whose dust we are 
 hanging, his death, long threatened and at last welcome, 
 affects me as something premature. With a frame vigorous 
 and sturdy, full of sensuous strength, and commanding 
 for its weight and size, he exhibited none of the signs of 
 physical weakness or waste w^hich so often accompany 
 
 4 
 
50 MEMOIR. 
 
 clerical or scholastic pursuits. You would have said, to 
 look upon him for the thirty-five years of his professional 
 careGT, that seldom had a man been made whose physical 
 constitution and build better fitted him to endure the 
 labor and strain of life, or who would more naturally have 
 pursued, not a scholar's nor a minister's life, but a life 
 of affairs, of secular pursuits and prepossessions. No 
 marked delicacy of organization pointed him out as a man 
 of intellectual and spiritual tendencies. Full of blood 
 and of hearty appetites, he was outwardly built for the 
 enjoyment of the things of time and sense, and for the 
 ordinary average tastes and interests of practical life. It 
 always surprised and gratified those who knew him from 
 his youth up that, against all the temptations and tenden- 
 cies of his exacting physical nature, he became so early 
 self-consecrated to intellectual, moral, and spiritual pur- 
 suits. His love of knowledge, his devotion to learning, 
 his sanctification to Christian ends and aims, were no pro- 
 duct of nervous sensibility, debilitated senses, or delicate 
 health ; but, rather, in spite of superfluous physical vigor, 
 strong appetites, and an immense natural enjoyment of 
 his corporeal being. We do not wonder when pale, feeble, 
 and delicate persons, unequal to bodily labors and un- 
 suited to active and tumultuous worldly pursuits, give 
 themselves up to books, to hopes beyond the world, to 
 the intellectual and the spiritual life; but when the mus- 
 cular, the full-blooded, the sensuous, turn from the things 
 of the flesh and the world, to consecrate themselves to 
 unworldh^, to scholarly, and to spiritual pursuits, we be- 
 hold a grand triumph of the intellectual and moral over 
 the carnal nature, and see with what a strength of grasp, 
 with what a force of consecrated will, with what an intel- 
 lectual bit and spiritual bridle, the soul has made the 
 rebellious body and senses serve the desires of the mind. 
 Our departed brother, whom I have known from his boy- 
 hood up, was not a man who despised or neglected the 
 body or the things of this life. He had too vigorous and 
 hearty an enjoyment of them, and was too manly and 
 frank, too social and too free from all pretension and all 
 sympathy with ascetic habits and voluntary self-denials, to 
 be wholly safe from the perils of his natural aptitudes 
 
MEMOIR. 51 
 
 and sensuous sensibilities. But who was freer from all 
 corporeal vices ? Who used his physical vigor more 
 unstintedly for intellectual labors and professional ser- 
 vices? Who has exhibited a 'more absolute devotion to 
 the pursuit of knowledge and truth, or maintained a more 
 undeniable and unquestioned sanctification of heart and 
 conscience to his sacred calling and his ministerial office ? 
 It would have been so easy for him to have slipped into 
 weaknesses that would have compromised his clerical stand- 
 ing and his Christian repute, that his unsullied life :\ud 
 spotless record, as a minister and a man, deserve something 
 more than ordinary recognition and praise. Without with- 
 drawing from the world, he lived in it, yet above it. With 
 a rebellious, because hearty, physical frame, he kept all the 
 more perilous tendencies of his body under, and never 
 brought his self-control, or his moral and spiritual repute, 
 under the least doubt or into the smallest shame. 
 
 From his youth up, he had a noble and never-quenched 
 passion for books ; his appetite for them was more mas- 
 terly than any physical appetite, strong as that might be. 
 To read them more widely and abundantly, he acquired 
 ancient and modern languages, and devoured classical, 
 and romantic, and domestic, and foreign literatures, with 
 an in appeasable hunger and a prodigious power of digestion. 
 He was almost equally at home in ancient and modern 
 learning; in theolog}^, philosophy, science, and fiction; 
 in what was happening in the most distant universities 
 and schools of thought, and in the latest of our American 
 colleges. No book of any importance escaped his notice, 
 and no distance from intellectual centres, and no ensfross- 
 nient m mmisterial cares, ever seemed to baffle or delay 
 his reading and studies. And what he acquired, he was 
 as ready and as skillful to impart as he was quick to digest. 
 He never sunk the uses and the practical bearing of his 
 learning and reading in any selfish curiosity or egotistic 
 devotion to his own culture. He read to learn, and he 
 learned to instruct and enlighten others. Without the 
 demands of the professor's chair or the exclusive claims 
 of an academic office, he was truly a professor at large, 
 who knew more of many departments of learning than 
 men set apart to a special study, and called to teach it 
 
52 MEMOIR. 
 
 exclusively, usually know of their single branch. At Ann 
 Arbor, where he passed eleven happy and most useful years, 
 in the capacity of the minister of a small flock, he gathered 
 about him all the more aspiring students of all aptitudes 
 and varied professional aspirations, who sat at his feet as 
 a sort of Admirable Crichton, — a universal encyclopedic 
 master of knowledges, who could be safely consumed on 
 any theme, and who, if he did not know all about it him- 
 self, knew exactly who did. It is said that he was a sort 
 of untitled, unsalaried, universal professor in Michigan, 
 finding the titled professors of the college ready to advise 
 with him, and lending to many, perhaps, the only adequate 
 companionship they could find in the neighborhood. His 
 influence in the college, and over the rising youth of that 
 populous university is said to have been quite unprec- 
 edented, considering that he held no office, and was only 
 the minister of a small flock in the town, of a form of 
 faith not at all congenial with the prevailing theology of 
 the place and the college. 
 
 I have myself had the opportunity of observing the 
 industry, the variety, the competency of his labors as visit- 
 ing lecturer at the Meadville Theological School ; he 
 would hurry to the spot from Michigan to Pennsylvania, 
 and in a fortnight, lecturing sometimes twice a day, give a 
 long course of lectures on ecclesiastical history, or dogma- 
 tics, or philosophy, each crammed with the results of the 
 largest reading, and each bristling with facts and illustra- 
 tions, making every one tell upon his point, and exciting a 
 strange wonder and admiration among his pupils that "one 
 head could carry all he knew." 
 
 What a rare and precious office an American scholar 
 fills, especially in our Western world, some of you must 
 duly feel ; but we have so few entitled to the name that it 
 is impossible to think of all the knowledge and scholastic 
 taste, acumen and critical ability, to be buried in Mr. 
 Brigham's grave, without sorrow and sharp regret. Hardly 
 have we left to us one man of so wide and general read- 
 ing, or any whose tastes for books and learning was so 
 genuine, long-continued, unaffected, and hearty. And he 
 was so generous in the use of his pen, in our reviews, our 
 religious newspapers, and our conferences, that his readi- 
 
MEMOIR. 53 
 
 ness, promptness and activity will be sorely missed in all 
 our affairs. 
 
 Mr. Brigham was for twenty years of his life pastor of 
 the Unitarian Church in Taunton, and expended a cease- 
 less activity in the pulpit, the lecture-room, the town, and 
 the parish, in clearing up, widening, and strengthening 
 those enlio-htened views of the Christian relio:ion which he 
 firmly held. He was too widelyrread, too deeply-taught, 
 to be a partisan or a denominationalist. His acquaint- 
 ance and his sympathy with all educated and earnest 
 minds in all schools and branches of the Christian Church 
 made him catholic in the truest sense of that word. He 
 was not an enthusiast in his hopes, or a fanatic in any- 
 thing. He seldom saw the golden prospects ahead that 
 cheer the eyes of those who are not candidly observant 
 of the present and dispassionately studious of the lessons 
 of the past. Indeed, his readiness to do justice to all 
 sides made him a poor sectarian and a lukewarn denomi- 
 nationalist. He thought few men to be well acquainted 
 with the grounds of their own opinions, and valued their 
 hopes and confidences accordingly. He was himself, 
 raoveover, with all his vigor of body and right to the cour- 
 age of his careful opinions, modest and not over-confident. 
 With a copious and ready vocabulary, he was slow to 
 speak in our public assemblies ; and, while one of the 
 most voluble and spontaneous of talkers at the fireside 
 and on the private walk, he was more silent and quiet in 
 our public conferences than could be accounted for on any 
 theory except that of a certain habitual distrust of un- 
 studied and impulsive speech. 
 
 He had a superlative method in the use of his time, 
 and the order of his studies ; knew just where he was 
 going to be and just what he was going to do, months 
 ahead ; and had his reading, and his writing, and his visit- 
 ing hours laid out with a precision and a method that 
 were admirable, and sufficiently account for his vast 
 knowledge of books and his immense productiveness in 
 manuscripts. To this he added a memory of the utmost 
 tenacity. A rapid reader, he w^as slow to forget, and had 
 his treasures at the readiest command. His preaching 
 was eminently strong and suggestive, the subject always 
 
54 MEMOIR. 
 
 having a certain masterful laying out and an exhaustive 
 treatment. And his prayers were copious, devout, and 
 varied. Perhaps he had not that contagious and sympa- 
 thetic temperament so much craved in the pulpit in our 
 day. But he lacked nothing else, and was really, for so 
 learned, so frank, so common-sensed a man, singularly 
 spiritual and devout in his pulpit work. 
 
 He was a Christian — almost an ecclesiastic — in his 
 tastes. He loved the church and its worship, its music 
 and its symbols. Had he lived in the Middle Ages, he 
 would early have repaired to a monastery, to enjoy the 
 privileges of its studies, and its freedom from worldly 
 anxieties ; nor would he have despised its good cheer. 
 Indeed, he was one of the few products of our time and 
 our ranks in whom the old spirit of monkery was revived 
 and represented. A voluntary celibate, with not a single 
 temptation or disposition to change his bachelor state, 
 that I ever heard of, he lived a life of books and old learn- 
 inof in the midst of an asre that reads little that is not wet 
 from the press and reeking with a superficial novelty; and 
 without one known desire to yield up the satisfactions of 
 learning to any domestic veariiings or any public ambition. 
 He was a singularly unambitious person for a man of his 
 powers and capacities. He has left manuscripts which 
 almost any other man of his scholarship and standing 
 would have long ago thrown into print. He wrote almost 
 as much as he read ; but either his standard was too high 
 and his learning too great to make him overvalue or even 
 duly estimate his own work, or else he was strongly 
 uncovetous of public recognition and applause. He never 
 seemed at all desirous of a city pulpit ; never grasped at 
 any office ; never entered even the academic scramble for 
 professional honors. With his strength and his knowledge, 
 and his blameless life and character, even a little personal 
 ambition would have carried him higher, and made him 
 more conspicuous ; but perhaps he chose wisely, and with 
 a better self-knowledge, in prizing most the calm and 
 studious life, and drawing his happiness from his books 
 and his use of them in his secluded spheres, or his pulpit 
 and his lecture-room. Yet he was a lover of good fellow- 
 ship and good people, and, although he had his limitations 
 
MEMOIR. 55 
 
 and peculiarities, a welcome visitor in scores of homes in 
 the West. 
 
 I have been so long and so widely separated from him 
 in distance — without ever having had a close intimacy with 
 him — that I have no right to speak of his more private 
 views and his spiritual graces. But he always impressed 
 me as a thorouo^hlv s^ood man, whose moral and relis^ious 
 principles were deeply and inextricably wrought into his 
 personality; without hypocrisy or guile; without over-val- 
 uation of himself, or over-conhdence ; ready and generous 
 in his recognition of all the gifts of others ; without jeal- 
 ousy or detraction; a tremendous worker, and one willing 
 to submit to any amount of intellectual drudgery; ever 
 conscientious in the use of his time and opportunities. 
 He was perfectly free in his studies and afraid of no 
 depth or breadth of inquiries, but was a Churchman as 
 well as a Christian, a man who knew the invaluable and 
 immense services the gospel had rendered, and read it in 
 its historical form with genuine heartiness, but with the 
 full knowledge and appreciation of all the results of 
 modern criticism. 
 
 I do not doubt that he had all the most precious hopes 
 of a believing Christian, and that his last two suffering 
 years have not only tried, but purified and exalted his 
 faith. I never have heard of a murmur or a doubt of God's 
 Vv'isdoni and goodness as coming from his lips. He has 
 had a most useful, a highly respected and an exceptionally 
 scholarly career. Labor and thought have filled his days. 
 He has had a rare and glorious chance to impress himself 
 upon hundreds of American youth, as a scholar and a 
 Christian teacher. He made full proof of his ministry, in 
 a strong parish, for twenty years, and stamped himself into 
 one large New England town, where Christianity and civil- 
 ization will \ox\z acknowledsfe his influence and remain 
 under his spell. After a long life of almost uninterrupted 
 health, he was called suddenly to two years of slow decline 
 and painful invalidism, — which may have been not less 
 useful to him than his health had been to others. He 
 carries a stainless memory into his grave, whither he went 
 in calm Christian faith and confidence. He lacked 
 nothing except the highest form of domestic experience, — 
 
56 MEMOIR. 
 
 a great lack, indeed, — and that has been made up to him 
 in part by the assiduous cares and devotion of his kindred, 
 who must now value unspeakably tlie privilege of having 
 ministered to this wifeless, childless man, and this life-long 
 solitary of the library and the pulpit, in these last trying 
 years of his decay. 
 
 I will not close without recalling the fact that it wajs 
 from my old church in Chambers Street that young Brig- 
 ham went, thirty-five years ago, into the ministry, and that 
 I preached his ordination sermon — the second I ever 
 preached, but since so many — at his settlement in Taun- 
 ton ; that I officiated at the funerals of his honored 
 mother, too early called away, and his long-lived and won- 
 derfully preserved father, who died so recently among you ; 
 and that I feel it would be more natural for him to sp'^al^ 
 at my burial than thus for me to be speaking at his. But 
 God knows the times and the seasons ! For our worn 
 friend a sweet rest is already prepared. More than the 
 joys of books and libraries are already opened to him ; for 
 he reads the face of his God and Father ; he enters the 
 communion of Christian scholars of all ages, and sees 
 them and not merely their works ; he is near the fountain 
 of all Christian theology, — the beloved Master and Head 
 of the Church ; he is witness to the truth that here we know 
 in part and prophesy in part, but that where he is they 
 know even as also thev are known ; for when that which is 
 perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done 
 away. Faithful brother, we dismiss thee to thy well- 
 earned promotion to heavenly seats, to better society, to 
 fuller knowledge, and to higher intellectual and spiritual 
 joys ! Minister of Christ, ascend to thy Master ! Child 
 of God, go to thy Father's arms ! Christian brother, join 
 the fellowship of the family in heaven ! Those of thy 
 mortal blood will long weep for thee ; but they rejoice to- 
 day that thou art free from all mortal bonds, and confident 
 of thy welcome in the spiritual world thou taughtest others 
 to find, not forgetting the way for thyself. Farewell. 
 
PAPERS. 
 
AMBROSE. 59 
 
 I. 
 
 ST. AMBROSE, BISHOP OF MILAN. 
 
 Arbogastes, a Roman general, who at the close of the 
 fourth century, made war upon the Franks of the Rhine 
 country, in an interview which he had with their chiefs, 
 was asked if he was a friend of Ambrose. From motives 
 of policy he returned an affirmative answer. But they 
 quickly replied, that now " they did not wonder at his con- 
 quering them, since he enjoyed the favor of a man whom 
 the sun would obey, if he should command it to stand 
 still." 
 
 This second Joshua was not the leader of any armed 
 host, but was the spiritual dictator of kings and generals. 
 And when one considers the rare union in his life of eccle- 
 siastical dignity and spiritual faith, how he could humble 
 the mightiest by his simple trust, — and make of an 
 emperor first a penitent and then a saint, the miracle 
 might seem more fitting of him than of the leader of 
 Israel's hosts. 
 
 No city in Europe has been more the centre of violence 
 and insurrection than Milan, the capital of Lombardy. 
 Lyino^ as it does on the frontier between Germany and 
 Italy, in every struggle between these hereditary foes, it 
 has been the principal sufferer. Down from the slopes of 
 the Alps invading armies have poured into its gates, 
 devouring its substance and deluging its streets with blood. 
 In civil commotion, nobles and people have fought hand 
 to hand in the great square before the cathedral. The 
 plague has there destroyed, and its ravages has given the 
 groundwork of the most touching and exciting of Italian 
 novels. 
 
 The Milanese are a restless and rebellious people. But 
 there is one thing which characterises their city more than 
 its turbulence, and which outlasts all its misfortunes, the 
 
6o AMBROSE. 
 
 deep-rooted reverence of the people for their patron saints. 
 The altar where Borromeo once ministered still gathers its 
 myriads, even in the hottest siege. And even when the 
 enemy are furious in the streets, the Church of St. Am- 
 brose is crowded with penitents who implore the aid of 
 the holy bishop's bones. Separated by an interval of one 
 thousand years, still these two saints are joined in the popu- 
 lar memory. And in the same religious service, the prayers 
 of the one and the hymns of the other, are chanted by 
 white-robed choirs, and shake with their rolling harmony 
 the myriad statues of that wonderful work of art, the 
 great Cathedral of Milan. 
 
 We leave to a future lecture the sketch of that most 
 lovely and apostolic of all Catholic saints, Charles Borro- 
 meo. If you would learn the spirit and beauty of his life 
 and influence, read Mansoni's story of the Betrothed. It 
 is the more ancient guardian of Milan who gives a theme 
 for the present lecture, — -the model bishop, as we might 
 call him, of the fourth century, — a man of large mind, but 
 of larger heart, a prince in dignity, a child in simplicity,— 
 firm before men, humble before God, close to keep 
 the faith of the Church, — yet charitable beyond the 
 measure of his age, — prudent in action, fearless in word, 
 — kind to the poor, candid to the great, respectful to all, — 
 capable of becoming great, preferring to do good, yielding 
 the possession of temporal power to the hope of spiritual 
 usefulness, — pleased, not by eulogy, but gratitude, — giv- 
 ing up the praise of the successful scholar for the praise 
 of the faithful pastor. 
 
 The city of Treves, which the conversion of Jerome and 
 the possession of the Holy Coat have made famous alike in 
 ancient and modern days, is honored more truly by being 
 the birthplace of Ambrose. His father was the governor 
 of that province of Gaul. But more propitious still for 
 the future eminence of the son than his noble birth, was 
 the omen which happened one day as he lay an infant in 
 his cradle, in a court-yard of the palace. A swarm of bees 
 came flying round, and some crept in and out of his 
 opened mouth, and finally all rose into the air so high that 
 they quite vanished out of sight. This prodigy, repeated 
 from the infancy of Plato, seemed to prophecy another life 
 
AMBROSE, 6 1 
 
 liKe Plato's. And from his very cradle Ambrose seemed 
 
 * ^ 
 
 destined to authority and sanctity. 
 
 Ambrose was educated first at Treves and afterwards at 
 Rome for the profession of law ; and his abilities in this 
 direction were so marked that his friendship was courted 
 by the most distinguished men of the city, as well Pagan 
 as Christian. Of one of these, Symmachus, he was after- 
 wards the opponent in controversies of singular vigor ; by 
 another, Probus, the prefect of Rome, he was early intro- 
 duced into political life, and finally from one ofiice to 
 another raised to that of governor of all the northern prov- 
 inces of Italy. As he departed for Milan, the metropolitan 
 city of the provinces, the parting words of Probus to him 
 were, "Go thy way, and govern more like a bishop than a 
 judge," They were prophetic. Hardly had he arrived at 
 Milan, when the Arian bishop, who had held the office 
 twenty years, was removed by death, and all the quarrels 
 that could arise in a distracted Church were inflamed into 
 fury. The Catholics and Arians seemed equally to forget 
 that they were Christians. As governor of the provinces 
 Ambrose believed it to be his duty to moderate ecclesiasti- 
 cal as well as civil disturbances He accordingly went to 
 the church where the council for choosing a bishop were 
 assembled, and endeavored to make peace among them. 
 In the midst of his harangue, the voice of a child was 
 suddenly heard, exclaiming, " Let Ambrose be bishop." 
 It came like the voice of an angel to the excited throng, 
 and all shouted at once, Catholic and Arian together: 
 "Ambrose shall be our bishop." It was rather a novel 
 method of election, and a somewhat singular choice, since 
 Ambrose was not a professing Christian, and had never 
 been baptised. But they saw at once that the only way of 
 reconciling their disputes was to take a new man, who was 
 obnoxious to neither party, and whose individual excel- 
 lence, more than his special experience, fitted him for the 
 office. 
 
 Ambrose himself, however, thought it a choice not fit to 
 be made, and adopted various contrivances for proving 
 this. To show how inhuman he was, he had several crim- 
 inals brought up and tortured. But the people were not 
 to be deceived by this, and when he attempted to get out 
 
62 AMBROSE. 
 
 of the way, they had a guard set upon him, and baffled all 
 his stratagem. His appeal to the emperor to be released 
 from a duty which he knew nothing about, was answered 
 by the command of the emperor to accept it, with the 
 comforting assurance that he considered it a very excellent 
 choice. He was defeated at all points, and was obliged, 
 most reluctlantly, to submit to the infraction of the canon 
 laws, and with the great seal of baptism, to be transferred 
 at once from the temporal to the spiritual administration 
 of the State. On the 7th of December, 374, he was con- 
 secrated as bishop. And to the Church in Milan this is 
 still the great day of rejoicing. Ambrose was thirty-four 
 years when he was ordained to this high and responsible 
 office. He assumed a task for which he had no previous 
 preparation, and no original taste. But with such zeal and 
 fidelity did he discharge his trust, that the twenty-two years 
 of his administration were unrivalled in their fruits of 
 benefit by the episcopal life of any that had gone before 
 him. He died in the full maturity of his powers, before 
 the weakness of age had come on, or his natural force had 
 abated. Yet the longest life could scarcely have done 
 more to vindicate the rights, to consolidate the power, and 
 to secure the reverence, not only of his own, but of the 
 universal Church. If his administration was in a less 
 stirring time than that which came immediately after it, he 
 used and directed its incidents so that they gained substan- 
 tial importance. Without secularizing the Church, he 
 used the spiritual power, so that the influence of the 
 Church was felt upon the State. Without violent persecu- 
 tion, he eradicated the heresies that he found troubling the 
 rest of the people. He carried into his religious councils 
 the prudence, the skill, and the calmness of the wise states- 
 man, and he gained the respect, if he could not get the 
 adhesion, of his adversaries. We can easily follow out his 
 'nfluence in every direction, for while he is nowhere very 
 brilliant or peculiar, he is still a true bishop, ready for 
 every duty, thoroughly furnished to every good work. We 
 will first consider his influence in the political affairs of 
 the Empire. 
 
 The Western Empire, in this period, was tottering to its 
 fall. The Gothic hordes in the hills of the North were 
 
AMBROSE. 63 
 
 gathering themselves together for their marauding onset. A 
 succession of weak and wicked emperors had not the fore- 
 si2:ht to see what thev would not have had the strensfth to 
 resist. But Ambrose saw it, and turned the weakness of 
 Imperial rule to the strengthening of that Church, in 
 which all the hopes of the future should lie. Though he 
 was forced by the emperor to be a bishop, he never became 
 the tool of an emperor. But he rebuked royal vices at the 
 very moment he was extorting royal concessions. He saw 
 usurpers and murderers in the seat of power, and saw them 
 share the fate of their victims. But he never would toler- 
 ate usurpation and murder, though he did not disdain the 
 moral influence which the humiliation of kinsfs could sfive. 
 We need not go over the dismal catalogue of political 
 changes, nor rehearse the shifting fortunes of the weak 
 Valentinian, the amiable Gratian, the tyrannical Maximus — 
 nor dwell upon the strans^e union of cruelty, dignity, and 
 piety that were conspicuous in the life of the great Theo- 
 dosius. Nor need we enumerate the lonsr succession of 
 salutary laws which the bishop of Milan procured from 
 each of the short-lived reigns. Not the least timely of 
 these was the law to prevent judicial assassination, by 
 requiring that no condemned person should be executed in 
 less than thirty days after his sentence. This put a stop 
 at once to those wholesale murders under the forms of law, 
 by which enraged governors sought to satisfy their sudden 
 vengeance. It was a statute which the wisdom of all en- 
 lightened nations will keep forever. 
 
 But xA.mbrose did not hesitate to come into collision with 
 the emperor or any other dignitary when the purity of 
 Church doctrines was in question. He had no more 
 respect for Arianism on the throne than in the street. 
 Loyalty with him always yielded to zeal for the faith. The 
 Emperor Valentinian I., who died the year after he was 
 made bishop, left a most uncomfortable widow, whosj 
 heresy and ambition were alike inveterate, and who added 
 all the arts of a hypocrite to all the obstinacy of a fanatic. 
 If she seemed to submit, it was because she was deter- 
 mined to conquer. If she labored like a mother for her 
 weak-minded son, it was to keep a mother's rule over him 
 when in power. In accepting the assistance of the bishop 
 
64 A3TBB0SE. 
 
 in her day of trouble, she seemed to herself to be gaining 
 a right to- command him in her day of triumph. Ambrose 
 supported the pretensions of the son because he believed 
 him to be the proper heir to the throne, but he had no idea 
 of vieldins: to the arrogance or to the heresv of the mother. 
 During the life of her husband and her step-son, his first 
 successor, who were sound Catholics, the empress did not 
 venture to declare her religious views. But her first use of 
 her son's absolute power, was coolly to demand for the use 
 of the Arians, and the Court, the ancient Cathedral, which 
 stood outside of the walls, and afterwards the new cathe- 
 dral in the very heart of the city ; and with considerable 
 shrewdness, she accompanied the demand with men to 
 take possession. But the messens^ers found the bishop at 
 the altar, ministering the high Easter service. He was 
 summoned, in the name of the emperor, to give up the 
 church. The messenger received this noble answer : 
 " Should the emperor require what is mine, my land or my 
 money, I shall not refuse him, though all I possess belongs 
 to the poor. If you require my estate, take it, — if my 
 body, here it is, — load me with chains, kill me if you 
 will, — I am content. I shall not fly to the protection of 
 the people, nor cling to the altars : I choose rather to be 
 sacrificed for the sake of the altars.'' The next morning 
 the church was surrounded with soldiers after the bishop 
 had entered, and for a day. and a night he was a close pris- 
 oner. But the sermon that he preached so softened the 
 hearts of the soldiers, and the prayers which he offered 
 so cheered the spirits of the disciples, that when the order 
 at last came for his release, it was received with a univer- 
 sal shout of joy. The bishop had conquered without 
 rebellion, and had made the occasion of tyranny an occa- 
 sion of conversion. In the following year, the same 
 experiment was tried again with no better success. An 
 Arian bishop was consecrated at Court, and enjoyed in the 
 royal favor the show of episcopal power. But in spite of 
 all the edicts and fulminations of the Court, Ambrose took 
 no notice of the foolish farce. He was imprisoned during 
 worship in the church again. But he improved the occa- 
 sion by a discourse that has come down to us, to discuss 
 the true connection between Church and State. This dis- 
 
AMBROSE. 65 
 
 course contains many views that savor strongly of our 
 American Con2:reo:ationalism, and does not sound verv 
 much Uke a flattery of power. It is an expansion of the 
 Scripture precept, "Render unto Caesar the things which 
 are Caesar's, but unto God the things which are God's." 
 The imprisonment lasted several days, and the chroni- 
 cles concerning it have embellished it with a few miracles, 
 which add nothing to its moral effect. The statement, 
 shortly after, of the man who came to murder him by 
 order of the empress, and found his arm paralysed when 
 he lifted the sword to strike, and was restored only when 
 he confessed his guilty intention and declared his peni- 
 tence, needs no supernatural intervention to explain it. 
 
 One of the most extraordinary triumphs of spiritual over 
 the civil power on record, is the humiliation of the great 
 Theodosius before Ambrose. It is paralleled only by 
 the penance of Henry II. before the tomb of Thomas a 
 Becket. Theodosius was a man of singular gifts, both of 
 mind and heart, who had attained by merit alone, without 
 the privilege of birth, to the lofty station of Emperor in 
 the East, and finally of Emperor in the whole Roman 
 dominion. Though he was a devoted Christian, and rever- 
 enced the altars of God, he wished to be severely just; and 
 sometimes his duties as sovereign seemed to conflict with 
 his duties as a prince of the Church. In a small town in 
 his dominion, the Cliristians, in revenge for the insult of 
 some Jews upon them on a feast-day, had pulled down 
 the Jewish synagogue. Theodosius ordered the Christians 
 to build it up again, and those who had pulled it down to 
 be severely punished. But he found here a stern opposer 
 in Ambrose, who contended that Justice could not require 
 an act of impiety, and that if it were a crime for angry 
 men to destroy their neighbors' property, it were a worse 
 crime for a Christian to build a house of worship for the 
 Jew believer. This firmness overcame the monarch's 
 sense of justice. The synagogue never rose from its ruins, 
 and the hope of the Jews became vain. 
 
 But this and other trifling triumphs over the emperor 
 were only the prelude to his greater and more public 
 humiliation. An outbreak had taken place at Thessalon- 
 ica, at the time of the chariot races, in which several 
 
 5 
 
^'6 AMBROSE. 
 
 officers of rank were stoned to death, and their bodies 
 dragged through the streets. Guided by his own wrath, 
 and by the pernicious counsels of his favorite secretary, 
 Theodosius determined at once to take exemplary ven- 
 geance, and administer a terrible rebuke. A whole army 
 was let loose upon the devoted city, neither age nor 
 sex were spared, and at the end of three hours seven 
 thousand slain were counted in promiscuous massacre. 
 When next the emperor presented himself at the door of 
 the church, he was met by the bishop there, who forbade 
 him to cross the threshold, and commanded him to disci- 
 pline his polluted soul in the severest penance before he 
 ventured again to enter the Courts of a holy God.* Eight 
 months long in his chamber this penance endured. And 
 then, when the emperor came again, he found that the 
 severe priest was not satisfied with a private, but a public 
 exhibition of penitence. He was compelled by fear, and 
 a guilty conscience, to submit. And for many hours, the 
 people of Milan, as they passed the great cathedral, could 
 behold the sovereign of the world prostrate upon the 
 pavement of the porch, with tears running down his cheeks, 
 beating his breast, and tearing his hair, and uttering mourn- 
 ful cries, — like the vilest sinner. It was a splendid 
 exhibition of the triumph of religion over power. And it 
 is said of the emjDcror that no day of his after life did he 
 fail to bewail the violation of God's lav/s, into which pas- 
 sion had led him, or to thank the bishop as his spiritual 
 Saviour. 
 
 Another story is told of the influence of Ambrose upon 
 Theodosius, which is worth repeating. On a great festival 
 day, when Theodosius brought his offering to the altar, and 
 remained standing within the rails of the chancel, Ambrose 
 asked him if he wanted anything there. He answered 
 that he wished to assist in administering the holy com- 
 munion. The bishop then sent his archdeacon to him 
 with this message : " Sir, it is lawful for none but anointed 
 
 *In the Belvidere gallery of Vienna is a great picture by Rubens, 
 representing this scene. The emperor stands on the left, on the steps 
 of the church, surrounded by his guards, in the attitude of supplica- 
 tion. On the right, and above, is Ambrose, attended by his minister- 
 ing priests, stretching out his hand to repel the intruder. 
 
AMBROSE. 67 
 
 ministers to remain here. Go out, and stand with other 
 worshippers. The purple robe makes princes, but not 
 priests.'' Excusing himself for the fault, and thanking 
 the archbisliop for his plainness of speech, he went out 
 and stood with the rest. When he returned to Constan- 
 tinople, instead of going within the rails, as before, he 
 remained outside, upon which the bishop of that city 
 summoned him to take his former place. But the humbled 
 emperor answered with a sigh: "Alas! how hard it is for 
 me to learn the difference between the priesthood and the 
 empire. I am surrounded with flatterers, and have found 
 only one man who has set me right, and has told me the 
 truth. I know but one true bishop in the world, and that 
 is Ambrose." 
 
 While in the connection of Ambrose and Theodosius 
 there is much to remind us of Nathan and David, in the 
 intercourse of Ambrose and young Valentinian there is a 
 striking resemblance to that of Samuel and Saul. The 
 intrigues of his mother did not prevent the son from being 
 a most docile pupil : and while in his Catholic zeal the 
 bishop did everything to save the soul of the young prince 
 from perdition, by his moral counsels, he was as faithful to 
 save his life from corruptions. Happy were it if pious men, 
 the guardians of religion, were always as careful to keep 
 the characters of their disciples spotless, as they are to 
 keep their opinions sound. 
 
 In the year a. d. 384, Paganism received its death-blow 
 in the great controversy of Symmachus with Ambrose, 
 about the setting up again of the Altar of Victory in the 
 Senate house, and the salaries restored to the order of 
 Vestal Virgins. The controversy involved the great ques- 
 tion of the right of a Christian State to protect or encour- 
 age heathenism. The tottering fabric of the old mythology 
 found a noble supporter in Symmachus. In him seemed 
 to be restored the masculine energy, vigor, and eloquence 
 of the days of the Republic. His splendid paragraphs 
 were the echoes of voices from the past. His appeals 
 brought back to patriotism, the dignity, the splendor, the 
 trophies of the former time, when the Roman eagles and 
 the Roman gods together led armies on to victory. In 
 sorrowful numbers he sang a lament over the fallen 
 
68 AMBROSE. 
 
 temples, — the bioken columns, the neglected altars, and 
 sought, through pity for the low estate, to awaken sympathy 
 for the fortunes of the old religion. Then he appealed 
 with eloquent earnestness to the emperor's sense of right : 
 " Shall not the conscience of men be respected ? Shall 
 not the right of the citizen to his own worship be kept 
 sacred ? Shall the State persecute those whose reverence 
 will not allow them to forsake the gods of their fathers, 
 who have given so many blessings to Arts and to Arms ? " 
 And then, in ingenious sorrow, he recounts the calamities 
 which had befallen them for their apostasy, and their for- 
 getfulness of sacred things. The Genius of old Rome 
 spoke through him. And the shades of heroes, of orators, 
 of philosophers, of poets, seemed to gather around him 
 as he spoke. But they were only shades, raised by the 
 magic of his potent charm, and fell away again when 
 the words of Ambrose dissolved the charm. 
 
 The answers of Ambrose to the appeals of Symmachus 
 have come down to us. If they lack the classic finish, the 
 rhetorical fullness, the varying play of emotion in the 
 appeals of the accomplished Pagan, they have all the 
 force and earnestness of a confidence in the right of his 
 cause. There is less pathos about them, but there is more 
 power. The reference is not to the former glories, but to 
 future judgments. The emperor is made to see not the 
 triumphs of Scipio and Caesar, but of the Tribunal of God. 
 " Give to the merit of renowned men," says he, " all that 
 is due, but where God is in question, think upon God. 
 No one can be treated unjustly, when God is preferred. 
 Nothing can be higher than religion, than faith. The 
 emperor is the most exalted of men. But as all serve him, 
 so should he serve his God and the true faith. Can he 
 who builds the temples for idols be received again into the 
 Church of Christ. How cans't thou answer the priest of 
 God when he says to thee, 'the Church wishes not thy 
 gifts, since thou hast profaned them to the service of the 
 heathen ? ' Christ disdains the obedience of one who 
 follows after idols. It is thy soul that thou losest in seek- 
 ing to bring falsehood back." And then, with clear 
 analysis, he opens the folly of referring the ancient glory 
 of the people to its gods instead of its 7nc'/i, — and humor- 
 
AMBROSE. 69 
 
 oush'" asks if Jupiter were in the goose whose hissing 
 saved Rome from the Gauls. He puts aside the specious 
 plea that there are many ways of serving and acknowledg- 
 ing God, by asking if the revealed word of God has 
 declared it so. " Has it not said that Christ is the only 
 name by which men can be saved .'* And when," he indig- 
 nantly asks, " was it ever known that a heathen emperor 
 listened to this plea and built an altar to Christ." 
 
 Symmachus had demanded, not as a matter of right 
 alone, but as a bounty, that provision for the priests, and 
 vestals which could support them in becoming state. This 
 gives occasion to Ambrose to contrast the heathen priests 
 and virgins with those of a Christian profession. He 
 shows the latter poor in goods, but rich in grace, — seek- 
 ing rather to deny than indulge themselves, — using their 
 own property for the aid of others, not coveting the goods 
 of others for their own advantage, — • adorning their charity 
 with humility, instead of splendor, — asking no aid from 
 the ruling powers, but ready to give these the blessing of 
 their prayers. He points to that virginity which seeks not 
 to display, but to hide itself, not to ride in a chariot, but 
 to kneel in a cloister, — not to go clothed in a harlot's colors 
 of gold and purple, but in the white of purity and the 
 black of penitence. Have the chaste matrons, who vow 
 themselves to pious seclusion, asked for a stipend to nour- 
 ish their idleness? Have they not rather filled their 
 seclusion with busy industry for the welfare of the poor 
 and the suffering? Do they ask a bounty on their 
 prayers? And why should the priests and virgins of a 
 dead religion, that even the barbarians have spurned, 
 which can show only a few mouldering trophies, but no 
 present good, and no future hope, receive more than do 
 the priests and virgins of a religion which asks nothing of 
 the world but to believe and to obey, — which is bringing 
 the heathen into a common fold, and making the utter- 
 most parts of the earth joyful together ? Woe to the 
 empire when active virtue receives no gift, while lazy 
 worthlessness is rewarded with vestments and gold, when 
 the living man is left to starve, while the corpse is em- 
 balmed and covered with flowers." 
 
 In such wise did the Christian bishop argue against the 
 
70 AMBBOSE. 
 
 heathen orator. And his appeal proved the mightier. No 
 concessions were made. The controversy seems insignifi- 
 cant to us now, — and hardly can we rise to its historical 
 grandeur. But it was the most significant fact of the 
 time. The combatants were the noblest and most emi- 
 nent representatives of heathenism and the Christianity of 
 the age. The cause of each religion seems pleading in 
 their words. Symmachus, the senator, full of the tradi- 
 tions of ancient Rome, speaks in a poetic and elevated 
 tone; he touches everything, he urges every plea, — the 
 right of history, of custom, of tradition, of charity, of the 
 interest of the State, the king, of religion itself. Where 
 one will not do, he presses the other. If faith in the gods 
 will not prevail, let State policy be considered. In his 
 words there is a certain undeniable sense of right. They 
 are the last sorrowful elegy on the falling altars of ancient 
 Rome, and they extort our compassion as we follow them. 
 But they lack the vital truth. They are an ingenious show 
 of justice. We first come to the heart of the matter when 
 we read the clear, logical, strong, living answer of Am- 
 brose. Here is the consciousness of eternal truth ; there 
 only the defence of tottering error. The one is the artist 
 who would twine the wild vines beautifully round the 
 broken columns, and deceive men into worship there, — 
 the other the architect, who would build on the ruins a 
 temple meet for future worship. But we turn from these 
 details of controversy, which, perhaps, have had for you 
 but little interest, to behold Ambrose in a different sphere 
 of labor, in his literary and religious activity. 
 
 He was the first poet of the Western Church, as well as 
 its greatest bishop. The Latin hymns of Ambrose, unlike 
 the Greek hymns of Synesius, are not so much theological 
 as practical, and were intended from the beginning for use 
 in the churches. In a visit to Greece, the bishop had seen 
 the splendid effect that answering choirs of voices pro- 
 duced in sacred worship, and on his return he introduced 
 it into his own. He was willins^ to be tauiiht bv adversa- 
 ries, and the policy of the Arians had proved that the 
 songs of the Sanctuary did more than its creeds for the 
 conversion of souls. Twelve hymns now remain to us of 
 the composition of Ambrose, though it is probable he wrote 
 
AMBROSE. 71 
 
 many more. They are used still in the Roman Catholic 
 service, and you will find them in the missal of that 
 Church. But their sweet ministry went farther than the 
 public service. They cheered the anchorite in his cell, and 
 comforted the prisoner in his living tomb. The martyr 
 gained courage as he lifted their lines, and forgot the 
 devouring flames around him. They gave an inspiration 
 to hours of miserv, and brouo-ht heaven into the soul that 
 was worn by the weariness of earth. It is impossible in 
 any version, more especially a literal version, to give an 
 idea of the fire, the earnestness, the flowing movement of 
 these old Latin hymns, — lacking altogether classic finish 
 and beauty, — but full of living and longing faith, — what 
 the Germans call the '"' S7£/ing'^ of devotion. They bear 
 the same relation to classic verses that the Psalmody of 
 the Methodists does to the polished stanzas of the pro- 
 fessed poets. You may see this illustrated by comparing 
 the hymn of Charles Wesley, " A charge to keep I have," 
 with the hymn of Bishop Heber (the Si 4th of our collec- 
 tion), "• The God of glory walks his round," on the same 
 subject. The latter is a stream of pure poetry and exqui- 
 ~site beauty. But the former has the true glow of inspira- 
 
 tion about it, and will send the blood tingling through the 
 veins when it is sung. 
 
 The most famous hymns of Ambrose are his songs for 
 morning and evening. The contrasts between these are 
 beautifully preserved, yet the same faith is found in both. 
 The morning-song is written to be sung at cock-crow. 
 
 1. — The sullen darkness breaks away, 
 
 See in the East the crimson day 1 
 
 We own, great God, thy wondrous love, 
 
 O let it lift our souls above. 
 
 2. — Day's herald stirs our hearts to joy, 
 
 Let joy in prayer the hour employ, 
 The wayward dream is lost in light, 
 Let wandering faith now rise to sight. 
 
 3. — Far on the heaven the star of dawn 
 
 Gleams on the forehead of the morn. 
 
 A sacred emblem let it be, 
 
 Of Faith and Truth and Purity. 
 
 4. — The sailor on the billowy tide 
 
 Bids now his bark more boldly ride, 
 
72 AMBROSE. 
 
 And the penitent on bended knee 
 
 In the dim church-light his Christ doth see. 
 
 'o' 
 
 5. — Hark ! The shrill cock cries, — let the sleeper awake, 
 
 Let his leaden slumbers their silence break, 
 Let him hear the sound which calls him away 
 From the waste of sleep to the work of the day. 
 
 6. — With the new cock-crow the weary find hope, 
 
 New faith in the sufferer's heart springs up, 
 
 The sick man draws a fresher breath, 
 
 And the sword of the robber hides in its sheath. 
 
 7. — Look down, O Lord, from thy glory on high, 
 
 Lend us the light of thy loving eye. 
 Strengthen us now with thy heavenly might. 
 Save us from guilt ; keep our souls right. 
 
 8. — A worthy song to thee we would raise. 
 
 Open our lips to sing thy praise, 
 Drive far away the dreams of the night. 
 Illumine our hearts. Celestial Light. 
 
 The imperfection of this translation can give you only 
 the swinging measure, and the fervent spirit of the original, 
 but nothing of its genuine force.* The evening song is its 
 counterpart. And in all the songs the beauties of Nature 
 are made suggestive of spiritual thought and practical 
 duty. They are all adapted, too, to some particular time 
 of worship. The famous song to the Trinity, which 
 Luther loved so much that he translated it for the Re- 
 formed Church, was written for the close of vespers. 
 There is no one of our common doxologies that will com- 
 pare with it in quiet energy. It is a thing which sacred 
 poets have not often been able to achieve, to apostrophize 
 the Trinity, and yet retain the idea of filial reverence. 
 
 1. — Thou, who art three in unity. 
 
 The true God from eternity, 
 
 The sun hath veiled his glorious face, 
 
 Enfold us now in thy embrace. 
 
 2. — We hail with praise the morning light, 
 
 We kneel in prayer with the falling night, 
 Thy name now bless, thy grace implore. 
 Thee magnify for evermore. 
 
 3. — Thee, Father of all. Eternal Lord, 
 
 Thee, Saviour Son, the Incarnate Word, 
 Thee, Comforter, Holy Spirit of love. 
 Three on earth, one God above. 
 
AMBROSE. 73 
 
 Ambrose has been styled, in re2:ard to his hymns, the 
 Luther of the Latin Church. He did for the music of this, 
 indeed, what Luther did for the music of the German. 
 And to this day several of his ancient songs are sung in 
 the Lutheran chapels from the clear, sonorous version of 
 the ereat Reformer. The characteristics of Ambrose as a 
 poet are the same as those of Luther. There is the same 
 outwardness, the same earnestness of faith, the same 
 practical character. x\nd we cannot wonder that these 
 hymns have kept their place for so many centuries, while 
 the more finished Christian poetry has so much of it 
 passed into oblivion. For it is not polished verse that 
 binds itself to the heart of the world, but rather those 
 simple strains which exhort to duty while they cling to 
 faith. 
 
 Ambrose, as a poet, has had much more influence upon 
 the Church, than as a general writer. His works are valu- 
 able rather as curiosities of literature than for their intrin- 
 sic merit. His critical writings upon the various books of 
 the Old and New Testaments, are mere specimens of alle- 
 gorizing, without the genius for that kind of interpretation. 
 He wrote a good many doctrinal books, but these were 
 more successful in putting the Arians down than in build- 
 ing up any substantial system. His general views were 
 more Orthodox than those of the men of his time. He 
 was distinct upon the Trinity, and his views about deprav- 
 ity leaned to that positive imputation of Adam's sin, 
 which afterwards became part of the Catholic creed. At 
 the same time he taught that a man w^ould be punished 
 only for his own actual sins, and not for those of his 
 father. He anticipates Luther in the doctrine of free 
 grace and election, and hints, not obscurely, at the eternal 
 misery of the wicked. To him belongs the honor, too, if 
 it be an honor, of first broadly asserting the real presence 
 of Christ in the Sacrament, that the bread and wdne were 
 changed into the body and blood of the Saviour. But all 
 these doctrines lie so loosely in his writings, that they 
 teach no definite scheme, and seem of little worth. The 
 ascetic writings of Ambrose are written with more spirit, 
 and suit more his temper and taste. He loved to think 
 and talk about virginity, and fasts ; about the duty of 
 
74 AMBROSE. 
 
 saints, and the need of sacrifices. He wrote with a real 
 relish the biographies of various Scriptural characters — 
 such as Abraham and Joseph, Cain and Abel ; and his 
 remarks upon Noah's Ark are as quaint and original as 
 the description of its length by one of my venerable pre- 
 decessors. 
 
 Upon Christian ethics, Ambrose wrote a more ambitious 
 work. Taking the Pagan Cicero for his guide, he laid down 
 a catalogue of virtues more in harmony with the philoso- 
 phy of the Stoics, than the piety of the Gospel, 'fhere is 
 no need here of going into any criticism of that system, 
 for it has long ago been superseded, and never became the 
 moral code of the Catholic Church. Its ground principle 
 is that the flesh and the spirit are essentially opposed, and 
 that the element of all virtue is in exaltins^ the latter and 
 depressing the former. He enumerates four cardinal vir- 
 tues : " Wisdom, Justice, Firmness, and Moderation." A 
 strange classification, is it not, for a Christian, — to leave 
 out everv one of the beatitudes ? It is Cicero restored 
 again. But Ambrose gives a Christian interpretation to 
 these. Wisdom, he calls the true relation of man to God ; 
 yustice, of man to Man ; FiJ-mness, of man to outward 
 events \ Moderation, of man to himself. In Christian 
 speech, these four virtues would be called piety, love, con- 
 tentment, and self-denial. And. the account that he gives 
 of them is of this kind. Under each of these virtues he 
 brings up some practical illustration from sacred history, 
 generally from the Old TestameiTt. It is, to say the least, 
 a strange fancy which instances the Virgin Mary as an 
 example of moderation. The Scriptures attribute to the 
 Virgin many excellent feminine graces, but say nothing 
 about her self-denial, or her conflicts with the flesh. 
 
 Ambrose divides duties into two classes, perfect, and 
 partial. Imperfect duties are those which are common to 
 every body, and which all may easily fulfill — such as 
 duties to parents, to teachers, to society, and the State. 
 Perfect duties are duties which only comjDaratively few 
 can perform — duties to the church, such as celibacy, 
 fasting, prayer, almsgiving. In other words, imperfect 
 duties are those by which a man does all that is necessary 
 to get along comfortably ; perfect, those that are super- 
 
AMBROSE. 75 
 
 fluous and voluntary, are purely for the good of man and 
 the s:lorv of God. There were two ethical controversies 
 into which Ambrose flung himself heart and soul, — con- 
 troversies which have never ceased, and perhaps never 
 will. One is between the "Right" and the "Expedient," 
 and here by a variety of ingenious arguments he at- 
 tempted to show that expediency is never the test of right, 
 but that what the Church declares to be right is always 
 expedient. A principle, you perceive, which worked its 
 result afterwards in the horrors of the Inquisition, and the 
 burning of heretics.* The other was whether the denial 
 or the use of the natural appetites were better. Here 
 Ambrose was of the class who would frown down all 
 amusements, would make soberness the type of piety, 
 and make perfect holiness to consist in voluntary suffer- 
 ing. He would have started with horror in hearing one 
 say that the hands and feet as well as the heart and soul 
 were meant for the pleasure of men. And he became a 
 remorseless persecutor of those who plead for a natural 
 and genial life. The satirical pen of Jerome was aided 
 by the Episcopal will of Ambrose in crushing the bold 
 Jovinian, whose only crime was in holding that every 
 creature of God was good, that the world was made to 
 rejoice, and not to weep in, and that happiness was better 
 than living martyrdom. 
 
 But though Ambrose was not adverse to controversy, and 
 was ready to fight in defense of the truth he loved best, 
 the sacred privileges of his Episcopal duty, and the sacred 
 rights of God's altar, the Saint most appeared when he 
 led the devotions on the holy day of the kneeling throng, 
 when he spoke to them of the great sacrifice, and asked 
 for them saving mercy. To him the Church was truly the 
 gate of heaven. He felt the joy as well as the profit of 
 worship. The service of prayer never became to him com- 
 mon because familiar. He cared for the decencies of 
 God's house, because he felt God's presence there. And 
 
 * While Ambrose thus by his theory prepared the way for religious 
 persecution it should be mentioned in his honor, that he protested 
 against the execution of Priscillian for heresy, and refused to hold 
 communion with the bishops who sanctioned this. Priscillian was 
 the first whom Christians put to death for conscience sake. 
 
76 AMBROSE. 
 
 he is usually painted in his Episcopal chair, with simple 
 dif^nity dispensing a benediction to the humble Chris- 
 tians too happy in feeling his hand upon their heads. He 
 loved, too, the various duties of a bishop's life, — to com- 
 pose the strifes of foes, to judge in doubtful causes, to 
 give faith to a doubting soul, — to give hope to a breaking 
 heart. He loved to send help to the needy ; he loved to 
 speak peace to the sufferer. Often his presence by night 
 in the poor man's cottage seemed sent from God, often his 
 fervent prayer made the death-bed happy. He who could 
 humble an Emperor, loved better to comfort the mourner, 
 and save the sinner. His visit purified the heart of vice, 
 his voice was music in the home of sorrow. From rebuke 
 to compassion, from instruction to mercy, from judgment 
 to pardon, his life continually passed. In the morning he 
 spoke to the crowd in the great Cathedral, that now is the 
 accepted time, now is the day of salvation. At noon, 
 Avhen they crowded his palace with their gifts for judg- 
 ment, his word to each was, " Go thy way, be reconciled to 
 thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." At night 
 he cheered the lonely one in her humble home with the 
 Saviour's call, "Come unto me all ve that labor and are 
 heavy laden and I will give you rest." He was a true 
 bishop, fearing never the frown of man, but caring always 
 for every child of God. His heart was an asylum for the 
 fears and the sorrows of his fiock, as he would have the 
 Church an asylum for the persecuted. He was a true 
 bishop in discretion. His firmness never became ob- 
 stinate, his zeal never became reckless, his dogmatism 
 never became arrogant. He denounced the errors, but 
 did not asperse the fame, of heretics. He rebuked the 
 sins, but did not insult the dignity of monarchs. He re- 
 lieved the wants without despising the state of the poor. 
 He was patient in hearing, calm in deciding, prompt in 
 acting. His ambition was not to be served, but to serve. 
 He counted no day lost that was spent in making others 
 happy, peaceful, or faithful. He carried in one hand the 
 blessing of an earthly life, in the other the key of a 
 heavenly kingdom. At the altar he stood to interpret 
 mysteries, in the house, to minister mercies, and it is hard 
 to tell in which his work was holiest. He had all the con- 
 
AMBROSE . 77 
 
 sciousness, with none of the pride, of influence. He was 
 o^rateful for his office without being vain of it, and he 
 strove to magnify it not by many pretensions, but by ahns, 
 and prayers, and the salvation of souls. He defended 
 the monastic theory, but he did not use the monastic prac- 
 tice. He exercised the piety which the hermit spent in 
 seclusion, in bringing men to God. And in an age when 
 men thought that their truest duty was to remove from 
 duty, his example proved that an active love is better than 
 a contemplative virtue. With the other great men who 
 make up wdth him the four great Doctors of the Western 
 Church he will not compare in learning, genius, or strength 
 of soul. But he is the greatest Saint among them, and 
 did more good in his day and generation than they all. 
 
 The Easter of the year 397, was a sad and solemn festi- 
 val for the Church at Milan. For the manly form and 
 countenance that had so often bent down there before the 
 silent throns: in fervent entreatv and sweet benediction, 
 now lay in the sleep of death before the altar. It was a 
 touching story that they told of his dying, how the em- 
 peror, afraid for his whole dominion if this good man died, 
 called his nobility and magistrates together and persuaded 
 them to go to Ambrose and ask him to beg of God a 
 longer life, — how he refused to ask God to change his 
 plans — or to delay the hour of his release, — what won- 
 derful signs prophesied his near spiritual glory, a flame in 
 the form of a shield creeping over his face, his body lying 
 with the hands extended in the form of the cross, his 
 sight of Jesus coming smiling towards him. They told of 
 his last words, and his last look, and of the peaceful sink- 
 ing of his breath away. And then he seemed to be 
 bending again above the weeping crowd, and a voice to 
 be heard, " Weep, friends, no longer ; Him whom ye loved 
 is not here. He is risen." 
 
 St. Ambrose has enjoyed the rare honor of a place on 
 the calendar of the Greek as well as the Latin Church, 
 His name stands beside that of Chrysostom and Basil 
 there, and so wherever the memory of the Fathers is kept 
 sacred, his hath its appropriate season. There are many 
 who claim to possess portions of his holy relics, and it is 
 probable that not many of the bones are left where they 
 
78 AMBROSE. 
 
 were laid at first. The city in which he labored and died 
 has lonor since been troubled about other thin^rs than the 
 preservation of relics. But his bones are not needed 
 to keep him in mind there. So long as the great cathedral, 
 the miracle of art, stands proudly there in the public 
 square, so long as white-robed priests celebrate the service 
 at its altar, so long as the immortal ministry of the latef 
 saint, the good Borromeo, is fresh in the affection of the 
 people, will the thought of this great spiritual father stay 
 there. Rome may lose from his holy seat her Pope, the 
 memory of her orators and patriarchs may pass away, — 
 but the name of Ambrose will linger in Milan, deserted 
 though it should be, as a holier name still lingers in and 
 sanctifies the desolate walls of Jerusalem. 
 
AUGUSTINE. 79 
 
 11. 
 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS INFLUENCE. 
 
 How patient and powerful is a mother's love ! Hopeful 
 in every sorrow, bearing up against every disgrace and sin 
 of him she loves, never desperate, never indifferent. How 
 many of the world's greatest benefactors have been made 
 so by a mother's enduring affection ! To this sentiment 
 the Christian Church owes its brightest names ; and to 
 none is its debt of gratitude more due than to Monica, the 
 mother of St. Augustine. Her untiring love and prayers 
 kept the youth from realizing in manhood his youthful ten- 
 dencies, and saved to the ancient Church her greatest 
 light. 
 
 The scene of our sketches, thus far, has been laid in the 
 East and in the North ; in Bethlehem of Judea ; in Milan, 
 the frontier city ; and in Rome, the ancient capital of the 
 world. We shall turn now to the land of a Southern 
 clime, where the associations, both historical and religious, 
 if less numerous and splendid, are not less striking than 
 in the East and the North. We have spoken of the 
 great men who, in Asia and in Europe, represented the 
 speech and the spirit of the Catholic Church. We turn 
 now to Africa, to find its areatest thinker. The scholar 
 and the bishop need their complement in the theologian. 
 The biblical labors of the one, the pastoral purity of the 
 other, may be viewed now as harmonizing into a life of 
 rare powers and combinations. 
 
 He whom we shall speak of in this lecture, was the con- 
 vert of Ambrose, and the correspondent of Jerome; 
 receiving from the one, piety of heart : receiving from the 
 other, accuracy of knowledge, and uniting the excellence 
 of both to original qualities possessed by neither. 
 
 Rarely have the lives of the saints furnished us witli 
 such rich material as the memorials of Augustine, which 
 
8o AUGUSTINE. 
 
 are left behind. Besides that most voluminous correspon- 
 dence on every variety of subject, besides those multifarious 
 treatises which ^rive us everv shade of the author's 
 thought, we have from his own pen a book of Confessions, 
 which trace his spiritual history with a minuteness as 
 admirable as the candor with which they expose his frail- 
 ties. More than these, he had his Boswell in an admiring 
 deacon, Possidius by name, whose panegyric upon Augus- 
 tine gives us a higher opinion of .its subject than of its 
 author. And if all else were lost about him, the multitude 
 of allusions from contemporary writers, would give us a 
 quite complete biography. The controversy that Jerome 
 carried on with him exhibits the mildness and ability of 
 one foe, while it shows the conceit and scholarship of the 
 other. 
 
 In the year 354, on the 13th of November, at the little 
 town of Thagaste, not far from Carthage, in Africa, was 
 born a child, who received from his parents the name of 
 Aurelius Augustine. The father, a nobleman of that 
 region, arbitrary in his temper, a \vorldly believer in the 
 Pagan gods, and a strong adherent to Imperial rule, might 
 rejoice most in the surname which called back the greatest 
 and most arbitrary of Roman monarchs, and the palmy 
 days of Pagan rule. But the mother might have a prophe- 
 tic Christian hope in giving us a Christian name, Aurelius, 
 (signifying a sun of gold), for she was a devoted Christian, 
 and trusted vet to convert her husband to the faith of 
 Jesus. To both was the child a child of promise : to the 
 father, as one who should establish the fame of the states- 
 man and the philosopher ; to the mother, as one who should 
 become a good steward of the grace of God. The differ- 
 ing tastes of the parents, though perhaps not favorable to 
 their domestic happiness, were of advantage in making 
 the son complete in his education. The classical and 
 rhetorical teachings of Patricius were tempered and sancti- 
 tified by the prayers of Monica. 
 
 There is nothing in the infancy and childhood of Augus- 
 tine that is especially remarkable. Rather less than the 
 usual quantity of miracles seemed to mark him above his 
 fellows. He seems to have been pretty much like other 
 boys of a sanguine temperament, — rather fond of having 
 
AUGUSTINE. 81 
 
 his own way, and ready for fun of any kind, — especially 
 if it involved the element of roguery. He tells us in his 
 Confessions, with great minuteness, his boyish foibles; and 
 we recognize in his account of robbing his neighbor's pear 
 tree with other boys, just for sport, while he tiung the fruit 
 away as not fit to eat, a characteristic of boyhood almost 
 everywhere. The tears and entreaties of his mother did 
 not quite succeed in making him a good boy according to 
 the received standards. He had no great taste for studv. 
 though he loved Latin, his own tongue, and especially the 
 poetry in it. But Greek took too much labor, and mathe- 
 mathics were his special aversion. The difficulties of a 
 modern school-boy in learning the multiplication table could 
 not be more severe than those of this eminent saint. And 
 yet the boy was very bright, and though he would not study 
 hard, and loved to hunt and catch birds, and loiter about 
 more than he loved his books, he was somehow or other 
 always ready, and was the first among his equals. His 
 father was very proud of him and sent him away to school, 
 first to Madaura, where he learned grammar and rhetoric, 
 and afterwards to Carthage, which was the Collegiate City 
 of Africa, — what Rome was to Italy and Athens to 
 Greece. In these places his progress in knowledge and 
 dissipation was alike conspicuous. He became eminent as 
 a fast man, as well as a strong man, familiarized himself 
 with all kinds of vice, and gained a knowledge of the 
 world in her sins, as well as of wisdom in her treasures. 
 His mother's remonstrances he despised, — thinking them 
 to be mere womanly weakness. He had a great respect 
 for Christianity, but no faith or interest in it. Even his 
 father's death did not turn him from his course. If it led 
 him to apply himself to study as a means of support for 
 himself and those whom nature, and whom his own folly or 
 vice had made dependent on him, it did not soften his 
 heart or convert him to the Gospel. His head soon 
 became turned by the various theories which he stumbled 
 upon, but it was fortunate for him that, among the rest, 
 he fell upon the Hortensius of Cicero, a philosophical 
 v/ork now lost, which kindled in him a great ardor for 
 philosophy, and a great disgust for his irregular mode 
 of life. He gave up his boon companions at once, and 
 6 
 
82 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 henceforward devoted himself, heart and soul, to the 
 search after truth. His pursuit of this end only made 
 him more eajrer as he failed to find truth in the works of 
 heathen philosophers. He felt that there was something 
 wanting in Aristotle and Cicero. They gave him specula- 
 tion, where he craved assurance. And his early Christian 
 associations still lingered by him. He remembered the 
 name of Jesus, so often mentioned in his mother's prayers ; 
 and he could not get over the feeling that the name of 
 Christ ought to be found in everv religious treatise. His 
 dissatisfaction became such that he finally determined to 
 read the Bible, a book of which he had heard a good deal 
 from his mother, but which his father did not think 
 much of. It disappointed him very much. Its style seemed 
 tame compared with the flowing and stately rhetoric of the 
 heathen orators, and the ideas in it too simple and practi- 
 cal to suit his notion of the dignity of religious truths. He 
 gave up the Bible accordingly very soon, and went back to 
 philosophical speculations to find a faith. It is not un- 
 common for young men of twenty or thereabouts to see in 
 philosophy an answer to the questions abour life and death 
 and God, which perplexed them. The most tempting 
 solution which St. Augustine seemed to find was in the 
 sect of the Manicheans. 
 
 This Manichean sect had a mixed origin from the 
 mythology of Persia and the mysticism of the Gnostics, 
 drawing from the first its doctrine of sin, and the second 
 its doctrine of emanations from God. Manes, its 
 founder, was a Chaldean by birth, and flourished during 
 the latter half of the third century. He incorporated 
 into his svstem the leading features of the Persian dual- 
 
 ism, — of two eternal antagonist principles, of good and 
 evil, which he gave names to and ranked as equal gods. 
 He took the spiritual system of Plato, and taught that 
 everything in nature has a soul. In every man he thought 
 that there were two souls, — an angel and a demon, — the 
 angel -soul, created there by the good God; and the 
 demon-soul, created there by the bad God. Throughout 
 his system there was the strangest mixture of spirituality 
 and absurdity, of vagaries and of Christian precepts, — of 
 high and of weak morality. He spoiled his denial of the 
 
AUGUSTINE. 83 
 
 resurrection of the flesh, — which was a sensible advance 
 upon the common faith, — by affirming the transmigration 
 of souls, which was a return to the old Pythagorean fancy. 
 The morality which he taught was in some respects yery 
 high and pure, in others, yery puerile. It carried the princi- 
 ple of temperance so far as to refuse the wine of the Lord's 
 Supper, and would not pluck an edible root or fruit for fear 
 of injuring the soul which dwelt within it. It was a strange 
 mixture of hardness of heart and sensitiyeness of fancy. 
 It cared for the souls of men, yet neglected their wants. 
 But its yery peculiarities caused the system of Manes to 
 spread, and at the time of Augustine it was a popular and 
 powerful philosophical sect. The young rhetorician was 
 captiyated by its specious pretensions. It flattered his 
 spiritual pride in pretending to initiate him into spiritual 
 secrets. And it jiaye a mystical answer to those doubts 
 about God and the origin of eyil, which he found so per- 
 plexing. He gaye himself to the sect, and was nine years 
 a warm adherent. But the ignorance and pretensions of 
 a certain eminent Dr. Faustus opened his eyes, and he was 
 then amazed that he had remained in the absurdities and 
 darkness of Manicheism so long. 
 
 During most of this period, from the age of nineteen to 
 twenty-eight, he was a teacher of rhetoric, first at his 
 native town, Thagaste, and then at Carthage. The tears 
 and prayers of his mother, for his recovery from corrup- 
 tion of life and his impious faith, were incessant. And 
 when she was ready to despair, prodigies were ministered 
 to keep up her faith. Finding that her own manifestations 
 of abhorrence had very little effect, — for she showed this 
 by refusing to sit or eat with him, — she tried to get the 
 Bishop of Thagaste to persuade him into the truth. But 
 this prelate was sagacious enough to evade such an honor- 
 able, but arduous, task, and excused himself by saying 
 that Augustine was so intoxicated by the novelty of his 
 heresy, and so puffed up, that talking would be of no use ; 
 for he had already puzzled sorely divers Catholics of more 
 zeal than learning, who had attempted to argue the matter 
 with him. When she still persisted in entreating him, he 
 dismissed her with the comfortable prophecy, '' Go your 
 way, — God bless you, — it cannot be that a child of those 
 
84 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 tears should perish." She had a very cheering dream, 
 too, in which she saw a young man, who, when she had 
 told him all her troubles, bid her keep a good heart, for 
 her son should be where she was; and then turning round 
 she saw him on the same plank with herself. When thus 
 her prayers were just ready to faint and expire, then sud- 
 denly they revived again. 
 
 The most serious impression made upon Augustine in 
 this period, was from the death of an early and bosom 
 friend, the companion of his studies, his follies, and his 
 heresies. This young man, soon after he became a Chris- 
 tian, died of a short sickness, and the ridicule of Augustine 
 for his new-born piety was changed into anguish at his 
 loss. He has left us a touching story of his grief, of 
 the vacancy that came into his heart, and the darkness 
 which came over his plans of life. He felt now the inade- 
 quacy of his philosophy, but instead of seeking in the 
 consoling faith of his mother for comfort, he plunged more 
 into those pursuits of worldliness and ambition which 
 could drown the memory of his loss. He became first in 
 all the public disputations, renowned as an orator, adroit 
 as a pleader, and entered more eagerly into theatrical 
 pleasures and scientific studies, gradually growing more 
 and more restless as he failed to find happiness in these. 
 
 At the age of twenty-nine Augustine came to a turning- 
 point in his life. He had become weary of his useless 
 labors, sick of his round of follies, and skeptical in all 
 matters of inquiry. He was solitary, tired and sad. 
 Truth seemed no where to lie around him, the pursuits 
 of the world to be vain, and no hope opened beyond them. 
 There was darkness behind and darkness before him. 
 And as he found his astrology worthless in really acquaint- 
 ing him with the stars above, so he found his Manichean 
 philosophy weak in interpreting the hidden laws of God 
 and life. In the chaos of his thoughts one bright idea 
 struck him. He would break awav from his loose com- 
 panions, and go to Rome, the great centre of power to the 
 universe, of which from his childhood he had heard so 
 manv sing^ular stories. He would trv now his talents on a 
 broader sphere, and show those proud patricians that as 
 the arms of Hannibal conquered them once in their own 
 
AUGUSTINE. 85 
 
 homes, so now the art of another xA.frican should captivate 
 them there. He stole away therefore by night to escape 
 the entreaties of his mother, whose first despair was 
 lightened by hope, when she remembered that he was 
 going to a Christian city. But his first impressions of 
 Rome were saddened bv a violent fever, which took him 
 after his arrival, and kept him for a long time at the point 
 of death. On his recovery he set himself to teaching 
 rhetoric, and had what seemed distinguished success. 
 Scholars flocked to his classes, the wits and orators 
 courted his society, and the great Symmachus, who was 
 then in the height of his power, became his friend. But 
 Rome did not satisfy him more than Carthage. If the 
 students were less profligate, they were more fickle ; if 
 they were less fond of show, they were more mean. The 
 Christianity of. the city seemed to him a farce, and its 
 daily life a comedy. In his own heart he felt that the 
 tragedy was acting. And he was glad therefore when, on 
 a summons from the emperor, he was sent by Symmachus 
 to Milan, greater then in the reputation of its bishop than 
 as the Imperial City. 
 
 It was a great day for Augustine, when he first heard in 
 the Milan cathedral a sermon from Ambrose. He had 
 heard before from his Manichean teachers more brilliant 
 oratory, but never had he heard such solid reasoning, such 
 vastness of knowledge, such profoundness of thought, or 
 such a spirit of sincere faith. It seemed to open to him 
 another world. And though he went only to gratify his 
 curiosity, yet the impression remained with him, that there 
 was something good in a superstition which could make so 
 great a man its servant. The impression was deepened 
 by the subsequent close acquaintance which he formed 
 with the great bishop. The dignified mildness, the calm 
 wisdom, the insight into the spiritual meaning of those 
 dark passages of Scripture, which had seemed nonsense to 
 his Manichean view, and above all, the poetical sentiment 
 of the mind and language, while they showed the superi- 
 ority of the great Christian teacher to all other philoso- 
 phers, commended also silently his doctrine to the heart of 
 Augustine. Day by day he felt himself coming under the 
 fascinations of that wonderful character and intellect. And 
 
86 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 even while his reason was resisting, his heart was giving 
 way. It was a delightful message that brought to his 
 mother the news that Ambrose was the friend of her son, 
 and it brought the mother to his side. It needed the 
 prayers of a mother to confirm the work which had been 
 be2:un in the soul of Auirustine. 
 
 But the process of Augustine's conversion was slow and 
 gradual. His was not a mind to yield at once to the im- 
 pression of the moment or to be carried away by novelty. 
 He was a seeker after truth, and his tastes were scientific, 
 rather than religious. During the two years that he 
 remained at Milan, he examined and rejected many 
 heathen views and gained what, after all, is the needful 
 foundation for Christian faith, humility and self-dis- 
 trust. At first, he read Plato and Plotinus with great 
 delight. For they corrected his gross corporeal notions of 
 the essence of God, and represented him as a purely 
 spiritual being. But he did not find that Plato solved for 
 him the problem of life, or made him wise in regard to 
 the future. He turned then to Paul, and found great 
 delight in his Epistles, so strikingly opposite in their reli- 
 gious earnestness to anything that be had before read. 
 They created in him the desire to become a Christian, 
 which is the second step in the Christian life. But still 
 the desire was a long time in passing into its fulfillment. 
 He has given us in his Confessions a most affecting 
 
 account of his strong inward conflicts, — how the earthly 
 passions warred there with the spiritual desire^ how the 
 flesh strove with the spirit, with what reluctance his sinful 
 heart yielded, little by little, its convulsive hold upon 
 the world. And, perhaps, the worldly attraction would 
 have proved stronger at last, but for the yielding of some 
 weaker friends to the religious impulse. Augustine had 
 not his mother only, but also a son by his side, — a child 
 of early sin, but not the less dear to his heart for that. 
 And when he saw this child giving his heart to God, — the 
 sternness of the strong man was melted and broken. 
 
 I cannot here go over the minute and strikinsr account 
 which Augustine gives of his own conversion, — those 
 bitter regrets, those burning tears, that wrestling with the 
 tempter, reminding us of St. Anthony in his night-visions; 
 
AUGUSTINE, 87 
 
 those conversations with his friend Alipius, as they walked 
 in their garden, reminding us of Socrates in the groves of 
 the Academy. One day they were visited here by Ponti- 
 tianus, a simple menial in the emperor's household, but 
 an eminent Christian, who related to them, in a sincere 
 and unaffected way, the story of his own conversion, 
 caused bv reading the life of St. Anthonv. No sooner 
 had he gone than Augustine broke out in these words to 
 his friend : " What are we doing, who thus suffer the un- 
 learned to start up, and seize heaven by force, whilst we, 
 with all our knowledge, remain cowardly and heartless, 
 and wallow still in the mire ? What ! because thev have 
 outstripped us, and are gone before, are we ashamed to 
 follow them 1 Is it not more shameful not to follow 
 them ? " He then rose, in a violent excitement, and paced 
 through the garden like one beside himself. He seemed 
 to see religion stretching out her arms to receive him, and 
 ojffering him all chaste and holy delights. Yet all around 
 him were a legion of demons, for these were the forms 
 that his former pleasures took, and they shrieked and 
 threatened if he should go with their enemy away. At 
 last, in an agony of despair, he threw himself down under 
 a fig-tree, and burst into a flood of tears. " How long," 
 he cried. " How long, O Lord ? To-morrow ! To-mor- 
 row ! Why does not this hour put an end to my trans- 
 gression 1 " As he cried thus, he heard the voice 
 of a child in a neighboring house, singing a song, the 
 refrain of which was, " ToUe, lege, — tolle, lege, take up 
 and read." He was struck by the words, and not being 
 able to recollect that he had ever heard them before in a 
 child's song, it seemed to him a divine voice. He went 
 back quickly to his friend, and took up the volume of St. 
 Paul's Epistles, which he had left there, opened it, and read 
 the following words, the first on which his eyes fell : " Let 
 us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunken- 
 ness, — not in impurity and wantonness, — not in strife 
 and envying; — but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 make no provision for the flesh with its lusts." It was 
 enough, he read no farther, but calmly handed the book to 
 his friend, marking the place. Alipius read it, and finding 
 that the next words were, " Him that is weak in the faith 
 
88 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 receive," — applied them to himself, and joined his friend 
 in his sudden purpose to adopt a Christian life of self- 
 denial. x\ugustine thus breaks out into rapturous joy at 
 the thought of his conversion. " O, how sweet did it 
 become to lose the sweets of my former follies ! What I 
 had been so much afraid to lose, I now cast from me with 
 joy; for thou has expelled them for me, who art the true 
 and sovereign sweetness ; thou did'st expel them, and 
 earnest in thyself instead of them, sweeter than any pleas- 
 ure whatever, but not to flesh and blood ; brighter than 
 any light whatever, but more interior than any secret, 
 higher than any dignity whatever, but not to those who 
 are hio-h in their own conceit. Now was mv mind free 
 from the gnawing cares of the ambition of honor, of the 
 acquisition of riches, and of weltering in pleasures ; and 
 my infant tongue began to lisp to thee, my Lord God, my 
 true honor, my riches and my salvation." Augustine was 
 about thirty-two years old when his conversion took place. 
 It produced an instant change in his mode of life. With 
 his mother, his brother, his son, and several of his intimate 
 friends, he retired to a small village in the country, and 
 there, all together, spent several months in beautiful, pas- 
 toral seclusion. It was a convent in miniature, without 
 the absurdities of convent life. Thev studied and con- 
 versed and prayed together, each giving the other what he 
 lacked, that the faith of the whole might be strengthened 
 and purified. Augustine was foremost here in all the exer- 
 cises of penitence. He changed his habits of life, became 
 tem Derate, neat and fru2:al. The fire of his devotion 
 burned steadily and brightly, and gave rise to the symbol 
 which painters have joined to him, of a flaming heart. 
 That eight months' retreat is the poetical passage of 
 Augustine's life. He came back again at the Easter P'esti- 
 val a matured Christian in heart and faith. All things had 
 become new before him ; and he received as a little child — 
 though his manly son stood by his side to share the holy 
 water — the seal of baptism from the hands of Ambrose. 
 His parting from his spiritual father to go back to his 
 native land, reminds us of the scene of Elijah and Elisha. 
 'i'hey never met again, but the younger prophet took with 
 him the mantle of the elder, and wore it as an angel-gift. 
 
AUGUSTINE. 89 
 
 One more affecting passage remained to Augustine 
 before he should enter upon the new work of his life. 
 The mother who had watched and prayed, and waited for 
 her desire and her joy to be full, could now say, like aged 
 Simeon, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in 
 peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." He has 
 left us a beautiful picture of their closing interview. They 
 talked about God and the spirit-world, about the com- 
 munion of saints, about the joy of believing, and the son 
 felt what he never felt before, that he could be calm even 
 in the thought of losing his mother's earthly life, from the 
 feeling that she would stay as an angel by his side. His 
 heart felt desolate, indeed, when he closed her eyes and 
 committed her body to the earth in the land of strangers. 
 But, as he woke the next morning, he seemed to hear a 
 choir of angels chanting the beautiful morning hymn of 
 Ambrose, which thus begins : 
 
 " Maker of all, the Lord, 
 
 And Ruler of the height, 
 Who, robing day in light, has poured 
 
 Soft slumbers o'er the night ; 
 That to our limbs the power 
 
 Of Toil may be renewed, 
 And hearts be raised that break and cower, 
 
 And sorrows be subdued; " — 
 
 and his own sorrow vanished at the sound, and he girded 
 himself up with new zeal for his future Christian work. 
 
 In the midst of the columns and fragments of the 
 ancient city of Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, may be 
 found to this day a chapel, which tradition points out as 
 the spot where the last conversation with Monica was 
 held, and whence her spirit took its upward flight. How 
 much holier the association with this spot than with any 
 mere burial place of mortal relics ! The dust of his mother 
 was of little value to him who should become a teacher 
 and a prophet unto men. But the memory of those part- 
 ing words, years after the form had mouldered away, 
 restored the sinking soul of the weary teacher, and made 
 him confident and hopeful. 
 
 1 have dwelt thus long upon the first portion of Angus- 
 
90 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 tine's life, because it has a peculiar interest as showing 
 the influences under which his great and vigorous mind 
 was formed. We may pass more rapidly over the remain- 
 ing portion, though it is crowded with marvels of power, of 
 labor, and of endurance. A hasty glance at its events 
 will lead us to speak of its various forms of activity, its 
 great results, and finally of the character and spirit of the 
 saint. It is impossible in a trifling sketch to do justice to 
 that which volumes have failed to do. The part of his 
 life that we have thus far passed over makes hardly one- 
 tenth of the work of his chief biographer. 
 
 Augustine had nearly reached the middle age of life 
 when he returned to his native land. He had left it a 
 restless skeptic, driv^en by worldly ambition, a slave to his 
 lusts, and with no high or noble aim, — feeling the hollow- 
 ness of the praise with which his name was spoken, but 
 not knowing where to find any better. He came back a 
 serious, calm, and sober Christain, resolved henceforth to 
 devote his talents, his zeal, his strength, to the spiritual 
 teaching of his brethren and to the salvation of his soul. 
 It was his desire to keep a retired life, and to assume no 
 honor or office in the public gift. The death of his son 
 soon freed him from all earthly ties. And he was like to 
 have become a hermit thereupon. But his application to 
 the study of the scriptures had made him so skillful in 
 reading their meaning, that his fame was widely proclaimed, 
 and he was often invited by the pious to come and talk 
 with them about spiritual things. The nunnery which he 
 founded, imitating in this St. Jerome of Bethlehem, also 
 made his name dear to the Christians, and they began in 
 many places to desire him for their bishop. One day he 
 was sent for by a dying person at Hippo, a city some 
 hundred miles from Carthas^e, to converse with him on the 
 state of his soul. His words here were so full of wisdom 
 and comfort, that, as he stood in the church, the people 
 flocked round him and demanded with loud cries that the 
 bishop should at once ordain him to be a priest. The 
 urgencies of the people were so lively and violent that he 
 could not resist ; and, overcoming his scruples, he con- 
 sented to devote those powers of rhetoric which he had 
 before used for personal ambition, now to the service of 
 God. 
 
AUGUSTINE, 91 
 
 The bishop of the diocese, Valerius, who was an old 
 man, at once appointed Augustine to preach in his own 
 church. And from that time the episcopal church became 
 a cathedral in the truest sense. For seven years the new 
 priest stood there, day by day, and expounded the word of 
 life to the waiting crowds. The enthusiasm with which 
 his preaching was greeted was paralleled only by that 
 which in another part of the empire, almost at the same 
 time, waited upon John Chrysostom, the orator of the 
 ancient Church. It grew continually stronger and stronger, 
 till at last not alone the failing health of the old bishop, 
 but the unanimous voice of the people demanded that 
 Au2:ustine should be secured to them in the hio:hest seat of 
 dignity and authority. In the forty-second year of his age 
 he became the assistant bishop of Hippo, soon, by the 
 death. of his old friend, the sole occupant of the seat, — 
 and soon, too, by the vigor of his pen, the watchfulness of 
 his faith, and the profoundness of his wisdom, the virtual 
 primate of the Christian world. Men looked henceforth 
 to him for spiritual guidance, though they might refer to 
 the Pope for temporal council. And for the remainder of 
 his life he wielded an authoritv in the world of thou2:ht 
 and doctrine unprecedented and unparalleled in the ancient 
 Church. Hippo became henceforward to the Western 
 Church what Alexandria had been to the Eastern. There 
 was tried the truth of all speculations. There the heresies 
 were judged, and there the standard of sound faith seemed 
 to be promulgated. For thirty-five years Hippo remained 
 the metropolis of faith to the world. The wise from the 
 East and the West sent up thither to learn how to teach, 
 and what to teach, and the opinion of the thinker there 
 became the action of the whole Christian Church. 
 
 The African Church, when Augustine became a bishop, 
 was in the midst of its time of severest trial. The Dona- 
 tist schism had robbed it of more than half of its most 
 important churches, and four hundred bishops claimed and 
 administered authoritv in that heretical name. Often 
 severe and terrible conflicts took place, and blood was 
 shed by brethren claiming the common heritage of Chris- 
 tian love. Augustine set himself as his first great work of 
 Episcopal duty to crush and extinguish this powerful 
 
9- AUGUSTINE. 
 
 schism. It was a bold project, but he had learned from 
 the beginning to labor and to wait. It was not by reckless 
 denunciation or by stirring up the spirit of strife that he 
 sought to accomplish, but rather in the gentler way of 
 argument and suffrage. His pen was busy in refuting their 
 claims, his tongue was eloquent to persuade them into 
 duty. Knowing, too, that a house divided against itself 
 cannot stand, he showed them that thev had no internal 
 agreement or bond of union. He accomplished in a little 
 while what the persecution of more than a century had 
 failed to do. At the great council at Carthage, in tl\e 
 year 411, at which nearly three hundred bishops of either 
 party, Catholic and Donatists, were present, — the doctrine 
 of the latter, through the influence of Augustine, was 
 formallv condemned, — and the sect mifrht have been ex- 
 tinguished, but for that persecution, which followed it. 
 This was against the desire of Augustine, who loved not to 
 include pains and penalties in his condemnation of opin- 
 ions. This Donatist controversy, however, was the least 
 of those three in which the great powers of the bishop were 
 called forth, — and his voluminous works against the Don- 
 atists have for us little value, except as showing the spirit 
 of the man. 
 
 The controversy which he held with his old friends, the 
 Manicheans, was one which taxed more of his intellectual 
 strength. This involved the discussion of high philosophi- 
 cal questions, and entered, too, into the domain of science. 
 But his warfare with the Pelagian heresy is that which has 
 kept his controversial fame forever in the Church. An 
 outline of this heresy I gave in a previous lecture. Its 
 authors were Pelagius and Celestius, — the one a British, 
 and the other an Irish monk, — the one full of English 
 shrewdness, the other full of Irish fire. The sentiments 
 of the first were so skillfully softened that their diffusion 
 became easy, while the boldness of the last soon procured 
 his condemnation as a heretic. Pelagius' views on the doc- 
 trine of the natural condition of man and the nature of 
 sin were fundamentally opposite to the received Catholic 
 view. He held that man by nature was pure and free, — 
 that Adam's sin extended no farther than himself, — that 
 each child born into the world was as innocent as the first 
 
AUGUSTINE. 93 
 
 of men, — that all penal transgression was voluntary, — 
 and that future reward would be measured by human 
 merit, and not bv the arbitrary grace of God. He main- 
 tained, in the process of salvation, that the free-choice of 
 man, and not the Special Spirit of God, was the first im- 
 pulse, — and that every man had the materials in his own 
 condition and powers for coming to the peace of the Chris- 
 tian and the love of God, without any extraordinary action 
 of grace. He did not intend in this to degrade God or 
 his work, but rather to exalt man, made in the image of 
 God. Perhaps the early associations of Pelagius had led 
 him to this view. His Christian name, which was taken, 
 according to the ancient custom, from the peculiarity of 
 his residence, sijrnifies a dweller bv the sea. And it is 
 there always that the dignity and glory of human nature 
 are most felt and learned. There is somethins; in the 
 free, rolling ocean so self-sustaining, so majestic, that it 
 seems to speak to the soul of a kindred self-sustaining 
 power. The Pelagius of the modern Church, our own 
 Channing, confessed that his summer walks on the sound- 
 ing shore of the beach at Newport, gave him the inspira- 
 tion and the faith to speak to the Church of the dignity of 
 man. 
 
 But the views of Pelagius were better suited to the dis- 
 tant tranquil shores of the lonely British Isle, than to the 
 luxurious and sinful haunts of the civilized world. The 
 Catholic doctrine that man was born with the curse of 
 Adam on his soul, had been wrought out, not by Oriental 
 speculation or Biblical reading merely, but by the long 
 experience of manifold iniquities, great and small. The 
 w'ickedness and woe of human life were more conspicuous 
 in Italy and Greece and Africa than its native dignity ; 
 and the rumor even of a doctrine so flattering to the 
 pride of the sinful heart, and so fatal in reconciling men 
 to corruption, roused up the watchful guardians of the 
 Church. From the East came the wrathful voice of 
 Jerome in indignant protest ; from Rome Papal edicts ful- 
 minated anathemas against its daring supporters ; and 
 from Hippo, in Africa, came the word of entreaty, remon- 
 strance and refutation. 
 
 Augustine had lon^- been forced as a convert from the 
 
94 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Manicheans, who were the successors of the Stoics in 
 their belief of an omnipotent destiny, and the precursors 
 of Calvin, Priestley and Edwards in their doctrine of 
 necessity, and human inability, to assert manfully the free- 
 7vill of man. He had made this the central truth of his 
 theological system. And he now brought it into a new 
 and peculiar use, — not logically consistent, but good for 
 an antagonist principle of the saving grace of God. 
 Augustine maintained that all sin came from the original 
 free-will of man; that man, and not God, was the author 
 of evil ; and that the will of Adam was truly the will of 
 his race. He held that so obstinately independent was 
 this moral determination of the human race, that only a 
 divine leading could draw it back again to virtue. But 
 verv soon he found that the ardor of his reasoning drew 
 
 him into a denial of what had so long been his favorite 
 view. He ended the controversy a predestinarian in his 
 dogma, and from him now men gather the most striking 
 hints in the ancient Church of election, decrees, and the 
 whole catalogue of doctrines which Calvin afterwards 
 reduced to system. He could really sustain the theory of 
 original sin on no other ground. For if man be born into 
 the world with positive depravity, for which he shall here- 
 after be punished, then is there transgression which is 
 independent of his own choice. The manner of Augus- 
 tine's conversion might have impressed his heart more 
 sensibly with the efficacy and need of God's supernatural 
 grace. But it was probably the deep-seated conviction 
 that the theory of human purity would not explain the 
 fact of such wide and growing corruption, which made his 
 doctrine more acceptable than that of Pelagius. A falling 
 world could not behold that bright view, which free and 
 holy Nature inspires. And Scripture, read in its profligate 
 cities, would take a darker impression of life than is 
 found in the view of the foreign heretic. Augustine, 
 silenced by his relations of personal experience, and by 
 his ingenious logic, the prophetic wisdom of his foe. 
 When Pelagius was condemned by successive councils, the 
 doctrine of native depravity became fixed in the Church. 
 But even his mighty authority was not able to restrain the 
 pure and the holy from feeling that God had made them 
 
AUGUSTINE. 95 
 
 happy by his original grace before even any special work 
 of redemption was done. The penitent sinner that had 
 passed through an experience such as his, might come to 
 feel that it was a miraculous change from perfect darkness 
 to perfect light. But the heart of his mother was true to a 
 higher instinct, when she trusted, even in the midst of 
 his voluntary transgressions, in that native goodness 
 and piety which she knew was waiting in his heart to be 
 called forth. She knew when she prayed that his heart 
 was not wholly evil. The mother's instinct denies forever 
 the doctrine of native sin. There is the dearest earthly 
 home of the heresy. x\mong the angels on high the doc- 
 trine never enters. 
 
 But we turn from the controversies of Aus^ustine to 
 speak of his two great works, by which his fame has been 
 made immortal, — which the heretic as well as the Catho- 
 lic, the infidel not less than the Christian, can read with 
 admiration, the "Confessions," and the "City of God." It 
 is upon these that his reputation as an author mainly rests. 
 In size they together form but an insignificant fragment, 
 compared with the rest of his works. But they concen- 
 trate the beauty, the eloquence, the pathos, and the power 
 of all the rest. The Confessions were written at the age 
 of forty-three, shortly after he became bishop. They are a 
 faithful portraiture of his life up to this period, — not of 
 his earthly life merely or chiefly, but of his spiritual life 
 rnuch more, the truest life of every man. They are not 
 like most autobiographies or narratives for other men to 
 read, but rather a conversation with God about past ex- 
 periences, thought and emotions. They are not a confes- 
 sion before men, but before God. They are a spiritual 
 analysis of his life in the Past, with its promise for the 
 future. They mention circumstances only as these show the 
 growth and the working of character and faith. And it is 
 hard, therefore, for one who takes them up, as he would 
 the story of an ordinary life, to get interested in them at 
 once. They are a mixture of penitence, praise, and prayer. 
 They show the frame of mind in which a soul is brought ' 
 which has renounced self, and submitted wholly to God. 
 The details would appear to us needlessly revolting and 
 minute, were we to think of them as set down for the 
 
96 AUGUiiTINE. 
 
 interest of men, — but they become sincere and just, when 
 they are seen to point towards God and his mercy. You 
 can frame from the Confessions of Augustine no good 
 account of his time ; and when you have finished reading 
 them, you seem to have lost your idea of when and where 
 their subject lived ; the elements of time and place seem 
 to have been almost annihilated. You are rather brought 
 into the presence of an intense spiritual consciousness, — 
 and made to see the process of a soul in flinging itself 
 clear of mortal incumbrances, and gaining the place of 
 pure spirit before God. One by one, the ties to earth seem 
 to be unbound, and as you close the book, you seem to 
 have been absorbed in a dream of heaven. In this modern 
 day, more than one have attempted to imitate the method 
 of the African saint. Reinhard, the German preacher; 
 Rousseau, the French infidel, and inferior writers, not a 
 few, have laid before the world their private experience in 
 the form of Confessions. But you are struck at once with 
 the notable difference between the directmi of their works 
 and the work of Augustine. They have the amusement 
 or the admiration of men in view. He had only the ap- 
 probation of God. They transport you into the scenes 
 and times in which thev spoke and acted. He brings him- 
 self home rather to your time as a spiritual brother. 
 
 One writer beautifully compares his book to the nebulae 
 in the heavens above us, in which no single star in its rela- 
 tion to other stars is actually defined, but in the dim light 
 of which are gathered the forms of many unknown worlds. 
 The Confessions of Rousseau leave upon you the clear 
 and distinct consciousness of a selfish, worldly, and bitter 
 spirit. You feel that the trust of this man was in earthly 
 joys, and that even his pretence of humility was only a 
 morbid craving for sympathy and admiration. He seems 
 to be proud and desirous of applause even in the relation 
 of his vices. The Confessions of Augustine, on the con- 
 trar}^ lift you up to the mystical table-land of the soul, — 
 appeal to your own sense of error, and linger in your 
 memory as some vision of the spirit world. The work 
 may be called, in fact, an epitomized history of the human 
 soul. It is a study for the philosopher, — a manual for 
 the devotee. It has been analyzed in the schools, — and 
 
AUGUSTINE. 97 
 
 has for ages been the chosen companion for the closet. 
 Age has invested it with no savor of antiquity, it is a voice 
 to us from that eternal world which never grows old. It 
 cannot be read in everv state of mind. There is nothing: 
 of historical or romantic attraction about it. To com- 
 mon sense it is a dreaming rhapsody. But the spiritual 
 sense will find in it the soaring of spiritual desire up 
 to its native seat on high. 
 
 The great work of Augustine was "The City of God." 
 For eighteen years he was occupied on this, the majestic 
 prose epic of Christian antiquity. It was first conceived 
 when the shock of the barbarian devastation of Rome had 
 reached his ears. It is like the great epics of Homer, a 
 funeral oration for the Past, a Christian prophecy for the 
 Future. It bids adieu to the Pagan world ; it opens the 
 reign of the Christian state. It is impossible here to give 
 even an analysis of so great a work, extending through 
 twenty-two books, and crowded with so much learning. 
 By illustrations, by arguments, by analogies of every kind, 
 he shows how weak and worthless is any faith which is not 
 pervaded by the central idea of a spiritual God. He makes 
 the whole course of former falsehood, folly, and supersti- 
 tion, a witness to the divine truth. It is one of those 
 books of which we may say, as was said of Varro, the 
 author of " Antiquities of Rome," that it shows so much 
 reading, that we wonder how he had leisure to write it. 
 Read in the light of modern history, it seems one long 
 prophecy of the triumphs of the Cross. It unfolds the 
 doctrine of Christian progress, shows the glories of a true 
 Christian civilization, the blessings of peace and its arts, — 
 and the future triumph of the soul of man over its 
 material clogs. He shows that all true influence for good 
 comes from virtue in the heart, that character is greater 
 than condition, and that man becomes noble by what he 
 is, and not by what is around him. "The City of God" 
 reminds us of that ancient custom of Egypt, by which 
 they judged their kings before proceeding to bury them. It 
 stands as a solemn judge of the gods of the former world 
 and the kings of human thought ; shows to the one their 
 weakness in upholding the men who adored them, to the 
 other their impatience in seeking to soar to the eternal 
 7 
 
98 AUGUSTINE 
 
 truth on the whio^s of genius alone, — and declares their 
 final sentence. Then it sings their funeral song and sits 
 on their sepulchre, sealed with its own powerful hand. 
 
 It is a spiritual paradise which the " City of God " 
 spreads out before men, — no sensual Eden, — but rather 
 a kingdom of ideas and sacred sentiments, of righteous- 
 ness, temperance, peace, and freedom. It is striking to 
 us now, who live in an age when the question of human 
 liberty is the absorbing topic of thought, to read the noble 
 testimony borne by the most eminent Christian teacher in 
 an age of comparative darkness. Augustine denounces 
 slavery as belonging to a heathen State. It has to him no 
 justification in the laws of Christian grace ; it is the sad 
 penalty of human degeneracy, but justified by no com- 
 mand of God. For God has said : " Let man have 
 dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and 
 the beasts of the earth," — but he has nowhere said, "Let 
 man have dominion over his brother man." Every prog- 
 ress towards virtue will be a progress towards freedom; 
 and as the truths of the Gospel are developed before men, 
 so will liberty be vindicated and established. But a whole 
 lecture would be needed to give you an idea of this 
 wonderful work of Augustine, so fertile in fancies, so full of 
 learning, so rich in suggestion, so oracular in its utterances 
 of the profoundest truths, so broad in its faith, so far-reach- 
 ing in its spiritual vision, — the picture of a Christian 
 republic, the ideal of heaven made actual among men. 
 As the minor poems of Milton to the " Paradise Lost," so 
 are the "Confessions" of Augustine to the " City of God." 
 The first give you the inward life and aspiration of the 
 man ; the last is his whole majestic work. The Emperor 
 Charlemagne declared it the greatest effort of human 
 genius. 
 
 We cannot give even the titles of the other works of 
 Augustine, of the thousands of sermons, preaching, as he 
 did, twice every day for years, of the innumerable letters 
 and tracts on every variety of topic, addressed to every 
 quarter of the world. We should love to linger over the 
 controversy with Jerome about the sincerity of Paul in his 
 anti-Jewish speeches, — not for the matter thereof, so much 
 as showing the striking contrasts between the tempers of 
 
AUGUSTINE, 99 
 
 these two great men, — how sweetly the mild firmness of 
 Augustine conquered the hot sensitiveness of the Monk of 
 Bethlehem. As the proof of his poetical abilities, which 
 are shown in some hymns of extraordinary length, we 
 quote only his hymn, entitled "The Antidote for Sin." 
 The translation is nearly literal: 
 
 Tyrant ! Shall thy threatenings harm me ? 
 
 Every grief and every pain, 
 Every wile thou weavest to charm me, 
 
 All against my love are vain. 
 This can bid me brave the terror, 
 
 This to die, my soul can nerve, 
 Better death, than prosperous error, 
 
 Mightier is the power of love. 
 
 Bring the rack, the scourge, the fagot, 
 
 Lift on high the fatal Cross, 
 Calm before these foes so haggard, 
 
 Still my love shall fear no loss. 
 This can turn aside the terror. 
 
 This to weakness shall not move. 
 Better death than shameful error, 
 
 Mightier is the power of love. 
 
 When with love my heart is burning, 
 
 Heaviest woes seem all too bright. 
 Hasty death, a quick returning 
 
 Home from darkness into light. 
 Then life's changes bring no terror, 
 
 Trials turn my soul above. 
 Better death than wearying error. 
 
 Holier is the joy of love. 
 
 But in our admiration for the genius and wisdom of 
 Augustine, which, in a life of signal activity, seemed to 
 gain all the fruits of the most secret contemplation, in our 
 amazement at finding that this thinker of the fifth cen- 
 tury anticipated not only the theological thought of the 
 fifteenth century, but the practical wisdom of this nine- 
 teenth as well, in our wonder at this ancient writer 
 defending the modern doctrine of progress, we almost 
 overlook and forget the actual life and character of the 
 man. His intellectual greatness seems even to eclipse his 
 serene and beautiful holiness of life and walk. His was 
 one of those finelv-balanced characters, the excesses of 
 which fall harmlessly. He was severe in self-scrutiny, but 
 
loo AUGUST] NE. 
 
 charitable in his judo^ment of others. In his own Hfe his 
 mistakes were magnified to sins ; in the lives of his flock, 
 often his fatherly kindness would soften seeming sins to 
 pardonable errors. He was a theologian without being a 
 dogmatist, he was a bishop without being a lord. Rigid 
 in his own private morality, he insisted far less than the 
 Christian of his time on the need of an ascetic life for 
 others. He was a foe to suicide in any form, whether in 
 the sudden act, or in the wearing mortification of the flesh. 
 He was a sincere friend and an open foe, — accusing him- 
 self often without cause, but always excusing others. 
 From his own apparent harshness, he was the severest 
 sufferer. He practiced upon and proved the Scripture 
 precept, that a soft answer turneth wrath away. Busy in 
 the affairs of the world, he seemed above the world while 
 he lived in it. His home was always a house of prayer. 
 There were brother hermits that dwelt there, but those who 
 visited it seemed rather to see ans^els than hermits. In- 
 deed, Augustine was one of those men who are usually 
 conceived of as accompanied by some good spirit. I have, 
 from Murillo, an engraving of him, which represents him 
 as in his pontifical robes and insignia, bending to an 
 angel, in the form of a little child with a shell in its hand, 
 who says : " I could as soon empty the ocean with my 
 shell as you explain the mystery of one God in three 
 persons." 
 
 Augustine had in his own age a most extraordinary in- 
 fluence. He was the arbiter of disputes, — the idol of all 
 the faithful. He lived at Hippo, in Africa, like Plato in 
 another Athens. But, on the faith of all succeeding ages, 
 he has had an influence greater than that of anv ancient 
 Christian. He wrote no creed, and he preached and coun- 
 selled liberty and progress. But from the hints and the 
 views, which lie so thickly in his voluminous works, the 
 sternest creeds of the Christian world have been wrought 
 out. The Catholic and the Calvinist alike claim him as 
 the father of their several systems. The great Council of 
 Trent, which confirmed the Bible of Jerome as the text 
 for Catholic reading, confirmed also the dogmas of Augus- 
 tine as the substance of Catholic faith. In the great 
 controversy between the Jesuits and the Jansenists, which 
 
AUGUSTINE, loi 
 
 agitated for half a century the Church of France, Molina 
 quoted the words, and Pascal quoted the thoughts, of the 
 Bishop of Hippo. Our own Edwards girded the loins of 
 his mighty mind with the strong proof- armor of his 
 ancient prototype. The visions of the calm and passion- 
 less Swedenborg were made clearer by the mystical 
 raptures of the "Confessions,"' and even modern Fourier- 
 ism will translate for its advantage the Utopian beauties 
 of the " City of God." Still the views of Pelagius are a 
 heresy, and the Churches of the world confess in word, if 
 they do not in spirit, that man, according to the sentiment 
 of Augustine, is born a sinner, and can do no good thing 
 till the grace of God shall raise him again. 
 
 The last great work of St. Augustine's life was to com- 
 pose his book of " Retractions." In this, with a truly 
 Catholic spirit, he reviews all his former writings, taking 
 back all that is doubtful, extravagant, or offensive, — har- 
 monizing discordant opinions, — and seeking to winnow 
 out the essential from the accumulated stores, or chaff, as 
 he deemed them, of years. He had reached his three- 
 score years and ten, and felt that, though his eye was not 
 dim nor his faith yet failing, still the natural time of his 
 departure was drawing nigh. He, perhaps, had a vision of 
 his future influence in thus fixing and correcting his mani- 
 
 fold labors. It was his last testament to his Church. It 
 was his permanent legacy to the world. 
 
 In the year 430 of the Christian era, the barbaric inva- 
 sion which had overrun the other provinces of the Roman 
 Empire, at last broke upon the shores of Africa. And 
 there its course was one of fearful and utter ravage. The 
 cities fell before it, — the churches were hopelessly scat- 
 tered, and the curse that Dido had uttered a thousand 
 years before, was at last fulfilled. Carthage and its regions 
 of beauty became desert again. For some time Hippo 
 escaped the fate of the other cities. But at last, as the 
 sails of Genseric and his Vandals appeared on the waters 
 of the bay, the bishop was struck with his final disease. 
 Months long the siege of the city continued. But long 
 before it was ended, the bodv of the holv comforter 
 therein had been laid in its final sleep. So quietly had he 
 passed away, that the noise of his death was hardly heard 
 
I02 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 in the terror for their future. But when they came to 
 choose another bishop, then the grief of the people became 
 anguish ; they forgot their danger, and broke out in words 
 of bitter despair. 
 
 We have the conversations of Augustine in his final 
 hour faithfully reported by his friend Possidius, who 
 watched by the bedside. They are full of faith and 
 beauty, and far more precious than those sacred relics of 
 which such peculiar care has been taken, and which have 
 received in these latter days such peculiar honors. We are 
 more thankful for the Providence which saved the works 
 from the hands of Vandals, than that which spared the 
 bones of Augustine from desecration. It were a long and 
 needless narrative to follow the translation of the bones 
 throucrh manv chances and miraculous discoveries, to their 
 honorable place in the cathedral at Pavia, where now they 
 mostly rest, — working miracles to the credulous, but of 
 small value to the traveller, who has been wearied already 
 with the multitude of such holy treasures. Perhaps some 
 of you read some twenty-five years since, in the papers, of 
 the great and pompous ceremony of the restoration of the 
 bones of St. Augustine's right arm, with which his brilliant 
 works were written, to the church at Bona, on the site of 
 ancient Hippo. It was a remarkable pageant, and must 
 have greatly edified the turbaned Arabs of Algiers. A 
 long company of bishops and priests, with steam frigates 
 and splendid music, must have seemed a singular specta- 
 cle as they bore so simple a relic. But if the soul of 
 Augustine were in that company, it must have rejoiced to 
 see the beautiful region of ancient faith now again, 
 after ages of darkness, restored to its former hope, and the 
 banner of the Cross again unfurled in the land of his love, 
 which the heathen had profaned. 
 
 I close this lecture, already too long, I fear, for your 
 patience, though a most inadequate presentation of a most 
 inspiring theme, by repeating the short comparison which 
 the French biographer has drawn between the works of 
 St. Augustine and of the saintly Thomas k Kempis, a 
 classic of the closet. He says : " This voice, coming from 
 ancient Africa, and the echo of which is so magnificent 
 and wide, instructs and moves us most in a book which 
 
AUGUSTINE. T03 
 
 does not bear the name of Augustine, but evidently has 
 sprung from the influence of his genius. This book is the 
 " Imitation of Christ." The profound humility which 
 lifts us to the greatest mysteries, the love of truth which 
 puts every created thing to silence and will listen to God 
 alone, — the method of reading wisely the Sacred Scrip- 
 tures, the little confidence to be placed in man, — the self- 
 denial and charity for all, — the raptures of inward peace 
 and a conscience pure, the joys of silence and solitude, — 
 the separation from visible goods and patience in suffer- 
 insrs. — the soarins: of the soul towards eternal and immu- 
 table beauty, — the tender and sublime communion of the 
 soul with its God, — all that is gentle, profound and com- 
 forting in this work, which has no acknowledged author, as 
 if heaven would dispute it with earth, — all this delicious 
 study of the hidden Christian springs, is filled with the 
 soul of St. Augustine. When I read the " Imitation of 
 Jesus Christ," it seems to me that it is Augustine who is 
 speaking."* 
 
 * When Italy was invaded by Vandals in the fifth centun-, the bones 
 of Monica were transported to Rome. In the great medieval church, 
 which bears the name of St. Augustine, near the Tiber, not only does 
 the curious visitor go to admire the pictures of Guercino, and the 
 masterly fresco of Isaiah by Raphael, but to gaze with amazement 
 upon the thousand of votive offerings hung before and around the 
 miracle-working picture of the Madonna, from the hand of Luke, the 
 Apostolic painter, of every device and form. But I remember a 
 deeper emotion in standing in one of the side chapels, before the urn 
 of verd antique, which hold the relics of the mother of Augustine. 
 
 In the gallerv of the Vatican, there is a little oval picture, which 
 represents Monica leading her son to school, one of the most curious 
 art remains of the fourteenth century. 
 
 One of the greatest pictures of that gentle son of genius now passed 
 away, Ary Scheffer, represents Augustine seated by Monica, with 
 his hand clasped in hers, looking up with her to heaven with an expres- 
 sion which seems to sav, "Help thou my unbelief." Well might the 
 queen of France count it good fortune, for ;^iooo, to get possession of 
 this picture. 
 
 In the Academy at Venice is another striking picture, which repre- 
 sents Augustine, with his mitre, and Monica, with her veil, supporting 
 on either hand the enraptured Mother of Christ. 
 
104 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 III. 
 
 SYMBOLISM OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 The use of symbols is not an artificial, but a natural 
 use. It belongs to the physical condition of man, and 
 can no more be outgrown, than the body can be outgrown 
 by the spirit, or the senses by the understanding. It is 
 essential to this complex nature of ours, and is the avenue 
 by which the spiritual world is reached. Philosophically 
 viewed, all things around us are symbols, — the sun and 
 planets, the earth and its fruits, — the inarticulate sounds 
 of Nature, — the spoken words of man, — all are signs of 
 ideas, — and all bridge over for man the chasm between 
 matter and thought. The utter absence of all symbols 
 implies death. He who shall really see spiritual realities, 
 must be in the spiritual world. While he is in the 
 natural world, he can only see them through their signs. 
 If you think of this for a little while, you will see that it is 
 true. But in the matter of religion, and particularly in the 
 order of worship, it has always been an admitted fact. 
 No nation has yet been discovered without some religious 
 form, some sigfi of worship or faith. The most rude and 
 the most cultivated races have alike found emblems need- 
 ful for their prayer and praise. The Labrador savage, the 
 Russian serf, and the Roman cardinal, are alike in their 
 necessity of using these emblems. And that red Indian, 
 whom the French traveller saw kneeling alone at evening 
 on the shore of a Canadian river, with arms outstretched 
 toward the setting sun, felt the need of symbolic worship, 
 as he who kneels beneath the studded dome of St, Peter, 
 and before its blazing altar, with myriads of holy men 
 around him. 
 
 It Is a common, but an erroneous idea, that the need of 
 symbols grows less as men become wiser and more spiritual 
 in their tastes. The very opposite of this is true. Educa- 
 
SYMBOLISM. T05 
 
 tion and refinement tend to increase the number, and to 
 widen the province, of symbols. These are fewest and 
 simplest when the wants of man are few^est and simplest. 
 Prayer belongs to the idea of God. And wherever this 
 idea exists, you will find some kind of prayer. But in 
 savage life, the principal fact is death. That is the only 
 thing which is of much importance. The eating and 
 drinking, the daily occupations of the savage, are very 
 much like those of the brutes, merelv animal. The only 
 thing in which the soti/ within him is really much interested, 
 is the death of his enemies and his friends. And conse- 
 quently, you find that the symbols of savage life are mostly 
 those connected with war and its results. They smoke 
 the pipe of peace, or they utter the scream of battle, 
 and bury their dead with peculiar emblems. Their visible 
 worship seems to be almost wdiolly connected with these. 
 But the progress from savage to cultivated life brings other 
 events and occasions into equal prominence. Worship 
 comes gradually to be associated with a greater variety of 
 scenes. It needs many signs, because it has so many 
 ideas to express and so many needs to meet. Churches 
 that would do very well in Lapland would not do in 
 London, even for the poorest class of the people. It is a 
 principle that reason shows very readih' to be sound, 
 that genuine culture onlv increases the need of sisrns, 
 and the number, too. The ignorant boor can worship only 
 before his wooden cross. But the enlio^htened Christian 
 finds all God's universe a temple, and everything round 
 him a sign of religion. 
 
 We are not to infer, however, from the increase of sym- 
 bols, either in number or beauty, increased purity of spirit 
 or sincerity of faith. For a great many things may appear 
 to be signs that are not really so, or have ceased to be 
 what they were once. The Cross on the altar is pro- 
 perly a sign, but may, and does very often become an idol. 
 Those emblems that represent to a truly religious mind 
 many high spiritual conceptions, may still be retained and 
 prized when they represent nothing, but are merely exter- 
 nal ornaments. To most, no doubt, the tablets upon the 
 wall in churches are rich in reliirious susrsrestions. But to 
 some they are only gilt letters on a ground of stone-color, 
 
lo6 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 and arc admired not for their meaning, but for their beauty 
 of outside show. Culture demands more symbols than 
 ignorance. But the increase of symbols is governed by 
 another law than the progress of culture. And a luxuri- 
 ous ritual has in every age been far from indicating great 
 spiritual elevation in the Church. All its forms have been 
 the product no doubt of some intention. They have not 
 been brought in without a spiritual purpose. And all too 
 no doubt have religious value to many minds. There was 
 nothing so absurd in the Catholic service of the middle 
 ages, that it had not to some minds a really religious sig- 
 nificance. But a vast number of the forms that have 
 spiritual uses were invented for purposes of deception, or 
 ecclesiastical influence. The skill of cunning priests gave 
 food to superstition, while it made the ritual or the Church 
 more splendid. And when darkness was upon the minds 
 and hearts of the civilized world, and nations were break- 
 ing up in terror, then the gorgeousness of piety became all 
 the more striking. 
 
 The first Christian communities, those of the Apostles, 
 had very few set forms. They met without any special 
 appointment, and there was no order of anything to be 
 clone, but each man spake as he was moved by the Holy 
 Ghost. The time was every day, if they could manage 
 this, the place was any secure and quiet room, usually the 
 house of some of the more prominent Christians. The 
 meeting was for mutual instruction and conversation, 
 they talked about the Saviour, and took counsel what they 
 should do to spread his Gospel. The first Church meeting 
 was a conference meeting. They met merely in a free, 
 friendly way to talk over their duties, their dangers, and 
 their experience, and to encourage each other unto perse- 
 verance. They sat together as brethren always sat, 
 remembering the injunction of their departed Master, 
 though in no formal way. 
 
 But this simplicity of worship could last only a little 
 while. As soon as converts began to multiply, private 
 houses were not large enough for a general meeting, and 
 special places were set apart. The poverty of most of the 
 converts prevented these places from being costly, and 
 persecution in many parts forced them to keep their places 
 
SYIfBOLISM. 107 
 
 of worship secluded. And when therefore the fury of their 
 enemies would not permit them to gather in some special 
 building, they were wont to meet in caves or in tombs, 
 which were sometimes built very large. They worshipped 
 in the catacombs at Rome. It was not till three hundred 
 years after Christ that the Church buildings had become 
 at all conspicuous, or had begun to rival Pagan temples 
 either in beauty or convenience. They were probably, 
 except in solidity and in natural grace of structure, edi- 
 fices about as ornamental as the Congregational churches 
 of the last century in this country, of which you will find 
 specimens still standing. The early Christians were too 
 much harassed and tried to think much about the exter- 
 nals of their sacred house. 
 
 So too as their numbers multiplied, and men of various 
 humble trades were converted, who could not spare their 
 time from daily labor, there grew up the practice of meeting 
 at resfular intervals. The Tews had alwavs had a weekly 
 Sabbath. And the reverence which the first disciples bore 
 for this was soon transferred to the first day of the week, the 
 day on which our Saviour rose from the dead. Though 
 the Gentiles had not, like the Jews, a Sabbatical notion, 
 still thev divided their weeks into seven days, and fell 
 readily into the observances. And convenience and fitness, 
 not less than reverence, dictated the observance of this 
 day. It became soon the regular day of religious meeting, 
 and was uniformly regarded. And soon too the idea of 
 a festival, was attached to it. 
 
 Saturday, the old Jewish Sabbath, became a fast day, 
 and a preparation for the great feast of Sunday. Men 
 could not be other than iovful on the day of their Lord's 
 resurrection. Sunday was the fixed festival. But soon 
 the spirit both of old Roman and Jewish antiquity sug- 
 gested more imposing festivals at greater intervals. The 
 first of these was Easter Sunday, which is really to the 
 year what Sunday is to the week, its sacred beginning. 
 Easter is the Annual Sunday. You know that the Jews 
 had their Sabbatical year as well as their weekly Sab- 
 bath. This festival came into vogue sometime before the 
 close of the first century. Then arose Whitsunday, the 
 Christian Pentecost, which came seven weeks after Easter. 
 
io8 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 These two, with the Lord's day, continued to be the occa- 
 sions of ecclesiastical meeting and rejoicing up to the 
 time of Constantine. Christmas did not come into the 
 Church till a later period. 
 
 There was in the beginning no set form of worship. 
 But it was quite natural that the Sacred Scriptures should 
 be open for counsel, and that some brother, more gifted 
 than the rest, should address the company. By a very 
 swift and obvious process, this became to be understood as 
 a settled thing. And the meeting of the early Church was 
 conducted by reading from the Scriptures, by an exhorta- 
 tion, from some one or more of the brethren (it is called 
 by St. Paul the gift of prophecy), — by audible prayers, 
 which were offered as the spirit moved, and by very 
 frequent singing. But gradually as the writings of the 
 Christian teachers accumulated, they were added to the 
 sacred records, and the Canon of the New Testament was 
 made bv custom comiDlete before it was fixed bv any 
 special statute. For convenience sake, the old Jewish 
 method of dividing the Scriptures into lessons was resorted 
 to, and then finally certain passages assigned to each 
 particular Sunday, as there are now in the prayer-book. A 
 special man was after a while set apart to take charge of 
 the reading, chosen probably for his gifts in that regard. 
 For the case then was as common as now, that he who 
 could preach most effectively could not always read with 
 most eloquence and expression. You will find this dis- 
 tinction between the reader and the rabbi, or priest, still 
 kept in the Jewish synagogues. Very different men are 
 chosen to these two offices. This was the custom at the 
 end of the third century. Selections from the canonical 
 Scriptures were regularly read by a person appointed for 
 that purpose. The canonical Scriptures then consisted of 
 the books which we have in our collection, and no other 
 writings were allowed to be read, as books of devotion, in 
 the house of God. 
 
 The sermons of the earlv Church were, in the be^in- 
 nmg, mere unpremeditated exhortations to perseverance, 
 patience and the practice of all virtues. Their end was 
 excitement and action, and not instruction. Thev were 
 probably much in the strain of the practical epistles of 
 
SYMBOLISM. 109 
 
 Paul. From this they passed on to the expositor}- style, — 
 and became explanations of the various lessons that were 
 read from Scripture. Of this kind are nearly all the 
 homilies of the earlier fathers. The main thing was to 
 interpret and to understand the Scripture. This kind of 
 preaching had reached its climax at the time of Constan- 
 tine. The proper person for preaching was the bishop, if 
 there were one to the church. It was as much part of his 
 business \o preach as to oversee his flock. And it was not 
 expected that in his presence any priest or deacon would 
 take that duty. Exceptions to this were afterwards 
 allowed, as in the case of Ausfustine. But every faithful 
 bishop was expected to preach every Sunday at least once, 
 and frequently in the week. Fast-days and feast-days were 
 days for preaching too as well as Sunday. 
 
 in the besfinninor several sermons were delivered at the 
 same service. But bv and bv, as certain men established 
 a peculiar reputation for eloquence, the people preferred 
 to hear them alone all the time that was before allotted to 
 several in succession ; and the two hours were taken up 
 with sinsrle sermons when such men as Basil and Chr^'sos- 
 tom entered the pulpit. The pulpits however of the hrst 
 churches was a simple table or reading-desk, and the 
 preacher sat behind it, and expounded as he read the pas- 
 sage through. 
 
 Sometimes, however, there was preaching in the open 
 air. And then the fork of a tree, the top of a column, a 
 sepulchral monument, or a precipice on the hill side, were 
 the places chosen by the speaker. Mars Hill, where Paul 
 preached to the people of Athens, is a wonderful natural 
 pulpit. The gentleman who addressed you last evening 
 told me that he never knew a place more admirably 
 adapted for a most effective discourse. 
 
 Preaching in the open air was not much liked by the 
 bishops, but was pursued chiefly by the monks, especially 
 by the heretical and mystic monks, who were in their 
 practices to the Church at large what the Methodists 
 were to the English Church of the last centur}-. The 
 regular preachers commonly used the hour-glass to tell 
 them when their time was over, — a custom, the disuse of 
 which in this day is somewhat to be regretted. 
 
no SYMBOLISM. 
 
 The exact opposite of the present position of the 
 speaker and audience prevailed. The speaker sat and the 
 people stood all around. This seems to have been the 
 custom from the earlier times. And this is perhaps one 
 reason why the hour-glass was so important. This most 
 uncomfortable practice probably came from a reverential 
 feeling. They had learned from the Jews to stand during 
 the reading of the Scriptures, and they would think it 
 equally becoming to stand during the interpretation thereof. 
 There were Scripture precedents for this position too. 
 Was not Jesus found sitting in the temple, with the doctors 
 standing around him ? Did he not sit when from the ship 
 he taught the people standing on the shore ? Was it not 
 in that position that he spoke to them from the Mount of 
 Olives ? This was the condition of preaching at the end 
 of the third centurv. 
 
 The prayers of the Church were at first spontaneous 
 ejaculations, short and earnest entreaties, — with no set 
 form or method. The sacred sentences of the Scriptures, 
 which were diligently studied and committed to memory 
 by persons of all ages and conditions soon however 
 made an essential and principal part of the service of 
 prayer. The Lord's Prayer and the Apostolic benediction 
 were very freely used. There is no evidence nevertheless 
 that at the time of Constantine anything like a regular liturgy 
 had been formed. The prayers in the religious service, 
 were generally two in number beside the Lord's prayer, — • 
 one just at the commencement of the sermon, when the 
 preacher had announced his intention of expounding the 
 particular passage which had been read, and would ask 
 the blessing of heaven and God's aid in his attempt, and 
 the other, at the close of the sermon, that its influence 
 might be for good. This custom prevails now in the Ger- 
 man and the French Churches, And it sometimes in their 
 Churches confuses one, who is not accustomed to it, to 
 hear the preacher, just after he has finished the introduc- 
 tion to his discourse, break suddenly into a prayer. 
 
 During the first two centuries prayers were made almost 
 exclusively to God the Father, — in the name of Christ. 
 It would have been considered in the Apostolic Church 
 almost impiety to have addressed worship to any other. 
 
SYMBOLISM. Ill 
 
 But when philosophical speculations and controversies 
 got into the Church, then Christ himself became the object 
 of prayer. It was these theological controversies that 
 brought on at last that kind of idolatry which ended in 
 the worship of the Virgin, of martyrs and of relics. 
 
 That part of the worship in which the people were wont 
 to join, were the responses and the singing. In the 
 earliest Church these responses were two, — the Amen 
 and the Hallelujah. The Amen was ejaculated by the 
 people at the end of prayers, the sermons and the 
 reading, and at the close of the doxologies or benedic- 
 tions. Sometimes it was shouted after the rite of baptism 
 and the administration of the Supper. It comes from a 
 Hebrew word, signifying, " So let it be." The Hallelu- 
 jah is a word which means " praise the Lord," and is 
 derived from those Psalms, from one hundred and thirteen 
 to one hundred and eighteen, that were sung at the Passo- 
 ver, — called the Great Hallel. The tradition was that 
 Jesus sang this Hallel with his disciples at the Last Sup- 
 per. It gradually became a common ejaculation, and at 
 last its use was so annoying that by authority it was 
 restricted to the period between Easter and Whitsunday. 
 In the Greek Church it was rather an ejaculation of grief 
 and of penitence ; in the Latin Church it denoted Thanks- 
 giving, and its proper meaning was regarded. There were 
 other ejaculations that came into use afterwards, but these 
 were all that are found in the first period of Christian 
 history. 
 
 But the part of the worship which the first Christians 
 loved best, was their singing. In this all seemed to be 
 equal and brethren together. Some were too simple to un- 
 destand, and too ignorant to interpret, the truths of the 
 Gospel. But the most unlettered could join in the Psalms 
 and Hymns, — children of tender years, as well as those 
 who bore the burdens of the flock. It was an inherited 
 love. In the Jewish ritual the whole service was chanted. 
 And the first collection of sacred sono^s was the book of 
 Psalms, which had always been kept separate from the 
 Law and the Prophets. These the Christians were never 
 weary of rehearsing together. They were not sung to 
 metrical tunes, but were rather chanted, — sometimes in a 
 
112 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 low and monotonous key. — sometimes breakins: into the 
 anthem of rapture. Probably the spirit of the singing was 
 better than the melody. 
 
 In the third century the g^reat men of the Church bes^an 
 to write hymns, which were first suno^ by the faithful in 
 their own houses, and afterwards introduced into the 
 public seryice. At the time of Constantine howeyer the 
 policy of Arius had brought into worship a great number 
 of these hymns, mostly of a doctrinal character. The 
 Catholics found it prudent to take adyantage of the loye 
 for music to counteract heresy. No instrument was used 
 except the human voice. The yarious methods of the 
 Jews to produce a harmonious accompaniment were all set 
 aside. 
 
 The method was something like the old-fashioned New 
 England method, when the deacon used to stand in front 
 of the altar and read the lines for the congregation to 
 sing. That practice was found necessary as new hymns 
 increased in the Church. The custom of choir-singing 
 took its rise when they began to chant the responses. The 
 congregation then divided into two parts and chanted in 
 turn the separated verses of the Psalms and Hymns. But 
 for the three centuries after the death of Christ there was 
 nothing like our present choirs in the Church. The con- 
 gregation stood while singing, and in fact this seems to 
 
 have been the posture in all parts of the service, except 
 the administration of the Supper. 
 
 The early Church had only two services that could be 
 called rifes. And even one of these was not so in the 
 beginning. Baptisfn of course was from the first a sym- 
 bol, not having value in itself, but kept up for its religious 
 significance. It was not only an inherited custom from 
 the Jewish worship, but was believed to be expressly 
 enjoined by the Saviour. It was confined at first to adults, 
 and administered usually just before admitting them to 
 partake of the Sacrament. For the first two centuries it 
 was a public rite, and all could witness it. After that it 
 became one of the religious mysteries, and was applied to 
 infants as well as adults. When this had come, the place 
 was changed, and what had before been performed in the 
 running stream, was now performed in an artificial pool 
 
SYMBOLISM. 113 
 
 within the church or house. Immersion was the primitive 
 method. But I will not wear^'' vou bv goinsj into details 
 upon what has been so fruitful a theme of such useless 
 controversy. 
 
 The disputes about baptism have done ver}'' much to 
 weaken respect for the ordinance. But it is still now as 
 ever one of the most touching, beautiful and significant of 
 all religious services. It is a rite which the Church can 
 never outgrow, and in some form or other it will keep its 
 place. The method is of comparatively small importance, 
 but the rite itself is one that cannot be dispensed with. 
 And as we have come now to a general belief of the reli- 
 gious theory that men are made holy rather by education 
 into holiness than bv sudden conversion, so there is all the 
 more reason why we should observe the rite of infant bap- 
 tism, which is the symbol and the pledge of religious 
 education. 
 
 It would require too a separate and a long lecture even 
 to sketch the histor}^ of the rite of the Lord's Supper, — 
 to show how that which was the most simple of friendly 
 meals became the most sublime and awful of mysteries, — 
 how the communion became the mass, and the bread, eaten 
 in our Saviour's memory, became his ven,^ broken body by 
 a supernatural change. The Lord's Supper, however, is 
 not to be confounded with the love feasts which the early 
 Christians held. It was never properly a feast, and its 
 elements were very simple. It became a rite from the 
 same necessity that drove the Church from the upper room 
 in the house to a special sacred place. But for three cen- 
 turies it continued to be a memorial, but not a supersti- 
 tious rite. And its observance was left quite free, and 
 hed2:ed about bv none of those artificial rules that confine 
 it in modern times. It was a rite of the utmost import- 
 ance, and was sent to the sick and those in prison, adminis- 
 tered sometimes too even to infants. All the old writers 
 are full in its injunction, and I might multiply quotations to 
 show what estimate they put upon it. Every devout be- 
 liever felt it to be the height of his religious joy, when 
 from the hand of his bishop he could receive the sacred 
 elements. The method of administration however even 
 at the time of Constantine, was more like our Congrega- 
 8 
 
114 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 tional than that which is the Episcopal or Catholic method. 
 The deacons aided the bishop in the distribution of the ele- 
 ments. Our own form of administration differs only 
 slightly from the form in the Church of Constantine. 
 
 We have followed the worship of the Church through 
 the first period of history. A summary of the progress 
 can best be given b}^ a simple sketch of a religious service 
 in the davs of Constantine. Let the dav be Easter Sun- 
 day, and the place Athens, where Paul had become a hero 
 greater than Plato or Pericles. Early in the morning, the 
 Christians are astir, and before the sun has risen, are set 
 forth on their way over the rockv hills, and throuo:h the 
 narrow streets to the house of their solemnities. The 
 fresh, clear air of a spring morjiing, the smell of flowers 
 and the song of birds seem to lend impulse to their devo- 
 tions. All around the wild and lovely ruins tell of God's 
 doings in the past, and how the Pagan gods have fallen. 
 They pass by Mars Hill, and think there of the time when 
 an Apostle summoned a multitude to leave their idols and 
 worship the true Jehovah. Some cross the place where 
 Socrates once walked with his followers, and spoke such 
 profound and mystical words, and think then that they 
 are blest in hearing a higher wisdom, and beholding in 
 the risen Jesus a holier mystery. Some come from the 
 outskirt villages, where they see the plains of Marathon 
 on their way, and can think of a more glorious victory than 
 that in the Cross of Christ. The desolation and ruin 
 around them only exalt the great salvation. But they 
 converge from every side to a plain, lowly, and dull-col- 
 ored building in one of the narrower streets. The build- 
 ing fronts towards the East, where stands the Jerusalem of 
 their hope. They enter not through the front, but from a 
 court-yard in the rear, — for they must face the East in the 
 worship as well as their sanctuary. As they enter, the 
 sound of loud singing greets them. They are chanting 
 the " Glory be to God on high," and in the song are heard 
 the mingled voices of childhood and age, of men and 
 maidens, — making sweet melody with their hearts to- 
 gether, if their music be not quite perfect. The company, 
 decently, but not gaudily, clad, are standing around the 
 railing of the altar. Within is seen the Table of the 
 
SYMBOLISM. 115 
 
 Lord, adorned with the sacred vessels, and on the wall 
 above it hangs the Cross, emblem of a dying Saviour, On 
 a raised seat at the side sits the bishop, and one or two 
 priests and deacons wait around him. You will see nothing 
 else around the walls to attract you, no painting or archi- 
 tectural ornament, only the plain, simple cemented stone. 
 Presently, as the chant ceases, one of the priests passes to 
 the little desk beside the table and opens the Bible, which 
 is laid thereon. And then in a sad, low tone, he reads 
 that wail of the Prophet Isaiah, where he foretells the 
 humiliation and the agony of the Redeemer. There is 
 the hush of anguish among the silent worshippers. Then 
 he turns to the twentieth chapter of John's Gospel, and the 
 expression of joy and triumph passes upon their faces as 
 he reads how Christ rose from the dead. He ends, and 
 another rises to dictate before the throng St. Clement's 
 great hymn of "Christ the Saviour," — and the voices 
 linger sweetly on the refrain " aifeif uytMc, vufetv (xiioloi^^ 
 axaxoig ajofiuaiv, nuidon^ i]yTjioQu A'otCT/o/." This done, 
 a short portion of Scripture is read by the bishop. 
 It is the first verses of John's record, " In the beginning 
 was the word, and the word was with God, and the word 
 was God." And then, having lifted a fervent prayer, in 
 simple phrase he expounds the secret mystery of this pas- 
 sage. 
 
 He shows them the great plan of redemption concealed 
 in this union of God with a human soul, — how the logos 
 is no attribute, but a real person, in wonderful guise the 
 word was made flesh. And as he exalts the bounty of that 
 celestial love, that did so incarnate the Divine word, and 
 provide for man's salvation, what rapture kindles on his 
 countenance. How the dignity of his theme seems to 
 raise him almost to the place of a divine interpreter. And 
 then there is seen a frown darkening his face as he speaks 
 of the impious heresies with which evil men are infecting 
 the Church, robbing Christ of his dignity, and making the 
 salvation of Christ only part of a heathen order. He 
 compares too the darkness of the old philosophies, which 
 never exhibited one risen from the dead, with the clear 
 beauty of the Christian promise. And before he closes, 
 you have seen the sacred oracles of the holy volume pass 
 
Ii6 SY3fB0LISM. 
 
 into precepts of virtue and promises of joy. Insensibly 
 his word of interpretation melts into prayer, and he is 
 leading the hearts of the multitude to the throne of Grace. 
 And now they chant in soft and plaintive tone the Psalm 
 that Christ, in his anguish, remembered, "Eli, Eli, lama 
 sabacthani." 
 
 Then, for a little while, all pause in silent prayer, until 
 one of the priests shall supplicate God's kind care for all 
 conditions of men. Then come forward in turn the 
 brethren with their offerings, all have something to give, — 
 the wealthy gold for the needs of the sanctuary, and bread 
 and wine for the holv office, — the widow her mite. The 
 elements are placed upon the table and covered with the 
 napkin. Then, after the priests have washed their hands 
 before the people, to fulfill the word of the Psalmist, and 
 the kiss of peace has passed from them through the com- 
 pany, each saluting his neighbors, commences the service 
 of communion. 
 
 Those who were baptised yesterday in the classic brook, 
 now pledge at the altar their allegiance to God, and devo- 
 tion to his truth. They seemed, dressed in robes of white 
 before the altar, to be the best votive offering that the 
 Church can give on their day of rejoicing. Now the 
 people are earnestly exhorted to be true to their vows. 
 The entreaties of St. Paul to the Romans are rehearsed 
 again, and, as they come forward to the altar, all join in 
 that beautiful Psalm, " Behold how good and pleasant it is 
 for brethren to dwell together in unity." Then by repeat- 
 ing the words of Christ as he broke the bread and wine, 
 and asking a simple blessing, they are consecrated to their 
 use, and are handed round to the brethren by the ministers 
 present, saying, as they go, " The body of Christ, the blood 
 of Christ." 
 
 Silently the feast goes on, broken sometimes by sobs of 
 grief, sometimes by half-restrained sighs. But when it 
 is over, they break into a thanksgiving, — the friends of 
 those who are sick or absent take charge of the portion 
 that is for these, the benediction, " Go in peace," is uttered 
 and the service is over. How simple and beautiful. As 
 the rest depart, one or two linger behind, perhaps to tell 
 some tidings of recent religious persecution, — perhaps to 
 
SYMBOLISM. 117 
 
 meditate upon the deep truths that have passed, as in a 
 vision, before them. But all have separated to their 
 homes, before the mid-hour of Pagan labor has come. 
 Some will return when the day is declining to talk and sing 
 anew in their tabernacle of faith. But no curious heathen 
 eye could discover when the meridian sun sends light 
 through the narrow streets, that here was anything else than 
 a house of the meaner sort. No si2:n around would tell 
 him of the beautiful service that had passed therein since 
 the break of day, and had given to Athens a more 
 sacred glory than the morning walks of Plato, or the ap- 
 peals of Demosthenes. 
 
 This sketch will serve to show the position of worship 
 in the Church at the close of the third century. The 
 establishment of Christianity as the religion of the empire 
 by Constantine brought about a striking change in all 
 parts of the Christian ritual. And the great work which 
 Gregory did, at the close of the second period, was only 
 to prepare the elements formed to his hands. Perhaps 
 the most sudden and thorough change was in the kind and 
 appearance of the buildings for public worship. Now the 
 meeting-houses became temples. They were placed on 
 
 the most eligible sites, sometimes on the ruins of Pagan 
 temples, — sometimes the very Pagan temples with their 
 name and their god transformed. Emperors vied with 
 each other in the numbers and costliness of their churches. 
 They were set upon the hills, and their broad porches and 
 elaborate columns rivalled the relics of Pa^an art in 
 majesty and beauty. 
 
 Now the altar within became a kind of throne for Jeho- 
 vah, and its marble was inlaid with jewels and gold, 
 and candlesticks blazed upon it. By the solemn rite of 
 dedication, the church was set apart as a sacred place, and 
 became to the brethren a holy of holies. About the mid- 
 dle of the sixth century, about the same distance from 
 Constantine's time that we are from the landins: of the 
 Pilgrims, the Emperor Justinian commenced building at 
 Constantinople the magnificent Church of wSt. Sophia, 
 where stands now the holiest of Moslem mosques, — which 
 he considered to be the greatest work of his life, greater even 
 than the code of laws which he gave to the world. His 
 
ii8 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 proud expression, when the work of forty years was done, 
 was, " I have conquered thee, Solomon." 
 
 It was one hundred and eighty feet in height, and cost 
 $5,000,000. Forty thousand pounds of silver were used in 
 decorating the altar, and its retinue of special ministers 
 and attendants was five hundred and twenty-five. The 
 Gothic style, with its pointed arch and rich interlacing 
 tracery, began now to encroach upon the plainer Grecian. 
 And churches began to point their tapering spires to the 
 sky. The cross became the form which the building took, 
 and the divisions of the altar, the nave and the portico 
 were more distinctly marked off. Great libraries were 
 attached to the churches, — that of St. Sophia contained 
 one hundred and twenty thousand volumes. The worship- 
 per in a church of the sixth century trod upon a beautiful 
 floor of tessellated marble, inlaid with the finest mosaics. 
 On the walls were paintings of Scriptural scenes and 
 sculptured heads of the old Apostles. The shields of 
 heroes and the spoils of war were hung up in the temple 
 for ornament. And from these the lights hung down. 
 The sanctuary became a place of refuge, and, as in the 
 old Roman temples, the worst criminal was safe so long as 
 he stayed by the altar. In less than three centuries, from 
 obscure and plain tabernacles, the houses of Christian 
 worship had become gorgeous cathedrals, — ^and the 
 Church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome was a more 
 attractive object of pilgrimage than even the temple of 
 Olympian Jupiter. 
 
 Now too feast-days began rapidly to multiply. The 
 degraded people had little else to do than to spend time 
 in sport or rioting, and this tendency showed itself among 
 the Christians in the new festivals to which every year gave 
 rise. Christmas came in, a conjectural day at first, but 
 fixed at last by custom on the day of its present use. 
 Then Mary, the mother of God, as she received divine 
 honors, had a day set apart for her service. The mart3a-s 
 had their share. And the epigram of a reformer upon 
 Rome in this latter age, that the Saints' days left no room 
 for any secular time, was almost true when Gregory as- 
 sumed the helm of the Church. The regular fasts now 
 were appointed on Wednesday, the day of our Saviour's 
 
SYMBOLISM. 119 
 
 betrayal, and on Friday, the day of his crucifixion. On 
 these no meat should be eaten, and only the simplest kind 
 of food was enjoined. Some ev^en taui^ht that the forty 
 days before the feast of Easter, which is now called Lent, 
 should be spent in fasting. 
 
 Now too the reading of the Scriptures, which had 
 before been untrammeled by severe rules, became a sys- 
 tematic and formal matter. They were parcelled off into 
 separate lessons, which were rehearsed in a sort of monoto- 
 nous chant. No special events were allowed to guide 
 it. The cumbrous ceremonies of the Levitical Law were 
 read thus to the people as if they were important truths, 
 and the thunderins: of invading: armies could not unsettle 
 the prescribed routine. Now sermons too passed from 
 the expository into the declamatory style. Preachers 
 studied the rules of rhetoric, and borrowed the arts of the 
 popular orator. They directed appeals to the prejudices 
 and passions of men, and flattered while they warned 
 their hearers. In the cathedral churches the bishops were 
 the orators of the world. Men crowded to hear Chrysos- 
 tom and Ambrose as they would to the play or circus. 
 Applause waited upon their words. And even their most 
 terrible warnings captivated by their beauty. The sermon 
 became an entertainment as well as a searching exposition 
 of Scripture. And men expected to hear the truth of 
 Christ softened by the periods of yEschines or Tulh', and 
 mino^led with the wit and wisdom of the classic sacres. 
 
 In the fourth century the service of prayer, which had 
 before been a spontaneous outpouring of the heart to God, 
 was drawn out into liturgies. And forms were given to be 
 used everywhere through the Church. The new splendor 
 of the sacred Courts seemed to demand such a ritual. 
 Indeed it is observable everywhere that increased magni- 
 nificence in church building brings in more formality of 
 service. There is a kind of consistency about it. And it 
 is easy to feel, as many do, that Congregational worship is 
 out of place in a highly decorated temple. And the 
 prayers that were very natural in the gatherings of the 
 caves by night became presumptuous in the great cathedral 
 halls. 
 
 At the time of Gregory there were four distinct liturgies 
 
I20 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 fixed in the Church, each of them old enough to have a 
 history. To each was the name of some Apostle appended, 
 without any authority however. The liturgy of Antioch 
 bore the name of James, the Alexandrian of Mark, the 
 Roman of Peter, and the Galilean of John. At the time 
 of Gregory these had reached that point where they were 
 just ready to be changed into the mass. The hymns and 
 the prayers were chanted together, and a Pagan hearer 
 could hardly tell which was the penitence and which the 
 praise. It was a fatal progress for spiritual religion. 
 Beautiful as were the offices that were thus established in 
 the Christian ritual, their final tendencv was to check fe^- 
 vor of devotion, and reduce the service of the sanctuary to 
 a mechanical routine. Men became wearv of the words 
 of Basil and Ambrose when they heard them every day. 
 And though Attila could look with barbaric wonder upon 
 the splendid pageant of a Christian ceremony, he could 
 not say, with the great man of an earlier age, " See how 
 these Christians love one another." 
 
 The union of words so stronsrlv cemented, bv which the 
 prayers of one were the prayers of all, was no true type of 
 a spiritual union, — of heart joined to heart. There were 
 never more private interests, more jealousies, more usurpa- 
 tions of individual churches, more practical egotism, than 
 when the Avhole Latin Church was in possession of a com- 
 mon form of pra3^er and praise. The true interchange of 
 gifts and graces, true charity, forbearance, and kindness 
 were far more conspicuous in that early time, when each 
 one spake and sang as he felt, moved by the spirit. It 
 will be so forever. You cannot bind the hearts of men 
 together by giving them a common form of words, or even 
 a common written creed. These will create no doubt an 
 appearance of mutual love, but the appearance will be as 
 much a form as the words used. There are many excel- 
 lencies no doubt in written forms of prayer. 
 
 I never worship in an Episcopal or a Catholic Church 
 without feeling the exceeding beauty of their devotional 
 service. Those prayers are marvels of dignity, compre- 
 hensiveness, and simple fervor, — worthy of their high 
 theme, yet such as a child could utter. But I do not 
 believe that the claim set up for these written forms, that 
 
SYMBOLISjL 121 
 
 thev increase the essential love of Christian brethren for 
 each other, is true. They become no doubt the centre 
 of many religious courtesies, — but the love of the heart 
 is not easily promoted by that which enchains the tongue. 
 It lies deeper than the surface. It comes from having 
 religious ideas and feelings in common, no matter in what 
 phrase the words of prayer may be. It is the conference 
 room where everything is free, that brethren are drawn 
 most closely together. This is a universal experience. 
 
 The heathen art of music now found a place in the oc- 
 cupations of the faithful. And the singing, which had 
 before been more spirited than melodious, began to be 
 drawn out in harmonious numbers. Trained choirs per- 
 formed this work for the people, and their enraptured ears 
 listened to the rising and falling cadences as they echoed 
 through the aisles and arches. Now hymns were written 
 for music and for religious occasions. There was music 
 at the bridal and at the funeral ; and the best Christian 
 poets tried their powers in writing birth-day odes, and 
 requiems for the dead. A beautiful specimen of this is 
 a funeral hymn of Prudentius, a Christian poet of the 
 third century : 
 
 1. — Whv, ye mothers, why this sadness."* 
 
 Why do tears your cheeks bedew.'' 
 Why should death disturb your gladness? 
 Death doth truest life renew. 
 
 2. — Dark and cold the vacant hollow, 
 
 Still the bier beneath the stone, 
 Yet no night the death shall follow, 
 Morning glows where he has gone. 
 
 3. — Leave the corpse ! An useless covering, 
 
 Peaceful in the grave to lie, 
 Soon the Spirit lightly moving, 
 Holier dress shall weave on high. 
 
 4. — Time shall come of strange reviving, 
 
 Breath these mouldering bones shall warm. 
 To a nobler being striving, 
 
 They shall bear a brighter form. 
 
 5- — What ye now consign to burial, 
 
 Food for worms, beneath the sod, 
 Soon, like eagles, through the Empyreal, 
 Glad shall speed its way to God. 
 
122 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 6. — As from a dry and rattling kernel 
 Dropped into the lap of earth, 
 Joyfully in beauty vernal, 
 
 Nodding grain-ears burst to birth. 
 
 'fc> o'^ 
 
 7. — Earth ! This form to thy embraces, 
 Take and fold it safe to rest ; 
 Dead, yet lingering still the traces 
 Of the love that warmed its breast. 
 
 8. — Once a soul, by God inspired, 
 Here as in a temple dwelt; 
 Now to Christian ardor fired, 
 Now in pity's tears would melt. 
 
 9. — Leave the body then to slumber, 
 Let it wait that trumpet-call, 
 When the Judge the dead shall number, 
 Gathering in his Sentence-hall, 
 
 10. — Then, O Death, thy reign is ended, 
 New life fills the crumbling clay, 
 Mortal dust with angel blended, 
 Keep in heaven eternal clay. 
 
 In this period the ordinances of the Church gradually 
 changed from simple symbolical acts to most imposing and 
 momentous ceremonies. The Lord's Supper became a 
 mass, and the brethren knelt when the host was lifted, and 
 veiled their faces before its awful mystery. The doctrine 
 of Transubstantiation having become part of the general 
 creed, — men eat the transmuted bread with fear and 
 trembling, as if partaking of Christ's holy flesh, — and the 
 red wine gained to their taste the savor of the new blood 
 of suffering. Baptism too passed from the sign of future 
 purity into a pledge of divine favor, and the child with 
 sprinkled forehead seemed chosen henceforth an heir of 
 the kingdom, and armed, like Achilles, with panoply 
 divine. 
 
 Now other sacraments were added. Marriage, from a 
 contract, became a rite, and its religious outweighed its 
 secular obligations. The dying man received the oil upon 
 his forehead as the final seal by God of his reception on 
 high. A newly- discovered Purgatory made necessary 
 many gifts from the brethren of 'the Church to rescue 
 souls from that doubtful state. And prayers for the dead 
 made an important portion of the worship of the living. 
 
SYMBOLISM. 123 
 
 One could hardlv discover in the multitude of feasts and 
 fasts, of sacraments and chants, of vestments and of 
 images, any vestige of the worship of that little band, who, 
 in an upper room at Jerusalem, bewailed their Master's 
 death, and, by prayer and counsel, found strength for their 
 great missionary enterprise. 
 
 But we may concentrate the changes that took place in 
 worship in the course of three centuries, as before, in a pic- 
 ture of a reliirious service of the time of Gre^rorv the Great. 
 The place shall be at Rome, for Rome is now the home 
 of universal spiritual dominion, and her bishop can look 
 round on every side as a Christian emperor upon his sub- 
 jects. The time shall be the martyrdom-day of St. Peter, 
 for this has come to share the reverence of the world with 
 the birth-day of Christ. On the 29th of June, when the 
 hot sun of a Southern summer is pouring down its rays 
 upon the shining pavement, a gay crowd, in many colors 
 and from many climes, are seen thronging to the great 
 church of the prince of the Apostles. As they enter, their 
 eyes are greeted by a raised altar, blazing in the distance 
 with light and gold, and the soft music of answering choirs, 
 from either side, bids them welcome to the solemn mass. 
 On every side, from floor to ceiling, marble images, or 
 strange scriptural scenes, painted on wood, tell them that 
 this is a holy place. They tread gently for fear of soiling 
 the fine mosaic beneath their feet. Behind the chancel 
 railing sits in his chair of state, the most serene Vicar of 
 God. Before him, kneeling, two priests hold the Latin 
 mass-book, on painted parchment, and from that he chants 
 the prayers to which the choirs respond. No word is heard 
 from the people, but only suspended breathing makes the 
 silence audible. Now a priest in purple garments mounts 
 the raised pulpit, and then, without Scriptural preface, 
 breaks into a florid harangue. It is eulogy of the Church 
 and of the Blessed Apostle that forms the burden of his 
 message. 
 
 He tells how Peter was crucified with his head down- 
 ward, — what miracles God has wrought with his sacred 
 bones, and holds up before them a fragment of that mantle 
 which wiped his tears away when his Master rebuked him. 
 He tells them of the blessings then that shall come to the 
 
124 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 true believer, and paints in luxurious colors the Christian 
 Paradise. But, Oh ! there are wailing spirits that fly be- 
 tween heaven and hell, — will not the faithful rescue them 
 by liberal gifts and earnest prayers ? Will they not give of 
 their substance to save these souls from final woe ? And 
 more like this, till another follows, who in melting tones 
 describes so mournfully the sufferings of the martyr, that 
 the whole multitude are dissolved in sentimental grief, and 
 can hardly behold the ceremony which succeeds, when a 
 hundred priests in turn distribute to each other the kiss, 
 and receive from the Bishop a fatherlv benediction. 
 
 And now the his^h service besfins. The anthem sounds 
 from the choir. Xew candles suddenly burst into flame 
 upon the altar. And in their glow are seen the forms of 
 the dying Peter and the praying Virgin on either side of 
 Christ upon his Cross. With stately step, the bishop 
 advances with his retinue behind him. The audience 
 tremble with sudden awe as thev hear the masrical words 
 that restore again the agony and open the wounds of 
 Jesus the Crucified. Every head is bowed. Slowly and 
 reverently, as in the sight of God alone, the bishop eats 
 the wafer and drinks the wine. The vault of the church 
 is full of the sound of low wailing voices, and a superna- 
 tural darkness seems to be on every form. There is a 
 fearful pause, and it is finished. A hallelujah rings out 
 and the arches are vocal now as with angel voices of 
 praise. 
 
 The great service of the Christian feast-day is over, and 
 that crowd srathered so seriouslv in the morninsr, the even- 
 ing shall find crowding the theatre or the chariot-race. 
 The pageant of the morning has furnished an excuse 
 for the dissipation of the evening. This is a picture, 
 faintly-colored, of the Catholic religious service, such as it 
 was when Gregory took the helm of spiritual power. He 
 gave order to this custom, and finally established it as the 
 Christian ritual. 
 
GEEGORT THE GREAT. 125 
 
 IV. 
 
 GREGORY THE GREAT AND HIS INFLUENCE. 
 
 " He who will speak with power in the name of the 
 Most High, must manifest in his life the law of the Most 
 High." This sentence from the great work of Gregorys on 
 the Christian Pastor and his work is the general formula of 
 his own life. The Christian teacher must be himself a 
 Christian before he can teach, and he will teach just so 
 far and only so far, as he is a Christian. The formula has 
 been proved by memorable examples in Christian history, 
 and the life of every successful minister of God bears wit- 
 ness to it. 
 
 Characters of more striking interest than that of the 
 Great Gregory have passed before us in the great doctors 
 of the Latin Church, but we find in him an assemblage of 
 contrasts not elsewhere met with. So much that is puerile 
 joined to so much that is lovely, such narrow bigotry united 
 to such wide charity, such practical, added to such ideal, 
 tastes, rarely make their appearance in the annals of the 
 Church. In one view, the creature of circumstances, 
 the man of the age, because moulded by the age ; in 
 another view, the creator of events, the man of the age, 
 because the maker of its issues ; at once a Pope and an 
 Apostle ; a fanatic and a saint ; austere in bearing, but 
 humble in spirit ; the legislator of pomp and show, yet a 
 lover always of simple fitness; a merchant-prince for the 
 Church, filling its coffers, and watchful of its revenues, 
 yet a very anchorite in self-denial and frugality; frank in 
 demeanor, but shrewd in policy, he stands in the record 
 in strange isolation, yet we feel him to be our brother 
 after all. 
 
 The name of Gregory is as much connected with the 
 establishment of the Catholic ritual, as that of Leo with 
 the establishment of the Catholic power. But there is far 
 
126 GBEGORY THE GREAT. 
 
 more individualit}' in the life of the former. Leo is the 
 representative merely of an idea. He has no personal 
 biography. He is only the first of the Popes, great in 
 position, but nothing by himself. Gregory, on the con- 
 trary, if he had never done anything for music, for poetry, 
 or for worship, would still have been a marked man, and 
 worthy of the title, which his own age gave him, and which 
 no succeeding age has annulled, of " the Great." He 
 was not merely the former of choirs or the framer of litur- 
 gies, but a man, with human sympathies, a minister most 
 devoted and faithful, a prelate, able and vigorous, a 
 sovereign powerful and commanding. He was a man to 
 be loved, admired or feared, according as one looked upon 
 his purity, his talents, or his strength. Even the infidel 
 historian of the secular decline of Rome and its dominion, 
 pauses to speak of the Great Ruler of the Church, who 
 showed in an age of decline so rare a union of gifts and 
 graces. 
 
 Gregory was born in Rome about the year 540 of our 
 era. His parents were of noble lineage and high in dis- 
 tinction. But either so high ran their religious zeal, or so 
 low had fallen the standard of profane scholarship, that 
 even the child of noble birth was not suffered to study in 
 the heathen poets or philosophers. In the dreamy round 
 of pious pleasures passed away the first years of his life, 
 and he hardly knew how the civil dignity had been put 
 upon him, when he found himself at the age of thirty pre- 
 fect of Rome, his father dead and his mother in a clois- 
 ter. It was not till this mature age that he began to be 
 troubled by the conflict within his heart between the carnal 
 and the spiritual, between his duty to the world, and his 
 desire to see God, between ambition and aspiration. Bur- 
 dened with the cares of life, he felt then the necessity of 
 spiritual rest. And the conflict ended then by the victory 
 of the spiritual desire over the temporal interest. 
 
 At the age of forty, tne patrician child had sacrificed 
 wealth, rank, honor, and power to his pious resolve. Six 
 convents in Sicily had sprung into being on his endowment, 
 and what remained of his wealth was devoted to a Bene- 
 dictine monastery in his own house, into which he entered 
 as the most rigid of the monks there. Long fasts macer- 
 
GUEGORY THE GEE AT. 127 
 
 ated his body; and he aimed, by double penances, to 
 expiate not so much the sins as the enjoyments of his 
 youth. This period of cloister hfe, though short in dura- 
 tion, Gres:orv was accustomed to reirard as the oasis in 
 the desert of his career, and to say that he was never so 
 happy as when deprived of every pleasure, and doubtful 
 whether each day should not be his last. But a genius 
 like his could not be left to waste itself in mumbling 
 litanies within convent-walls. 
 
 The ma2:nitude of his gifts to the Church marked him 
 as meet for the work of the Church. The Pope com- 
 manded him to go as Legate to the Emperor's Court at 
 Constantinople. The heart of Gregory relucted, but he had 
 learned obedience too well to refuse. He regarded it as a 
 salvation that his train of brother monks could follow him 
 there, and keep in his mind his religious duties, even in 
 that luxurious and intriguing Court. Dignities did not 
 corrupt him. The honor of standing godfather to the 
 emperor's son at baptism did not seduce him from his 
 unworldly love. But he gave rather heed to purity of 
 faith, and sanctity of life, rebuking when he found any to 
 be unsound, and praying for the conversion of all heathen, 
 both of Christian and Pagan name. He remained at 
 Constantinople seven years, when, to his great joy, his 
 recall was ordered, and he was permitted to become in 
 quiet the Abbot of the monastery which he had founded. 
 The order and firmness and patience of his administration 
 here seemed to mark his fitness for higher dignities. 
 
 ■ It was about this time that he first conceived the plan of 
 sending a mission to the distant isle of Britain, where then 
 a race of beautiful savages, called Anglo-Saxons, dwelt. 
 The impulse took its rise from the following incident : 
 Rome at this period was to the Empire not only a seat of 
 civil power, but a great central slave-market. One day, 
 when Gregory w^as walking through the mart, he was 
 struck by the beautiful countenances and complexion of a 
 group that were exposed for sale, and he stopped to inquire 
 whether they were Christians or heathens. On hearing 
 that they w^ere heathen, he answered with a sigh, that 
 it was a lamentable thing that the prince of darkness 
 should be master of so much beauty, and have such comely 
 
128 GREGORY THE GREAT. 
 
 persons in his possession ; and tiiat so fine an outside 
 should have nothing of God's grace to furnish it within. 
 The venerable Bede adds, in his narrative, some poor puns 
 made by the hoi}?- Abbot, which, however, the vanity of 
 a Saxon may well be pardoned for repeating. When told 
 that the slaves were Angli, Gregory answered, " Right, 
 for they have angelical faces, and are fit to be company to 
 the angels in heaven." Asking the name of their province, 
 he was answered that it was called " Deira." '"Truly," 
 said he, " They are withdrawn from God's wrath in coming 
 here. And the king of that province, how is he named ? " 
 " Alle!" " Allelujah," said Gregory, "shall then be sung 
 in those regions." 
 
 He applied at once to send a mission to Britain. And 
 finding no one willing to lead it, he set out himself with a 
 company of his own monks. But the city was in such an 
 uproar at his departure, that the Pope sent after him 
 speedily, and on the third day he was overtaken and com- 
 pelled to return to Rome. He was afterwards enabled to 
 fulfill his desire on a broader scale. 
 
 Some signal acts of discipline in his convent, began to 
 mark him already as a fit person for the Papal office, when 
 a vacancy should occur. The case of Justus is related 
 with needless minuteness. This monk confessed, on his 
 death bed, that in violation of his poverty he had obtained 
 and kept three pieces of gold. Gregory not only forbade 
 the community to pray at his bedside, but had the discipline 
 strictly observed, the corpse buried under a dunghill, and 
 the three pieces of money thrown into it ; and all this, 
 though the man died penitent. The most that he allowed 
 was a mass for his soul of thirty days. 
 
 Gregory had just completed his fiftieth year when the 
 acclamation of bishops and people called him to the 
 Pontifical chair. He had no mind to accept the duty. 
 And by letters to the emperor and his sisters, and the 
 bishop of Constantinople, he sought to prevail on them 
 that the choice should be annulled. But his hesitation and 
 self-distrust were, in their eyes, only an evidence of his 
 fitness, and the choice was confirmed by the civil authority. 
 The stratagem of procuring some friendly merchant to 
 carry him out of the city in a basket was less fortunate 
 
GBEGORY THE GREAT. 129 
 
 than in the case of Saul of Tarsus, and he was discovered, 
 brought back again, and, on the third of September, con- 
 secrated solemnly to the office of the Holy See. 
 
 The duty which he had taken up most unwillingly he 
 fulfilled most faithfully. And he gave to the clergy and 
 the world his idea of duty in a great work upon the Pas- 
 toral Office. This admirable work, of which the analysis 
 even would occupy a lecture, divided as it was into four 
 parts, each containing almost a separate treatise, remained 
 for ages a classic and a manual for pastors in the Church. 
 It was translated into Greek, and King Alfred loved it so 
 well that he had rendered it into the Anglo-Saxon. This 
 treatise abounds with wise sayings, which have passed into 
 maxims and are settled truths. It anticipates the wisdom 
 of subsequent experience, and its counsels are as useful for 
 an American clergyman of the nineteenth century as they 
 were for a bishop of ancient Rome. The youthful pastor 
 still needs to be admonished that the souls of his people 
 are more to be cared for than their approval, and that their 
 final salvation is of more consequence than their present 
 applause. 
 
 For thirteen years Gregory exercised the power of a 
 Roman prelate. And all historians agree that these thir- 
 teen years were the most brilliant of Church history since 
 the days of the Apostles. They saw the dominion of the 
 Church broadly extended, its order confirmed, its doc- 
 trine revised, its discipline systematized, its worship 
 rounded off and made to rival the most splendid cere- 
 monies of heathen antiquity. To enumerate the various 
 acts that Gregory did for the good of the State and the 
 Church would be fatiguing. We need only behold his in- 
 fluence in the several more important spheres of action. 
 For his influence in these really represents to us what were 
 the average opinions of the Christian world at the end of 
 the sixth century, when a new religion broke upon the 
 world, and Mohammed appeared as the prophet of God. 
 
 And first, we will look upon his doctrinal position. He 
 was a strong believer in the double sense of the Scriptures. 
 He held that there was an inner and an outer meaning, 
 a spirit and a letter, standing towards each other as the 
 porch to the door. The multitude are permitted to stand 
 
 9 
 
130 GREGORY THE GREAT. 
 
 in the outer court and to read the words of the Bible, 
 to learn its facts and histories, but the wise and holy, 
 by means of allegory, can penetrate its sacred recesses. 
 It is thus that one is able to find the great central truths 
 of the oneness of Christ with God and his trinity of per- 
 sons revealed in the Holy Scriptures. Gregory is very 
 honest in confessinsf that this mystical doctrine comes 
 out of the allegorical and not of the literal sense of the 
 Scriptures; — an honesty which the Oxford divines of the 
 present day are entitled to share. 
 
 The general theology of Gregory is that which Augus- 
 tine taught two centuries earlier. But his theory of the 
 human will is different. Gregory was what is called a 
 Semi-Pelagian, — i, e., one who ascribes the conversion of 
 men to an equal and contemporaneous action of the will 
 of man and the grace of God. He was too devout to 
 attribute all the work, like Pelagius, to the first agency, 
 and too practical to attribute it all, like Augustine, 
 to the last. The principal addition that he made to the 
 sum of Christian doctrine, was in the discovery of Purga- 
 tory. What the earlier fathers had only dreamed about, 
 Gregory actually defined. And though he did not say 
 whereabouts in space the singular region was to be found, 
 he located it exactly in regard to the time of each man's 
 life. It was a time between earth and heaven, and a 
 region wherein disembodied souls should walk until they 
 were prayed into Paradise by the faithful. 
 
 There was much shrewdness in the discover}^, and it 
 tended signally to enlarge the revenues of the Church, 
 But Gregory was one of those singularly constituted minds 
 which believe in their own impositions. And there is no 
 doubt, though he admitted purgatory to be a profitable 
 place, a sort of Christian El Dorado, from which gold 
 came into the Church, though those who went there could 
 not get back again, he really believed in it as a fact. 
 Indeed he defines with some minuteness the kinds of 
 crimes which are punished there. Unpardonable sinners 
 he consigns to hell at once, there is no hope of them. All 
 the prayers of all the faithful cannot get an obstinate 
 heretic out of hell, for he has blasphemed the Holy 
 (jhost. But the sins which merely condemn one to purga- 
 
GBEGORT THE GREAT. 131 
 
 tory are idle words, immoderate laughter, mistakes and 
 blunders of all kinds, and worldliness in general, any- 
 thing, in fact, which does not indicate positive depravity 
 of heart, but only depravity of habit. There is a good 
 deal of sound philosophy in this classification. For do we 
 not all feel, and are we not warranted, too, by Scripture, 
 in asserting, that there is hope when the temptations of 
 earth are removed, that habits here contracted will tyrannize 
 no longer, that so much sin as is external, and not of the 
 heart may be escaped from "i The soundest reason does 
 indicate to us a kind of purgatorial state, in which the 
 soul, pure in its essence and intention, shall cleanse itself 
 from the stains contracted in its earthly sojourn. But for 
 the recovery of one whose soul is desperately wicked no 
 purgatory seems to be so pertinent. We should probably 
 differ from Gregory in not assigning to obstinate heresy so 
 conspicuous a place in hell. 
 
 Immediatelv connected with the new doctrine of Pursfa- 
 tory, which Gregory introduced, was that prayer for the 
 dead, which was both a doctrine and a ceremony. He 
 could see no reason why prayers for the salvation of the 
 souls in limbo were not as proper as prayers for the wel- 
 fare of men during their earthly probation. In either case, 
 it was a supplication that God would carry them safely 
 through the trial. But he saw even a superior necessity in 
 case of the dead. For prayers were the only kind of aid 
 that these could receive. The living might be helped by 
 counsels and gifts. But no other than an earnest supplica- 
 tion could be brought to aid the dead. He makes a distinc- 
 tion however between the different classes of the dead ; 
 and tells them that it is of no use to pray either for very 
 desperate or for very excellent departed spirits. For the 
 former cannot be benefitted by such prayers, and the latter 
 do not need them. He arranged masses for the dead 
 accurately in regard to time and method. Some souls 
 require more and some less ; but the average number 
 of daily services required to get a soul out of Purgatory is 
 about thirty. And this has become the standard of the 
 Catholic Church in its prayers for the dead. When any- 
 body dies now, in that Church, his friends and relatives are 
 expected to say mass for him, — or to hire it said, — for 
 
132 GREGORY THE GREAT. 
 
 the space of thirty days. It is a cheap way for some 
 hardened sinner to get into Paradise to engage accommo- 
 dating priests thus to pray him in ; and many are the 
 ample legacies which have been left for this end. This 
 discovery of Gregory has proved, in a pecuniary sense, 
 more profitable than any gold mine could have been to the 
 Church. 
 
 Another most prominent article in Gregory's faith was 
 to believe in miracles, relics and amulets. No storv was 
 so marvellous that he would not take it in, no tradition, 
 legend, or relic so uncertain, that it did not become holy 
 to him. He had a particular love for any memorial of the 
 Apostle Peter, his great predecessor. And he esteemed 
 himself highly blessed in possessing the key of St. Peter's 
 tomb. He was always sending this round when any signal 
 cures were wished for, and occasionally would accompany 
 it with a few filins^s from St. Peter's fetters. When the 
 Empress Constantina sent to him the modest request for 
 the head or a portion of the body of St. Peter for the 
 consecration of a new church which she had built, he 
 replied, that such a gift was out of his power, and then 
 relates to her what awful prodigies had occurred when 
 they attempted to take the silver plate from the bones of 
 the saint. 
 
 Gregory's was one of those minds that take naturally 
 hold of every form of superstition. And yet he was not a 
 dogmatist nor a merciless persecutor. Though Orthodox 
 enough so far as soundness of faith was concerned, he had 
 not the spirit of a bigot. His course in regard to the 
 Jews, for instance, was very much in contrast with the 
 course pursued by his successors, and by some, too, who 
 went before him. He allowed no plunder, no outrage, no 
 exclusion even from business or social transactions, of this 
 unfortunate people. They were permitted by him to keep 
 their synagogues and their worship, to have the rights of 
 citizens, their oaths were received, and all offences of 
 the Christians towards them were punished as much as 
 offences against fellow-Christians. Equally just and toler- 
 ant were his rules with regard to heathens and heretics. 
 And yet, though tolerant towards them, Gregory had a 
 flaming zeal for the conversion of all these classes of 
 unbelievers. 
 
GREGORY THE GREAT. 133 
 
 If he thought there was an}'' hope of this, he would over- 
 look some questionable methods taken to bring it about. 
 In pious transactions, like some modern religionists, he 
 believed that the end sanctified the means ; and though 
 he would not allow obstinate unbelievers to be maltreated, 
 he would condescend to bribe or to threaten into the true 
 faith those who showed signs of wavering. He thought 
 that it was a laudable way of spending the Church reven- 
 ues, to conv^ert lost souls to the Catholic creed. And if 
 he could not get the fathers, he would take the children. 
 Many youthful Jews and heathen, tempted thus by the 
 prospect of an early independence, forsook the great 
 Jehovah and the gods of the temple, for the Triune Head 
 of the Christian faith. Gregory, with all his superstition, 
 understood human nature on its weaker side. 
 
 Let us look now at the ecclesiastical position of Greg- 
 ory in regard to the government of the Church. Gregory 
 was less of a Pope than Leo, but more of a priest. He 
 was less strenuous about the power of his Papal seat than 
 for its comfort and order. He loved to talk about the 
 Church and to tell its blessing, but was not so jealous to 
 contend for it. He was proud of its unity, and yet de- 
 lighted to recognize this unity as a regular building with 
 four side-walls, as he called the four great patriarchates. 
 He disclaimed for himself all titles of authority or honor, 
 and did not like to have him obey his orders, but rather 
 yield to his suggestion. He writes to the Patriarch of 
 Alexandria : " In rank you are my brother, in virtues 
 my father. Why then do you say that I command you 
 and address me as the universal Pope. I do not find my 
 honor in allowing my brethren to relinquish theirs. My 
 honor is that of the whole Church. And when any one 
 receives his fitting dignity, then am I truly honored. 
 When you call me the universal Pope, you separate my 
 dignity from the rest, and prevent me from being universal. 
 Away with these empty words, which nourish vanity, and 
 outrage love." Instead of Pope, he would have them call 
 him, " Servant of Servants." 
 
 Yet Gregory was not willing to make compromise of the 
 rights of his place. He felt himself to be by this the first 
 among equals. His was the front wall of the building, 
 
134 GBEGORY THE GREAT. 
 
 and he never consented to any assumptions from the other 
 quarters. He held to the regular pyramid of order which 
 Leo had finally fixed, and was as truly a defender of 
 Peter's supremacy as any Pope. He differed from Leo in 
 the breadth of his view. Leo's doctrine was that anything 
 that the Pope commanded must be obeyed, because he 
 was the head of the Church, and had its authority. Greg- 
 ory, on the contrary, thought that the Church was the 
 infallible arbiter, and the Pope only through the Church. 
 Leo believed that the Pope might dictate to Councils. 
 Gregory held that Councils should dictate to the Pope. 
 So too in regard to the State. He would keep the Church 
 separate from the civil Power. It was in his eyes not a 
 government, so much as a means of moral and religious 
 culture and salvation. He maintained its order rather for 
 the efficacy than the strength which this would give. His 
 idea had in it more of the Gothic splendor and mystery, 
 exciting devotion, Leo's more of Grecian massiveness, 
 excitinof awe and submission. The one strove to make the 
 Church powerful, the other to make it attractive. The art 
 of the one was that of the ruler, the art of the other that 
 of the priest. Leo loved to subdue and reign, Gregory to 
 charm and captivate. 
 
 And the contrast between them then is strikingly shown 
 in their different regard for all that pertained to the per- 
 sonal dignity of the Pope. " It has been usual," writes 
 Gregory, to his vicar in Sicily, "for the bishops to come to 
 Rome on the anniversary of the Pope's consecration. Let 
 a stop be put to that. I have no pleasure in such vain and 
 foolish display. If they wish to come to Rome, let it be 
 on the Feast-day of St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, 
 by whose grace they are ministers of God." Leo wel- 
 comed and rejoiced in personal honors as adding to the 
 dignity of his station. Gregory would have none of them ; 
 rejected presents of every kind ; and sometimes, when 
 gifts of value were sent back to him, would sell them and 
 send back the price to the donor, or, if he were not 
 known, would give this for some charitable purpose. He 
 had no love of showy robes for ordinary wear, though he 
 loved to have them sufficiently splendid at the celebration 
 of the Holy Feast. 
 
GBEGOBY THE GREAT. 135 
 
 Though Gregory lived one hundred and fifty years later 
 than Leo, his ecclesiastical position and assumption were 
 not really so high as that of the great Pope. He did not, 
 in fact, interest himself so much in what pertained to him- 
 self and his office as in what pertained to the Church and 
 its influence upon the world. He had more interest in 
 spreading the Church abroad than in concentrating it 
 at home, and he was always on the watch to see what 
 could be done at the outposts. In pursuance of his early 
 design, he sent, instead of an army, a peaceful company 
 of forty monks to the distant isle of Britain. And he 
 gained through them, in less than two years, a more signal 
 victory than Caesar had ever been able to accomplish. 
 The king of Kent and two thousand of his Saxon follow- 
 ers embraced the Gospel. To appreciate the satisfaction 
 of Gregory and the difficulty of the work, we may remem- 
 ber that the relation of Britain to the rest of the world was 
 something as that of the South Sea Islanders to us now. 
 
 Gregory too kept an eye to the purity of doctrine and 
 discipline among the priesthood. He was tolerant towards 
 incorrigible heretics, but he would not have any heretics 
 among the priests or the monks. He commended, as he 
 practised before them the virtues of an ascetic life. And es- 
 pecially was he eminent in the virtues of charity and alms- 
 giving. In his time the revenues of the Church and of the 
 Pope had reached a vast sum. Thousands of legacies had 
 been left for pious purposes, and the faithful without num- 
 ber who had embraced a monastic life, had yielded up 
 their possessions to the Vicar of God. Most of these 
 revenues were faithfully applied to religious purposes, and 
 apart from the amount required for the ritual, vast sums 
 were expended in giving to the poor and sick and friend- 
 less the necessaries of life. Every day, at the appointed 
 hour, came crowds of mendicants to receive their stipend ; 
 and it was a sad, though beautiful sight to see matrons 
 and virgins, and men too of noble descent, whom the 
 calamities of the times had ruined, thronging to the palace 
 which had been built by their ancestors' gifts to receive 
 from a holy hand these gifts again. On the four great 
 festivals of the year, abundant largesses were made. The 
 accounts of these resemble the lavish expenses of a 
 Roman triumph or a royal coronation. 
 
136 GBEGORT THE GREAT. 
 
 To manage this distribution required great practical 
 talent, and this Gregory had in an eminent degree. He 
 was an admirable farmer of revenues, and, under his 
 management, there was no loss of any interest. Though 
 he gained no wealth for himself, he took care of the wealth 
 of the Church. He did not disdain to care for the small 
 things as well as the great. Modern Popes have boasted 
 that they owned and could exact tribute from kingdoms. 
 Gregory did not disdain to look after farms and stores and 
 houses. And while he gave corn and wine to the poor, he 
 got rents from many tenants among the rich. This is the 
 reverse side of his superstitious character. The same 
 man who could send to the Empress a piece of the sacred 
 linen which had touched the bones of Peter, as if its holv 
 alchemv would create in the hearts of all who beheld it 
 the fine gold of the spirit, knew also how to make his 
 farms yield their increase, and to coin the gold which per- 
 isheth out of his earthly possessions. I have observed 
 that to be true of the fanatics and the credulous generally. 
 
 But the most important influence of Gregory was that 
 which he had upon the ritual and the music of the Church. 
 His superstitious tendency led him to make very much of 
 symbols. And while he forbade the worship of these, he 
 heartily commended their use. He would have the Sanc- 
 tuary well-adorned ; and he loved that imposing service 
 which seemed to cast a spiritual awe, and trembling 
 wonder upon the senses of believers. He loved anything 
 that would increase the objects and the strength of faith. 
 Gregory may be said to be truly the Father of the Catholic 
 mass. This stood in his view in the same relation to the 
 ordinary prayers and services that the Pope did, in the 
 view of Leo, to ordinary priests or bishops. It was the 
 crowning act of devotion. 
 
 Before the time of Gregory, the services of the temple 
 were divided variously among the choir, the congregation, 
 and the priests. But he systematized the whole, and 
 ordered just how much should be done by each party, and 
 what portions, how much spoken, how much sung, where 
 they should kneel, where rise, and where be prostrate. 
 The share of the people, small at the beginning, soon 
 became smaller by the introduction of double choirs, 
 
GREGORY THE GREAT. 137 
 
 which took all the parts assigned to the people, so that 
 they had nothing left to do but to change their position. 
 They could not even say " amen," and could only kneel 
 their assent. 
 
 The Liturgical service which Gregory gave to the 
 Church continued to be the standard for manv centuries. 
 In the eleventh centurv it was substantiallv the form in 
 the Churches of Italy, Germany, England, France and 
 Spain. And his care extended too to the order of the 
 mass on the festival days as well as Sundays. Each day 
 of Holy Week had its appropriate service. Gregory how- 
 ever did not make this liturgy obligatory on the different 
 churches, but left them free to modify it in particulars, if 
 they would only retain its essential features. 
 
 To church music Gregory rendered the most important 
 and lasting service. He marks the second epoch in the 
 history of this branch of art. The music at the time of 
 Ambrose admitted only four tones, what are now called 
 the first, second, third and fifth, and was merely a succes- 
 sion of changes on these four tones. Of course, the 
 number of combinations of these were small, and the 
 tunes had a great and not very musical sameness. No 
 doubt there was real music which brought in other tones, 
 for it is not to be supposed that the vocal organs of men 
 then could make the various sounds in the compass of a 
 human voice less naturally than now. But the science of 
 written church music extended only to these four tones. 
 The familiar tune called Peterboro' in our books is proba- 
 bly a very lively specimen of the Ambrosian chant. The 
 music was not by notes, but by figures, and the only variety 
 of time is that which the rhythm of the song seems to 
 suggest. A long syllable would be sung in twice the time 
 of a short one. And the system altogether was something 
 like the reading of the Hebrews, in which there was no 
 vowel, but every man formed the vowel sound according 
 to the position of the consonants in each word. We 
 would probably think it somewhat of a penance to hear a 
 few hymns in this stinted measure of tone. But this was 
 no doubt a great treat in the day when there was no more 
 to be had. 
 
 The chant which Gregory introduced in the Church 
 
138 GREGORY THE GREAT. 
 
 though less melodious than the Ambrosian, had the higher 
 element of a full harmony. He completed the octave, 
 and of course immensely increased the number of combi- 
 nations. By writing too the notes with separate charac- 
 ters and not by numbers, he made music independent of 
 the poetry or rhythm of the Church song, and they could 
 apply it to prose as well as to poetry. To separate too 
 sacred music from profane, in which there was then as 
 there always will be, great lightness and constant variety, 
 (jregory had all the chants written in notes of equal 
 length. This sometimes had a curious effect when they 
 were called to sing songs of praise, anthems and hallelujahs. 
 These might easily have been mistaken for burial songs. 
 But Gregory had not a very nice ear, and he loved to 
 recosfnize in everv service a difference between the sonars of 
 the sanctuary and those of the theatre or the street. This 
 chant of equal notes had at least great dignity and 
 solemnity, and checked every irreverent feeling. Unless 
 it had some real power within it, it would not have 
 kept its place so long in the worship of the Church. It 
 has been conjectured that these notes of equal length were 
 made so for the sake of imitating the natural simplicity of 
 the speech of men, since originally all words consisted 
 of one short syllable. The Hebrew for instance, contains 
 hardly a word that cannot be reduced to three radical 
 letters. If there are ten letters in a Hebrew word and 
 you can guess out the three original letters and find their 
 meaning, you will find the meaning of the whole word. 
 This music of the Gregorian chant too has a highly com- 
 prehensive character. It not only seeks to imitate the 
 early speech of men, but it adapts itself to the progress 
 of speech and culture. Being independent of rhythm, it 
 can be applied to any poetry, and by a slight change in 
 arrangement made to suit any language. It will fall in 
 best with old Latin words that were joined to it in the 
 liturgy, and some parts of it now are used with these in 
 the Catholic churches. But the soft Italian, the guttural 
 German, and even our grating English will accept its 
 measured flow. You will find in our Books of Tunes, 
 especially in the older books, several that are arranged 
 from the old Gregorian chant. Some of these are very 
 
GBEGORT TUB GBEAT. 139 
 
 familiar and are used in all conference meetinofs, — such 
 tunes as Hamburg, Shawmut, Olmutz, Milan and Ghent. 
 And many of the tunes attributed to Martin Luther are 
 borrowed by him from this majestic original. 
 
 Gregory did not confine his musical improvements to 
 changes in the science. He also made many and import- 
 ant changes in the practice. He established at Rome 
 the first singing school of which we have any record in 
 Christian history. And this was not on the small scale of 
 such establishments in our day, but was rather a great 
 univ^ersity of music, from which the directors and per- 
 formers in choirs all over the Western Church were 
 graduated. This singing school, though the earliest, and 
 coming up at a time when the most barbarous customs 
 prevailed in regard to a discipline of the voice, adopted 
 only natural methods. It would be interesting to dwell 
 on the form of instruction within it, but very little has 
 been left us in regard to this. 
 
 Greo^orv however had restrictions as to admission into 
 this school. He would not have any priests or deacons in 
 it. He said that their business was to preach and pray 
 and help the poor, and that others could do the singing. 
 He would not have either any of bad character in his 
 school or in his choirs. He desired that a soft voice for 
 the sacred office should go accompanied with a righteous 
 life, and that the spiritual singer, while fascinating the 
 people with his tones, should charm God by his virtues. 
 Lamentably did the Church in later days fall off from 
 his example. 
 
 Gregory, like Ambrose, enriched the church with hymns 
 of his own writing, as well as with chants and music. 
 There are eight hymns remaining which are ascribed to 
 him. Six of these are written in the regular rhyming 
 style of ecclesiastical Latin, but the other two in the 
 genuine Sapphic and Adonian stanza of the old Latin 
 poets. They are all adapted to some peculiar festival of 
 the Church. The most beautiful is the Hymn to the 
 Supper. 
 
 I. — O Sovereign Lord of Majesty! 
 
 O Saviour Christ, — we call on thee ! 
 Thine ear in pity opened be 1 
 Thine eye our penitence to seel 
 
140 GREGORY THE GREAT. 
 
 2. — We pray by thy redeeming cross, 
 
 Thy boundless love, that bore such loss, 
 Thy bleeding wounds whose crimson flow, 
 Did cleanse the flood of Adam's woe. 
 
 3. — Thy glorious way was with the stars. 
 
 Yet wearest thou here the dust and scars, 
 Did'st share our anguish, dare our strife, 
 To leave to man Eternal Life. 
 
 4. — The dying world in darkness lay, 
 
 Thv death its darkness warned awav. 
 From shame and sorrow man didst save, 
 For sin the full Atonement gave. 
 
 5. — They nailed thee to the fatal tree, 
 
 They heard thy cry of agony. 
 
 Earth shook, and midnight veiled the sun, 
 
 The last redeeming woik was done. 
 
 6. — Now gloriously in light on high 
 
 Thou wear'st the robe of victory. 
 While we thy cross and victory sing, 
 Send down thy spirit, Christ our King. 
 
 It is impossible to render this hymn into a spirited ver- 
 sion on account of the sameness of sentiment in each 
 stanza. We will try the short morning song, which has 
 more vivacity. 
 
 1. — We wake to praise at the early call. 
 
 We hail with rapture the breaking light. 
 And sing of the care which has kept us all 
 Through the fearful night. 
 
 2. — The peace of the saints in their heavenly home, 
 
 The purer joys of the land of the blest, 
 Mav we share on earth, till at last we come 
 To eternal rest. 
 
 3. — Let the Father and Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
 
 Mysterious Three, whose grace faileth never, 
 Unite our souls to the heavenly host 
 Now and forever. 
 
 We need not dwell long upon the characteristics of 
 Gregory. He is one of those personages whose greatness 
 and eminence we admit, yet in whom we feel there is 
 something wanting ; one of those whose characters run in 
 a narrow stream, though in that channel they are deep 
 
GREGORY THE GREAT. 141 
 
 and rapid. We have for such a character a mingled 
 feeling of pity and admiration. We respect its moral 
 excellence while we compassionate its intellectual defect. 
 In heart, purpose, and life, Gregory was one of the purest 
 men who ever sat upon the Papal throne. He was 
 humane, charitable, and disinterested. And yet he gave 
 his sanction to practices, and introduced customs into the 
 Church which corrupted it beyond all measure. He was a 
 heavenly-minded prelate, yet he borrowed all the arts of 
 the world for his devotion. Those who did not know the 
 man, but judged him only by his schemes and operations 
 would set him down as a cunning, ambitious, and un- 
 scrupulous ruler. Those who were his friends forgot 
 wholly his methods and his works, in the beauty of his 
 life and the sincerity of his piety. The Roman priesthood 
 saw in him only an humble monk. The patriarch of 
 Constantinople feared in him a haughty rival and master. 
 Gregory had been an invalid his life long. And his 
 Pontificate, which he assumed at the mature age of fifty, 
 was not destined to be of great duration. On the twelfth 
 of March, 604, the day on which Catholics keep his festival, 
 he expired, after having filled the Papal Chair thirteen years, 
 six months and ten days. No miracles attended his death 
 and he passed away as quietly as if he were a common 
 man. But he left a blessed memory. And the title of 
 the Great, which he earned during his life, was added to 
 his name when no new mortal honor could adorn it. We 
 can form a fair idea of his personal appearance from the 
 rare relic of a family portrait, in which he is represented 
 with his father and mother, and which was preserved for 
 several centuries in the monastery of St. Andrew. It is 
 valuable as a specimen of the painting of that epoch. It 
 represents Gregory as a tall, lank figure, with long features, 
 a bald crown, high forehead, and hooked nose ; altogether, 
 as one biographer remarks, an imposing personage. The 
 remains of Gregory rest in the Vatican, and his relics, 
 such as his cloak, his girdle and other things, which be- 
 longed to him, were kept many years after his death by 
 the faithful, and did some marvelous works. His bed and 
 cloak are still kept in the Lateran. So says his Catholic 
 biographer. For Gregory, like Augustine and Cyprian, 
 
142 GREGORY THE GREAT. 
 
 was fortunate enough to have a Boswell in an admiring 
 deacon, who has preserved all the traditions about him. 
 
 Tlie writings of Gregory, tliough less numerous, and far 
 less valuable than those of the other great Fathers of the 
 Church, are the most numerous that any Pope has given 
 to the world. He left a great many sermons and some 
 commentaries. His exposition of Job is in sixty-five 
 books. He treats it as an allegory. There are forty homi- 
 lies upon the Gospels and twenty-two upon the Epistles. 
 Of his great work on the Pastoral Care, we have spoken 
 already. It was translated into Latin and Greek, and it 
 was made afterward a duty of the bishops to read it as 
 part of their necessary training. In his four books of 
 Dialogues, which show his weak side, Gregory gives an 
 account of all the miracles and absurd stories about the 
 fathers which had come to his knowleds^e. Then there 
 are fourteen books of letters, 8io in the whole, arranged 
 by Gregory himself in chronological order, to persons of 
 all ranks and classes, — emperors, kings, bishops, abbots, 
 priests, deacons, nobles, generals, senators, judges, 
 pious damsels, and respectable matrons, and even to 
 slaves. And lastly there is the Sacramentaria and 
 Antiphonaria, in which the whole revised order of the 
 Church Liturgy and music is contained. This is a gigantic 
 work ; and it gave rise to Gibbon's sneer that the abridged 
 service of the Catholic Church by Gregory, contains 880 
 folio pages, while the Lord's Prayer contains only half 
 a dozen lines. 
 
 The style of Gregory is barbarous, and stands on the 
 limit of the brazen age of Latin literature. He knew 
 nothing about Greek, and hated the classics. As for 
 Hebrew, no one knew anything about that in his time. 
 He prized his own writings at a low rate, and always ob- 
 jected to their being used as text-books in the Church. 
 P>ut they were, nevertheless, and they still exert favorable 
 influence. It was a sad falling off from the smooth 
 periods of Augustine to the homely and crude sentences 
 of Gregory. And henceforth until the time of the school- 
 men, the monkish Latin became an unintelligible jargon. 
 
 The influence of Gregory upon the Church is thus 
 summed up by a German writer: "Gregory, the moral 
 
GBEGOllY THE GREAT. 143 
 
 Reformer of his time, stands at the end of the ancient 
 Church which culminated at the time of Leo in its out- 
 ward form. Gregory brought together and arranged all 
 that the Latin Church had given him in dogma, order and 
 life, and completed this and prepared it for the future by- 
 establishing its cultus and form of worship. This is his 
 positive influence. But he thus opened the way for the 
 new Church by bringing the German nations into this form, 
 and thus the key-stone of the ancient structure became 
 the corner-stone of a new and world-wide spiritual empire." 
 It is a singular fact that he was the last Pope who has 
 been made a Saint. 
 
144 MOHAMMED. 
 
 V. 
 
 MOHAMMED AND HIS RELIGION. 
 
 Arabia has been called the cradle of the human race. 
 And this is true, not merely as a historical fact, but morally 
 and spiritually. Somewhere within its ancient borders the 
 tradition of all the Western world has placed the primitive 
 Eden. All the finest leg-ends of infancy cluster there. 
 The most touching narratives, sacred or profane, to the 
 curious imasfination of childhood belong- to the Arabian 
 land. The earliest associations of beauty and mystery, of 
 luxury, wildness or terror, of wickedness and piety, of 
 skill and inspiration, all centre there. The recollections 
 of our early days are strangely grouped around this singu- 
 lar land. We think of it as Arabia the Happy, where the 
 air is fragrant with aloes, and myrrh, and frankincense, 
 and every grove is a Paradise full of sweet waters, and of 
 singing birds and laden boughs ; or as Arabia the Rocky, 
 where God appears in his majesty, and there are gloomy 
 caverns and rushing torrents, and awful thunderings ; 
 where Seir, and Hor, and Sinai, and Horeb, and Pisgah 
 lift their frowning sum.mits ; or as Arabia the Desert, 
 where the laden camel and the long caravan plod on their 
 silent march over the hot sand, and the blast of death is 
 whirling, and there is no water, nor food, nor path, nor 
 hope. The genii, too, and fairies, the mystic lamps, the 
 precious diamonds and pearls, the enchanted cities of our 
 early days, — the things which we were wont to dream 
 over, belong to this land. The spiritual proverbs, the 
 images of splendor, of loveliness, of faith, and of pa- 
 tience all belong there. There the Queen of Sheba 
 • reigned. There the patriarchs gathered their clans, there 
 Job suffered and disputed, there Moses wandered with his 
 people, there God communicated with men, and gave upon 
 the mountain his eternal commandments. 
 
MOHAMMED. 145 
 
 Arabia is the cradle of the race, because it has joined 
 to it those associations which are supernatural and spiritual 
 in their character, — because it is a poetical land and sup- 
 plies visions and fancies to that faculty of the soul which 
 never grows old. We feel all the vivacity and buoyancy 
 of childhood when we go back to its literature and legends. 
 Even the long waste of the Koran, the Bible of Arabia, 
 diy and dreary as its desert, does not prevent the childish 
 fancies which crowd in our minds as we wander on through 
 its pages. There is a freshness in the very thought of 
 the land. It is in exact contrast with that sepulchral re- 
 gion on the other shore of the Red Sea, where even Nature 
 seems decrepit, and all is old and solemn and death-like, 
 ■where we think of life and religion as among the tombs, 
 and not in the gardens. No enthusiastic description of the 
 beauty of the Nile around Thebes can make the idea of 
 that place anything but desert, and melancholy, and still ; 
 it is the ruins that we see. No account of the desert 
 around Mecca, no description of its annoyances, its 
 brackish pools and its filthy streets, can make it seem any 
 thing else but bright, and new, and beautiful. You feel at 
 Thebes, if there are spirits they are watching and weeping 
 in marble silence, like Niobe in her woe. You feel at 
 Mecca that the spirits are exulting and joyous, like 
 Nourmahal and the Peri. 
 
 In the permanent character of their institutions, in their 
 preservation of the most ancient type of the pastoral 
 life, in their love for literature and the arts, and in the 
 eclectic character of their idolatry, the Arabs bear a strong 
 resemblance to the Chinese. It is singular that on each 
 corner of the great Asiatic Continent, should be found a 
 people wholly uninfluenced by the civilizing influences of 
 other nations. Arabian customs and laws are anterior to 
 all authentic history. The habits of the Bedouin of the 
 Desert are the same now as in the days of Abraham and 
 the Patriarchs. The characteristic virtues are the same. 
 The stranger who may be plundered and slain to-morrow 
 will be served to-day and loaded with gifts from the same 
 hand. Their wealth, their pleasures, their ambijion, are 
 all just what they were when Job was an Arab emir. 
 Even their faith, though its name was changed with the 
 10 
 
146 MOHAMMED, 
 
 rise of God's new prophet, of whom we shall presently 
 speak, retained many of its most ancient features. Its 
 sacred places, seasons, services, and tenets are still pre- 
 served ; and the Mussulman of to-day worships in the 
 same way and on the same spot to which Arab pilgrims 
 journeyed before Christ was born. Mecca, as a Holy 
 City, is at least as old as Jerusalem. And the sacred 
 well, Zemzem, was sung by poets before the voice of music 
 had celebrated the gentle flow of Siloa's brook. The un- 
 conquered tribes there continued to go up yearly to their 
 temple, when the children of Israel were prostrated and 
 scattered ; and they could boast that none of their holy 
 vessels became the spoil of a foreign foe. The people 
 were invincible, and nature had made their fortresses 
 secure. The victorious army of Augustus melted away 
 when it invaded the land of the Arab. 
 
 We need not go here into an analysis of the Arabian 
 character. The Koran is the best guide to this, since 
 Mohammed was wise enough to frame his directions ac- 
 cording to the fixed tendencies of his nation. The religion 
 of Islamism, unlike that of Judaism, was an uttering of 
 customs and laws, already long established. Moses pro- 
 claimed a new law. But Mohammed only uttered and 
 condensed laws that for thousands of years had silently 
 bound the people, adding what of good he could find in 
 Judaism and Christianity. His work was no inspired 
 original creation. 
 
 At the time of Mohammed's appearing, the Arabs were 
 still substantially idolaters, and their religion must be 
 classed with other Pagan superstitions. Yet their idolatry 
 was of an elevated and poetic cast. It made gods of the 
 stars and the sun, and rejected things carved by man's 
 device. Guided by these steady and mysterious deities, 
 the Arab had learned to traverse his vast plains of barren 
 sand, and he was cheered by their beams on the lonely 
 mountain-top. They were fitting and natural objects of 
 his worship. And though as Mecca became celebrated, 
 grosser kinds of idolatry found place within the sacred 
 precincts of the temple, still this first worship of the 
 celestial bodies remained the substantial type of the 
 Arabian Paganism, and the black stone survived all the 
 
MOHAMMED. 147 
 
 other ornaments of the Caaba, from the belief that this 
 had miraculously fallen from heaven. Mohammed might 
 break the other idols of his people, but could not abolish 
 this. The Moslem of to-day kisses it with the same rever- 
 ence as the Hashemites when Mohammed was unborn. 
 This refined idolatry, however, did not prevent the 
 grossest practices. The lives of men were sacrificed to 
 propitiate the stars. But the breaking up of the Eastern 
 nations by Grecian and Roman conquests drove the fugi- 
 tives of many lands into the free and hospitable territory 
 of Arabia. The Magi of Persia brought the Sabian wor- 
 ship, which agreed quite nearly with the idolatry of the 
 native tribes. The Jews, driven in numbers from Pales- 
 tine by the fall of their country and their temple, found 
 an asylum in the land which had sheltered their fathers, 
 and in process of time engrafted many of their religious 
 practices upon the Arabian ritual. The Christians, too, 
 had their missionaries there, and had made large numbers 
 of converts. The Christian sacred books were read in 
 the beautiful Arab tongue, and the Christian proselytes 
 were the most zealous if they were not the most numerous 
 of all the Arab sectaries. In the western region, no man 
 of culture, whatever his faith, could fail to be without 
 some knowledge of Christianity. It has been a question 
 much discussed whether Mohammed were a Christian 
 before he declared his new religion. But it is certain that 
 he was acquainted with Christianity and its principles. 
 
 The Christianity of Arabia, however, was never in very 
 good repute with the Catholic Church. The romantic 
 spirit of that region made it the fruitful mother of heresies. 
 There were plenty of sects, and some of them held to 
 extraordinary tenets. One denied the immortality of the 
 soul. Another worshipped the Virgin Mary as God, and 
 made her the third person in the Trinity. And we cannot 
 wonder that where such absurdities were rife, a zealot 
 like Mohammed should try to improve upon the religion 
 that authorized them. Where there were so many sects 
 and so many religions, and where all seemed to be a mix- 
 ture of truth and falsehood it was natural that some man 
 of genius should try to construct a new order out of the 
 confusion. 
 
14S MOHAMMED. 
 
 The tribe of Koreish had long been the chief of the 
 Arabian clans. They were the hereditary possessors 
 of Mecca, and were equally remarkable for their valor in 
 battle, their skill in judgment, and their fidelity in religion. 
 One of this tribe, Hashem, obtained the charge of the 
 Caaba, or temple, and became thereby the spiritual Lord 
 of all x^rabia. The renown of Hashem was eclipsed by 
 that of his son, Abdel Motalleb, whose prowess and up- 
 rightness were bountifully rewarded in a life of one hundred 
 and ten years, and a family of thirteen sons and six 
 daughters. The eldest of these sons, Abdallah, is sung 
 by Arabian poets as fairest of all their young men ; 
 and on the night of his marriage two hundred damsels are 
 said to have died in despair. The wife that Abdallah 
 chose was of the same noble origin as himself. And in 
 the birth of their only son the lordship and romance of 
 the nation seemed all to be centered. Without recounting 
 the prodigies that piety has attached to this birth, we need 
 not wonder that it was classed as a special Providence. 
 For the death of Justinian had just freed the tribes from 
 the fear of any new Roman invasion, and the Abyssinians 
 had been repulsed effectually from their impious invasion 
 of the sacred citv. If the Christian seems to find that the 
 birth of Jesus in Bethlehem of Judea, of the royal line of 
 David, was in the fullness of time, so the Moslem finds in 
 the birth of Mohammed in Mecca of Arabia, of the 
 princely tribe of Koreish, a special divine appointment. 
 This birth was about the year a. d. 570. 
 
 Of the many prodigies related of Mohammed's infancy, 
 one deserves to be recorded, — that two angels took the 
 child from his nurse's arms, and tearing out his heart 
 squeezed from it the black drop, which is the cause of all 
 sinful desires and the seat of sin, and thus made him like 
 Jesus and the Virgin Mary, who alone of all mortals were 
 born without the black drop. The heart was restored 
 again, pure. But we may find cause to think that the 
 whole of the drop was not pressed out. 
 
 The parents and grandfather of Mohammed died while 
 he was in infancy, and left him to the especial charge of 
 his eldest uncle, Abu Taleb. By this man he was brought 
 up with great care, and allowed many privileges. His 
 
MOHAMMED. 149 
 
 uncle was a merchant and made journeys to E^^^ypt, and 
 Persia, and Syria, for the sale of his wares. On these 
 journeys Mohammed learned more than the tricks of trade 
 and the customs of the people. He was constantly gain- 
 ing an insight into the faith of these various nations. At 
 the age of fourteen he took part in the war of the 
 Koreishites, which was reckoned infamous, because waged 
 in an unlawful month. This shows that he was not taught 
 to be over-strict in his religious observances. Not much 
 is authentic in his history until his marriage with Kadijah, 
 a rich widow of two husbands, who first took him under 
 her patronage, and then made him her master. The 
 twenty years difference in their ages did not stand much 
 in his way. He became by the connection too rich and 
 important to be troubled by scandals ; and he found in 
 Kadijah all that his heart could desire. For thirteen 
 years he led a quiet, domestic life, broken occasionally by 
 some days of riotins^, but in the main decent, industrious 
 and comfortable. He sacrificed to the gods, while he 
 became familiar with the views of the Jews and Christians. 
 And, as his uncle seemed obstinately determined to live, 
 his own course seemed likely to pass without special dis- 
 tinction. But he was ambitious, and if he could not be a 
 ruler, he determined to be a prophet. 
 
 At the age of thirty-eight the first indication of this new 
 dignity appeared. In Mount Hara, near Mecca, was a 
 cave, to which Mohammed was accustomed constantly to 
 resort. Here, piece by piece, the Koran was composed. 
 The prophet himself could not read or write. But the 
 tradition is that a Persian Jew and a Nestorian Monk were 
 the amanuenses who recorded the revelations as they fell. 
 It was a common scandal that these men were the authors 
 of many of his precepts. But Mohammed was a man of 
 too much power, knowledge and eloquence, to need any 
 more than mechanical assistance. He should have the 
 honor of being the author of his work. 
 
 At the age of forty-three Mohammed came forward 
 with his new claim. He declared that there was but one 
 God, and that he was the prophet of that God. It was a 
 novel proposition and one not likely to be taken up en- 
 thusiastically by that stationary race. His first convert 
 
150 MOHAMMED. 
 
 was his wife. He had easy work with her, for her love 
 aided his argument. The xA.rabian annalist adds a miracle 
 to the process. But it is quite as likely that Kadijah may 
 have been moved by the mention of the honorable place 
 she was about to have in the sacred record as one of the 
 four perfect women. The next convert was his cousin 
 All, an enthusiastic, hair-brained young man, who received 
 the hand of Fatima when she was but nine years old, — 
 another of the four perfect women. The third was Taid, 
 a slave, to whom the prophet gave his freedom. By con- 
 versation and persuasion, in the course of three years he 
 had gained over some eight or ten of the noble youths of 
 Mecca. But it w^as verv slow work. There was no 
 enthusiasm kindled by the new doctrine, and the pilgrims 
 to Mecca had no thought that a prophet was there. 
 
 During this period the revelations were secretly multi- 
 plying and the Koran was increasing. But at last the 
 prophet got tired of this slow progress and began openly 
 to proclaim his mission. At a banquet which he gave to 
 his relatives he treated them to very simple food, but to a 
 sermon on the new plan. He made fair promises if they 
 would become his disciples. When no one answered, his 
 cousin Ali began to threaten, which first made them laugh 
 and afterwards made them angry. From that time forward 
 the new gospel, which had before been ridiculous, now 
 became obnoxious. Each new convert increased the ra2:e 
 and hatred of the tribe ; and when Omar, the most emi- 
 nent of their young men, and a former rival of Mohammed, 
 gave m his adhesion the war broke out, the party of 
 Mohammed were banished, and he himself was obliged to 
 be very circumspect. So the thing continued for ten 
 years. The new prophet had in that time converted a few 
 of the leading men, most of his own family, had extorted 
 a confession from his dying uncle, and had lost his most 
 valuable auxiliary in the death of his wife Kadijah. He 
 now began to take a more popular course. He mingled 
 with the pilgrims in the sacred festivals. He inflamed 
 their imagination by his promises of sensual delights. He 
 flattered their prejudices by praising their scrupulous 
 piety, and showing that the new system retained the an- 
 cient customs. He practised, too, the conspicuous virtues, 
 
MOHAMMED. 151 
 
 and made them see that he was a saint, if they suspected 
 that he was a fanatic. He made his prime doctrines sim- 
 ple, while he allowed mystical rites, appealing thus at once 
 to the sense and to the credulity of his hearers. And his 
 persuasions were not without effect. Some who heard 
 him carried away the report of his wisdom and sanctity, 
 and he began to have apostles. 
 
 To supply the loss of his first companion, who left to him 
 her fortune, Mohammed took to himself two young wives 
 from noble families. This circumstance was not likely to 
 increase his general popularity or his domestic comfort, 
 though the two wives got along very well together. The 
 favorite was extremely young, being only seven years old. 
 But the downfall of Mohammed in Mecca was mainly 
 prepared by his fantastic relation of a journey into and 
 through heaven, which he took one night about the twelfth 
 year of his mission, with the angel Gabriel. This extra- 
 ordinary journey is variously related by the different 
 chronicles, som.e contenting themselves with a modest ab- 
 stract of his interview with Adam and the Patriarchs, with 
 Jesus and John, — others giving minute descriptions of the 
 seven heavens as Mohammed saw them. The chief wonder 
 of the first heaven seems to have been an enormous cock, 
 that crowed so loud every morning as to be heard by 
 all creatures on earth except men and fairies. The second 
 heaven was of gold, the third of diamonds, the fourth of 
 emeralds, the fifth of adamant, the sixth of carbuncle, and 
 the seventh of celestial light. In all these heavens were 
 holy men and angels of enormous height. The seventh 
 heaven was all full of angels grouped around Jesus. One 
 of them was remarkably gifted, with a vocal power defying 
 all calculation ; — for he had seventy thousand heads, and 
 in each head seventy thousand mouths, and in each mouth 
 seventy thousand tongues, and to each tongue seventy 
 thousand distinct voices, and each voice was eternally 
 praising God. One would think that other angels in such 
 a company as this would be superfluous. The crowning 
 grace of the journey, however, was in the private inter- 
 view that Mohammed had with God, — who showed him 
 his destined seat in heaven, and gave him for the formula 
 of his religion, God is one, and Mohammed is his prophet. 
 
152 MOHAMMED. 
 
 The various absurdities of this narrative were so glaring 
 that some of the prophet's judicious friends advised him 
 to keep it to himself. But he felt moved to declare it in 
 open company, and some rather puzzling questions were 
 asked him about it. One in particular, as to the temple of 
 Jerusalem, troubled him, since in the first place, the ques- 
 tioner had been there, and in the second, Mohammed had 
 represented the night of his visit as extremely dark. But 
 he got out of the dilemma by the assistance of the angel 
 Gabriel, who favored him with an extempore plan of the 
 temple. 
 
 This kind of blasphemy, and a league which he formed 
 with some converts from another tribe, finally determined 
 the people to assassinate him. A number were banded 
 together in pursuit of him, agreeing to divide the crime. 
 He discovered the plot and made his escape by night, 
 exchanging garments with Ali, his son-in-law, so that when 
 his pursuers saw his green vest through the crevice of the 
 door they felt sure of him and relaxed their scrutiny. He 
 had close work however in escaping. Three days he was 
 hidden in a cave which escaped his enemies search, 
 because a spider had spun across its mouth and a pigeon 
 had laid two eggs there, showing that it could not have 
 been entered. He reached at last Yathreb, or Medina, 
 was hospitably entertained there and became a resident 
 until his death. His flight is the era from which dates 
 the history of the Mussulman faith. As Christians reckon 
 it was on Friday, the i6th of July, a. d. 622. But the 
 Moslem of to-day dates not in the nineteenth century of 
 our Lord, but in the year 1248 of the Hegira. Medina 
 henceforth has shared the holiness of Mecca, and is 
 coupled with it when the first is mentioned. There Mo- 
 hammed found the people more docile, and converts far 
 more abundant. 
 
 Thus far the mission of Mohammed had been a peace- 
 ful one. He had used only the means of argument and 
 persuasion, in a different way certainly from Jesus of 
 Nazareth, but still without any application of force. But 
 he found that this apostolic method did not make converts 
 fast enough, and his influence at Medina determined him 
 to propagate his faith as well as gratify his revenge, by the 
 
MOHAMMED. 153 
 
 argument of the sword. He organized his disciples into 
 an army, and sent out bands sometimes to plunder cara- 
 vans and sometimes to battle with the idolaters. The first 
 performance seemed to be justified by the promise that 
 the faithful should possess all the good things of this life ; 
 the other by the fearful woes which the Koran denounced 
 upon infidelity. The valor of the Moslems, or the favors 
 of God and the aid of angels, as Mohammed preferred to 
 call it, gained them the first battle, and the men of Mecca 
 were slaughtered and captured in numbers. One of their 
 poets composed an elegy on the occasion. During the 
 whole engagement Mohammed was praying in his house. 
 
 In the ten years of Mohammed's life after the hegira, 
 he was in a constant turmoil of wars, intrigues, and out- 
 rages, none of which were very remarkable for their 
 religious earnestness. Now he fought with the Jews, whom 
 he so bitterly hated that he ordered the faithful to turn to 
 Mecca in prayer instead of Jerusalem, which had before 
 been the place to which they looked, and was so laid down 
 in the Koran. Now^ he made forays into the distant tribes 
 of happy Arabia, bringing back from each spoil enough 
 and a wife or two, while he left his religion behind as a 
 blessed exchange. The alternative was Islamism or death. 
 It was the most convenient way and saved a great many 
 words. Time would fail us to review even all these 
 skirmishes, and plots, and pitched battles, which appear 
 ridiculously petty to those who are accustomed to the 
 details of warfare in other nations. 
 
 For the first few years the success was not all on one 
 side. The Koreishites were brave and shrewd, and the 
 Mussulmen met with some severe repulses. But they 
 were obstinate and had God on their side, and were in the 
 main successful. In the sixth year of the hegira, Mo- 
 hammed felt strong enough to proclaim himself at once 
 king and chief priest, and to add a temporal rule to his 
 divine sovereignty. He was inaugurated under a tree, 
 and he built a pulpit in his mosque to preach from, from 
 which he promulgated both his law and his gospel. After 
 this, he set himself resolutely to conquer Mecca, and 
 though several times repulsed and turned aside, in the 
 eighth year of the hegira obtained his wish and dictated 
 
154 MOHAMMED. 
 
 his terms as king to the city from which he had been 
 forced to flee for his life. They had an easy release. 
 Only a few suffered from their hostility and the change of 
 worship which the conqueror required was very slight. He 
 set them the example by performing the circuit of the 
 Caaba, and reverently kissins^ the black stone. The con- 
 quest of Mecca was the triumph of his religion in Arabia, 
 The various tribes vied with each other in embracing 
 Islamism. And the army with which the prophet went 
 out to convert or to exterminate those who continued 
 
 obstinate exceeded thirtv thousand men. Envovs bea^an 
 to come in from the east and the west to offer congratula- 
 tions. Poets sang their panegyrics. The Roman emperor 
 deigned to answer with some valuable presents, the polite 
 invitation of the Arabian prophet to embrace his faith. 
 The Egyptian viceroy sent him two young maidens while 
 he considered the proposal. Even from Persia and Abys- 
 sinia favorable messages came. And a master-stroke of 
 policy was in commanding that the gates of the Caaba 
 should be closed on pain of death to all but genuine Mus- 
 sulmen. 
 
 In the last year of Mohammed's life he made a grand 
 pilgrimage from Medina to Mecca. In his train were one 
 hundred thousand of his enthusiastic disciples. All along 
 the way the people flocked to meet him. It was a 
 triumphal progress. The ceremonies in the temple are 
 minutely described, — how he went seven times round the 
 Caaba, — how he prayed all the night, — how he sacrificed 
 sixty-three camels and freed sixty-three slaves, to corre- 
 spond with his age at the time, — how he drank seven 
 times of the well Temsem, and prayed on Mount Araba 
 on the ninth day, the mountain where Adam and Eve 
 met after a parting of one hundred and twenty years. 
 All these and more you may find in the chronicle of 
 Abalfeda. 
 
 It was the common belief of the converts that their 
 prophet could not die ; and there was great consternation 
 when in the eleventh year of the hegira on the 8th of 
 June, 632, A. D., the sickness of thirteen days brought 
 the Holy One of God to the tomb, as if he were a com- 
 mon man. Some who had read the New Testament's 
 
MOHAMMED. 155 
 
 account expected a resurrection. But the wise were 
 turned aside from their doubts about the reality of his 
 death by disputes about his place of burial. This was 
 finally decided in favor of Medina, and was accomplished 
 with <;reat pomp and ceremony in a grave under his private 
 chambe*. Mohammed died without fear or resrret. He 
 saw his mission accomplished, his religjion triumphant, 
 he had enjoyed enough of life, and had already a lar^^e 
 foretaste of the Paradise which he believed awaited him. 
 The angel of death requested permission through Gabriel 
 to enter ; which was granted, and the prophet died. 
 
 It has long been a mooted question whether Mohammed 
 was a fanatic or an imposter. And the discussion is about 
 as doubtful in its issue as that concerning the sincerity of 
 Oliver Cromwell. It is easy for the zealous Christian to 
 argue that the contriver of so many absurdities and false- 
 hoods must have been a hypocrite, but Moslem authorities 
 will not look at the matter in such a lii^ht. Those who 
 demand a good moral character according to the Christian 
 standard, as presumptive evidence of religious sincerity, 
 will not be gratified in the case of Mohammed. He was 
 unquestionably a sensualist in his private life, and though 
 not cruel or tyrannical, was fond of power and determined 
 to have his own way. He was ambitious and rapacious, a 
 true Arab in his perseverance and his vindictiveness. We 
 must take with great allowance the glowing account of his 
 virtues which his friends have left, and we need not receive 
 as the perfect proof of his humility, the fact that he 
 mended his own clothes and shoes. Many a proud man 
 has done that, without any abatement of his pride. His 
 physical structure, his thick neck, his hooked nose, his 
 monstrous head, and the whole form of his features indi- 
 cate more vigor than gentleness, more obstinacy than 
 spirituality. He was no doubt very much such a man as 
 Oliver Cromwell, in whom enthusiasm and ambition were 
 mingled in about equal proportions. He was one of those 
 whose passions argue to them, whose inclinations become 
 to them as truths. That he misrht have been from the 
 
 ..... o 
 
 besfmnmg suicere \n believing his own religion divine, is 
 reasonable enough, since it was a decided advance, both 
 morally and spiritually, upon the religions at that time 
 
156 MOHAMMED. 
 
 existing around him. Impostors of that stamp usually 
 become sincere, if they are not so at the beginnino^. And 
 each new convert that they make confirms their delusion. 
 It is very doubtful at first if Mohammed thought of the 
 temporal power which he afterwards gained or of becom- 
 ing at all a soldier. He was probably sincere in his inten- 
 tion of religious reform, though he thought it expedient 
 and comfortable in accomplishing this to secure an honora- 
 ble place at the head of this reform. It was the disap- 
 pointment and persecution which he met with which de- 
 veloped the bad traits of his character and made him an 
 assassin and plunderer, as well as a prophet. The heredi- 
 tary guardian of the temple might well devise a purer 
 system of worship. But the Arabian fugitive could not 
 forgive or forget that he had been insulted and hated for 
 his disinterested zeal. 
 
 But it is of small importance to us Christians to settle 
 precisely what was the motive or character of Mohammed. 
 Certain it is that his imposture has not shared the common 
 fate of impostures. Whatever the man, there must have 
 been some reality in that religion that could make in ten 
 years the conquest of so vast a country, and could bring 
 such tribes of men as the free and obstinate Arabs into its 
 almost unanimous support. Large bodies of men cannot 
 be compelled so rapidly into the support of a gigantic 
 falsehood. And if we look at the Moslem faith in its re- 
 lation to the character and institutions of- the Oriental 
 nations we may see that it is a natural faith to arise and 
 grow there. 
 
 The religion of Mohammed is properly called Islamism, 
 meaning the devotion of oneself to God. It is contained 
 in the Koran, or book, a word derived from the Arabic 
 verb karaa, to read, meaning the thing which ought to be 
 read. This term Koran, is indifferently applied to the whole 
 or to a part of the revelations of Mohammed. The syllable 
 Al, sometimes prefixed to the word, is merely the article, 
 the. The whole book is divided into one hundred and 
 fourteen portions or chapters, of very unequal length, some 
 of them in a single paragraph, some of them as long as 
 the books of the Bible. The chapters are not distinguished 
 by the number, but by their title, which is taken either 
 
MOHAMMED. 157 
 
 frDm the subject which they treat of, or from some remarka- 
 ble person or thing mentioned in them. They mention 
 the phice also in which they are revealed, whether Mecca 
 or Medina, or both. The larger portion were revealed at 
 Mecca. All the copies of the Koran are not alike. There 
 are various readings in great numbers as of the Bible. 
 There are seven principal editions. In these the number- 
 ing of the verses is different. But they all contain the 
 same number of words and of letters. The Arabians had 
 the same fondness with the Jews for cabalistic interpreta- 
 tions. They count 323,015 letters in all, and some of 
 them have gone so far as to frame a concordance of the 
 letters and to chronicle the exact number of times that 
 each is used. 
 
 Besides this unequal division into chapters and verses, 
 there is an equal division and sub-division into portions 
 for the purposes of prayer and the temple service, as was 
 the case with the Jewish Law, These were in some cases 
 so arranged that the whole Koran should be read over in 
 each chapel every day. Some of the chapters begin with 
 peculiar marks, which are the signs of special sanctity. 
 Thus the second be2:ins with A. S. M. 
 
 The style of the Koran is pure and beautiful to the last 
 degree, and it is one of the proofs of his inspiration to 
 which Mohammed confidently appealed. He maintained 
 that only God's prophet could have composed a work 
 which the first poets of the most poetical nation of earth 
 gave up as beyond their rivalry. In fact, the Koran is a 
 sort of prose poem. The close of the chapters is rhyth- 
 mical, and the whole flow is highly musical. It is full of 
 metaphor and imagery and bold and extravagant flights. 
 It has no resemblance to the modesty of the Christian 
 Scriptures. Mohammed writes like one who is conscious 
 of doing some great thing. God is his helper, more than 
 he is the instrument of God. 
 
 It would be impossible at the close of this lecture, or 
 even in a whole lecture, to give you a full idea of the con- 
 tents of the Koran, or to make any close or just analysis. 
 I can only indicate the leading views and characteristics 
 without quoting any passages. As we read the book in 
 English, all the extraordinary beauties of its style in the 
 
15S MOHAMMED. 
 
 original are lost in its dreary and stupid monotonv. Very 
 few Christian readers would have patience to toil through 
 those one hundred and fourteen revelations. And if the 
 Christian practice of rewarding children for reading in 
 order the sacred pages prevails in Moslem lands, the 
 largest piece of gold will be fully earned by the child who 
 shall have achieved the Koran through all its chapters. 
 
 Islam, or the religion of the Koran, is divided into two 
 distinct portions. Iman, or faith, and Din, or practice. 
 There is one fundamental point of faith and four of prac- 
 tice. So we see that the five points of religion were not 
 an original idea with our Calvinistic ancestors. 
 
 The fundamental doctrine of the Koran is the 7/nify of 
 God. This is taught throughout the book in its strictness 
 and simplicity. It is this which Mohammed declared that 
 he, in common with all true prophets, was sent especially 
 to teach. Abraham and Moses, and Jesus, all were sent 
 to remind men of it, but since their revelations were 
 but partially received and had been greatly corrupted, 
 Mohammed was sent as the final messenger to declare it 
 explicitly to all people. The Sabians had the doctrine, 
 but it was only the confused worship of a vast planetary 
 system. The Jews had the doctrine, but their excessive 
 reverence for Jehovah's name, and their reliance on their 
 priestly mediators, tended to destroy for them its effect 
 and its integrity. The Christians had the doctrine, but 
 they had transformed it into the incomprehensible idea of 
 a Trinity in Unity. Mohammed restored the primitive 
 view, and laid down his fundamental article that there is 
 but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet. 
 
 Under this general head six specific views are included. 
 First, Belief in God. Second, In his angels, of which 
 there are three classes, — the good, the bad, and the genii, 
 who are intermediate between the two. The four princi- 
 pal angels were Gabriel, Michael, Azrael, and Israfil. 
 This doctrine concerning angels was partly borrowed from 
 the Persians and partly from the Jews. Third, Belief in 
 the Scriptures. By this term they reckon one hundred 
 and four books, all of which must be believed, but one 
 hundred of which are wholly lost, ten given to Adam, 
 fifty to Seth, thirty to Enoch, and ten to Abraham. The 
 
MOHAMMED. 159 
 
 other four given successively to Moses, David, Jesus and 
 Mohammed are the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospel 
 and the Koran. Three of these are so much corrupted 
 and altered that no credit should be given to any copy in 
 the hands of Jews or Christians. It is probable that the 
 Mohammedans possessed some imperfect copies of the 
 Pentateuch and the Gospels. But the perfection of the 
 Koran, which, according to Mohammed, was to be miracu- 
 lously guarded from corruption, made it unnecessary to 
 search any other Scriptures. They were content like the 
 majority of Christians now to take their Biblical faith on 
 trust. Mohammed had a very convenient way of getting 
 over the contradictory passages of the Koran by his law 
 of abrogation. A later passage abrogated an earlier, as in 
 our laws. This law of abrogation is of three kinds. First, 
 of both the letter and the sense ; second, of the letter 
 without the sense, and third, of the sense without the 
 letter. 
 
 The fourth specification of doctrine is belief in the 
 prophets. Of these Mohammed numbers upwards of 
 one and some say two hundred thousand. Three hundred 
 and thirteen of these were special Apostles, and six of 
 these Apostles, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, 
 and Mohammed were the founders of the new dispensa- 
 tions. There were these three degrees of honor, but all 
 the prophets were held to be sound in doctrine and pure in 
 life, and all to teach substantially one religion. Mo- 
 hammed maintained that his mission had been abundantly 
 prophesied. Upon the fifth article, the belief in a general 
 resurrection and a future judgment, the Koran is very 
 full. Mohammed held that immediately after death a 
 special commission of angels examines the departed in 
 his tomb, in a sitting posture ; and that, according to 
 their decision, Azrael, the angel of death, proceeds to 
 separate the soul from the body with greater or less vio- 
 lence, according to the excellence of the person. The 
 souls of the prophets enter at once into Paradise. The 
 souls of the martyrs undergo a sort of delightful purga- 
 tory in the crops of the birds that eat of the fruits and 
 drink of the waters of paradise. As to the souls of com- 
 mon believers, nobody knows exactly where they are. 
 
i6o MOHAMMED. 
 
 They may be lingering round their tombs or they may be 
 flying about in the shape of birds, or they may be hidden 
 in the waters of the holy well Zemzem. At any rate, they 
 shall hereafter be joined with their risen bodies, and sum- 
 moned to Paradise. The chief descriptions of the Koran 
 are of the signs of this resurrection and the nature of 
 this great reward. There are eight lesser and seventeen 
 greater signs, some of them borrowed from the Christian 
 Scriptures, and some of them very fantastic ; one, for in- 
 stance, being the decay of faith, another the darkening of 
 the moon, another the coming of Jesus, and so on. 
 
 The day of judgment finally comes with three blasts of 
 the trumpet by the angel Israfil, the blast of terror, of 
 annihilation, and of resurrection. The Angel Gabriel 
 holds the gigantic balance trembling over hell and heaven. 
 And the good and the wicked are sent each to their own 
 place. There are seven heavens and seven hells, and a 
 limbo for those whose sins and virtues are equally balanced. 
 All infidels are in hell, the Christians in the third, the 
 hypocrites in the seventh. All believers are in heaven, 
 the perfect in Paradise, the seventh heaven, just under the 
 throne of God. Good Christian writers hold that the 
 crowning blasphemy of the Moslem faith is in the account 
 which it gives of the heavenly state and the enjoyments of 
 Paradise, — of its eating and drinking, and its black-eyed 
 houris. But many of these descriptions are borrowed 
 verbatim from the Jewish Scriptures, and all may be found 
 in the celestial ideas of other religions. Sensual, as was 
 Mohammed's idea of Paradise, it was not wholly sensual. 
 . It had in it the element of progress, and one of its prom- 
 ised joys was the sight of the face of God. Yet there is 
 no doubt that the chief impression that it gave to his dis- 
 ciples was one of absolute voluptuousness. It is singular 
 that wine, which Mohammed strictly prohibited on earth, 
 should have formed one of the chief pleasures of heaven. 
 It is sometimes said that the Mohammedan religion denies 
 to women any souls. But portions of hell are largely sup- 
 plied with them, and some are admitted into heaven. I 
 might go largely into the details of Mohammed's view 
 concerning the world beyond the grave. But the various 
 ways in which it has been interpreted prove that though 
 
MOHAMMED. i6i 
 
 full it was not perfectly clear. And it is not a view which 
 would take much hold of or have much charm for a 
 spiritually-minded man. 
 
 The sixth belief is in the predestination of God. This 
 Mohammed held to be thorough, minute, and absolute, — - 
 that all a man's acts, and words, and thoughts, and fortune 
 were fixed from all eternity. And he impressed this idea 
 indelibly upon his system. The most striking character- 
 istics of all Moslem nations to this day is their blind 
 fatalism, their submission to destiny, their indifference to 
 death, or calamity, believing all to be foreordained. Mo- 
 hammed found this doctrine of great service in propa- 
 gating his religion by the sword. 
 
 There are four points of practice or ceremonial religion 
 in the Koran. The first is prayer. This is the chief of 
 duties. It comes five times in a day. And even now 
 every good Moslem is as punctual as ever to perform his 
 devotions and will leave any work when he hears the voice 
 of the muezzin calling from the tower. Prayer includes 
 several elements, — washing, of which great account was 
 made, — the Koran may almost be called the Gospel of 
 cleanliness, — circumcision, a rite borrowed from the Jews, 
 yet religiously observed, — modest apparel, and turning 
 toward Mecca. Their mosques are so constructed that 
 this can be done without mistake. The times are just 
 before sunrise, just after noon, just before sunset, just 
 before dark, and shortly after dark. The forms of prayer 
 are given, and the practice of telling beads prevails, as in 
 the Catholic Church. The second point of practice is 
 alms-giving. This is of two kinds, legal and voluntary, — 
 one a matter of compulsion, the other of choice. The 
 compulsory alms were distributed to the poor or used in 
 the service of the temple and in warfare. The Moham- 
 medans, however, were fortunate in having no hierarchy 
 to support, no order of lazy priests to pay. The duty of 
 alms-giving was acknowledged by the hereditary customs 
 of the people. 
 
 The third point of practice is fasting. This is of three 
 
 kinds, — abstinence from eating, restraint of the senses, 
 
 and restraint of the heart. The fasts were voluntary and 
 
 regular. He was the holiest who had most of the former, 
 
 II 
 
i62 MOHAMMED, 
 
 but all were expected to fast during the whole month Ra- 
 madan, which was the sacred season when the Koran was 
 revealed. As this month was variable, sometimes the fast 
 became very severe. It consisted of abstinence from all 
 food and drink, and pleasure of every kind from sunrise 
 to sunset of everv one of the twenty-nine days. 
 
 The fourth article of practice is the pilgrimage to Mecca. 
 This great act must be performed at least once in his life 
 by every believer, or heaven will be shut against him. It 
 was performed by some every year. It was an ancient 
 custom of the people and was only continued by Moham- 
 med. It was attended by many complicated and absurd 
 ceremonies, by sacrifices and prayers without number, and 
 sometimes by battle. 
 
 The prohibitions of the Koran are numerous and excel- 
 lent. Wine, gambling, usury, divination, the exposure 
 and murder of children and other abuses were strictly 
 forbidden. Swine's flesh was made as unclean as to the 
 Jew. And indeed many of Mohammed's restrictions are 
 borrowed from the Jewish Law. Mussulmen do not 
 always observe these restrictions. But still they form part 
 of the religion. And it has been observed of Moslem 
 countries that they are nearly free from gambling and 
 intemperance, the double curse of the Christian civiliza- 
 tion. Mohammed objects to chess, — not so much on 
 account of the game as of the idolatrous influence of the 
 little figures with which it is played. 
 
 The Koran was not only a body of religious precepts 
 but also of civil statutes. It contains laws with regard 
 to education, marriage, war and government, but want of 
 time compels me to pass these by. They are not of much 
 interest. We might speak also at length of the ritual of 
 Islam, — of the various customs arising from the necessi- 
 ties of the new faith. And of the sects, too, almost as 
 numerous as the Christian, who arose to divide the unity 
 of the prophet's household. Islamism, though it may 
 seem to us a gigantic imposture, had also its minor impos- 
 tures, and its false prophets. 
 
 It would be interesting, too, to trace the conquests of 
 the new religion out of Arabia, how it spread in the East 
 and West, exterminating Christianity in one direction and 
 
MOHAMMED. 163 
 
 rivalling it in the other, — how it subdued the land of the 
 Magi and established the romantic and powerful kingdom 
 of the Caliphs, — how it settled in the Holy Land and 
 built its mosque upon Mount Moriah, — how it seized the 
 city of Constantine, and spurned the Christian dog from 
 the harbor of the Golden Horn, — how it followed up the 
 ancient Nile, and substituted another teaching for the 
 tradition of Pharoah's, — how it overran the deserts of 
 Libya, planted the crescent on the ruins of Carthage, — ■ 
 and built temples to Allah and his prophet by the pillars 
 of Hercules and on the hills of Iberia. But this would 
 lead us into too broad a field. It is not a historical sketch 
 of the religion of Mohammed that we propose. We 
 shall see enough of it when we consider the religious his- 
 tory of Spain and the wars of the Crusades. Our episode 
 has already been long enough, perhaps you will think dry 
 enough. But if you find this short sketch of the origin 
 and character of the Koran fatiguing, you will find the 
 book itself far more wearisome. One great drawback 
 upon the happiness of Mohammed's Paradise must be the 
 burden of reading the Koran there. He should have 
 numbered it as penance and torment. 
 
164 UILDEBBANI). 
 
 VI. 
 
 HILDEBRAND AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 We have already traced the internal organization of the 
 Catholic Church from its small democratic be^rinnins-s to its 
 complete and magnificent hierarchy. We have seen its 
 singular order eliminated and developed, its form of doc- 
 trine written out in creeds and confirmed by councils, its 
 rules of life settled by the authority of saints and the prac- 
 tice of centuries. We have seen it in conflict with heathen- 
 ism and in conflict with heresy ; how it exterminated the 
 ancient Pagan, how it silenced the new blasphemer. We 
 have watched it slowly recovering from the victorious 
 Moslem its proper losses, and silently converting the bar- 
 barian that sought to destroy it. We have followed its 
 missionaries in their martyr labors for church extension, 
 and its scholars in their skillful plans for Church concen- 
 tration. We have seen the Church contending with 
 ignorance in the school, and with worldlihess in the 
 cloister, vanquishing the superstitious by its cathedral 
 images and ritual, and employing the fanatic in its monas- 
 tic discipline. We have gone on with the Catholic faith 
 in its theological, its social, and its ecclesiastical march to 
 power, have discovered its victory in doctrine, and dis- 
 cipline, and system. Its political contest now remains to 
 be noticed. One victory more is needed to place it at the 
 head of the nations, as well as of the faithful. The 
 Church has fought with infidels, and heretics, and schis- 
 matics, and profligates ; it has had its Justins, its Jeromes, 
 its Leos, and its Benedicts ; it has made the Latin creed, 
 and the Latin liturgy, and the Latin canons, the laws of 
 all the Roman or Teutonic nations ; has brought church- 
 men and laymen near and far, to look up to Rome with 
 reverence, the bishop to bow before its supremacy and the 
 knight to own allegiance to its sanctity; it only remains to 
 
HILDEBRA ND. 1 65 
 
 contend with the State, and to raise its seat above that of 
 Empires. 
 
 Special conflicts between the ecclesiastical and the civil 
 powers had not been wanting in any age of Church 
 history. From the time when Peter resisted at Jerusalem 
 the rulers of Israel, to the time when Hildebrand an- 
 nounced his great formula of papal sway, the ministers of 
 Christ had always been found to defy kings and princi- 
 palities, and powers. Ambrose had humbled the Roman 
 Emperor to the lowest stool of penitence. Leo had met 
 Attila with successful menace, when the scourge of God 
 came fresh from his plunder. Monarchs had been raised 
 up and put down already by the word of priests. The 
 threats of the cloister had brought trembling into the 
 palace, and the anathemas of the Church had checked 
 more than once the severe decrees of the king. In 
 these special conflicts the religious power was generally 
 sure to carry the day. But as the Church grew broader 
 and more unwieldy, and the nations broke asunder from 
 the old Roman Empire, the conflicts between it and the 
 State became less frequent, policy took the place of prin- 
 ciple, and it aimed to use the vices of kings instead of de- 
 
 nouncing them. It found the alliance of the greater 
 sovereigns of weight in confirming its power within itself. 
 It was glad to keep the State upon its side in its warfare 
 against heresy and schism. It needed the strong arm of 
 soldier kings to sustain its Papal decrees. And when 
 Charlemagne received, in the year 800, the crown of the 
 Western Empire from the hands of the Pope, it is probable 
 that he felt himself to be less the vassal than the patron 
 of that spiritual despot. He dictated to rather than lis- 
 tened to the successor of Peter, and the reluctant Head of 
 the Church was obliged to accept as substantial orthodoxy 
 the politic decisions of a Prankish conqueror. The suc- 
 cessors of Charlemagne paid apparent homage to the 
 Papal seat. But its decrees and its authority were set at 
 naught by their continual practice. 
 
 It was in the latter half of the eleventh century that this 
 royal indifference to the papal edicts had reached its 
 height. In the bold enterprises and sanguinary struggles 
 of that epoch, the mediation of Rome was not asked, and 
 
1 66 HILDEBEAND. 
 
 its remonstrance was not heeded. William the Norman 
 asked for no papal blessing, and feared no papal curse in 
 his savage warfare upon the Saxons. The mountain 
 knights of Spain were guided by other motives than 
 Catholic zeal in driving back the Saracens from the homes 
 of their fathers. The indolent sovereign of France mur- 
 mured quite audibly at the exactions of religion and justi- 
 fied the refusal of his nobles to contribute to the needless 
 expenses of the Church. It had become a question with 
 the Emperor of Germany, most powerful of all the princes, 
 whether his protection of the Church was worth its trouble 
 and its cost. For his consent had been tacitly required in 
 the confirmation of papal elections, and had been needful 
 to make valid the choice of bishops. And this indiffer- 
 ence to the dictation of Rome, so evident upon the throne, 
 was propagated downward to the secular lords of less 
 degree. The knight felt that he could interfere in the 
 choice of his bishop, and if he had a friend to whom he 
 wished to give so lucrative a place, he gave it without fear, 
 and without inquiring into the religious fitness of his can- 
 didate. The practice, called investiture^ was general all 
 over the Church. Its hig^h officers were chosen bv the 
 influence of the secular power and from men of the world, 
 without regard to their sanctity, and without their being 
 compelled to pass the toilsome steps of the religious order. 
 A bishop of the eleventh century was not of necessity a 
 religious man. His capacity to fight was more esteemed 
 than his gift in prayer, and he was expected to be more a 
 boon companion than a spiritual guide. He who could 
 drink longest at the evening wassail and could bring into 
 the field the most armed retainers, was deemed by king 
 and noble most fit as shepherd of souls. 
 
 And this dependence of the bishop and priest upon the 
 feudal lord had given rise throughout France and Germany 
 to the sin of si??iony. This singular sin, which has played 
 for centuries such a part in Roman Catholic discipline and 
 development, and which to this day has a secret but ex- 
 tensive working, derived its name from Simon the Sorcerer, 
 who offered the Apostles money to impart to him the gift 
 of the Holy Ghost. It consisted in the purchase of 
 spiritual privileges and ecclesiastical holdings. But when 
 
BILBEBBAND. 167 
 
 It became a custom for the king or knight to appoint his 
 religious rulers, then came in a competition for the favor 
 of the king or knight. If these needed money they had 
 only to put up to sale their spiritual offices ; and the 
 highest bidder was installed accordingly vicar of God. 
 The secular lord gained the means for his schemes of con- 
 quest or pleasure in the contributions of his spiritual 
 vassals. A judicious bribe became the prelate's talismaii 
 to favor and entrance fee to power. And when the higher 
 offices became venal, the inferior offices became venal 
 with them. The corrupt bishop who bought his own 
 honor had no scruple in receiving back from his priest- 
 hood what he had given to his lord. And ultimately this 
 issued in the system of profitable absolutions, and he who 
 paid most roundly for it, secured the easiest salvation for 
 his soul. This venality of Church offices was greatly 
 aggravated by the fears of the tenth century, when the 
 near end of the earth drove such multitudes of the warlike 
 and the profligate to the friendly shelter of the Church. 
 It demoralized the clergy, lowered the standard of fitness, 
 and made the ability to pay of more consideration than a 
 heart renewed to God. It changed the Church from a 
 censor of vice and crime to a partisan and tributary in all 
 kinds of worldliness. The Church was expected to fur- 
 nish, not rebukes, but subsidies to wickedness. The 
 rulers of the State looked not for its condemnation, but 
 for its contributions. 
 
 And this dependence of the Church upon the State was 
 still further increased by the violations of the law of celi- 
 bacy, which were not only justified but encouraged by the 
 civil power. It is difficult to discover in the history of the 
 Church when the custom of celibacy was reckoned essen- 
 tial to priestly holiness. From the very earliest time Paul 
 had had, among the more devout, imitators in his practical 
 abstinence from marriage, and his theory was praised by 
 many who had not the self-denial to practice it. The in- 
 fluence of the monastic spirit confirmed the Pauline preju- 
 dice. When Jerome in the fourth century uttered his 
 sarcasm upon the married ministers at the altar, he spoke 
 the general sentiment of the Church. In the councils of the 
 fifth century it was made a canon that he who could say 
 
1 68 UILDEBRAND. 
 
 the mass must be free from all indulgence of fleshly 
 lusts, and have no family cares to distract him from 
 a single devotion to the Church and God. The 
 Church was to be to him without a metaphor, his 
 bride and spouse. The Canticles and the Apocalpyse 
 interpreted his religious duty. But a canon of this kind 
 could not hinder the natural instincts of men. The 
 domestic was an earlier state than the monastic, and 
 based more truly on human nature. And when the priest 
 preferred the experience of comfort to the reputation of 
 sanctity, and felt himself to be shielded by the favor of 
 some secular protector, he entered readily into the bonds 
 which the Church denounced as impure. In many parts 
 of the empire the faithful were compelled to witness the 
 daily scandal of the incarnate bread and wine in the im- 
 pure hands of a man vowed to fleshly connections. If 
 the marriage of the bishop would bring influence in its 
 train, would bring the friends and funds of the bride, the 
 noble was glad to encourage it. And the influence of the 
 
 double connection became a motive in the choice of bishops. 
 The married candidates had usually the largest facilities 
 for bribery. Men of families applied for places in the 
 Church to get rid of military duty. And it was churlish 
 and cruel in them to leave their wives behind. Those 
 who went into the Church from motives of policy would 
 be troubled by no conscientious scruples, and they had no 
 idea of suddenlv becoming monks. But the reliance of 
 the married priesthood was upon the State. The Church 
 never looked upon the offence with approval or indiffer- 
 ence. It saw in these domestic ties not only a violation of 
 the Christian rule of purity, but what was worse, a weak- 
 ening of the single attachment to the central power of the 
 Church, a division of duties not wholesome to higher 
 ecclesiastic interests. Remonstrances, loud and bitter, 
 against the growing abuse were not wanting. Devotees 
 from the cloister, and popes from the hall of spiritual 
 dominion, protested and threatened. But in numberless 
 instances priests were found willing to preserve their mar- 
 riage bonds in this world at the risk of damnation in the 
 next. If they put away their wives it was from motives of 
 policy and not for conscience sake. 
 
HILDEBRAXD. 169 
 
 These abuses were already of long standing at the mid- 
 dle of the eleventh century. But they had not been 
 viewed with indifference in those places where the tradi- 
 tions of early Christian purity were still kept alive. In 
 many a Benedictine convent were prayers offered in the 
 secret cell that God would restore again the lost estate of 
 the Spirit to his worldly and subjugated Church, In many 
 a pious heart did the wickedness of the priesthood revive 
 the fear of a new destruction like that which fell upon 
 Israel. But in one famous abbey there was a soul to 
 contrive the restoration as well as a heart to lament the 
 sin. In the cloisters of Clugny was conceived the plan of 
 a new Roman Empire, to which kings should bow, and 
 nations bring tribute, whose authority should be from God, 
 and in which spiritual and not natural succession should 
 be the order, which should jointly hold the sceptre of all 
 earthly dominion, and the keys of all heavenly possessions. 
 
 The name of Hildebrand the Tuscan liad already be- 
 come famous as the sign of a sanctity at once austere and 
 unwearied, before it was associated with genius, ambition, 
 and consummate and skillful daring. The Abbot of 
 Clugny was looked up to with wonder as the model monk 
 of a degenerate age. But his destiny was higher than that 
 of a simple convent ruler. And Providence soon brought 
 in his way the means of fulfilling the tendencies of his 
 nature and the plans of his soul. The ardent Catholic 
 had long been disgusted by the arrogance of worldly 
 powers, and shamed at the voluntary baseness of those 
 who should be servants of God alone. He had seen with 
 indignation creatures of the Emperor set in the Papal 
 chair, and the office of holy Peter given over to bargain 
 and vassalage. But he made no rash complaint, and 
 waited the time which he foresaw was speedily approach- 
 ing. He knew his strength, but he would not waste it. 
 From youth till the middle age was reached he watched in 
 his convent and prepared himself by the experience there 
 for the burden of a harder rule. 
 
 In the year 1048, Bruno, Bishop of Toul, in Germany, 
 was chosen by the Emperor Henry III, to the vacant chair 
 of the Papacy. As he journeyed towards Rome in splen- 
 did attire, and with a gorgeous retinue, he found the gates 
 
170 HILDEBRAND. 
 
 of the Abbey of Clugn}'' opened wide for his hospitable 
 reception and he entered there in lordly state, with the 
 bearing of a prince. But when he left on his succeeding 
 way it was in humble gray vesture, as a penitent without 
 attendants, with bare feet, and in the garb of a pilgrim. 
 For Hildebrand had shown him that the chief of the 
 Church must be called bv God and not chosen bv the kins:, 
 and that humility was a better preparation than pride for 
 the office he was about to take. The adviser went up with 
 the pilgrim bishop to the Holy City, and there the shouts 
 that welcomed Pope Leo IX, as the sent of God to an 
 afflicted people, were more a tribute to the skill of Hilde- 
 brand than to the humility of his companion. The Abbot 
 did not return to his convent, but staved in Rome as a 
 Cardinal and a priest, and became the adviser of the 
 Papal government, as he had been the counsellor in the 
 Papal election. 
 
 The first period of Hildebrand's power and activity 
 lasted precisely twenty-five years. In that time he had 
 seen five popes raised to Peter's seat, and all of them by 
 his omnipotent hand. He had drawn off bishops from 
 their allegiance to the Empire ; as legate of the Church 
 he had visited and judged the quarrels of the temporal 
 and spiritual power ; and ev^erywhere had gained the fame 
 of a supernatural endowment. Men said that he could 
 read the characters of all on whom his eves misfht chance 
 to fall ; that he could exorcise Satan from the heart of the 
 offender, and could detect in the look of the culprit all 
 sin against the Church. His warlike plans were supposed 
 to be aided bv lesfions of ansrels, and men fell down be- 
 fore his frowning look and confessed their guilt. No 
 subordinate priest had ever exercised such power. At his 
 instance a council solemnly decreed that henceforward the 
 College of Cardinals alone should choose the head of 
 Christiandom, that on one side the Roman people were to 
 resio^n forever their ancient risrht to choose their own 
 bishop, and on the other the Emperor was to have no voice 
 in the affair. The decree of that council still remains in 
 force, and at the next election of Pope it was put in force 
 when the nominee of the Empire was set aside, and Alexan- 
 der II was chosen by Hildebrand and the Cardinals. Blood 
 
BILBEBEAND. 171 
 
 was shed on both sides before it could be settled which 
 should be fixed as vicar of God. But the favor of heaven 
 went with Alexander and his advisers. The twenty-five 
 years which Hildebrand spent as the virtual minister of 
 the Papal dominion was only a preparation for his more 
 exalted office. 
 
 In these years Hildebrand had successively ascended 
 the several steps of Cardinal, Deacon, Archdeacon, Legate 
 and Chancellor of the Church of Rome. Already more 
 than once the Apostolic crown had been proffered to him, 
 and he had put it aside. But now his time had come, and 
 it was in the great Church of the Lateran, as the requiem 
 died away over Alexander's body, that the shout of the 
 multitude proclaimed as by a Divine voice that the former 
 monk of Clugny was the Vicar of Christ upon earth. 
 Scarcely had the shouts died away when the choice of the 
 Cardinals was announced to have fallen upon the same 
 illustrious person. There was the usual amount of appar- 
 ent humility. The gestures of Hildebrand from the pulpit 
 seemed to shun so momentuous a trust, but his voice was 
 drowned in the acclamations. The mitre was put upon 
 his reluctant head, and when the sad pageant that had 
 entered for a burial-service came out again it was to show 
 Gregory VII, clad in his gorgeous Pontifical robes to an 
 exultant people. Never had Pontiff been announced 
 whom the suffrages of all admitted to be more natively fit 
 for his station. His genius, his purity, his courage, his 
 far-sighted wisdom, his single devotion to the cause of the 
 Church even his enemies confessed. Not suddenly or by 
 any usurpation could they reproach him with having se- 
 cured the magnificent prize. But his life, already well 
 prolonged, seemed a providential preparation for the place 
 and for the place at that hour. No choice more obnoxious 
 to the Emperor could have been made. He knew that 
 the modest priest who solicited his approval of the trust 
 which misfortune rather than desire, had compelled him 
 to take, was in reality his most dangerous foe. But he 
 dared not protest against such a choice. And the world 
 heard with wonder and the Church with joy that Henry 
 IV, of Germany, had approved the choice of a Pope 
 whose whole soul was devoted to humble the Imperial 
 power. 
 
172 EILDEBRAXD. 
 
 Before proceeding to relate the decisive struggle be- 
 tween the Pope and the Empire, let us glance at the 
 political condition of the German world, and the character 
 of its principal ruler. The Emperor Henry III, at his 
 dying, had left his infant son, the heir to the crown, to the 
 guardianship of a mother too pious to be wise, and too 
 pure to escape calumny. Her confidence was abused by 
 priests and her credulity was despised by nobles. The 
 flatteries of her ghostly advisers were not less pernicious 
 than the outrages of her insolent courtiers who felt it an 
 insult that a woman should sway the sceptre of the Caesars. 
 It did not suit the plans of either party that the young 
 prince should be brought up under such gentle and pure 
 influences. Two powerful archbishops joined with two 
 powerful dukes to separate the child from his mother, and 
 to secure for themselves the spoils of his minority and the 
 corruption of his growing years. It was at a boating 
 party on the Rhine that the boy of twelve years was kid- 
 napped by the strategem of this holy alliance, and severed 
 from his natural protector. Their lessons to him of de- 
 bauchery, treachery, and cruelty, during his luxurious 
 captivity he faithfully learned, but he learned to hate the 
 teachers and remember their crime toward him. They 
 were glad to escape the dark return which they saw ap- 
 proaching by transferring the charge of their royal pupil 
 to Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen, the Wolsey of the 
 eleventh century. 
 
 The life and spirit of this famous prelate has all the 
 romantic interest of the life of him who made the vices of 
 the English Henry the ministers of his own ambition. A 
 great English writer has drawn his singular portrait, a 
 composite of piety and profligacy, of learning and buf- 
 foonery, of wit, and vanity, and intrigue, of military re- 
 nown, and political skill, which had hardly a rival in his 
 age, yet fond to absurdity of the emptiest titles and the 
 vainest flatteries. The education of a king in the hands 
 of such a man would prepare him for any career but that 
 of a wise and prudent sovereign. He would learn the art 
 of tyrannizing more than the principles of ruling. And 
 Henry speedily showed by his wanton insults to the 
 patriotic and religious sentiments of his people and his 
 
IIILDEBRAND. 173 
 
 utter indifference to private rights, in what school he had 
 been trained. The grossest vices became not merely his 
 practice but his boast. The wife that policy rather than 
 affection had joined to him he treated brutally. And not 
 all the influence of his handsome person and his liberal 
 indulgence to every kind of vice could prevent the op- 
 pressed citizens and the insulted Christians from following 
 him with curses loud and deep. The curses were heard at 
 Rome, and the successor of the Caesars was startled by a 
 summons from the dying Alexander to appear in person at 
 the Papal judgment to answer to the grave offences charged 
 against him. Only faint traditions of a distant time re- 
 corded a demand so daring and so preposterous. Henry 
 was keen enough to detect the master-spirit in so bold an 
 act. And when he heard that the ambitious Hildebrand 
 sat in Peter's seat, he knew that the time had come for 
 decisive contest. He knew that in the impending strife 
 between himself and his rebellious vassals he must either 
 submit to Rome or be crushed, that he could dictate no 
 longer to the Holy See, but must find from this either pro- 
 tection or enmity. The first as repulsive to his pride, as 
 the last disastrous to his fortune. He affected to treat 
 with contempt the Papal summons, but he trembled when 
 he knew that the jealous eyes of the new Pontiff were 
 watching his intrigues, and the listening ear was open to 
 every tale of corruption. The first acts of Gregory told 
 the Emperor that the time of compromise and bribery 
 was over. 
 
 Scarcely a month had passed from his accession as Pope 
 when, at the suggestion of Gregory, a council was called 
 at the Lateran to consider the serious and wide-spread 
 profanation of a married priesthood. The deliberations 
 were short, the action was prompt, positive, and rigorous. 
 The decree went out that no sacred office should be cele- 
 brated bv anv one bound in wedlock, and that wives must 
 be sternly and forever repudiated by those who would 
 stand at the altar. The decree was executed. The 
 anathemas of Rome became the terrible weapon of fanatic 
 monks in their denunciations. The lament of the sufferers 
 proved unavailing. Gregory had no ear for any petitions. 
 He wanted no words of remonstrance, but only deeds of 
 
1 7 4 niLDEBBANB. 
 
 submission. It seemed merely a measure of priestly re- 
 form, but it was in reality a blow aimed at the Imperial 
 power. For it was the first step towards purginor the 
 Church of men who were merely retainers of the State. 
 It was the married priesthood that fed the vice of simony, 
 and purchased of the ruler his good-will and protection. 
 And Henry saw that when this most glaring abuse was 
 overthrown, warfare upon the rest could not be far behind. 
 The decree of the Lateran became a law to the Church. 
 Henceforth no choice lay open to the aspirant for holy 
 orders. The servant of the Church ceased to know the 
 meaning of home, and became a voluntary stranger to the 
 strongest of all earthly ties. For eight hundred years 
 now he who has been the depository of family secrets and 
 the counsellor of the wife and husband, of young men and 
 maidens in their most tender relations, has been sternly 
 debarred from the experience of the joys and trials he 
 has had confided to his ear. In his household no children 
 have been angels to sport there, while living, and hover 
 there when dead, and woman has been a menial only, 
 and not a companion. Severed from family ties the priest 
 had only his single duty to the Church and its orders. 
 
 This first work of daring innovation accomplished, 
 Gregory turned his attention next to the venality and cor- 
 ruption of his priesthood. His legates went out into the 
 various Catholic States to investi2:ate the titles bv which 
 sacred offices were held, and to dictate to knights and 
 sovereigns what should be their just relation to the Church 
 of God. The rulers of barbaric States were amazed to 
 learn that they were merely viceroys of the Rome that 
 their ancestors had ravaged, and that they were expected 
 to give homage to the power from which once the tribute 
 had been gathered. The people of France were informed 
 that every house in the realm, from king to peasant, owed 
 its penny to Peter, and that the priest should not buy from 
 the prince, but should receive from the flock for the ser- 
 vice of the Lord. It became the pleasing duty of the 
 Papal messengers to administer oaths of allegiance to 
 those who had exacted priestly tributes, and the king's son 
 of Russia found it expedient in his visit to Rome to de- 
 clare that he should hold his vast paternal realm under 
 
HILDEBBAND. 1 7 5 
 
 the protection of the Holy Church. The bishops learned 
 that their contributions must no longer take a secular di- 
 rection, that they were stewards merely of sacred revenues, 
 and were to render the account only to him who was 
 authorized to sanction their calling. Those whose elections 
 were clearly corrupt were removed to make way for 
 humbler men from the cloister, whose poverty and zeal 
 were alike devoted to the service of the Catholic power. 
 But the transfer of unconditional allegiance to the See of 
 Rome was usually sufficient to allow the warlike ecclesiastic 
 to keep his unsuitable place, Gregory foresaw that there 
 was work to be done yet in the field as well as the cabinet. 
 And the military habit of his priests was not entirely 
 without value in his eyes. His aim was not so much to 
 make the Church spiritual as to make it Catholic, and he 
 was willing to employ the arms of the world if the issue 
 should be in the glory of God. 
 
 It was a critical time for the Emperor. He saw himself 
 placed between two fires, each rapidly advancing and 
 gaining strength in their rush. On one side were his re- 
 bellious vassals, desperate under his multiplied outrages and 
 oppressions, and ready to throw off a yoke as shameful and 
 hateful as it was tyrannical and heavy. On the other, the 
 stern, inexorable ambition of Rome, that looked steadily 
 upon its end, and no human power could turn aside. On 
 one side, revolt, on . the other, the Gorgon eye of spiritual 
 despotism. One or the other of these forces must be 
 made his friend, else his destruction was inevitable. He 
 chose that which would save his power, though it might 
 humble his pride. But the choice was not made until he 
 had been reduced to the last extremity, until his army had 
 been defeated in repeated battles, and himself forced to 
 flee by night from the castle in which he was beleagured. 
 The fugitive then coveted the favor of the spiritual despots. 
 He made fair promises to the Pope, which were repaid by 
 gracious words and assurances of pardon and love. He 
 gave some substantial offerings to the Pope which were 
 not so well repaid. Milan, the Cathedral city of Northern 
 Italy, where the sacred memory of Ambrose still lingered 
 after the convulsions of seven centuries, was surrendered 
 over to the Papal Charge, and distinct acknowledgments 
 
1/6 HILDEBRAND. 
 
 of submission to the Holy See were volunteered. The 
 vague and doubtful language of the Pope mic^ht be va- 
 riously interpreted to the advantage of the Emperor or 
 his foes. It was no more than a declaration of non-inter- 
 vention, and though the loyal citizens of the Rhine pro- 
 vinces understood it to justify their defence of the heredi- 
 tary Sovereign, the Saxon insurgents with their newly 
 chosen Emperor, found in it no command to lay down 
 their arms or to submit to continued tyranny. The Pope 
 had gained a city and a State and had humbled his rival, 
 but he sent no force into the field against Otho and his 
 rebel hordes. 
 
 The mortified Emperor found himself soon a second 
 time at the mercy of his rebellious subjects, with the addi- 
 tional element of his vassalage to a man that he hated. 
 While he was forced to promise to the Saxon chiefs that 
 their rights should be restored and the exactions of his 
 soldiers no longer molest them, he was compelled to re- 
 nounce all right to the election of priests or bishops, and 
 to dismiss from his Court all who had obtained throus^h 
 simony ecclesiastical office. The eccentric bishop of 
 Bremen was suspended from his See, and neither the shafts 
 of his wit, nor the ebullitions of his rage, could move the 
 stern determination of the Most Catholic Head of the 
 Church. While the Emperor waited his time and medi- 
 tated plans of sure revenge, the Pope improved his time 
 to prepare for the fortune of the Emperor's defeat or vic- 
 tory. 
 
 On two great occasions in the year 1075, was the Te 
 Deinn laudamus solemnly sung ; at Worms, on the Rhine, 
 the most loyal and most religious of cities, when to the 
 arms of Henry and his allies, the insurgents had finally 
 yielded and the bloody field of their recent conflict had 
 been signally avenged ; and at Rome, when the second 
 great Council of Gregory, the Pope had solemnly decreed 
 that all spiritual authority resided with him who sat in the 
 chair of Peter, that his was the sole power to establish 
 dignities, and that no secular lord of whatever state or 
 honor had any right to create or invest the servant of 
 God. In the one instance, the solemn chant was only a 
 service that the fortune of the next year might annul. In 
 
EILDEBRAND. i77 
 
 the other, it announced an act of sovereignty that no wrath 
 or rebelHon could put back ag^ain. For the first time the 
 edict of the masrnates of the Church was recorded that it 
 should have sway upon all principalities and powers, and 
 that it was divinely commissioned to bind and loose in the 
 policies of nations as well as the private salvation of men. 
 The mass was sung, the record was made and committed 
 to the Father of Christendom to use as he saw fit. In the 
 hands of Hildebrand such an authority could not lie idle. 
 The occasion for its use was near, and hardlv had the 
 winter of the vear besfun before the self-indulgent Em- 
 peror of the West was startled from his dream of revenge 
 and new spoiliation by a summons to appear at Rome and 
 show cause why he should not be excommunicated and 
 deposed for so many crimes committed against the laws of 
 God and the rights of the Church. Never since the 
 sacrifice of Calvary, had so daring a command been ut- 
 tered by a Christian priest. The world shuddered with 
 fear and horror. The Church looked on with admiring 
 awe. The great forces of the centuries, fully charged, 
 had now reached their critical point. The thunderbolt, 
 crashing fell, and its rolling echo filled with amazement 
 the East and the West, arrested the Norman in his ravages, 
 and startled the indolent Frank. No ruler was safe when 
 such a summons might stop him in his course. 
 
 But the amazement of this act of unprecedented daring 
 was changed into horror at a still more sacrilegious at- 
 tempt, w^ien it was announced to the Church that an 
 impious hand had sought to kill the High Priest of God, 
 on the very birth-night of the Saviour of Men, and at the 
 very moment of the sacred celebration, that the Pontiff of 
 Christendom had been assaulted at the altar, his sacred 
 blood shed upon the vestments of his office, his person out- 
 raged, bound with cords, and dragged to captivity in his own 
 castle. The heroic women who bound up his wounds, and 
 the brave men who rescued him became suddenly Provi- 
 dential angels in the eyes of the faithful, and the Church 
 far and wide, rang with praises to God for his timely de- 
 liverance, and muttered its curses upon the impious king 
 whose weak vengeance, it was not doubted, had instigated 
 so great a crime. The sympathy of the world was turned 
 
 12 
 
17S BILBEBRAND. 
 
 to the side which God seemed to protect, and the calm 
 assurance with which the outraged Pontiff proceeded to 
 solemn Christmas rites gave evidence that he was guided 
 by an Almighty Power. 
 
 The summons of Gregory to the Emperor to appear at 
 Rome was answered by the vote of a Diet which the Em- 
 peror convened at Worms. After enumerating a multitude 
 of scandalous charges against the Pope, the truest of 
 which was baseness of birth, for Hildebrand was a car- 
 penter's son, like his Divine Master, and the most in- 
 famous of which was that he worshipped the Devil, it was 
 voted unanimously that no more allegiance was due to 
 such a monster, that the oaths of obedience should be 
 abjured, and that he should be deposed from the sacred 
 seat which he had profaned. A long list of names were 
 subscribed to this manifesto of Imperial defiance. Bishops 
 who had been divorced from their wives, or deprived of 
 their revenues, or subjected to mortifying penance, gladly 
 signed this parchment of downfall to their oppressor. 
 The names of knights and abbots, of prelates and profli- 
 gates, were bound in a common league to overthrow this 
 enemy of human rights and usurper of the Divine preroga- 
 tive. An envoy was sent to Rome to bear this dark 
 commission as the reply to Gregory's presumptuous de- 
 mand. He reached the citv in the midst of one of those 
 majestic masses which had already become part of the 
 solemn Lenten Fasts of the Church. Gregory was on his 
 Pontifical throne, surrounded in the vast and splendid hall 
 of the Vatican by the throng of priests and princes whom 
 he had summoned to judge in the name of God the great- 
 est of earthly kings. The sonorous mingling of choral 
 voices was invoking the presence of the Most High in their 
 deliberations. Since the memorable trial at Jerusalem 
 some thousand years before, no such momentous judgment 
 had been witnessed amons: men. It seemed to realize 
 that predicted day when the great of the Earth should 
 be arraigned before the bar of the final tribunal. In 
 trembling wonder the assembled throng gazed upon that 
 august being who seemed to wield before them the swift 
 sentence of God. 
 
 The throne of St. Peter became now in its awful ma- 
 
HILDEBRAND. 179 
 
 jesty as the very judgment-seat of the Eternal. All the 
 authority of heaven and earth seemed embodied in that 
 emaciated form and that flashinor eve. The envov entered. 
 His manner was insolent, his words were few. He spoke 
 to the Pope, that it was the will of the Emperor and the 
 Italian and German bishops that he should descend from 
 his usurped dignity. He spoke to the vast assembly that 
 the Emperor commanded them at the approaching Whit- 
 sunday to receive a lawful spiritual father from his hands. 
 "Your pretended Pope," said he, "is only a ravenous 
 wolf." Amid the shouts of rage that greeted the audacious 
 harancrue, and the gleamins: swords that were raised to 
 smite down the intruder, Gregory descended from his 
 throne, took the missives from the envov's hand and then 
 calmly read before them the sentence which the Imperial 
 synods had pronounced. In words of eloquent persua- 
 sion he urged them to refrain from violence in the fulfil- 
 ment of that duty which the fortune of the time and the 
 Providence of God had imposed upon them. He im- 
 plored, by significant gestures, the piety of the Catholic 
 to endure the humiliation of the mother, for Agnes, the 
 Empress, sat by his side. And then, when he had raised 
 their feelings to the needful point of awe and filled their 
 minds with majestic thoughts of duty to God, he proceeded 
 to invoke with a voice clear and strong, and terrible as 
 that of Michael the Archangel, " the holy Peter, prince of 
 the Apostles, and Mary the Mother of God, and the 
 blessed Paul and all the saints to bear witness, while for 
 the honor and defence of Christ's Church, in the name of 
 the Holy Trinity, by the power and authority of Peter," 
 he interdicted to King Henry, son of Henry the Emperor, 
 the government of the whole realm of Germany and 
 Italy, absolving all Christians from their allegiance, and 
 declaring him anathema, accursed, " that the nations may 
 know and acknowledge that thou art Peter, and that upon 
 this rock the Son of the living God hath built his Church 
 and that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 
 
 We might here rest our sketch of Gregory and his in- 
 fluence, since here the culminating point of Papal claims 
 and Papal daring was reached. No step could be taken 
 now but that which should seek to make war upon heaven 
 
i8o EILDEBRAXD. 
 
 and to subjugate God. Now first in a way to alarm the 
 nations and to exhibit the reality of Roman dominion was 
 the promise of Christ to Peter claimed by his successor. 
 In a thousand years from the time when the Galilean 
 fisherman suffered death for setting forth strange gods to 
 disturb the faith of the world, had the God that he de- 
 clared announced his temporal kingdom and indicated his 
 viceroy. Now the thrones of the world had become as 
 the footstool of Christ. The millennial sovereignty was 
 perfected, and the dream of monks for ages, the far-off 
 prophecies of Jewish seers, the desire of all the holy, the 
 songs of angels at Bethlehem, the ancient covenants with 
 Moses, and Abraham, and Noah, seemed all fulfilled. 
 Now the mountain of Jehovah was lifted in the top of the 
 mountains, the city of Universal Empire was restored 
 a2:ain, and the Hisrh Priest was the o-rand mediator be- 
 tween God and man. Now the Christian virtues seemed 
 to have their sufficient work, the Beatitudes were inter- 
 preted, to the meek the earth was given, and the persecuted 
 for righteousness' sake enjoyed the foretaste of their inher- 
 itance. Now the symbol of the lion and the lamb led 
 together by the little child, was explained, and the highest 
 meaning of the gift to cast out demons and possess the 
 world was opened. Now the infallible truth and sanctity 
 of the Holy Seat seemed to be vindicated, and no earthly 
 power should presume to guide or to govern the decisions 
 of Christ's Church upon earth. The declarations of all 
 previous Councils sink into insignificance beside the 
 grandeur of this one. 
 
 But we will follow yet a little farther the triumph of 
 Gregory, and behold the sovereign of the world in deeper 
 humiliation before his haughty rival. It was on his return 
 from a marauding expedition into Saxony, flushed with 
 the spoils and glory of vindictive pillage, that Henry 
 learned the awful sentence which had gone out against 
 him. He saw the loyal reverence of his people changed 
 into suspicion and aversion. One by one the nobles that 
 had sustained him fell away. His army dwindled to a 
 body-guard. Friendship, and kindred, and gratitude, all 
 seemed to wither before the curse of God. The impious 
 bishops whom he suborned to utter their feeble excommu- 
 
UILDEBRAND. i8i 
 
 nication against the successor of Peter, were snatched 
 away one by one by the speedy Divine judgments, as the 
 people deemed them, and in an incredibly short period 
 from the great Roman assembly, the Emperor of the West 
 found himself shunned, despised, and forsaken, an alien 
 in his father's house, and an apostate to all the faithful. 
 A Diet was summoned to choose in his place an Emperor 
 who should be worthy of human love and the divine 
 blessing. It met at Tribur at the close of the year. From 
 all parts of the land the call of Oregon,^ summoned the 
 princes to the solemn election. In vain did the desperate 
 monarch sue for favor. His proposal to resign the actual 
 and retain only the nominal dignity was treated as a cheat 
 and a snare. And the decree went forth that if the twenty- 
 third of February in the next year found Henry still with- 
 out the pale of Catholic communion, another should be 
 chosen to take his office. It was a decree to please the 
 proud heart of the Pontiff, for now he might see not alone 
 his own authority established, but also the humiliation of 
 his enemy. He might not only launch the anathemas of 
 the Church against the offending State, but might literally 
 set his foot upon the neck of his rival. 
 
 Henry was but twenty-five years old when the sentence 
 of this Diet consigned him to a brief exile at Spires, to enjoy 
 for a few weeks the empty honor of an Imperial name, 
 without soldiers, courtiers, or priests. The time was short. 
 He knew that there was no hope for him if he stayed 
 there, and he resolved, with a heroism worthy of his an- 
 cestry, to make a personal appeal to the stony heart of the 
 merciless Pontiff. In the dead of winter, with no attend- 
 ant but his faithful wife, faithful in spite of his insults and 
 wickedness, and their infant child, scantily clad, he crossed 
 the high ranges of the Alps, encountering the most fearful 
 dangers, and suffering unheard-of hardships from cold, 
 fatisiue, and hun2:er, and the crueltv of those whose rever- 
 ence for the Church had extinguished all compassion for 
 the outcast. The short interval of hope and joy that the 
 loyal greetings of his Italian States, where the Pope was 
 equally hated and feared, was soon changed to darker 
 despair as he heard that the Supreme Vicar of Christ 
 refused to see him in any garb but that of the most lowly 
 
i82 HILDEBUAND. 
 
 penitence. His royal offers all were spurned. It was 
 not for an accused man to make proposals, but to submit 
 himself meekly to the Holy See. The Pope could not 
 treat with so great an offender ; he could only give him 
 pardon and absolution if he should j^rove himself worthy 
 of it. 
 
 It was at the fortress of Canossa, in the Apennines, 
 belonging to the most Catholic, as well as the most learned 
 and accomplished Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, that the 
 Head of the Church waited for the complete enjoyment 
 of his triumph. In the cold month of January when the 
 streams were frozen and trees were bare, could be seen 
 from the walls of the fortress, for three davs a kneelino: 
 form with robe of thin white linen and naked feet, waiting 
 at the gate, hungry and emaciated, waiting at the gate 
 which did not oi3en. Multitudes looked on and many 
 hearts were moved, but none dared to protest, for they 
 felt that this was not the cruelty of man, but the retribu- 
 tion of God. On the fourth day the penitent was admitted 
 into the sacred presence. And now for the first time 
 since the struggle began, did the majesty of earth and 
 heaven meet- face to face in their representatives. The 
 tall and noble form of the youthful Henry was prostrate 
 before the shrunken frame of the aged monk. Tears of 
 agony and shame poured from the eyes of the one, the 
 tiash of triumph and vengeance gleamed from the eye of 
 the other. Who may conceive the tumultuous emotions in 
 that haughty soul as he beheld before the unarmed servant 
 of Christ the head of all earthly potentates kneeling and 
 praying ? What exultation, as one by one, the penitent 
 declared his consent to every act of aggression or insult 
 that had come from the Church of God upon his crown, 
 acknowledged his own baseness, consented to the com- 
 plete supremacy of his Holy Father, to hold all goods and 
 lands, and titles, at the bidding and pleasure of his 
 spiritual master, to defend every papal claim, to obey 
 every papal command, and to enforce by word, and by 
 sword every papal decree ! What grateful and malignant 
 joy, when by a solemn and terrible oath, Henry and his 
 friends as sponsors for him, bound themselves under 
 penalty of forfeiture of right in this world and of salva- 
 
EILDEBRAND. 183 
 
 tion in the next, to maintain forever obedience absolute 
 and unconditional to the Catholic faith. What daring 
 confidence as he offered to the reluctant and awe-stricken 
 Emperor the sacred bread of sacrifice. Hear the narra- 
 tion of this act by an impartial biographer. " When the 
 oaths of the assembled bishops and princes had been taken, 
 the Pontiff gave to the Emperor his Apostolic blessing, 
 and celebrated the mass. Then, beckoning him to the 
 altar with his assistants, and holding in his hand the con- 
 secrated wafer, Gregory thus addressed him : 
 
 *' For a long time have I received letters from you and 
 your partisans, in which you accuse me of having usurped 
 the Holy Seat by corruption and of having committed 
 both before and since my installation, crimes which would 
 have excluded me, according to the canons, from entrance 
 to the sacred office. I might justify myself by the wit- 
 ness of those who have known me from childhood, and 
 who chose me to this place. But to take away all scandal 
 I turn to the judgment of God alone. Let this body of 
 Jesus Christ the Lord, that now I eat, be proof of my 
 -innocence. Let the Almighty strike me dead now, if I 
 am guilty of these crimes." He ate, and paused till the 
 joyful cries of the throng had ceased. Then turning to 
 Henry again, he thus went on, in a tone of sarcastic com- 
 passion : " My son, the German princes have never ceased 
 to accuse you to me of crimes which they declare to render 
 you unworthy not only of royal functions, but of religious 
 communion and of social life. They demand your instant 
 judgment. You know how uncertain are human judgments. 
 Try now, after me, this divine decision. Take now this 
 other portion of the sacred body of Christ, and prove here 
 your innocence by eating it in this presence. Then will 
 you remove all scandal from your name, will show that 
 you have been calumniated, and will make of me and of 
 God your ally." The king dared not meet such a trial. 
 His audacity forsook him. He had just been by penance 
 and fasting confessing his guilt and how should he invoke 
 the witness of God to a lie. This was fit closing to such 
 an extraordinary scene. The annals of the world furnish 
 nothing more complete in the romance of its sublimity. 
 Gregory might well as the sun went down that day, as his 
 
184 niLDEBRAND. 
 
 long strife was thus so gloriously crowned, have used the 
 words of aged Simeon, though in a different spirit, " Lord, 
 now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes 
 have seen thy salvation." 
 
 We may close at this point our sketch of Hildebrand 
 and his influence in the Catholic Church, for here is ac- 
 complished that great work of spiritual subjugation of the 
 temporal power, which the ages had been slowly preparing. 
 The subsequent fortunes of Gregory and Henry, gradual 
 reaction in favor of the royal penitent against the priestly 
 despot, the shifts to which the Vicar of Christ was reduced 
 to sustain his daring claim, the mingled heroism and mis- 
 fortune of his later years, his flight from Rome, and his 
 anguish at the pillage and ruin of that city by the Norman 
 hordes, the dignity of his bearing in exile, and the firmness 
 of his death, might all be incorporated into a narrative 
 equally touching and instructive. Nor have we space here 
 to draw the character of this greatest of all the Popes 
 since Leo established the supremacy of Peter's seat above 
 all patriarchs and bishops, or to show how far the elements 
 of intrigue, fanaticism and ambition were mingled with his 
 zeal for the service and authority of the Church of God. 
 The talent, the sincerity, the energ)', the piety of Hilde- 
 brand his bitterest enemies have never doubted. His was 
 no vulgar or selfish ambition, and no nobler vision than 
 that he longed to realize and establish, ever passed before 
 priest or prophet. Many had dreams of the future glory 
 of the Church. Hildebrand made it present. Many had 
 prayed in cloisters and cathedrals that corruptions might 
 cease to pollute the Christian altar. He took the fan in 
 his hand and purged them away. His gigantic plan was 
 wide as the circuit of his dominion. He brought the 
 nations into harmony with the spiritual systems, and made 
 the greater orbs of empires fulfill their orderly circuits 
 with the lesser lights of the Church, He found the Church 
 a satellite to the State ; he left it in the centre. From him 
 the second age of the Catholic power may be reckoned. 
 Henceforth the strong Apostle becomes the Rock of the 
 State as well as the Church, the minister of right among 
 men as well as pardon from God. 
 
ABEL ART). 185 
 
 VII. 
 
 ABELARD AND HIS AGE. 
 
 The sympathies of the human heart go always with 
 reform and progress. Conservatism may enthrall the 
 reason of men, but it cannot captivate their deeper senti- 
 ments. We may admire the wis-dom, we may respect the 
 prudence, we may reverence the sanctity of him who would 
 keep all things in their place, and preserve the old land- 
 marks, but the soul within us goes with him who dares to 
 prove all things. We may obey the priest in the temple, 
 but we are quickened by the prophet in the market-place. 
 For judgment and counsel we go to the men of statutes 
 and precedents, who interpret the past, and defend the 
 recognized faith. For inspiration and joy we go to the 
 men who declare the future and open the long-neglected 
 truth. We sit at the feet of Gamaliel, but we shout and 
 weep, and burn with Paul. The conservative spirit cannot 
 kindle enthusiasm. It is alwavs calm and cool. Its ex- 
 citements ^re forced and insincere. It uses the dialect 
 sometimes of the heart, but it is secretly ashamed of bor- 
 rowing what is not congenial to it. It belongs to logic, 
 but not to intuition. It grows as an exotic in the soul, by 
 diligent training; it will not spring up there. There are 
 very few conservatives by nature. Men become so by 
 contact with the world, by observation of its changes, by 
 experience of its needs, by what reason proves to them. 
 The radical changes to the conservative as the fire of youth 
 dies out, and prudence comes in, in her homely and sober 
 garb. And the sympathy which men of middle or declin- 
 ing life pretend to feel with conservative views comes from 
 community of opinion more than community of soul. It 
 is agreement more than it is union. 
 
 But with progress we have a secret sympathy, even where 
 the judgment cannot approve. The heart of the world 
 
1 86 ABEL ABB. 
 
 justifies the reformer, even while its voice cries "crucify 
 him." There is a thrill which the bold announcement of 
 new truth gives that all the pictures of the past cannot 
 awaken. He is our hero who leads us, not he who rules 
 us. The general is always more popular than the states- 
 man, as the experience of our land has abundantly proved. 
 He who opens a new field of adventure, conquers new 
 kingdoms, enlarges our borders, has a stronger hold on 
 the popular heart than he who merely goes round and 
 fences in and describes what we have. And this is just 
 as true in the realm of thought as of action. The men 
 whom the heart of the \vorld canonizes are the men who 
 have added by their genius, their valor, their conjecture, 
 something to the world, who have told something new ; 
 such men as Faust, Galileo, Newton and Fulton; in a high 
 sphere such men as Luther, George Fox, Swedenborg 
 and Channing. These belong to the Pantheon of the 
 race, and will live long after the relics of Catholic saints 
 have ceased in their efficacy. The heart of the world 
 goes so strongly with the reformer that it will pardon in 
 him many defects, passion, prejudice, malice, even profli- 
 gacy. It requires of the conservative that he shall have 
 weight of character to atone for his want of zeal, that he 
 shall show a life good enough to keep men where he stands, 
 that he shall show in his own case the thing already at- 
 tained to be sufficient for risrhteousness and honor. A 
 wicked conservative goes down quickest of all men to 
 oblivion. He has nothing to save him, to hold his life 
 either to the reason or the love of the world. One age 
 will darken and annul all his reputation. But the private 
 sins of the reformer, which cloud his glory to-day are for- 
 gotten often as time goes on, and his bold prophecy comes 
 true. 
 
 This general view is illustrated in the case of two emi- 
 nent men of the twelfth century. There was everything 
 in the life of Bernard to kindle a love for him personally. 
 He was pure, zealous, and self-denying, a far holier man 
 than his great rival, and yet we are conscious of a different 
 feeling in reading the life of Abelard. There is more to 
 lament, more to despise, yet more to inspire us. We feel 
 that with all his misfortunes, this was the more successful ; 
 
ABELARD. 187 
 
 with all his sins, this was the man more divinely taught. 
 The life of Bernard was pure, but its direction was wrong. 
 It tended to cruelty, darkness and stagnant faith. The 
 life of Abelard had weakness and frailties, but its direction 
 was onward. It tended to freedom, light, and living truth. 
 The one was like the setting sun in a clear sky, making 
 the wide earth beautiful with long crimson rays, but drop- 
 ping into night ; the other like the morning sun rising 
 through clouds and mists, faintly seen at first, but breaking 
 to create the day. We may tell all the story of one, with 
 no apologetic tone. Yet we shall fail to arouse emotion in 
 the hearts of the hearers. They will listen with interest ; 
 but will feel that there is somethinsr wantinor. For the 
 other we must apologize all along, yet his life cannot be 
 rehearsed without giving him a place in our love. If I 
 should not succeed now in awakening your sympathy for 
 the name and work of Abelard it will be the fault of the 
 description and not of the theme. If this short sketch of 
 the prophet of reason prove dry to you, you can go to the 
 romances that have been written around his name, and 
 find the true fire in what the genius of modern France has 
 done to vindicate his glory. 
 
 In the village of Pallet, in one of the Loire provinces of 
 France, one notices an old stone cross in the centre of a 
 deserted cemetery. On this spot stood in the time of 
 Philip I, a conspicuous castle, inhabited by Berenger, one 
 of the nobles of the Court. The man is known to us now 
 by the fame of his eldest son. The place is memorable as 
 the birth-place of Abelard in 1079. Quite different from 
 the domestic training of Bernard was the education of the 
 young Peter. To prepare him well for a warlike career, 
 his father brought to him all the advantages of scholastic 
 training that the age could furnish. The manuscripts and 
 the masters of science and letters were alike opened to his 
 desire. The boy speedily surprised his parents and his 
 teachers. An insatiable thirst for knowledge revealed 
 itself, a boundless capacity appeared. In a little while he 
 found that he could learn no more by staying at home. 
 He could vanquish the elders there in argument, and he 
 had exhausted all their learning. He resolved to devote 
 liimself wholly to letters, to resign his baronial heritage, ancj 
 
1 88 ABELARD. 
 
 to travel as a knight errant of philosophy. Such an adven- 
 ture was not new, but in his case it was attended with 
 many strange experiences. In place of combats with the 
 lance, would he hold with antagonists by the way-side 
 combats with the tongue, and leave them fairly at their 
 wits' end. All over the country he went, seeking out the 
 most famous disputers, learning from them where they 
 would teach him, wrangling with them where they would 
 argue with him, and never yielding till he had vanquished 
 them. Controversy was his delight, and no question was 
 so intricate, so mystical, or so high, that he did not plunge 
 into it. The problem of free grace or the Trinity did not 
 frighten him more than some jesting proposal. 
 
 In this wandering life, the young Peter fell in with many 
 of the most renowned doctors, among others with the 
 famous Roscelin, the champion of Nominalism, who was 
 silenced by a Council in the year 1092. The young 
 student pronounced the arguments of the great doctor 
 ridiculous, though he was influenced by his general views. 
 At the age of twenty he came for the first time in his life 
 to Paris. This city had already become the Athens of 
 the Middle Ages, alike for the magnificence of its art and 
 the literary fame of its schools and cloisters. The school 
 of Our Lady was the central spot of science to the West- 
 ern World. The youth from Britain, from Spain, and 
 from Italy came there to learn the laws of mind and the 
 rules of speech. The head of the school, who was also 
 Archdeacon of Paris, had the double repute of being the 
 best hand at the trencher and the most cunning master of 
 logic that the Church, in which both these classes 
 abounded, could furnish. Epicurus and Aristotle shared 
 in his life the empire of Christ. His social quaUties grace- 
 fully set off his intellectual gifts. To him and his school 
 Peter turned as by natural instinct. Almost at once he 
 became the favorite scholar. William saw in him a pupil 
 who could understand, remember, and use the lessons 
 which he received. His fellow-pupils too could not help 
 admiring him while they envied. They were captivated 
 by his beauty, they were dazzled by his flow of brilliant 
 words, they were silenced by his rapid and subtle plead- 
 ings, and in a little time none remained to dispute with 
 
ABELAED. 189 
 
 him but the master. The contest did not frighten him, but 
 the veteran was amazed to hear this stripling boldly ques- 
 tioning his doctrines and exposing before the crowd of 
 students their weakness or falsehood. The friendship 
 which he felt, was soon changed to jealousy and fear. 
 
 The division of studies in the Middle Ages was into 
 the Trivium and the Quadrivium. The first which was 
 authorized by the Church comprehended the three branches 
 of Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic ; the second, which was 
 less popular, and to some quite forbidden, comprehended 
 the four branches of Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, 
 and Music. It was Peter's ambition to be master of all 
 together, and while he attended the sessions of the canon- 
 ical school and wrangled with William there, he took 
 private lessons in the mathematics of a certain obscure 
 but skillful teacher. He was not satisfied with his progress 
 in this, and declared that nature had deprived him of the 
 gift of computing numbers. It was a coarse joke which 
 his teacher made about his superficial study, that gave him 
 the surname of Abelard, which he ever afterwards bore. 
 When his fame was established, this surname was derived 
 from a French word meaning bee, and was taken as 
 symbolical of his industry, sweetness, and power to sting. 
 
 Abelard could not rest long in the humble position of a 
 learner. He longed to teach and to rule, and he proclaimed 
 his purpose of establishing at Melun, a royal city, a rival 
 school to that in Paris. In spite of jealousies and in- 
 trigues, in which his master was not ashamed to share, he 
 carried his point, and at the age of twenty-two, the son of 
 Berenger announced himself to the world as a teacher of 
 all the sciences and ready to maintain his ground with the 
 wisest. But this first experiment was soon put to an end 
 by the breaking health of the young doctor, and he was 
 obliged to leave the renown he had gained and the com- 
 pany that he had gathered, to seek strength and renewal 
 on the shores of his native province. 
 
 Some years now passed of travel and various study. 
 But the tidings which he heard in the year 1108, that his 
 old master had retired from the school in Paris to become 
 the abbot of a neighboring convent, brought Abelard to 
 Paris again. The passage of time had matured his powers, 
 
i9<3 ABELABD. 
 
 and now he seemed to be a fitter match for the man whom 
 his questions had before insulted. William was a zealous 
 Realist. He believed in the fullest manner that ideas 
 were realities, that names were things, that man existed as 
 much as men, that universals were as positive beings as 
 particulars. To him there were no common or abstract 
 names. The essence of the whole entered into every part. 
 The abstract sheep or horse was to be found in each 
 separate individual of the species, yet had an independent 
 life of its own. Abelard had early leaned to the Nominal- 
 ist view, and his reason seemed to justify his early teach- 
 ing. He brought up . arguments against the views of 
 William, which showed how sophistical and ridiculous this 
 was. *' If the race," said he, "is the essence of the in- 
 dividual, if man is an essence entire in every man, and 
 the special person is only an accident, it follows that this 
 essence is at the same time entire in every man at once, 
 that when Socrates is at Athens and Cicero at Rome, it is 
 all with Socrates in one place and all with Cicero in the 
 other. In like manner, the universal man, being the 
 essence of the particular, is the particular man, and carries 
 the particular with him. So that when he is at Rome with 
 Cicero, Socrates must be there too, and when he is at 
 Athens with Socrates, Cicero must be there. In other 
 words, that Socrates and Cicero must be in the same place, 
 in one another, identical, in fact, with one another. 
 
 The contest between Nominalism and Realism was at- 
 tended by all the passion and hatred which mark con- 
 troversy everywhere. There is no humiliation more galling 
 to a teacher than to have the weakness of his doctrine ex- 
 posed, and though the tables were so thoroughly turned 
 that William found it necessarv to nominate Abelard to 
 his vacant chair in the school of Paris, and to become 
 even one of his auditors, he did not learn to love the man 
 who had supplanted him. It was not pleasant to listen 
 meekly to the words of his former pupil. He made up by 
 slanders what he could not accomplish by pleading. 
 He suborned false witnesses airainst the character of 
 Abelard, and at one time drove the great teacher from his 
 place. But a new school, founded on Mt. St. Genevieve, 
 spread more widely his renown. His enemies were awed 
 
ABELARD. 191 
 
 by his daring and confounded by his eloquence. A young 
 monk, who was set on to encounter the giant, as David went 
 out to Goliah, found victory here not so easy. Abelard's 
 course was steadily upward. One by one his enemies 
 were silenced. William of Champeaux went off to die in 
 a distant convent. No new doctor arose to dispute with 
 Abelard the palm. He taught everything, and except in the- 
 ology, was admitted to be perfect in everything. He was 
 a dictator in the republic of letters. He had read all the 
 known works of ancient lore, he could repeat from any of 
 the fathers of philosophy, he could endure the schoolmen, 
 and he gloried in the arguments of the Greek wise men. 
 Philosophy was his chief delight. Aristotle was his master, 
 and his highest skill was used in interpreting the Stagirite 
 to the crowd of students from all lands who surrounded 
 him. Plato he eulogised, but Aristotle he quoted and 
 leaned upon. The dry categories of this master he could 
 enliven by fine illustrations from the Latin poets, Horace, 
 Ovid, and Virgil, and open the mysteries of the Greek to 
 the clear vision of the Middle Age students. At the asre 
 of thirty-four Abelard was confessed the finest scholar and 
 the greatest teacher of the civilized world. That same 
 year a young Cistercian monk was planting in Clairvaux 
 his famous convent. 
 
 The pride and arrogance of Abelard grew with his suc- 
 cess. There was no rival for him in dialectics, but there 
 was one science which he did not pretend to teach. He 
 had not profanely ventured upon the forbidden ground of 
 theology. This was the province of monks and priests, 
 and Abelard had vet no attraction to the religious life. 
 The master in this science in France was Anselm of Laon, 
 a namesake and a pupil of the great Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury. He taught in Paris for a while, but afterwards 
 retired to Laon, where for many years he had expounded 
 theology to great throngs of students. Abelard heard of 
 his fame and determined to try for himself if it were in- 
 vincible. He went to Laon. But the famous teachings of 
 Anselm seemed to him thin and merely showy, a fine tree, 
 with nothing but leaves on it. " When he lighted his fire," 
 says Abelard, "he mad'e smoke enough, but no light." He 
 could not bear very long to sit under this man's shadow. 
 
192 ABELARD. 
 
 He became negligent at the lectures, and showed visibly 
 his contempt both for the teacher and the doctrine. The 
 pupils of Ansel m were mortified and annoyed that so young 
 a man should treat in such a way a great divine. One of 
 them asked him one day jestingly what he who had only 
 studied natural science thought about the divine science. 
 He answered that he knew no science better than that 
 which taught how to save the soul ; but that he wondered 
 much that intelligent men could not understand the 
 Father from their own writings without any master. They 
 laughed at him and defied him to show what he com- 
 mended. He agreed to the trial. "Show me," said he, 
 '* the hardest passage of your Scriptures." The book of 
 Ezekiel was handed to him, which passed for the darkest 
 of Holy Writ. Abelard accepted it, and appointed the 
 next morning for his lesson of interpreting the book. 
 They remonstrated with him for taking so short a. time, 
 plead his inexperience, the greatness of the task and the 
 amount of research required, t-o induce him to delay. " I 
 am not used," said he, "to follow custom, but to obey my 
 own genius." He added that he would break the agree- 
 ment if they did not come at the time appointed. They 
 came, expecting failure from the foolish rashness. How 
 could such a tyro interpret in a day what took long years 
 of study for gray-haired wisdom to accomplish ! But they 
 were first amazed, then captivated, and then inspired. 
 They crowded around him to make him write down his 
 words. They wrote them again from his copy. They 
 made him their teacher in place of Anselm. And the 
 wrathful Archdeacon could only be dumb at such strange 
 effrontery. He returned to Paris the recognized master 
 in the greatest of human sciences, and the schools of the 
 Church now welcomed and craved his lessons. He rose 
 too high for env^y. The picture of his influence at this 
 period when he taught in the Cite in a house still standing, 
 which tradition points out, is very graphic. " In the broad 
 shadow of five churches aiid the cathedral, among sombre 
 cloisters, in vast halls, on the turf of the court-yards, 
 moved around the sacred tribe, who seemed to live for 
 science and faith, and were pressed alike by the lust of 
 power and the love of controversy. By the side and be 
 
ABELAEB, 193 
 
 neath the watch sometimes jealous, often feeble, of the 
 priests, was stirring continually this population of students 
 of all ranks, of all callings, of all races, of all countries, 
 which the European fame of the Parisian school had 
 drawn tosfether. In this school, in the midst of this at- 
 tentive and obedient nation, was seen often passing a man 
 of broad forehead, bold and lively glance, noble gait, 
 whose beauty had not lost its youthful bloom, while it 
 bore the marked features and the browner tint of complete 
 manhood. His sober but careful dress, the severe elegance 
 of his person, the simple grace of his manners, now 
 affable, and now lofty, that imposing, but easy attitude, 
 and that indolent neo-liorence which shows the confidence 
 of success and the habit of command, the respectful bear- 
 ing of his attendants, proud towards all but him, the 
 curious eagerness of the crowd who fell back to make 
 room while they pressed around, when he went or returned 
 to his dwelling, with his disciples still excited by the words 
 of his teaching, all announced a master, most powerful in 
 the hall, most dear in the city, most illustrious in the world. 
 Everywhere men talked of him. From the most distant 
 countries men thronged to hear him. Rome even sent her 
 auditors. The rabble of the streets stopped to look at 
 him as he passed, householders came down to the thres- 
 holds of their doors, and women drew back the curtain 
 from the pane of their little window. Paris had adopted 
 him as her son, had taken him for her jewel and her 
 torch." 
 
 It was a proud and splendid position. We cannot won- 
 der that one who stood in the centre of such triumphs and 
 such applause, should deem himself almost a divine man. 
 There was nothins: on earth for him to envv. He looked 
 around and could discover no one wiser, or more popular, 
 or more powerful over the minds of men than he. Free 
 to inquire, he was also free to proclaim truth. He could 
 venture to differ from doctors, could claim even when 
 priests were by, to speak with the authority of an Apostle, 
 Wealth rolled in upon him from the five thousand students 
 who would pay any price for the privilege of hearing such 
 a master. He seemed to have reached a secure and im- 
 pregnable eminence, whence nothing but his own will 
 
 13 
 
194 ABELARD. 
 
 could draw him down. But his reign was short. For the 
 passion which Bernard was careful so early to extinguish, 
 drew down the great teacher in the maturity of his years. 
 When Abelard stooped to love, then he ceased to rule. 
 
 Had I time to relate here the storv of the loves of 
 Heloise and Abelard, this would not be the place to do so. 
 It is a story romantic as any of the knight-errant adven- 
 tures. There is a beauty about it that fascinates, a pathos 
 that moves, and a tragedy that repels the reader. More 
 than one tragic story has told us what danger there is to 
 the heart of the master when the pupil is young, accom- 
 plished, pure, and beautiful. But we must pass over the 
 whole detail of passion, infatuation, disgrace, and remorse, 
 those hours of high communion, mistaken for inspiration, 
 but felt to be bliss, that clandestine marriage, of which 
 the clear eye of Heloise saw the sure misfortune and the 
 bitter fruit, the terrible revenge that was taken, the shame 
 and despair that made of the man a monk and the woman 
 a nun forever. All this seems like an episode in the life 
 of Abelard, like a long and troubled dream, now sweet, 
 now sad, now startling. And yet this episode is the seal 
 of Abelard's immortal fame. For the world knows him 
 now as his name is joined to the softer name. Their 
 letters are read together as models of what a tender and 
 beautiful correspondence should be, and their names are 
 inscribed together on the chief stone of pilgrniiage in the 
 chief burial-place of Europe. 
 
 To the great Abbey of St. Denis went the wretched 
 Abelard, in the fortieth year of his age, to bewail in silence 
 his broken heart and his sad destiny. But misfortune had 
 not yet crushed out of the man his native spirit. He was 
 fated to live nowhere in peace. The scandalous life of the 
 monks aroused his wrath and he felt moved to rebuke the 
 powers above him. The issue was, that he became a 
 nuisance in the convent, and his brethren to get rid of him 
 there, urged him to take up again the work of teacher, 
 which he believed himself to have forsaken forever. Sadlv 
 he was forced to consent, and the poor monk could see with 
 pride that though the world had heard widely of his shame, 
 it had not forgotten his power. Three thousand students 
 came at the opening of his school. The establishments 
 
ABELARB. 195 
 
 around began to wane. Now envy and hatred began to 
 have their way, for it was no longer the great scholar 
 whom the Church and State protected, but a mean private 
 man who was setting himself up as a master in theology. 
 The storm rose around him. He was accused of heresy, 
 of arrogance, and of blasphemy, of profaning by worldly 
 science the truth of God, of setting philosophy above 
 faith. They told how he placed the Grecian sages on a 
 level with the Christian saints, and held that the philoso- 
 phers of heathenism might be saved as well as the disciples 
 of Christ, how he dared even to discuss the ineffable 
 Trinity, and to reason into abstract attributes the persons 
 of Father, Son and Spirit. The cry was loud, the warfare 
 was vigorous. The old spirit of Abelard was roused at 
 first and for a little while he braved the storm. He 
 met their charges of sophistry by a challenge to argument, 
 he flung back sarcasm against their abuse, referring to the 
 old fable of the fox and grapes, when they spoke of the 
 worthlessness of his science. But his argument had no 
 weight upon minds so prejudiced, and his sarcasm only 
 stung them to madness. His profession of orthodoxy 
 could not quiet the excitement. He was summoned before 
 a council at Soissons to defend his views, to hear his sen- 
 tence. It was an imposing spectacle. The great men of 
 the French Church were all assembled, and the legate of 
 the Pope was there. It was a new position for Abelard to 
 be placed in. He saw enemies all around him, himself 
 shunned as a denier of God, and doomed as a foe to the 
 truth. He was accused of denying the Trinity. He 
 showed by extracts from his writings that he had asserted 
 it with vigor, had sustained the opinions of the wisest 
 Church fathers, of Origen, of Augustine, even of Athana- 
 sius, and that he had kept close too to the terms of Scrip- 
 ture. But the crowning sin was not that he had reasoned 
 about it unjustly, but that he had reasoned at all. His 
 persuasive eloquence, which had captivated and well nigh 
 converted some prominent members of the council, was 
 overruled by the majority of voices ; he was condemned 
 to throw his own book into the flames. 
 
 This closing scene of the council, as it is described, 
 seems almost ludicrous. "While Abelard sadly looked 
 
19^ ABELARD. 
 
 on upon his burning roll, the silence of the judges was 
 suddenly broken, and one of the most hostile said in an 
 undertone that he had read somewhere that God the 
 Father was alone omnipotent." Amazed, the legate ex- 
 claimed, "I cannot believe it. Even a little child could 
 not find such an error, when the faith of all the Church 
 holds to and professes three Omnipotents." At these 
 words, a scholastic teacher, Tenie by name, laughed and 
 whispered loudly the words of Athanasius in the creed, 
 "and yet there are not three, but only one omnipotent 
 being." Reproached for this untimely remark, he boldly 
 quoted the words of Daniel, "Thus, senseless sons of 
 Israel, without judging or knowing the truth, you have 
 condemned one of your brethren. Return to judgment, 
 and judge the judge himself, for he is condemned from 
 his own mouth." Then the Archbishop rising justified 
 as well as he could, by changing the terms, the idea of the 
 legate, and tried to show that the Father was omnipotent, 
 the Son omnipotent, the Spirit omnipotent, and that who- 
 ever denied this ought not to be listened to, but that any 
 brother who could declare his faith in this might be heard 
 about the rest with calmness. Abelard began to breathe 
 more freely, delighted to have the chance of professing 
 and expounding his faith, fie took hope and courage. 
 The memory of St. Paul before the Areopagus and the 
 Jewish council came into his mind. If he could only tell 
 them his faith he would be saved. His adversaries saw 
 his scheme and cried out that all they wanted was that he 
 should repeat the creed of Athanasius. And as he might 
 have said that he did not know it by heart, they put a copy 
 at once before his eyes. It was an ingenious trick. Abe- 
 lard read what he could of it, but the trial was fatal. He 
 was condemned and sent into imprisonment in the convent 
 of St. Medard. 
 
 But the sentence of the council, though a triumph for 
 the priesthood, was not approved by the popular voice. 
 The crowd of students clamored for the release of their 
 master. They complained of the iniquity of the sentence. 
 They denied the right of the trial. Their pressing de- 
 mands did not render Abelard contented with his compul- 
 sory monastic life. He was willing to be a monk, but not 
 
ABEL ABB. 197 
 
 upon compulsion. He could endure convent life, but not 
 in a subordinate place. His escape was soon made, was 
 connived at by the civil authorities, and the monks his 
 oppressors were glad to compromise by allowing him to 
 live a hermit life while he owned his allegiance to their 
 convent. 
 
 It was a wild place to which Abelard retired, the coun- 
 terpart of the valley of Clairvaux. The fields there 
 would bear the harvests, but the spot was little visited by 
 human feet. It was on the borders of a tributary of the 
 Seine. Here he built a little oratory of straw and reeds, 
 and dedicated it to the Trinit}^, hoping, as he professed, 
 to pass the rest of his troubled life far from the haunts of 
 men. But he could not so escape from his fame. Though 
 his desert cell was ninety miles from Paris, it was soon 
 found out, and the youth of the city flocked out to encamp 
 around it. Little huts of innumerable scholars soon en- 
 vironed this oratory of the recluse. Some pitched their 
 tents to be ready to follow if he should flee again. All 
 were contented to lie on the bare sfround and to live on 
 the rudest fare if thev might thus enjov the lessons of this 
 divine teacher. It was a wild joy that Abelard felt in find- 
 ing this turn in his fortune. He might feel that even poverty 
 and disgrace could not destroy him. He seemed to be living 
 the life of St. Jerome over again. His least want was 
 anticipated by his ardent disciples and even priests brought 
 out to him their offerinsis. His hut of reeds was soon re- 
 placed by a more solid structure of wood and stone. The 
 j^roup of emblematic figures by which it was adorned 
 served at once to express the soundness of faith and the 
 shrewdness of science of the skillful master. From a 
 single block were carved the three Divine persons, each 
 with human form. The Father was placed in the middle, 
 clothed in a long robe, a band hung from his neck and 
 was crossed upon his heart, a cloak covered his shoulders, 
 and extended also to the other two. From the clasp of 
 the mantle on the right, hung a gilt band, with the words, 
 Thou art my Son. The Son sat on the right of the Father 
 with a similar robe, but without a girdle, with his hands 
 crossed upon his breast, and to the left a band with this 
 inscription, Thou art my Father. On the other side the 
 
198 A BELAUD. 
 
 Holy Spirit, in a similar attitude, bearing this inscription, 
 I am the breath of both. The Son bore the crown of 
 thorns, the Holy Spirit a crown of olive branch, the 
 Father a close crown, and his left hand held a globe. 
 These were the attributes of Empire. The Son and the 
 Holy Spirit looked towards the Father, who alone had 
 covering on his feet. This strange image of the Trinity 
 was in existence still about fifty years ago. 
 
 The name, however, which Abelard gave to his home in 
 the desert when it thus became a monastery in the desert, 
 another Thebaid, was the Paraclete or Comforter. It was 
 a sign of true consolation that the oppression of the great 
 and the frown of the holy could not prevent the spread of 
 the truth, that reason w-as constant in her attractions, and 
 wisdom was justified in her children. The monastery of 
 Abelard was another thing from that of Clairvaux. There 
 discipline was all important. Here truth was the principal 
 end. There men went to learn obedience and practise 
 self-denial. Here men went to learn philosophy in the prac- 
 tice of self-denial. There the study was a mere relief to the 
 severe exercises of penance and the cell. Here prayer 
 and fasting were an occasional change from the pressure 
 and zeal of the school. Bernard taught his disciples how 
 to conform. Abelard taught his how to inquire. The 
 one guided them backwards through practice into faith, 
 the other forwards through faith into practice. 
 
 And now, first, when fate had brought these two great 
 men each to the head of his wilderness convent, did they 
 come together in the trial of their power. The young 
 monk of Clairvaux had now become the model saint of 
 the world, had reconciled the disputes of kings and popes, 
 and had achieved a wider renown than that even of the 
 famous teacher. A struggle now impended between au- 
 thority and reason, between the champion of things estab- 
 lished and the prophet of things to come. Already the 
 watch-dog of the Church had scented the heresy of those 
 Parisian teachins^s, where the honor of God was alwavs in 
 danger. He had approved the measures of silencing this 
 daring innovation, and Abelard by instinct counted him 
 among his enemies. He was not slow to declare his 
 hatred and contempt of one who was afraid of free thought. 
 
ABELARD. 199 
 
 But when it was rumored in the seckision of Paraclete 
 that the mighty man who had compassed Europe with his 
 power, and whose persuasive speech could win souls away 
 from the most ingenious argument, had decreed to crush 
 the heretic, when the clouds that had been long gathering, 
 of murmurs, and complaint, and accusation, were centered 
 into the thunderbolt which Bernard held, Abelard began 
 to fear. He saw that one or the other must fall, and he 
 trembled lest Hector should become the victim of Achilles. 
 His excitement became at one time so great that he con- 
 ceived the design of escaping into the East, and going to 
 live as a Christian among the enemies of Christ. He 
 hoped here at least to find oblivion if he could not find 
 charity. He despaired now of the truth when the great 
 and the holy were in league to subdue the truth. It had 
 been better for him to carry there his misery than to take 
 the part which he took. 
 
 It was just at this time of fear and perplexity that Abe- 
 lard was invited by the monks of St. Gildas de Rhuys to 
 become their abbot. The call was accepted more because 
 it 2:ave an asvlum and a haven than for the honor that it 
 implied. This lovely convent was situated on the Atlantic 
 coast in a corner of the ancient province of Brittany. 
 The melancholy plash of the waves, and the vexed surface 
 of a boundless sea made it a fit place for retirement and 
 
 broodins: thouijht. There the recluse mio'ht converse with 
 God and learn to hate the world. But the monks there 
 \vere a wild, gross, and unlettered race. They spoke in a 
 barbarous tongue, their habits were brutal, their manners 
 were fierce and uncouth. They were ground down by the 
 exactions of a feudal lord, and consoled themselves for 
 the payment of one-half their revenue in tributes by spend- 
 ing the other half in debauchery. Abelard soon found 
 that his learning there could have as little weight as his 
 authority. The discipline which he would establish found 
 no favor. He was surrounded by snares, he was wearied 
 with vain endeavors, and his days here were mainly passed 
 in reveries of profound sadness, in the mournful retrospect 
 of his past life, and in the composition of elegiac verses, 
 which are not the least monuments of his fame. These 
 touching effusions became at last his consolation. His 
 
200 ABEL ABB. 
 
 own SQng reconciled him to grief, and to bewail his lot 
 became at last his luxury. He had one melancholy pleas- 
 ure in making over his whole property of Paraclete, the 
 oratory, the woods, the neighboring hamlet and the fruit- 
 bearing orchards to Heloise, who had now become an 
 eminent Abbess, alike distinguished for wisdom, purity, 
 and sanctity. The correspondence which had long ceased 
 between them now began again, but it was no longer about 
 affairs of love, but about spiritual realities. 
 
 We cannot go here into a criticism of these remarkable 
 letters, which constitute a monument in literary history. 
 They remain models of chaste, ardent, and dignified epis- 
 tolary style even to our own day. There is at once a 
 warmth and a reserve about them which shows the latent 
 attachment and the present remorse. They are letters 
 which a spiritual adviser might write to his friend or pupil, 
 and yet they are not wholly free from the fire of passion. 
 They are the letters of regenerated love, of love made 
 wise by bitter experience. They discuss a large variety of 
 topics, yet the interest centres always upon the persons of 
 the wTiters. If Heloise asks the advice of the monk upon 
 some point of convent management, you still can see that 
 she cared more for the words of the man than the ansvver 
 which he gave to her. question. If Abelard goes over 
 some story of his former sufferings you see that his chief 
 joy is in the passage where Heloise was his pupil and his 
 spouse. He became soon the visitor of his former home, 
 the director of its religious exercises, the shepherd of that 
 flock. No happier period of his troubled career was there 
 than this, when he could see the dearest friend of his soul 
 leading her virgins to the altar, and living before them a 
 life of exemplary holiness. He could bear the rudeness 
 of his own convent when he saw the beauty and piety of 
 these holy sisters. It was his prayer that he might be 
 buried there, and he trusted that the virtue of this, his 
 pupil, might atone for the sins of the master. The nuns 
 reverenced him as their Father in God, and they would 
 listen with attention to the ingenious speech with which 
 he beguiled the hours on the form of the human soul, 
 and repeat with fervor the prayers which he gave them. 
 
 But this renewal of friendship with his former partner 
 
ABELARD. 201 
 
 gave rise to scandals which added to the disHke of the 
 monks in that convent bv the sea. The Hfe of the Abbot 
 was more than once attempted, and the dagger was threat- 
 ened where poison would not work. Abelard was com- 
 pelled to flee by night, and for a time lived in entire 
 seclusion at the house of a nobleman in Brittany. He 
 obtained at last an open release from his monastic duties, 
 and for a time was able to keep peace with the world, and 
 enjoy the society of friends. This period of his life Abe- 
 lard passed in reviewing the works which he had written, 
 in developing his system of philosophy and theology, and 
 writing his own personal history. If he could have been 
 content with this, he might have died with honor and in 
 the hope even of sainthood. For great men were his 
 friends, all confessed his wisdom, and no stain was upon 
 his substantial orthodoxv. But the habit and the o;lorv of 
 his youth lingered with him still. In the fifty-seventh year 
 of his age he took the fatal step of opening again his 
 school on Mount St. Genevieve, the place of his earliest 
 triumphs. His fame at once revived. Students flocked 
 in crowds to listen to the gray-haired sage that had taught 
 their fathers, and survived a whole generation of those 
 who listened to his youthful daring arguments. With the 
 fame of the teacher the odium of the heretic revived. 
 Now his compiled works could be brought in evidence 
 against him. The enemies which his strictness, his zeal, 
 and his commanding temper, had made on every side 
 would justify the charge. Men could recall that sentence 
 of twenty years before, which he might believe forgotten. 
 And above all, now there was a towering champion of the 
 ancient faith, who had devoted his head and his heart to 
 the extermination of all novelty as to the preservation of 
 all holiness. 
 
 Bernard and Abelard had met some five vears before on 
 the occasion of the Pope's proselyting progress through 
 France. Their natures were too dissimilar for any inti- 
 macy to arise, and the reception of the Pope on the part 
 of Abelard was not cordial enough to quiet the suspicions 
 of the watchful ally of the Head of the Church. He saw 
 that there was danger in this man. Some changes which 
 he noticed in a subsequent visit to Heloise at her convent 
 
202 ABELARD. 
 
 in the words of the Lord's prayer which Abelard had en- 
 joined, increased his doubt. This came soon to the ears 
 of Abelard, and a quarrel, fomented by sarcasm on one 
 side and zeal on the other, arose. We need not detail its 
 progress. The attempts at conciliation on the part of 
 Bernard were futile by reason of his extravagant demands. 
 Like similar attempts in our own day, all the concessions 
 were required upon one side. The points which the re- 
 former was ready to yield were precisely those which the 
 conservative did not care to gain. The warfare soon grew 
 warm and obstinate. Bernard used his eloquence against 
 the perfidious dogmatiser as he called him, and invoked 
 upon him the curse of God and the execration of all 
 Christians. Abelard, on his side, treated with contenipt 
 these charges and raised the cry of freedom. The parti- 
 sans of both entered into the strife. The piety was on 
 the side of one, the genius on the side of the other. Ber- 
 nard could see that a majority of voices were ready to 
 join with him in condemning one who had dared to im- 
 prove upon the Fathers. Abelard could feel strong in the 
 thought that his minority was made up of brilliant minds 
 and stout hearts, and was inspired by the love of freedom. 
 But it was an unequal contest in that day of darkness. It 
 is hard even in this age of light. 
 
 At last, weary of being defamed, and denounced, Abe- 
 lard demanded a public trial of his views, at which his 
 great adversary should be present, and refute him, if he 
 could. On the eighth day of Pentecost, in the year 1140, 
 the king had promised to visit the sacred relics exposed that 
 day to the reverence of the nobles and people. It was a 
 great and long expected occasion. And this time Abelard 
 chose for his triumph — or his fall. Bernard was at first 
 unwilling to go But his partisans showed him that 
 absence would be construed into fear and would be fatal. 
 He went up with a sad heart, repeating to himself this 
 word of the Gospel, " Take no thought of what ye shall 
 say, for it shall be given you at the appointed hour ; " and 
 the Psalmist's words, "God is my stay, I will not fear what 
 man can do." 
 
 It would require a whole lecture to describe this remark- 
 able council, the vast array of knights and bishops, of 
 
ABELARD, 203 
 
 deans and abbots, of holy men and profane men, that came 
 up to this clerical tournament, the appearance of the com- 
 batants, one sad and downcast in look, giving benedictions 
 to the crowds which knelt as they passed him, the other 
 bold, upright and confident, frightening by his majestic 
 glance, those who were curious enough to look upon his 
 face ; the splendid ceremonies of the first day, when all 
 the pomp and magnificence of the nation seemed gathered 
 around the altar of the Cathedral of Sens, when music and 
 art, and the light of torches and the glitter of golden 
 robes combined to seduce the people from the truth to the 
 ritual, how ingeniously Bernard contrived beforehand all 
 things to prejudice the judges against his rival, how he 
 arranged the Court and packed it with tools of the Church, 
 we must pass all this, and tell only in a few words the 
 story of the trial and its issue. 
 
 On the second day the court was opened. The king 
 sat on his throne and the fathers of the Church around 
 him. In front was Bernard, holding in his hand the here- 
 tical books. When Abelard entered and passed through 
 the breathless and imposing throng, his rival ordered the 
 seventeen charges of heresy to be read in a loud voice. 
 Abelard saw then that he had come not to be argued with ; 
 but to be sentenced. He declared angrily, that he would 
 not hear a word, that they had no right to judge him, that 
 he appealed to the Pope, and left the hall at once. The 
 judges at first were filled with consternation. They dared 
 not condemn him after such an appeal. But Bernard saw 
 that it would never do to let the matter rest so. The per- 
 suasion that he meant for Abelard he used now upon the 
 judofes. And, after much debate, the monk Peter Abe- 
 lard was convicted of heresy on fourteen counts. The 
 principal of these were that he denied the doctrine of a 
 Trinity of persons, that he asserted that the man Christ 
 was not the second person in the Trinity, that he denied 
 the doctrine of special grace to the converted, that he 
 asserted that Christ saves men by his life and his exam- 
 ple and not by his vicarious death, that he made God the 
 author of evil, that he taught of sin that it is in the will, 
 rather than the act. These charges were made out by in- 
 sulated extracts from the works of Abelard, by garbling his 
 words, and putting forced meanings upon them. 
 
204 A n EL Aim. 
 
 But the sentence of the council did not yet decide the 
 matter. Defenders sprang up all around, who showed the 
 falsity of the charges, and affirmed the substantial ortho- 
 doxy of the convicted heretic. Heloise, whose earnest piety 
 was undoubted, exhibited a confession of faith which Abe- 
 lard had prepared for her. The appeal to the Pope remained. 
 But little trust could be placed in that, for Bernard, whose 
 influence at Rome was unbounded, took care to surround 
 Innocent with influences hostile to the condemned. The 
 hesitation of the Pope was chided as a crime, and rebuked 
 as a scandal. The consequences were dwelt upon of 
 allowing the voice of Rome to set aside the sentence of so 
 grave a council ; it would endanger the unity of the 
 Church. The example of Arnold of Brescia was cited as 
 an instance of the dangerous tendency of this heresy. And 
 the confused Head of Christiandom was at last persuaded 
 to issue his fatal bull, which ran thus : " By these presents, 
 we order the bishops of Sens and Rheins to shut up separ- 
 ately in the convents most suitably Peter Abelard and 
 Arnold of Brescia, inventors of blind dogmas, and foes of 
 the Catholic faith, and to burn their heretical books wher- 
 ever they may be found. Given at Lateran on the 
 eighteenth day of August." This order was secret. A 
 public letter was written, declaring him guilty of heresy, 
 and forbidding him wholly to teach in public. 
 
 Before this decision was known, Abelard had began his 
 journey to Rome. On his way was the renowned monas- 
 tery of Clugny, which had furnished so many great men of 
 the Church in former ages. The abbot here now was a 
 man of large soul, and no friend to the ascetic Bernard. 
 With him Abelard stopped to rest, and take counsel. Here 
 he first learned the decision of Rome from a messen^rer 
 sent by Bernard to the abbot. The skill of this messenger 
 was employed in so reconciling Abelard to his life there 
 that the secret sentence should not need to be proclaimed. 
 A new declaration of faith was drawn out from him which 
 was pronounced sufficient. Abelard saw that it was use- 
 less longer to struggle with destiny. 
 
 He enrolled himself as a monk of Clugny, waiving his 
 rank, and trying to hide himself only among the lowest. 
 He put on the coarsest garments, neglected all care of his 
 
ABELARD. 205 
 
 body, and kept out of sight as much as he could. His 
 exemplary piety became conspicuous. In spite of his 
 reluctance the brethren would have him preach and lead 
 them in the Holy Communion. But most of his time he 
 passed in silence, reading and prayer. His studies were 
 still threefold, in theology, philosophy and letters. He be- 
 came only a pure intellect. His passions were all smoth- 
 ered or crushed out of him. All that he seemed to care 
 for was to do his monastic duties, and yet, buried under 
 this cold exterior, the soul of the prophet was burning still. 
 The finishing touch which he gave here to his great work 
 of philosophy shows the unconquerable spirit. He pre- 
 dicts in this his future fame, that time will prove his opin- 
 ions just, will vindicate his science, and will show that he 
 has been the victim of envy and a martyr to the truth. 
 
 His last days were passed in a beautiful spot on the 
 border of the Saone. The disease which Vv-asted his body 
 was lightened by the cares of friendship and every mo- 
 ment was spent in reading or dictating, or prayer. It was 
 an edifying close to a troubled life. Weary and worn, the 
 sufferer became, what he had never been in any fortune 
 before, humble and submissive. He was content to leave 
 his monument now in the mark which he had made upon 
 his age. On the twenty-first of April, 1142, he tranquilly 
 expired, being sixty-three years old. 
 
 After a brief sojourn at Clugny, his body was borne, 
 according to his last request, to the convent of the Com- 
 forter, where his best beloved might watch it. There for 
 twenty years longer Heloise guarded it as a precious 
 treasure, till her own remains were laid beside it. The 
 ages have still kept sacred this tomb. The fury of the 
 last French Revolution, which destroyed the landmarks of 
 the convent, and the chair in which Bernard sat when Abe- 
 lard was judged, spared the bones of these lovers, and 
 the world now know where they rest. The hands of 
 beauty hang garlands on the stone, and the tears of piety 
 drop upon the mound, where the memory of this pair is 
 kept. Abelard has found an immortal fame where he did 
 not expect it. 
 
 This is but a meagre sketch of the life of the great 
 teacher of the twelfth centurv. And vet it has left little 
 
2o6 ABEL A It I). 
 
 space for any analysis of his character or criticisms of his 
 opinions and his influence. He was a man to win admira- 
 tion and kindle enthusiasm rather than a friend to be 
 loved. The place of leader of right belonged to him. 
 Ambitous, proud and haughty, he had still the power and 
 the consciousness that could make his arrogance tolerable. 
 Men saw in him a lover of truth, and honored his aspira- 
 tion. They were subdued by the speech and the life of 
 Bernard, but they were quickened by the words of Abe- 
 lard. But the investigation did not bring to him, as to 
 Newton, personal humility. He was wont to look down 
 rather than upward, to the men beneath more than to the 
 God above him. Reverence was neither a natural nor an 
 acquired trait with him. His monastic life was a penance 
 more than a pleasure, a retreat from misery more than a 
 resort of faith. He was the priest of intellect more than of 
 devotion, earnest to show more how God might be known 
 than how he might be worshipped. His mission in the 
 twelfth century was to awaken its manliness, to sound the 
 note of freedom and to bid the kneeling penitents that 
 crowded at the altars to walk erect under the heaven of 
 God. 
 
 He opened to the human mind a broad domain that 
 superstition had shut off from it, and taught that the soul 
 might reason about the unseen world as well as the things 
 which were common to the outward eye. He was a man 
 of true moral courage, not trammeled by precedents, not 
 afraid to search and try. Bernard was brave before men, 
 but was afraid of dogmas. He dared not come boldly 
 to the throne of God. Abelard was often infirm in his 
 dealing with men, and ready to flee from oppression, but 
 he would dare all difficulties of doctrine, and knock at the 
 very door of heaven. He had no idols. He worshipped 
 no symbols. He asked the meaning and the right of all 
 things prescribed. He was a dictator of truth, not an in- 
 terpreter of doctrine. He is immortal in history as the 
 pioneer of that Rationalism which produced Galileo in 
 science, Luther in faith, and Milton in song. It was 
 reserved for nobler men to carry out the principles which 
 he declared. In the ancient Church he reminds us of 
 Jerome of Bethlehem, in the modern of Erasmus of Rot- 
 
A BELAUD. 207 
 
 terdam. He had the same vanity, the same pedantry, the 
 same sense of power, the same dread of persecution with 
 these remarkable men. 
 
 Bernard witli all his honors died a disappointed man. 
 Abelard in all his reverses saw at last his triumph sure. 
 The reform which he brought about could not be hindered 
 by the anathemas of any priesthood. He knew that the 
 truth would prevail. The Church was against him, but 
 God was on his side. He trusted in the quickening force 
 of time to show the fruit of the seed which he scattered. 
 The labors of this generation are proving that the scholar 
 of the twelfth century was wiser than the monk. The one 
 belongs to the Church, but the other belongs to the world, 
 which is wider than the Church. The memory of the one 
 is enshrined at the altar. The influence of the other is 
 felt in the workshop and the college. The glory of the 
 one is a waning tradition, the glory of the other is an ex- 
 panding energy. The first leads men backward to the 
 fear, the second forward to the knowledge of God. 
 
2o8 ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FBANCIS. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS. 
 
 There are two principal influences by which, in the 
 Providence of God, reform and conversion and holiness 
 are brought about, — preaching and example. We are 
 moved on one side by the eloquent word, on the other by 
 the consistent life of those who would persuade us to any 
 truth. The silent lesson of the house and the street goes 
 parallel with the spoken appeal of the pulpit. For a com- 
 plete efficiency, these must be united in the same person, 
 he who calls to righteousness and faith must show in his 
 own life the way. The best influence of the preacher is 
 vitiated or nullified if a virtuous life be wanting, and 
 exemplary piety too often goes unseen and unheeded, be- 
 cause it has no gift of the tongue. The true Apostles of 
 the world, such men as Paul and Ambrose and Bernard, 
 and Wesley, have all prevailed by this twofold power. 
 They have shown the instances of what they called men to 
 believe and be. 
 
 In the Saviour of the world, these gifts were combined 
 in the highest proportion. His perfect holiness harmon- 
 ized with, fitted into his inspired word, as a soul into the 
 body, so that both were equally wondrous and equally 
 captivating. But this combination of gifts is compara- 
 tively rare. The great preachers of the world have not 
 been oftenest its saints, thou^rh manv such have been can- 
 onized in spite of their evil lives. And probably the 
 largest number of those who have walked closely with 
 God below, have been soon forgotten upon the earth and 
 find their reward mainly in heaven. It seems ordained 
 that to most men only one of these influences shall be 
 useful, that some shall persuade with the tongue, and 
 others with the life. 
 
 The preponderating power of these two forms of influ- 
 
 f 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS. 209 
 
 ence depends somewhat upon the object to which they are 
 directed. Preaching has the most influence upon the rea- 
 son of men, example upon their practice. The one helps 
 men to know the /ml/i, the other guides them into righte- 
 ousness. The first takes charge of doctrine, the second of 
 life. For correct opinions, for conviction and persuasion 
 to faith we follow the orator of the Gospel, him who can 
 expound it wisely and illustrate it skilfully. For upright 
 conduct, for instruction in the divine life, we observe the 
 meek servant of God, whose holiness points us the way to 
 heaven. This fact is illustrated in numerous and familiar 
 instances. If you inquire who are the great orators and 
 expounders that guide the public opinion, wdiose word is 
 so far law that it can sway thousands of men together and 
 reverse suddenly the solemn and repeated resolves of 
 parties and states, you will not find that such men persuade 
 to holiness by their lives ; men do not go to them to learn 
 practical virtue ; the wise, who adopt their views, would 
 smile if you mentioned such old-fashioned graces as tem- 
 perance, honesty, chastity, or even consistency in connec- 
 tion with them. 
 
 It has come to that pass that we almost expect that a 
 master of speech shall be a demagogue or an intriguer, 
 anxious to be President, Senator, Bishop, or something of 
 the sort. Goodness, too, is often associated with feeble- 
 ness, and you will hear it dolefully insisted that our good 
 men are not great. It is no more true to-day, however, 
 than it was in former days. The intellect of man will pay 
 its homage now as ever to commanding eloquence, but the 
 life of the world will now as ever be built upon the founda- 
 tion of life. Error will be put down by preaching still, 
 but sin be best rebuked by practical holiness. 
 
 It is hard to tell whether at the beginning of the thir- 
 teenth century there were a wider demand and a wider 
 sphere for preaching or for example as a means of Chris- 
 tian persuasion. The Church found itself in a perplexity 
 between heresy and corruption, between doctrines that 
 falsified the Catholic faith, and practice that degraded the 
 Christian life. Abelard had left his memory and the fruits 
 of his word in a wide and growing hostility to the creed of 
 Rome, and the sanctity and strictness of Bernard's rule 
 14 • 
 
2IO ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FEANCIS. 
 
 had its reaction now in the dissolute Hfe of priests and 
 monks and the clerical state everywhere. The charges 
 which heretics brought against the established Church 
 were justified by the scandalous habits of the authorized 
 defenders of the Church. That which should have fur- 
 nished the bulwark against false doctrine, furnished the 
 reason and the excuse for schism. A reformer who looked 
 about for the most pressing work of change might doubt 
 whether the men out of the Church needed most to be 
 brought into it, or the men in the Church, by name and 
 office, needed most to be converted to its spirit. The con- 
 vents demanded their missionary not less than the unlaw- 
 ful crowds that stormed against the Pope and the priesthood 
 in the fields or in rebellious cities. 
 
 There was a work of grace to be done at Clugny and 
 Citeaux as well as in heretical Lyons. It was the singular 
 fortune of the Church that both these needs were simul- 
 taneously perceived and met by the heart and the zeal of 
 two remarkable Apostolic men. One saw with fear the 
 departure of the age from the sound creed of the Fathers, 
 and gave himself to the task of exterminating heresy, the 
 other saw with pain the loss of ancient godliness and the 
 forgetfulness of Christian vows, and gave himself to the 
 work of restoring the Apostolic poverty and humility. 
 
 The influence of St. Dominic and St. Francis in the 
 ■world has been great enough, and the province of each 
 distinct enough, to make a separate account of them and 
 their followers interesting. But the detail of the lives of 
 both is so monotonously filled with marvellous legends and 
 puerile miracles, that they can be treated in one lecture 
 without injustice and with some advantage. Both of them 
 seem to have substantially represented their idea ; inde- 
 pendently of that, they have no especial attraction for us. 
 The first, the founder of the Preaching Friars, embodies 
 to us the conception and the work of that fraternity. The 
 second, the founder of the Minorites, or pj-actising Friars, 
 is the finest illustration which history has furnished of 
 what that order was intended to be. 
 
 St. Dominic is the monk of the pulpit, who warns the 
 skeptical and pleads with the wavering, and is great there. 
 St. Francis is the monk of the street, who rebukes world- 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS. 211 
 
 liness and shames luxury, when he kneels by the leper's 
 side and gives his scanty garment to the beggar along the 
 way. Both are mendicants, but to the one riches are an 
 encumbrance, to the other a curse. The preaching friar 
 rejects worldly possessions that he may not be hampered 
 in his zeal for God's truth ; the practising friar will be 
 poor because the Apostles were so, because only by pov- 
 erty can one hope to inherit God's kingdom. As theory 
 goes before fact, as preaching must go before practice, and 
 as the life of St. Dominic was a little earlier in point of 
 time, we will call that first under a rapid survey. We can- 
 not, of course, give anything like a complete sketch of the 
 life of the Spanish monk. If you are curious in that way, 
 you may find it written as with a pen of fire by the bril- 
 liant Lacordaire, the most eminent of modern Catholic 
 preachers in France. 
 
 St. Dominic was born at Calavoga, in the province of old 
 Castile, in the year 1170. His parents were both of noble 
 extraction. His father, Felix Gusman, bore a name, which 
 valor against the Moors, not less than a long line of 
 haughty ancestors, had rendered honorable among the 
 grandees of Spain. His mother added to her family 
 renown the better fame of personal sanctity. Before her 
 third son was born, a dream came to her as to the mother 
 of Bernard, which the issue proved to be prophetic. It 
 was of a whelp, who carried in his mouth a burning torch, 
 with which it set the whole world on fire. Precocious aus- 
 terities are recorded of the infant. They tell how he 
 would pray before he could read or even speak, and how 
 he would get out of his cradle and lie on the hard floor 
 that he might early know the privation of the monastic 
 state, how he showed no taste for any childish amusements, 
 but asked only to be instructed in the duties of a child of 
 God. 
 
 At the university, whither he went at the age of four- 
 teen, an extraordinary charity and an extensive culture 
 made him conspicuous among his fellows. While he 
 learned the lore of the Fathers and the wisdom of the 
 Scriptures, he was unbounded in his gifts to the poor and 
 his labors of self-denial. In his twenty-first year, he had 
 sold all his patrimony, all his books, all even of his own 
 
212 ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS. 
 
 writings, to succor the needy. In this condition, one day 
 he was appealed to by a poor woman for alms to redeem 
 her brother who had been enslaved by the Moors. '" I 
 have no gold or silver," said Dominic, "but I can work. 
 You may take me and sell me to the Moor in exchange 
 for your brother. I will be his slave." Had the offer 
 been accepted, the Catholic Church would have lost one 
 of its pillars. For the reverence with which Dominic was 
 already regarded by scholars and people showed that a 
 great man had arisen. 
 
 St. Dominic was about twentv-five vears old when he 
 passed through the process of conversion, when he was 
 made to see his own sinfulness and need of a Saviour, and 
 had all those mystical experiences that enter into the work 
 of spiritual redemption. He became a canon in his 
 native diocese and set himself to preach to the people. 
 The description of his life for the next eight years reminds 
 us strongly of the style and method of revival preachers 
 in our own day. He was greatly concerned for the salva- 
 tion of souls, and shocked by the growth of heresy. His 
 daily persuasion and his nightly prayer were that the un- 
 believino; misfht be reconciled to God. But in his own 
 neighborhood infidelity had comparatively a small hold. 
 He saw more of it in the journey which he took through 
 the south of France with his bishop in the year 1205. 
 There the whole land was overrun W'ith heresv from the 
 feudal lord to the humblest peasant. The first and the 
 last spectacle to Dominic was of a land delivered over to 
 the enemy of souls. All the zeal in his heart was fired. 
 His bishop was of the same mind, and together they peti- 
 tioned the Pope that they might stay in France and con- 
 vert these heretics. 
 
 The term of two years was allowed them, and they 
 proceeded to occupy it in a tour of preaching. What 
 could not be done by fire and sword Dominic undertook to 
 do with his feeble voice. And wonderful instances are re- 
 lated of his power with this, which were believed by the 
 pious of his time to be miracles wrought by God's spirit. 
 Men compared his power to strike the hard-hearted and 
 open their souls to the truth to the influence of Orpheus, 
 drawing after him the rocks and the trees. But it was a 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS. 213 
 
 desperate hope by the preaching of a single man to 
 destroy the hydra of heresy. 
 
 Dominic had been already a preacher to the heretics 
 three years when the war with the Albigenses broke out. 
 This bloody crusade which was the terrible revenge which 
 the Roman Church took for the murder of its legate, Peter 
 de Castelman, has been falsely charged to the advice and 
 influence of Dominic. But there is no proof that he en 
 coura^ed anv of its outrageous cruelties. He did not 
 seek to exterminate, but to convert heretics, and though 
 he went with the army of Count Simon de Montfort, who 
 has come down to us as the most blood-thirsty of monsters, 
 he tried to moderate the violence of this Christian Nero. 
 In another lecture we shall speak of that hideous crusade. 
 Dominic's name is properly connected with it by the record 
 of his exposures, his zeal, and his daring. One day he 
 was waylaid by assassins, but by good fortune escaped. 
 When asked what he would have done if he had met them, 
 " I would have thanked God," said he, "and would have 
 be2:2:ed as a favor that mv blood mi2:ht have been let out 
 drop by drop, and my limbs lopped off one by one, that my 
 torment might have been prolonged." He offered too 
 again to sell himself as a slave for the benefit of a poor 
 heretic who complained that he could not give up his false 
 doctrine for fear of losing his livelihood. This period of 
 his life, however, is so crowded with stories of miraculous 
 cures, and wonders of all kinds, that it is very difficult to 
 separate the true from the false. It is certain, however, 
 that before the war was over, Dominic had gained a repu- 
 tation for sanctity, for eloquence, and for devotedness 
 unequalled by any teacher in the Church since the great 
 Bernard. He was counted the champion of the Church, 
 and his only arms were teaching, patience, penance, fasting, 
 watching, tears and prayer. 
 
 The first executive act of Dominic was the foundation 
 of the famous nunnery of St. Prouille. This was designed 
 to furnish a Christian education to such children of heretics 
 as could be decoyed therein and so to prepare a supply of 
 Blessed Virgins for the support of Catholic order. In all 
 ages of the Church nunneries have been the guage and 
 thermometer of the Catholic faith. The persistence of 
 
214 ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS, 
 
 women who take the vow may be relied on with far more con- 
 fidence than that of men. But a much more important 
 gift to the Church was his invention of the J^osary. This 
 in its essence is a form of prayer. But it has its sign in a 
 string of one hundred and sixty-five beads, with a cross 
 attached to them. These are arranged by tens, with one 
 large bead at the end of every ten. The small beads 
 mark the number of Ave Marias that are to be said, the 
 fifteen large beads the Lord's Prayer to be so many times 
 repeated. The number fifteen was chosen because the 
 Catholics reckon fifteen principal mysteries in the life of 
 Christ. The whole form is so arranged as to contain an 
 abstract of the life of our Saviour and of his Mother. 
 The rosary speedily became popular, and before a century 
 was used throughout the Church. No pious woman would 
 be without it. It was worn on the necks of friars with 
 beads of black wood, and on the necks of kings with 
 beads of gold. Beneath many a purple robe it was placed 
 next the heart, and tyrants who meditated crime could 
 worship God at the same moment as they told over its 
 successive prayers. It guides to-day the devotions of the 
 poor and the unlettered, and in many households it is 
 counted every day as the excuse for falsehood, as the 
 means of penance and the hope of salvation. 
 
 But his greatest work was begun when, in the year 12 15, 
 he established the order of the Preaching^ Friars. Here- 
 tofore the monastic and the clerical life had been mainl)' 
 kept distinct. The convents had furnished, indeed, emi- 
 nent preachers, but in most instances when they became 
 preachers they ceased to be monks. A few distinguished 
 men like Bernard, were privileged to speak to the people 
 without priestly orders, but in the main those who chose 
 the ascetic life were preachers more by example than by 
 word. Dominic conceived the plan of joining these ap- 
 parently separate functions. He could not see why one 
 who had disciplined his soul by severe exercises of pen- 
 ance, and confirmed his faith by earnest self-denial, should 
 not be the very fittest person to declare the truth. The 
 studies of the convent seemed to him a better preparation 
 for the ministry of the word than much familiarity with the 
 world and its corruptions. He saw the clergy secularized, 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS. 215 
 
 that it had become merely an echo of the convenience or 
 the whim of the civil rulers, that its verdict and teaching 
 were based on the morality of the time more than the 
 standards of the Church and the sacred Scriptures. He 
 saw, too, that the holiness, the austerity, the wisdom of the 
 monks were neglected and forgotten, and deprived of their 
 just influence, by being hidden always in the cloister. And 
 he believed that in uniting these offices he should make 
 both more vital, pure, and efficient. It was a novel and 
 not an attractive scheme. For those who believed that the 
 true service of God is found in solitude and perpetual 
 prayer, would dread the commerce with worldly vices and 
 intrigues which preaching demanded, and the regular 
 clergy would strenuously oppose any such practical rebuke 
 to their order. 
 
 The number of brethren that Dominic was able to 
 gather at first was very small. There were only sixteen 
 who united to form the first convent, and they could have 
 no legal existence until they had secured the approbation 
 of the Cardinals and the Pope. At the fourth council of 
 the Lateran, one of the most gorgeous and imposing that 
 the Church had seen, a canon had been passed that no 
 new religious order should be chartered. The Pope at 
 that time. Innocent III, though very much in favor of 
 multiplying preachers, thought that there were already 
 enough of monastic systems. The multiplication of 
 Orders seemed only fatall}'- to weaken the unity of the 
 Church. The claim of the Vatican to undivided lordship 
 could not be so well sustained when there were so many 
 hostile bodies claiming to be the possessors of pure Catho- 
 lic truth. But the piety and the importunity of Dominic 
 together worked upon the heart of the Pope, and a con- 
 venient dream, in which he saw the Lateran Church falling 
 and Dominic stepping in to prop it up, induced him to 
 grant his consent, and sanction the enterprise. The next 
 Pope confirmed it by his hand and seal, and two bulls, 
 dated the twenty-sixth of December, 12 16, the morning after 
 the Christmas festival, mark the formal birth of a new order 
 of Christian Apostles, second in influence only to that 
 W'hich was gathered in an upper room in Judea. Since 
 that day the successor of Peter has found his most ready 
 
2i6 ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS. 
 
 and faithful ally in the successor of Dominic. The master 
 of the sacred palace is appointed to be the watchman, the 
 teacher, the critic, the friend of the triple-crowned sover- 
 eign. What the prime minister is to England's Queen, 
 what Richelieu was to Louis, that is the chief of the 
 Dominicans to the Vicegerent of Christ upon the earth. 
 
 The rule which Dominic chose for the guidance of his 
 order was that of St. Augustine. It was simple, but strict 
 and absolute. It enjoined poverty but did not encourage 
 beggary. It provided for a godly and sober lite, that so 
 the word mi2:ht have more effect. Convents were to be 
 founded, as many as possible, but no monk was to deem 
 the convent his home. All were to be ready to take staff 
 and go where a field was opened for the conversion of 
 souls. No private property was allowed, and all common 
 property was held in trust for the poor. The dress was a 
 simple white cloak and hood, with a girdle to hold it to- 
 gether. Entire disinterestedness was enjoined, and very 
 frequent penance. The monks were to be living illustra- 
 tions of the truth which they preached. St. Dominic did 
 not enjoin squalidness or misery of exterior or forbid even 
 the signs of elegance, if these were made subsidiary to the 
 great end of preaching the Gospel. The graphic picture 
 of the first convent at Toulouse, the very centre of heresy, 
 may serve as a description of the style of Dominican life. 
 "The cloister was a court-yard, surrounded by a gallery. 
 In the middle of the court-yard, according to ancient tra- 
 dition, there was a well, the symbol of the living water, 
 which springs up to life eternal. Under the flag-stones of 
 the gallery tombs were excavated. Along the walls funeral 
 inscriptions were carved. In the arch of the vault, the 
 acts of the saints of the order were painted. This place 
 was sacred. The monks paced silently through it, think- 
 ing only upon death and the memory of the Father. 
 Around this solemn gallery were ranged the halls for food, 
 for study, and for dress, and two doors opened into the 
 Church, one to the nave, another to the choir. A stair- 
 case led to the second story built over the gallery. Four 
 windows at the corners let in the needful light. Four 
 lamps threw out their rays during the night. Along these 
 high and broad corridors, whose decency was their only 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS. 217 
 
 ornament, was ranged a symmetrical line of doors exactly 
 alike. In the space between hung old pictures, maps, 
 plans of cities and castles, the archives of the convent. 
 At the sound of the bell, all these doors softly opened. 
 Old men, white-haired and tranquil, men of early maturity, 
 youths, whose penitence added to the fresh bloom of their 
 years, all ages came out together in the same garment. 
 The cell of each was large enous^h only to hold a bed of 
 straw or hair, a table and two chairs. A crucifix and some 
 holv imasres were all its ornament. From this livinsr tomb 
 the monk passed out when his work was done to his nar- 
 row house below. The same garment that he had slept 
 and prayed in became his shroud. Over his dust the feet 
 of his brethren kept their solemn march; and the songs 
 that he joined in before were sung daily as his requiem. 
 'O, sublime burial! O, lovely and sacred home !' says the 
 enthusiastic Lacordaire. ' For man august palaces have 
 been reared. But the dwelling of God's saints is almost 
 divine. The skill of man has risen no higher than in 
 .raising the walls of the peaceful cloister.' " 
 
 The cloister thus described was relinquished when riches 
 and pride corrupted the early simplicity of the order. The 
 low cells, six feet long and five broad, were changed then 
 for more spacious apartments. And this almost divine 
 dwelling lasted only sixteen years as the habitation of the 
 preaching brothers. The convent which was built in 1232 
 in its place is still standing at Toulouse, and since the first 
 French revolution has been used for shops and as an inn. 
 
 The first convent was a type in substance of all that 
 Dominic founded. His first company of sixteen, like true 
 Apostles, had each their separate province of labor and 
 in a little time made full proof of their ministry. Before 
 the death of the Saint, his rule and name had become an 
 important variety of monastic life. On the slopes of the 
 Roman hills, the company of his monks, and convents of 
 his nuns, were gathered. The Polish ambassador carried 
 back to his wild land a trophy of Dominic's power in two 
 nephews, who planted the order in that region as a light 
 to shine in a dark place. The King of Scotland, who 
 heard him in Paris, obtained as a favor that the Preaching 
 Friars should be sent to wake up his rude Caledonian 
 
2i8 ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS, 
 
 race. In the chief streets of Madrid, of Paris, of Flor- 
 ence, and Avignon, the man of God left flourishing con- 
 vents as a testimony to his evangelical power. And the 
 city of Bologna, which had long been renowned as the 
 chief school of the civil law, became famous as the metro- 
 politan city of the new religious order. Here the great, 
 and wise, and learned men rejoiced to join the ranks of 
 the friars. The doctor's cap was exchanged for the monk's 
 hood, and the interpretation of Roman statutes gave way 
 to the exposition of the word of God. 
 
 The moment of highest triumph in Dominic's life was 
 in the year 1220, on the day of Pentecost, when the first 
 General Assembly of his order was gathered in the con- 
 vent Church at Bologna. He had just reached fifty years 
 of life, but constant travel, preaching, and austerity had 
 made him prematurely old. But he saw now the fruits of 
 his toil in brethren who came numerously up from the 
 North and the South, from all the Catholic lands (but 
 Hungary and England) to tell of heretics converted, and 
 men who had forsaken all at the call of the Gospel. 
 Three years now had passed since his friends were sent 
 out on their mission, but they came back with a record of 
 service and success that might rival the ancient story of 
 the first disciples. Then the learned and the rulers treated 
 the new Gospel as folly. Now the best men of the schools 
 gladly embraced the hard office of evangelists. Dominic 
 looked round with pride upon the goodly throng of honora- 
 ble men that waited around him, and it rejoiced his heart 
 to hear how their unanimous suffrage confessed their affec- 
 tion and regard for him. But he was troubled to find that 
 already they had departed somewhat from his original 
 plan of poverty, and were accepting donations from the 
 great. He would not have them beggars, but he would 
 not have any worldly possession to abstract their thoughts 
 or affections from the spiritual inheritance, and he per- 
 suaded them to give up some territories that had been 
 willed to them and refuse in future to be aided in that way. 
 
 One more general chapter of the Order was held at 
 Bologna which the Saint attended. It was not given him 
 to fulfill his longing wish of going off to the Pagan East 
 and becoming a martyr, but his last year of life was spent 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS. 219 
 
 in a zealous tour of preachins^ through the north of Italy 
 where heresv was exceeclin2:lv rife. His devotion to this 
 work was rivalled onlv bv the feats of the 2:reat Methodist 
 preacher in a more modern age. Every day, and many 
 times in a day, was he heard along the way or in the 
 churches, proclaiming the riches of divine grace and 
 urging the faithless to accept the terms of God's love. 
 The gushing flood of his entreaties, in which tears were 
 profusely mingled, subdued the hearts which were still 
 tender, and the deep undertone of his threatenings awed 
 the reckless into submission. And when they knew that 
 this man who preached all day, prayed all night, that this 
 divine power of binding and loosing came to him only 
 through the most signal humility, then they were drawn to 
 a state in which power and freedom were so strangely 
 blended, in which one might be busy and useful upon 
 earth and yet not be encumbered by the cares of earth. 
 
 At the second general chapter of his order, Dominic had 
 the joy of finding that the remaining Christian lands had re- 
 ^ceived his apostles and to count martyrs, too, among those 
 whom he had sent out. He was now ready to resign and 
 depart, though his preaching fervor did not abate. For 
 some time his sick chamber became as a church, and the 
 last testament which he left to his brethren was a touching- 
 sermon upon the Christian virtues and fidelity to the faith. 
 I will not describe the death scene. It is enough to say that 
 in beauty and in serenity it was like those of other emi- 
 nent saints of whom I have spoken. He died in Bologna 
 on the sixth of August, 122 1, at the age of fifty-one. His 
 remains rest in a splendid mausoleum in the Dominican 
 cathedral church of that city- This monument, one of the 
 (finest specimens of modern art, is now to myriads a stone 
 of pilgrimage. For three centuries offerings have been 
 laid there, and the prayers in the holy name of Dominic 
 sent up at its side. And the envious Protestant now, who 
 wanders in that place, may see at any hour some kneeling 
 form before that tomb, when the lamps of the altar are 
 out, and the sound of music is still. 
 
 At the great Council of the Lateran, in the year 1215, 
 it was Dominic's fortune to meet a remarkable man, whose 
 fame for piety, for endurance, and for miraculous influence 
 
220 ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FBANCIS. 
 
 had already become wide in Christendom. Francis was 
 some twelve years younger than the Spanish monk, but his 
 hard discipline had reconciled this difference, and he met 
 the great preacher on an equal footing. He was born of 
 worthy parents, in the papal town of Assisi. So early did 
 he learn to be charitable that it might almost be said that 
 he was a mendicant from the cradle. One of his earli- 
 est vows was never to refuse alms to any poor man that 
 should ask it for the love of God. He kept the vow. 
 
 His early experiences were severe and bitter. For one 
 year he was prisoner of war. For another he was racked 
 and wasted by a painful disease. But in each of these trials 
 his patience was edifying and his faith unyielding. After 
 his recovery, as he was one day riding out in a new suit of 
 clothes, he met a gentleman who seemed by his raiment to 
 be poor and decayed, Francis instantly stopped and ex- 
 changed clothes with him. 
 
 His most frequent dreams were of spiritual victories 
 through poverty, charity and self-denial. They tell how 
 he coveted the most repulsive tasks, how he would kiss the 
 sores of lepers, and put his own garments on the vilest 
 beggars of the street. Though his parents were rich, and 
 he was brought up to habits of thrift, he took strange com- 
 fort in the society of the penniless and the outcast. All 
 his visions seemed to him to say, "Give and spare not." 
 One day, as he was praying before a crucifix outside the 
 walls of Assisi. he heard three times a voice, which said, 
 *' Francis, go and repair my house, which thou seest fall- 
 ing." This he construed into a literal command to repair 
 the decaying Church. And forgetting the law of honesty 
 in his zeal to obey the command, he went and got a horse- 
 load of cloth out of his father's shop, sold both horse and 
 cloth in a neighboring town, and brought the price to the 
 parish priest. This cautious functionary did not like to take 
 it. So Francis left it Ivino^ in the window, and there his 
 father found it when he discovered the affair. The result 
 of this was first a flogging, then an imprisonment in chains, 
 and finally, when his mother had let him out, a separation 
 from his home. 
 
 His father gave him the alternative of coming home 
 again like a decent son or formally giving up all claim 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FEANCIS. 221 
 
 to the inheritance. The last condition Francis joyfully 
 accepted, and went in it beyond his father's desire. For 
 he stripped himself of his clothing, and gave it to his 
 father, saying, cheerfully and meekly, " Hitherto I have 
 called you father on earth ; but now I say with more con- 
 fidence, Our Father who art in Heaven, in whom I place 
 all my hope and treasure." The bishop, who stood by ad- 
 miring his zeal, ordered some garments to be brought for 
 him. The first at hand was a peasant's coarse cloak. The 
 vouno^ man marked it with chalk with the siirn of the 
 cross and put it on. It became his permanent dress. 
 
 Francis was twenty-five years old when he was thus cast 
 upon the world, without money, without friends, with no 
 handicraft, and no resource. He set off on his wander- 
 ings however full of faith, and thinking only how he 
 might help the poor and execute Christ's commission. 
 Where there was squalidness, suffering or disease, there 
 he was sure to be found. In the prison and the hospital, 
 he knelt before the profane and the unclean. He cared 
 for no abuse and no humiliation. When a party of rob- 
 bers, who had asked him his business in their haunts and 
 had heard his answer that he was the herald of the ^reat 
 King, had flung him into a ditch full of snow, he only 
 praised God for the good chance. When he came across 
 a new church in the process of building he not only 
 begged the means of its completion, but he carried up 
 himself the heavy stones as the servant of the masons. 
 Feeling however that he was not yet prepared to be an 
 apostle, he went apart to a little church called the Por- 
 tinneala, about a mile from iVssisi, where two years were 
 spent in the most rigid exercises of fleshly denial. In 
 prayers and tears, in meditation upon the sufferings of 
 Christ, in exposure to the hardest weather, he found his 
 luxury and joy. Reading those words of Christ, '' Carry 
 not gold or silver, or scrip for your journey, or two coats 
 or a staff," he instantly gave away his money, shoes, staff 
 and girdle, and kept only a single cloak, which he bound 
 round him with a cord. Soon his fame was noised abroad 
 and manv came out to see the miracle of self-denial. The 
 narrative of his earlier conversions is quaint and touching. 
 Bernard of Quintaval, a rich merchant of Assisi, and a 
 
222 ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FBANCIS. 
 
 man of wisdom, and authority, hearing of the devotion of 
 the young hermit, invited him to come and sleep at his 
 house one night. At midnight, when Bernard seemed to 
 be fast in skimber, Francis arose, fell on his knees, and 
 making with his arms the sign of the Cross, repeated all 
 night with every sign of love, praise, gratitude, penitence 
 and devotion, with streaming eyes and choking utterance, 
 "My God and my all," " Deus meus et omnia." But 
 Bernard was secretly watching him, and when morning 
 came he begged Francis to take him as a companion. 
 Soon other prominent men joined them, and when in the 
 latter part of the year 1209, the Saint brought back from 
 Innocent at Rome his consent to the new Order, one hun- 
 dred and twenty-seven disciples assembled at the little 
 church to call him their leader. This was five years 
 before Dominic gained from the Pope a sanction to his 
 scheme. 
 
 Of this number, in imitation of Jesus, Francis chose 
 twelve to be his special companions and friends. The 
 first and most positive rule which he laid down for them 
 was absolute poverty. They were to own no house, no 
 furniture, not even the clothes which they wore. They 
 were to receive the alms of the charitable only as a trust, 
 to provide no prospective store of food or raiment, but 
 depend only on the Providence of God. This order 
 should recall to men, as no other had, the sufferings of 
 Him who had no place to lay his head, who was born in a 
 stable and died naked upon a cross. It should exemplify 
 to the world all the heroic graces of poverty, those sacred 
 beatitudes which can appear only in lives freed from the 
 goods of the world, humility, meekness, patience and 
 fortitude. It should be separate from the worldly passion 
 which wealth engenders, which had so fatally corrupted 
 the other monastic foundations. The monk professed to 
 be a disciple of Christ. Francis would have his whole 
 life a visible proof of that vow, and the monks indeed 
 saw it in the life of their founder. The old chronicles 
 weary in describing Francis' ingenuity of penance ; how 
 he sewed his coat with packthread to make it rougher; 
 how he slept upon the ground, with a stone for a pillow ; 
 how he put ashes upon the hard crust which was his sole 
 
.sr. DOMINW AND ST. FliANCIS. 223 
 
 food, to take away the taste ; how he lay in the snow that 
 his unholy passions might be chilled out of him ; how he 
 named his body after the meanest beast of burden, and 
 commanded his friars to call him by the vilest names. In 
 our modern day men sometimes accuse themselves of sins, 
 but do not like tojiave others agree to it. Francis on the 
 contrary directed his men to repeat to him very often, 
 " Brother Francis, for thy sins thou has deserved to be 
 buried in the very bottom of hell." 
 
 Another rule which Francis gave and exemplified was 
 the rule of obedience. He carried this farther than the 
 convent system. There the monks were to obey their 
 superior. But his friars were all according to Christ's 
 direction to be servants of each other. He delighted to 
 obev the merest novice, and would never allow anv but 
 the lowest honor to be given to himself. He forbade 
 anything by which one brother should be singled out, or 
 observed more than another, did not want any eccentric 
 friars about him ; at the same time he encouraged the 
 utmost openness and freedom. Everyone of his followers 
 should appear just as he was : he would have no con- 
 cealment. He rebuked a brother who undertook by signs 
 alone to confess his sins. 
 
 But it did not suit Francis to remain quietly in a con- 
 vent, even though he might indulge at will in- the practice 
 of pious austerities. His order was to be a missionary 
 order, and he felt that the new manifestation of the life of 
 Christ ought not to be shut up in any place. Like his 
 divine Master therefore he went about in the villages and 
 the cities, preaching the truths of poverty and humility, 
 but showing them more eloquently in his mean garb and 
 his unwearied help of the poor. His disciples went out 
 too. In less than three years more than sixty monasteries 
 had been founded under the new rule. In the large cities 
 of Italy, the Minor Friars, as they were humbly called, 
 might be seen everywhere where there was suffering or 
 misery, praying at the pauper's death-bed, carrying bread 
 by midnight to the plague-stricken, or passing, bent and 
 downcast, along the streets where students and nobles 
 thronged, asking an alms for the love of Jesus. 
 
 In the year 12 15, as we before mentioned, Dominic and 
 
224 ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FliANCIS. 
 
 Francis met at Rome. Each brought to the Pope a 
 delightful testimony, the one an eloquence that recalled 
 the Pentecost season of the earlv Church, the other a life 
 that repeated the love of the first disciples. The hearts 
 of the two reformers instantly came together, and they 
 established a perpetual bond of friendship between their 
 orders. Each supplied what the other wanted. 
 
 In 1 2 19, ten years after its foundation, the first general 
 chapter of the Order of St. Francis was held near the 
 little church which had been his hermitage. Five thousand 
 friars came there together to tell of what they had done, 
 and to receive new commissions. Some were sent out 
 now to distant heathen regions, to the Moors of Africa 
 and the Scythians. Francis joined himself to the sixth 
 crusade, which was then warring with the infidels upon the 
 Nile. Burning with zeal for the conversion of the 
 Saracens, he went boldly into their lines, was seized by 
 the sentinels, and brought before the Sultan. " I am 
 sent," said he, "by the Most High God, to show you and 
 your people the way of salvation." The courage which 
 he showed and the fiery trials which he offered to pass 
 made such an impression upon the Sultan, that, like 
 Agrippa, he was almost persuaded to become a Christian. 
 
 But I should fear to fatigue you in rehearsing the various 
 and unwearied labors of this singular monk. His jour- 
 neys, his charities, his works of wonder and of love, the 
 visions which he had, the consolations which came to him ; 
 how his Order grew and toiled and flourished, till the 
 nobles of the state were almost ready to worship these 
 beggars of the street, and the Pope found his dream 
 coming true, that Francis was a pillar of the church. All 
 this is recorded by the pious followers who have eulogized 
 the saint. 
 
 The most extraordinary event however in the life of 
 Francis, which was attested and believed in by a large 
 number of excellent witnesses, was his seraphic vision on 
 Mount Alverno. I relate it as an instance of credulity 
 and imagination characteristic of the Middle Ages. On 
 the fifteenth of September, Francis being in prayer on the 
 side of the mountain, and in a high state of spiritual exal- 
 tation, saw a seraph with six shining wings, blazing with 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND 6T. FRANCIS. 225 
 
 nre, bearing down from the highest part of the heavens 
 towards him, with a most rapid tiight. Between his wings 
 was a figure of a man crucified, with, his hands and feet 
 stretched out and fastened to the cross. After Francis 
 had meditated some time upon the vision and settled upon 
 its spiritual meaning, it disappeared. He discovered then 
 that the impression had been left not m.erely upon his 
 soul but upon his body also ; that the crucifix was stamped 
 upon his body, and on his hands and feet were the marks 
 of the nails, he could see their black heads on one surface 
 and their clinched points on the other. In his side, too, 
 he found a red and bleeding wound. Francis tried to 
 conceal this wonderful vision from his friends, and assumed 
 against the custom of his order gloves for his hands and 
 stockings for his feet. But he was unable to prevent the 
 discovery, and after his death, when the body was exposed, 
 the legend runs that thousands of monks and nuns, and of 
 common people kissed these miraculous signs of the holy 
 imitation of Christ. The Pope in a solemn bull con- 
 firmed the fact. And it is on record with the sign manual 
 of the infallible head of the Church that St. Francis was 
 appointed visibly to restore the crucifixion of the Saviour. 
 The story may not be believed by us now, but it is not in 
 itself more irrational than many marvels of chairs and 
 tables which men of good sense admit to be bevond their 
 power to explain. 
 
 The two years which remained after this vision to 
 Francis upon the earth were years of prolonged martyrdom 
 and heroic endurance. There was no pain that did not 
 torment him, there was no privation that he did not meet. 
 His eyes were diseased so that sight was nearly gone. 
 His limbs refused to bear him. Yet he would still weep 
 and kneel, and his answer to God was. "O Lord, I return 
 thanks to thee for the pain I suffer. I pray that thou wilt 
 add to them one hundred times more, if such be thy holy 
 will." He gave as a testament to his friars that they 
 should work diligently with their hands, not for personal 
 gain, but for the example of industry. He gave directions 
 about his burial, that his body should be laid by the side 
 of the bodies of criminals on the hangman's hill. When 
 his last hour had come, he would have them lay him upon 
 
 15 
 
226 ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FltANCIS. 
 
 the ground, and cover him only with an old coat, that he 
 might die in the same poverty that he had lived. They 
 tell how he gave in this posture his blessing to all his 
 weeping followers, and exhorted them with his final breath 
 to constant poverty, how he repeated the words of John 
 where the passion of Christ is described, how he broke 
 out in the words of the one hundred and forty-second 
 Psalm, " Domino voce mea clamavi," and as the last sen- 
 tence, "Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise 
 thy name," fell from his trembling lips, how softly the 
 spirit ceased with him and went away to its heaven. It 
 was a solemn sight too, when his body was laid in the 
 convent, and the mark of the cross upon it exposed to 
 view, to see the reverence and wonder with which crowds 
 approached and kissed that poor wasted frame, not merely 
 of the poor whom he and his had succored, but of the 
 noble who acknowledged here a surpassing sanctity, and 
 of the rich, who thus confessed that it was better to 
 lay up treasures in heaven than on earth. 
 
 The order of Minor Friars which St. Francis founded 
 has come down in history with various names, according 
 as the special objects predominated. There are the Con- 
 ventual Friars, who dwell in the monasteries together and 
 do not wander about, and the Observantins, or Friars who 
 keep up the strict rule of their founders. In Paris, the 
 Franciscans are called Cordeliers, from the cord which 
 they wear. They gave the name to a famous club of the 
 revolution. In Spain they are the Bare-footed Friars, and 
 the Grey Friars, each of which have had their eminent 
 saints. In Italy, the traveler sees everywhere the Capu- 
 chin Friars who have swarmed in that land for three 
 centuries, distinguished from others by their long beards, 
 their grey dress, and the patch on the back, and their 
 catacombs of human bones and mummies. Various orders 
 of Nuns adopted the rule of Francis ; there were Grey 
 nuns, ]]lack nuns, and Capucliin nuns. St. Francis, too, 
 as well as St. Dominic, establislied a third order which 
 should do the chief work of the Friar's life, without being 
 obliged to take all his vows. And from this third order 
 have come the Brothers of Mercy, " Fratres Misericordiae,"' 
 that are celebrated in the accounts of the plague, and 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FJiANCIS. 227 
 
 may be met in any Italian city, and the Sisters of Charity, 
 whom you may see on any Sunday in our cities walking in 
 solemn procession to the Catholic churches. 
 
 The increase of the Mendicant Orders in the Middle 
 Ages was marvellous beyond conception. Long before 
 the Reformation they were counted by thousands of con- 
 vents and myriads of monks. The older foundations of 
 the Benedictines, the Cistercians, and the Carthusians, 
 were wholly eclipsed by the swarm of Friars that now 
 darkened all the streets and highways. Five from each of 
 the orders were raised to the highest dignity and sat in 
 Peter's seat. 
 
 St. Dominic's foundation gave forty-eight cardinals, St. 
 Francis' fortv-five to the Church, and of the lowest orders 
 of the clerory ^^ incredible number were taken from the 
 ranks of the Mendicants. The Preaching Friars alone 
 are known to have given more than fifteen hundred 
 bishops. Echard, in his history of the Order, takes pains 
 to give their names and the lives of the most eminent. 
 
 To draw a parallel between these two great religious 
 orders in their history and their inliuence upon the Catholic 
 faith, would not be easy. For the separate idea with which 
 they set out was not faithfully preserved, more than the 
 harmony of their founders was kept. In some places the 
 Franciscan became a preacher, and the Dominican a 
 beggar, and when each became numerous and powerful, 
 their brotherly love was changed to rivalry. By turns 
 they shared the Papal power. In the days when heresy 
 was most rife, and new theology was casting contempt 
 upon the dogmas of the Church, then the Dominican was 
 in power. It was his stern voice that declared the sen- 
 tence of the tribunal of faith, and he stood by to direct 
 when the faggot was lighted. In the region where want, 
 and misery, and crime most abounded, where license 
 degraded the profession of holiness, and priests were not 
 ashamed to partake in all the vices of the world, there the 
 Franciscan was omnipresent, the living rebuke to those who 
 profaned the memory of the Apostles and the command 
 of Christ. In the turbulent provinces of Spain and France, 
 when fanatics dared to question the creed of the Fathers, 
 there the Preaching Friar was at hand to defend the 
 
2 28 ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS. 
 
 Catholic faith or to minister its terror. In the luxurious 
 and lustful cities of Italy, where priests lived in palaces 
 and beg^o;ars swarmed along the highwa}-, there the Francis- 
 can could show how poverty might be the way of salvation. 
 
 The warfare of the first order was with errors of the 
 reason. They set themselves resolutely against all schemes 
 and ways for philosophizing about the truth of God, The 
 scholars, the doctors, the colleges were their foes, and 
 since these could be overthrown only with their own 
 weapons, the order of St, Dominic gradually became the 
 masters of science and assumed the ancient glory of the 
 Benedictines, In less than thirty years after the death of 
 the saint the chairs of the University of Paris were in 
 possession of his disciples. They became the cham- 
 pions in controversy, and the Pope recognized in them 
 the organs of the mind of the Church, 
 
 The warfare of the second order was with errors of the 
 life. They were the sworn and persevering foes of all 
 simony, all luxury, all mammon-worship. They set them- 
 selves against lazy priests, who made of the Church a 
 pasture to feed in or a spoil to prey upon. To lower the 
 standard of clerical gain, to take away the temptation of 
 the sacred office, to make the Church of God an enemy, 
 and not an ally, of the world, and to bring back the old 
 Judean time, this was their substantial aim. They became 
 the militia of the Apostolic kingdom. They were the 
 rank and file of the Pope's array, who followed its cham- 
 pions. He recognized in them the practical force of the 
 Church. 
 
 And these two orders, about confirming which the Pope 
 hesitated long, became the bulwark of the Papacy in its 
 long struggle to keep its acquired supremacy. They were 
 allies of Rome against the Church. They stood between 
 the Councils and the chair of Peter, between the murmurs 
 of bishops and kings and the will of the spiritual sover- 
 eign. When dark times came his Holiness could count 
 upon them. For the execution of any scheme they were 
 his untiring ministers. It was a Dominican who could 
 control the elections of Poland, so that none but a Catholic 
 ruler should hold sway there, A Franciscan, the great 
 Cardinal Ximenes, was the ruler behind the throne in the 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST'. FliANCIS. 229 
 
 Court of Ferdinand and Isabella, These Mendicants were 
 everywhere, in the palace, in the tavern, in the village 
 church, and in the secret assembly. Their hands guided 
 the pens of statesmen, their eyes watched the plots of 
 conspirators, their cunning threatened the schemes of the 
 ambitious. Under the white cowl of the Dominican there 
 was a stern soul that knew no yielding or compromise, and 
 counted no means too hard to compass its end. Under 
 the grey robe of the Minor Friar there was a patience, an 
 energy and a faith that made him the most dangerous of 
 foes. If the first became a victor and a judge for the 
 Holy See, to sit in its courts and to sentence its criminals, 
 the second became a spy of the Holy See, to discover the 
 false dealings of the world and the Church, and make due 
 report thereof. The terror of the one followed hard upon 
 the presence of the other. 
 
 The mendicant orders became the pillars of the Papacy. 
 But they have been the bane of freedom, of light, and of 
 progress, since their beginning, and they will ever be. 
 They have blocked the pathway of science, they have de- 
 graded the soul and the life. By them great men like 
 Galileo have been put to silence, by them beggary, and 
 idleness, and falsehood have been reconciled to the 
 Christian life. A few inventions indeed lay claim to a 
 parentage among them. They boast the names of Swartz 
 and Roger Bacon. 
 
 But these are rare exceptions to the general spirit. The 
 chief agency of the Friars has been to debase the mind of 
 the world. Their word in the ear of princes has been 
 antagonistic to the counsels of wise and enlightened men, 
 and where their advice has prevailed there we have seen 
 superstition, cruelty, and misery to grow and flourish. In 
 Spain, the land of bigotry, of darkness, and fear, we see 
 the result of Dominican preaching and power. In Italy, 
 the land of pauperism, indolence, and wretchedness, we 
 see the issue of Franciscan example. And still the hooded 
 friar, with silent step, is the conspicuous object in the 
 streets of Madrid and Segovia, and to-day the bare-footed 
 and servile beggar who asks your alms in Naples or Rome 
 is reverenced by the multitude as a holy man. 
 
 It is this result of their systems that reacts upon the 
 
230 ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FBANCIS. 
 
 lives of the founders, that makes Southey, who mourned 
 over desolate Spain, describe St. Dominic as a monster, 
 and falsely attribute to him the cruelties of the Inquisi- 
 tion which he never invented ; that makes a grave American 
 doctor present St. Francis as a hideous impostor and 
 hypocrite, with no shadow of proof for the charge. These 
 men were not certainlv faultless. But candid historians 
 admit that they have better claim to sainthood for their 
 personal worth than many whose labor for man has been 
 of more avail. A Protestant might wish that the zeal, the 
 trust, and the single-mindedness of the one, with the forti- 
 tude, the charity, and the self-sacrifice of the other, were 
 more common among those who abhor the ministry of 
 these men on earth, that their evangelical spirit might 
 appear more in those comfortable places, where a luxurious 
 and worldly life casts dishonor upon the faith and the 
 life of Christ. When the Church is turned to defend 
 oppression and pamper the vices of the great it should 
 cast no stone at such as Dominic and Francis. 
 
COP£ENICUS. 231 
 
 IX. 
 
 COPERNICUS AND HIS WORK.* 
 
 ** The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth 
 His handiwork." Psalm xix, i. 
 
 In our day the grand utterance of the old Hebrew song 
 has been cynically denied, and the professor before his 
 class has insisted that the heavens do not declare the glory 
 of the Lord, but only the glory of Copernicus and Kepler. 
 A foolish cavil, not true, and scarcely quaint. For the 
 thought of Copernicus and Kepler has brought grander 
 evidence of Divine order in the Universe, and made God 
 more conspicuous in the phenomena of sun and stars. 
 The great astronomers have been true prophets of the Lord 
 in their demonstrations. They have made the heavens 
 Lell more than a marvel, and have opened secrets which 
 were hidden from the ancient Psalmist. And no one 
 would be quicker to repel any robbing of the Divine 
 Providence in the way of sun and planets for the praise of 
 even the wisest men, than the modest doctor who gave the 
 truth of the celestial world. 
 
 Who was this wonderful man, so audaciously suggested 
 as a rival, if not a substitute for the Almighty .'' The 
 occasion of his four hundredth birthday makes it a fit time 
 to speak of him, of the work which he did, and of his 
 influence upon the following ages. Few of the great men 
 of the world are as little known as he in personal life ; 
 and the vague impressions which most persons have of his 
 spirit and character are far from correct. Many suppose 
 that he was a bold adversary of priests and the Church. 
 That he was not ; he was an officer of the Church himself, 
 
 * A Sermon preached on the four hundredth anniversary of Coper- 
 nicus' birth, March 2, 1873, in the Unitarian Church, Ann Arbor, 
 Michigan. 
 
232 COPERNICUS. 
 
 and never denied the faith. Some imagine that, like 
 Galileo, he was persecuted for his opinions, and suffered 
 reproach, and loss and pain. Not so ; he was honored 
 by the Church, and no anathema was upon his name. He 
 is classed carelessly with Luther and the Reformers ; but 
 Luther and the Reformers ridiculed, despised and hated 
 him, Copernicus was a grand man, a noble man, and a 
 prophet too ; but he was not a martyr, not a combatant, 
 not a man called to fight or to die for his faith. His life 
 was pleasant and prosperous, and his death was tranquil. 
 He escaped the fate which came upon his followers and 
 disciples. 
 
 No complete biography of Copernicus, so far as I know, 
 has been written in English, and very few sketches of him 
 are to be found in periodicals, old or new. A Latin life 
 of him was published by the famous astronomer Gassendi 
 more than two hundred years ago, and within the last half 
 century several German lives of him have appeared, the 
 most complete one by Dr. Hipler, three or four years since. 
 The introduction to most astronomical treatises contains a 
 short notice of the father of the modern science ; yet 
 withal Copernicus is hardly better known to students than 
 the Pagan astronomers Ptolemy and Hipparchus. He 
 was born in the city of Thorn, in that part of Poland 
 which now belongs to Prussia, on the nineteenth of Feb- 
 ruary, 1473.* His father was a wealthy and enterprising 
 merchant of that city, and his mother belonged also to the 
 prominent family of Watselrede. Her brother was the 
 Bishop of Ermeland. The child had his father's name, 
 " Niklas Kopernigk," Latinized afterwards, according to 
 the fashion of educated men, into " Nicolaus Copernicus." 
 His early education was in the best schools, and at 
 eighteen he was a student in the University of Cracow, at 
 that time one of the famous Universities of Europe, es- 
 pecially by its scientific teachings. Here Copernicus was 
 biased towards mathematical and astronomical studies, 
 mainly no doubt by the fascinating lessons of Bradjewski, 
 a rare man of science. After four years spent in this 
 University, he came back to his home, to receive from his 
 
 * Old Style, corresponding to March 2d, New Style. 
 
(JOPEBNICUS. 233 
 
 uncle the appointment of Canon in the cathedral of 
 Frauenburg. But the rule required that all Canons should 
 have a degree either in law, theology or medicine. 
 Copernicus preferred the law, and accordingly went for a 
 three years' course to Bologna in Italy, where was the 
 great Catholic Law School, which had been famous for 
 some hundreds of years. The law was a very important 
 profession in those days, in the Church, especially for one 
 who had to advise and aid the Bishop in questions of 
 jurisdiction, and in the disputes which rose between the 
 Bishops and the Barons. But the scientitic passion was 
 strong in the soul of Copernicus, and his acquaintance at 
 the University with a Dominican monk who was versed in 
 Astronomy fostered this passion. His life at Bologna 
 was not altogether happy. His means gave out. A 
 brother, who followed him to Bologna, added to the burden 
 of his expense. He had to give lessons, and at the age 
 of twenty-seven was a lecturer on mathematics in Rome, 
 to lar^e audiences. He was forced to return for a time to 
 Prussia; but his stay there was short. He was soon back 
 in Bologna, as a student of Greek, as well as of Law ; and 
 then, from 1501 to 1505, was for four years a student of 
 Medicine in the University of Padua, which was as famous 
 in that branch of knowledge as the University of Bologna 
 in the Law. For some years after that time, he was the 
 adviser and private physician of his uncle, keeping up all 
 the time his astronomical studies. When his uncle died, 
 in 15 12, he returned to Frauenburg, of which he was 
 Canon, and there lived quietly for many years as student 
 and physician, gieatly trusted by the successive Bishops. 
 When the Bishop Maurice died in 1537, Copernicus, at 
 this time, sixty years of age, was one of the four candi- 
 dates named to succeed him. Another was chosen, yet 
 Copernicus remained his special friend and medical at- 
 tendant, as he was also of other bishops. His quiet life 
 continued until the year 1543, when, on the twenty-fourth 
 of May, at the age of seventy, he died. On that day, the 
 first printed copy of his great work was placed in the 
 hands of the dyuig man. 
 
 This great work, De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium, 
 was finished as early as 1530, thirteen years before the 
 
234 COPERNICUS. 
 
 death of the author, remaining in manuscript all that time, 
 as some say, on account of the author's modesty, as others 
 think, because he dared not risk the publication of what 
 might be charged with heresy. Not till the year before he 
 died, did Copernicus consent to give his work to the 
 printer. It was a shrewd device of his to dedicate it to 
 Pope Paul III, forestalling so its possible condemnation. 
 The Pope accepted the Dedication, and was flattered by 
 the compliment. Luther and Melancthon, on the contrary, 
 vehemently denounced the book. Luther in his Table 
 Talk, calls Copernicus an " upstart astrologer," a fool, 
 who wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy, 
 and deny the word of Joshua, who commanded the sun to 
 stand still and not the earth. Melancthon laments that 
 such a clever dreamer should try to show his genius in 
 attempting to deny what is evident to every man who has 
 his eyes open, and what is certainly the doctrine of revela- 
 tion. Possibly the sentences of these reformers were 
 embittered by the fact that Copernicus stayed in the 
 Catholic Church, and even, as it was supposed, suggested 
 a work composed by his friend the Bishop of Kulm, called 
 the Antilogicon, which exposed the errors of Luther. He 
 had also won over a scholar of the Reformers, Rheticus, 
 who became his enthusiastic admirer, and afterwards 
 editor of his great work. Doubtless personal feeling had 
 a large share in the vituperations of the Reformers. This 
 great work on the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies, is 
 the work by which Copernicus is known in history, and on 
 which his fame rests. He wrote other works, some of 
 which have been published, and some of which still re- 
 main in manuscript. There is a work on Trigonometry, 
 and another on Money, and another entitled the Moral, 
 Rural and x^matory Letters of the Scholar Theophylact, a 
 singular book for an ecclesiastic to write. It is probable 
 that some of the treatises which he wrote are lost ; for in 
 those many years, one-third part of which, according to 
 Gassendi, were given to study, he must have had much 
 time for the use of his pen. His books were written in 
 Latin, but the language of his correspondence was often 
 in German. 
 
 The new doctrine, and the important doctrine, of the 
 
COPERNICUS. 235 
 
 great work of Copernicus, which gives it peculiar signifi- 
 cance, was its doctrine of the movements of the heavenly- 
 bodies around the central sun. Heretofore, from time 
 immemorial, and always in the Christian Church, the 
 theory had been that the earth was in the centre and im- 
 movable, and that the heavens and heavenly bodies re- 
 volve around the earth. This was the accepted fact, the 
 basis of calculation, and affirmed in the Scripture, as well 
 as proved to the eyes of men. Sunrise and sunset seemed 
 to show the movement of the heavens, and the appear- 
 ance and disappearance of stars and planets were evidence 
 beyond dispute that the firmament revolved above the 
 heads of men. The thought and study of Copernicus led 
 him to believe that this was an error, that the earth itself 
 was only a planet, that all the apparent motions could be 
 better accounted for by supposing the sun in the centre, 
 and arranging the revolutions of the other wandering stars 
 about the source of light. This is the one striking idea 
 of the book of Copernicus. He did not discover the laws 
 of planetary motion ; that was reserved for Kepler. He 
 did not discover Gravity ; that is the glory of Isaac New- 
 ton. But he told the world that they had been mistaken 
 in supposing that this small earth, on which man has his 
 dwelling, is the centre of all worlds, which all the rest 
 serve and obev. 
 
 It is by no means certain, nevertheless, that this theory 
 of the central sun was an original idea of Copernicus. 
 Before the birth of Jesus, in one form or another, it had 
 been declared by Pagan philosophers. Pythagoras, one 
 of the earliest Greek sages, had set the sun in the centre 
 of the universe, and taught that the earth had an annual 
 motion around it. Philolaus, at a later day, had assigned 
 to the earth a double rotation, around the sun and around 
 its own axis, though he had strangely sent back the light 
 from the sun as 7'eflected light, treating this sun as a great 
 disk, a vast mirror. Appollonius of Perga, more than two 
 hundred years before the Christian era, had told of the 
 revolutions of the planets around the sun. It is very- 
 likely that Copernicus knew of these heathen astronomers 
 and their theories, and had profited by them. He had 
 certainly read in the work of Martianus Capella that the 
 
236 COPERNICUS. 
 
 Egyptians believed that Mercury and Venus went around 
 the sun, while they went with the sun annually around the 
 earth ; and also that Nicetas of Syracuse, had taught a 
 revolution of the earth around its axis, to account for dav 
 and night. By combining these ancient theories, the doc- 
 trine of a Central Sun was the natural result. 
 
 This system of the Universe was, as Copernicus pro- 
 claimed it, theoretical, the result of thought and mathe- 
 matical study more than of practical observation of the 
 sun and sky. There is no evidence that Copernicus had 
 anything to do with the direct knowledge of the heavens, 
 or any experience in the use of instruments. The tele- 
 scope had not been invented. The theory was hypothesis 
 more than demonstration, but hypothesis sustained by 
 ingenious reasoning, changing wholly the presumption. 
 The Copernican theory had this at once in its favor, that it 
 brought order into the movements of the heavenly bodies, 
 and explained many things which the common theory had 
 left unexplained. The geocentric astronomy was full of 
 vexing difficulties. The stars were in their wrong places, 
 the planets were where they ought not to be, eclipses came 
 at improper times, and there was general confusion in the 
 universe. The new theory set that matter right. The 
 universe at once "came to order," when the majestic sun 
 took the chair of command. The eccentric movements 
 became reasonable, and all the stars now sang together 
 instead of singing a discordant song. 
 
 This was the direct work of Copernicus in his theory of 
 the Universe. This was what Ae intended to do. But there 
 were other results of his theory which perhaps he did not 
 foresee, other things which he did without intending them, 
 yet results of grave moment to the world in coming ages. 
 Copernicus was not technically a religious reformer, and 
 perhaps never dreamed that he should be called so by the 
 men of a future time, more than by men in his own time. 
 But he builded better than he knew, and he must be 
 classed wdth the greatest of religious reformers. His ser- 
 vice for the faith of man was large and inestimable. And 
 we shall best remember him on the anniversary of his 
 birth by noting some articles of his service to the world 
 in this religious kind. 
 
COPERNICUS. 237 
 
 I. And, first, the new doctrine of Copernicus, was vir- 
 tually a proclamation that the letter of the Bible is not 
 to ride the free spirit of men. Literally, the Scripture 
 seemed to teach another doctrine. From Genesis to 
 Malachi, from the Gospel of Matthew to the Apocalypse 
 of John, the whole Divine Word seemed to take for 
 granted, if not to assert, that the heavens were migrant 
 and wavering, while the earth was fixed in its place. " Of 
 old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth," — that was 
 the sacred refrain. Did not God create the earth on the 
 first day, reserving the lights of the heavens even to the 
 fourth day ? Did not the sun stand still at the command 
 of the Hebrew leader — an idle order, if the sun were 
 always still ? Was not the new theory a denial of prophecy 
 and song, which tells of the sun in his "goings," going 
 forth, and going up and down, from one end of the 
 heavens to the other ? Had not the sun on Hezekiah's 
 dial deliberately gone backward? Do we not read of the 
 pillars on which the earth is fixed, so stable, so eternal ? 
 Does not Habakkuk show the Lord stopping the sun with 
 the moon, and making them stay in their habitation ? 
 Shall we deny the word of John the Seer, which tells how 
 the sun shall cease to appear and give light, while the 
 earth shall still continue? Nay, did not the Divine Mas- 
 ter tell of the Lord making " his sun to rise upon the evil 
 and the good ?" Surely these words of Scripture shall 
 stand against any daring reversion of the place of the 
 spheres. 
 
 Copernicus, himself, threw down no defiance to this let- 
 ter of the Scripture, but his theory did. His theory said 
 virtually, " No matter what the letter of the Bible teaches 
 in this thing, we are not to be bound by that, or to be hin- 
 dered from any new voice of the spheres by those ancient 
 oracles. The scripture is not to control our reason, our 
 sense of the fitness of things, what we see of the way of 
 God's working or the order of Creation." Galileo's "^ 
 pur si iniiove^^ of the next century was in the theory of Co- 
 pernicus, " I do not care what the Bible says, the earth 
 really moves." The declaration and the reception of this 
 theory was a revolt from the authority of the written word, 
 not only as a dictator of science, but as arbitrary dictator 
 
238 COPERNICUS. 
 
 of anything. There are those who attempt to make dis- 
 tinction in what they call the "province " of Biblical teach- 
 ing. They say now, since it has been proved that Biblical 
 geography and astronomy and cosmogony are at fault, and 
 lead astray, that the Bible was " never intended " to teach 
 anything of that sort, and that it is only infallible in what 
 it says of moral and religious things and of the kingdom 
 of heaven. Such a distinction is wholly arbitrary, and is 
 only a poor subterfuge for baffled assumption. The line 
 cannot be drawn in Biblical teaching between its truth and 
 falsehood, except by enlightened human reason. If the 
 /c'Ut'r is to dictate in one thing, or bind reason in one thing, it 
 may in all. And when any one asserts that he will not ac- 
 cept the account of Creation in Genesis because he does 
 not believe that it is true, he may also assert that he will 
 not receive the doctrine of the Epistle to the Romans, or 
 of the Sermon on the Mount, if these too shall come to 
 seem to him not true. Revolt from the dictation of one 
 part, is revolt from the dictation of all. Fortunately Co- 
 pernicus was saved from that poor and humiliating task to 
 which so many of his followers have been drawn or driven, 
 astronomers, geologists, chemists and the rest, of attempt- 
 ing to harmonize, as they call it, Scripture and Science, to 
 give a meaning to Scripture different from its real mean- 
 ing, sophisticate its clear statements, to make a day mean 
 something else, and a year something else, and black mean 
 white ; to get around these difficulties by verbal jugglery. 
 That need was not laid upon him. 
 
 2. And kindred to this revolt against bibliolatry, the 
 theory of Copernicus was a defia?ice to the authority of the 
 Church. In his time, the Church claimed the right to de- 
 fine truth in all branches of human knowledge, to say 
 what should be taught and what should be believed. They 
 had exercised that right, and in exemplary fashion, for 
 long before Copernicus was born, there had been heretics 
 of science, — men burned at the stake for errors far less 
 momentous than that of settins: the sun in the centre of 
 the universe. Copernicus in his book does not apologize 
 for this defiance of the Church, or pretend that he is saying 
 anything to discredit the authority of the Canons and Coun- 
 cils. He asks the Pope to accept and bless his modest book. 
 
COPEBNICUS. 239 
 
 And yet he must have known that his book was an innovation 
 upon the teachings of the Church, an assumption of wisdom 
 above any which had come from Popes and Councils. 
 The old theory of the universe, the Ptolemaic system, had 
 been long ago baptised and adopted as the system of the 
 Christian Church. It was the orthodox system all over 
 the world, as much as anv articles of the creeds. The cal- 
 endar w^as based upon it. It was preserved in the system 
 of religious feasts and fasts and ritual. It had satisfied 
 forty generations. No manual for a revision of the sys- 
 tem had been issued, and the novelty was certain to de- 
 ransre the methods of the Church and annul its edicts. 
 This Copernican theory virtually said to the Church, 
 "Your spiritual wisdom is fallible, and in this great matter 
 it has all along been folly. In spite of your divine illumi- 
 nation, you have all along been believing a lie, and leaving 
 the world to be misled, if not leading the world into dark- 
 ness. You have not told to men this great law of the 
 Divine order, which to the eye of reason is so clear, and 
 to inspired vision ought to have been still clearer and long 
 ago visible." The theory of Copernicus not only was a 
 sarcasm upon the ignorant Church, but it was a limitation 
 of the sway and province of the Church. It said to the 
 world, " Here is something which the Church has no busi- 
 ness in. The Church tells vou about Heaven and God, 
 but it does not know and does not inquire, it is not fit to 
 know and inquire, into the heavens over your heads or 
 into the source of Heat and Light. Do not go to the 
 Church to learn how the world is created and upheld. Do 
 not go to the Church to get science of any kind. The in- 
 struments of human learning are not to be found in con- 
 claves of cardinals or in chapter houses. Little do these 
 priests know of what the world needs to know concerning 
 the laws of matter and motion." Martin Luther's Reform, 
 nearly contemporary with the Copernican announcement, 
 (for the two great men were only ten years apart in their 
 birth, and only three years apart in their dying) was not 
 more truly a defiance to the authority of the Church, than 
 the treatise on the Revolutions of the Celestial Worlds. 
 Though that book was dedicated to a Pope, it really 
 burned many Papal Bulls, of the time to come as well as 
 of the former time. 
 
240 COPEliNlCUS. 
 
 3. And the theory of Copernicus was equally efficient 
 in subjecting sensual i??ipresswfis to the laivs of mind and 
 thought. What he told seemed to be directly contrary to 
 the eyidence of the eye. Do we not see the sun rise and 
 the sun set ? Do we not see the stars change their places ? 
 How absurd, too, to suppose that the earth can turn on an 
 axis with all these moyable men and things upon it ! When 
 it is bottom upwards, will not the things fall off ? The 
 theory of Copernicus was a direct denial of the daily ob- 
 seryation and experience of men. It said to them, " Your 
 experience is only the aggregation of your obstinate 
 ignorance. Your obseryation is only illusion. What you 
 seem to see and feel is not what you really see and feel; 
 and if you only reflect you will know that it is so. Math- 
 ematical laws are more enduring: and trustworthy than the 
 conclusions of sense. The eyidence of sense is second- 
 ary, and neyer can be the test of the absolute truth of 
 things. What men think to be impossible because they 
 do not see it or haye not seen it, may be the grandest of 
 realities." Of course, the common people, and some of 
 the wise people, ridiculed the discoyery of Copernicus. 
 Those solid Nuremberg citizens, with their fat money bags, 
 sensible men, who would believe nothing that their eyes 
 could not see and their hands handle, said that the man 
 who told of the earth turning round was evidently a fool ; 
 would he persuade them that this could be without spilling 
 all their warehouses and palaces ? They had a medal struck 
 to show up the absurdity. In another city, Copernicus 
 became the hero of a farce, like Socrates in ancient Athens. 
 But ridicule could not silence the voice of reason, or 
 hinder the theory from making its way. Even if they 
 could not see it, men should come to believe it. They 
 cannot see it now any more than they could then. The 
 sun seems now to move as much as it seemed then to 
 move, and the earth to be as much at rest. Yet every 
 reasonable man knows that this optical impression is as 
 truly illusion as the Maya of the Indian religion. And the 
 inevitable inference from this is, that thought and study 
 show the truth better than any passing impressions, that 
 principles are more to be trusted than pretences and 
 shows, and that what is true in the domain of Nature may 
 be equally true in the domain of character and of the soul. 
 
COPEBNICUS. 241 
 
 4. Another good issue of the Copernican theory is that 
 \\. put the earth into its proper place, and took it out of its 
 false position. Before his time, the Church had taught, 
 and men had believed, that there was nothing in the Uni- 
 verse so important as the earth, and nothing of much 
 importance except the earth and its people ; that God had 
 made evervthinir else for the sake of this and men dwellins; 
 upon it ; that the sun shone by day and the moon by night, 
 and the stars from their distances, mainly to give light and 
 comfort and blessing to earthly men ; that without the 
 earth and men there was really no need of any heavenly 
 bodies. The Copernican theory overturned that compla- 
 cent assertion, and showed the earth a satellite of the sun 
 instead of the sun, a satellite of the earth, showed the 
 earth obedient, dependent, keeping course according to 
 the guidance of its lord in the sky. By the sure and 
 natural inferences which wise men would draw from this 
 theory, the other planets would take on an equal dignity, 
 and the sun a grander state than all. The earth once 
 taken from the centre and made one in a company, the 
 questions might come, are not the other worlds the same in 
 substance and as high in value as this ? May there not be 
 souls to be saved there as well as here.? Are not these 
 orbs worthy of the Divine care as much as this orb, so 
 much smaller than some of the others ? Is not God in 
 the sun as much as in the earth ? And is it not pitiful to 
 limit the love of the gracious World — Father to a small 
 race dwelling in this narrow habitation ? Indirectly, the 
 theory of Copernicus is a satire upon the scheme of salva- 
 tion iterated in the Churches, which shows the Creator of 
 Worlds, who holds the Universe in his hands, planning 
 and contriving, like a puzzled mechanic, how he may fix 
 the fate of the denizens of one small planet, which is com- 
 pelled to move on its way at the will of the central fire. 
 The Copernican theory in no wise depreciates man and 
 his dignity, or the worth of the earth on which he dwells. 
 But it brings this out from its exceptional place, from its 
 sad fate to be holden as a sick child in the arms of the 
 great Father, and shows it ruled like the rest of the planets, 
 by a general beautiful order. Copernicus changed the 
 
 16 
 
242 COPERNICUS, 
 
 purpose of the Lord in his universe from a poor specialty 
 to an end grandly Cathohc. 
 
 5. And in general, we may say of the Copernican theory 
 that its highest service to religion is in opening the way to 
 a true natural theology^ and so to a rational theology. It 
 was a proclamation that the Divine Order and will are to 
 be learned in the laws of the Universe, and not exclusively 
 in any particular revelation at any particular time, to any 
 particular people, that the God in the world is greater and 
 stronger than the God outside of the world or the God of 
 any place or nation. The Copernican theory not only 
 enlarges the science of the world, and sends the human 
 mind off into an infinite field of conjecture and discovery, 
 but it enlarges also the worship of the world, and teaches 
 men how to pray and how to praise. It not only harmon- 
 izes the system of the planets and explains the beautiful 
 vicissitude of the days and the nights, the months and the 
 years, the seasons with seed time and harvest, the heat and 
 cold, and moist and dry, rounding all in a majestic sym- 
 metry, which even includes the erratic and eccentric flights 
 of comets and meteors, but it harmonizes as well the sys- 
 tem of religions, shows that the ancient sun-worship was 
 an almost divine foretoken of what science justifies, and 
 that the adoration of the elements is only the instinctive 
 way of finding God in his works. The Copernican theory 
 rescues the faiths and the prayers of the heathen from 
 blank darkness and destruction of soul, and suggests that 
 God has made of one blood all the nations of men to feel 
 after him and to find him, though he may not be far from 
 anv one of them. For the religions of men it does the 
 same work that it does for the planets in their orbits, 
 gathers them all as parts of the family around the central 
 sun, as brethren and sisters together, not the greater to 
 tyrannize over the less, or the stronger to rule the weaker, 
 but all in balanced rhythm of movement to repeat the 
 same hymn to the Lord of all, 
 
 " Forever singing as they shine, 
 The hand that made us is divine." 
 
 Not at once was the theory of Copernicus accepted. 
 Not easily did it make its way against blindness and preju- 
 
COPEBNICUS. 243 
 
 dice and ignorance and bigotry, of the world and of the 
 Church. It had days of bitterness to pass before it became 
 the recognized rule of the celestial order. Brave men 
 suffered pains in confessing it, and timid men lost their 
 honor in denying it while they believed it. But it made its 
 way in spite of all hindrance, for it was frue. From time 
 to time in these last ages, fantastic, half-crazed dreamers 
 have ventured to question it, and to affirm the old dogma 
 of a stable earth in the centre of a wandering sky. No 
 one now even listens to such folly. The Catholic now 
 is earnest to claim the glory of Copernicus, and is almost 
 ready to write his name as the name of a saint. The nar- 
 rowest theology dares not deny what Copernicus, and Kep- 
 ler, and Newton, and Leibnitz, and Laplace, and how 
 many more, have demonstrated as the system of the Uni- 
 verse ; though the shrewd preachers must fear and must 
 see that it is the prophecy of doom to all narrow limit of 
 salvation to a mechanical process, or to a chosen few in 
 the infinite myriads of men and of worlds. The geocen- 
 tric theology is fated to go where the geocentric astronomy 
 lias gone ; and men in future ages will marvel that the 
 multitude were held so long to believe a scheme which nar- 
 rowed the love of the Almighty Lord, and the work of his 
 Holy Spirit, to a handful of souls on the fragment of one 
 of the innumerable worlds. 
 
244 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 X. 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 The picture of the sixteenth century reminds me of a 
 description which I have read somewhere of the show in the 
 amphitheatre in the time of the Csesars. Those vast 
 rings of benches, rising tier above tier, are all filled with 
 a careless, restless, excited throng, thousands and tens 
 of thousands, the wise, the rich, the gay, the haughty, 
 with the lowest, fiercest, most worthless, of the rabble. 
 The Emperor and his household, his vassal kings, the 
 priests, and the soothsayers, have all come to see the 
 strange games of that arena. The cheaper combats of 
 beasts are soon over. The gladiator enters alone and 
 unclothed to match sinMv his wild foes, to meet first the 
 lion and the tiger, and then his more terrible antagonist, 
 man. What strifes arise in that 2:reat throno: of mvriads 
 concerning that weak, unaided man! Will he conquer! 
 Shall we attend to him, or let him die ! But as he looks 
 proudly around and his quick blows fall with no show of 
 fear, doubt is changed to wonder, and they begin to sym- 
 pathize. All eyes then are turned upon him, and all tongues 
 are hushed. The priest and the monarch are captive to 
 the spell of such daring and valor. The gladiator becomes 
 a hero. 
 
 So do I see the nations grouped around in this theatre 
 of the sixteenth century, in splendid array, kings, and 
 cardinals, scholars, philosophers, poets, races of the South 
 and the North, with the vast throngs of restless masses, 
 sitting, range on range, in the theatre of the world. The 
 inferior games are over, the petty strifes of adjoining 
 states. Now enters the arena, where lions have been 
 fighting, the figure of a monk, solitary, unarmed, un- 
 heralded. But his step is firm, he quails not before that 
 sea of faces, he springs to his battle, he strikes quick and 
 
MARTIN LUTHER, 245 
 
 ringing blows. They must stop from their wrangling, for 
 a hero is here ; one who can meet calmly the lowering 
 brow of the priest, and fling back to the kings that would 
 judge him, his brave defiance. A spiritual gladiator stands 
 in the arena of the world. With the nations lookinsr down 
 upon him Luther waits to do battle for freedom. 
 
 In the storv of the Reformation, Martin Luther must 
 ever be the central figure. No nice criticism of temper or 
 motive, no new discovery of the worth of other men, can 
 dispossess him of that honorable rank. His name has 
 been for more than three centuries the representative 
 name of the great religious movement, and it will continue 
 to be forever. It may be shown that Melancthon was 
 more learned, that Carlstadt was more zealous, that 
 Zwingle was purer, that Calvin was more severely logical, 
 but Luther will still stay as the Achilles of the host which 
 made war upon Rome. His life will be an epitome of the 
 History of Reform. All the rest, to gain significance, 
 must be grouped around him. He is as central and as 
 essential as the figure of the Christ in the picture of the 
 Last Supper. 
 
 Martin Luther was born at the little town of Eisleben, 
 in Saxony, on the tenth day of November, 1483, at eleven 
 in the evening. His father was Hans, or John Luther, a 
 poor laborer of the most common class ; his mother, 
 Margaret Linderman, was a house-servant, pure and pious. 
 There were other children older than Martin. He received 
 his name from the Saint on whose day he was baptised. 
 This necessary rite of baptism was administered within a 
 few hours of his birth. The first years of the child gave 
 no special indications of any future greatness. His father 
 removed to Mansfeld, the ducal town, where he took up 
 the occupation of a miner, and improved thereby his 
 worldly fortunes. Martin was taught to read and write, to 
 say his prayers, and to be respectful before his elders. 
 Sometimes the monks of the neighboring convent or 
 oftener the schoolmaster came to visit the miner in his 
 home ; and at such times the young boy who listened so 
 well was not neglected. The wise parents did not forget 
 the maxim of Solomon, and wholesome chastisement was 
 not excluded from their system of training. Luther tell§ 
 
246 MABTIN LUTHER. 
 
 how his mother beat him till the blood came, when he 
 took one day a poor little nut, and how he was so afraid of 
 his father that he ran up the chimney for refuge when he 
 had accidentally disobeyed the strict paternal rule. 
 
 But Luther wanted a better education than Mansfeld 
 could give him. At Magdeburg on the Elbe, were the 
 charity schools in which the pupils paid their board and 
 tuition from what they could collect in going round from 
 house to house, or could earn in the churches. Luther 
 and his bosom friend John Reinick, set out on foot at the 
 age of fourteen, with knapsacks on their backs, sticks in 
 their hands, and tears on tlieir cheeks, to enter on this 
 humiliating and hard course of training. Their custom at 
 Ma2:deburo^ was to sing twice in a week under the windows 
 of the richer citizens, and to assist in the Church choirs. 
 Luther did not like very much this way of begging, and 
 did not succeed in it so well as his companion. After a 
 year's trial he took up his line of march to Eisenach, 
 where some of his relatives lived, to try his fortune there. 
 His first song here under the windows of a fine mansion 
 in the chief street of the village proved to be a very for- 
 tunate song. The lady of the house, dame Ursula Cotta, 
 took compassion upon the poor lad, called him in, placed 
 him at her table, heard his tale, and became his patron 
 and second mother. With what she did for him and what 
 he did for himself, he was able to study four years in the 
 Convent school of Eisenach. The master of this school, 
 Trebonius, was a humorist and a fine scholar, though he 
 was a Carmelite friar. Luther became one of his favorite 
 pupils. Trebonius could predict eminence for this boy, 
 from his natural gifts, not less than from his industry and 
 resolution. His fine voice was beautiful in speech and 
 rich in song. None mastered more easily the intricacies 
 of grammar, none used more aptly the rules of rhetoric ; 
 and his poetical studies were followed by poetical attempts. 
 These four years at Eisenach were of the highest moment 
 in the preparation of his future career. Luther referred 
 always with gratitude to the gifts and character of the 
 good lady Cotta. He wrote on the margin of his German 
 Bible a couplet which he heard for the first time at her 
 table on a comment on the thirty-first chapter of the 
 Proverbs : 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 247 
 
 " Nothing more dear than woman's love, 
 To him who may its blessing prove." 
 
 Her son became afterwards his fellow-pupil and his 
 favorite disciple. Luther always spoke with affection of 
 "my dear Eisenach, where I was myself once a poor men- 
 dicant, seeking my bread at people's houses." 
 
 From Eisenach the voun<r student at the asre of eijrhteen, 
 went to the University of Erfurt. His father, now in easy 
 circumstances, consented to his wish for a larger educa- 
 tion in this famous school. He saw already in his son a 
 magistrate and a lawyer, which was the position of in- 
 fluence in his view. But Luther himself studied with a 
 different view. He was drawn on not by professional 
 ambition, but by the love of knowledge ; and he preferred 
 those branches which disciplined mind and charmed fancy, 
 to the merely useful knowledge which was the stepping- 
 stone to power. The classic writers, Cicero, Virgil, and 
 Livy, relieved his severe labor in the dialectics of the 
 schoolmen. But the studies which he most prized were 
 those of theology and music. "Music," says he, "is the 
 art of the prophets ; it is the only other art which, like 
 theology, can calm the agitation of the soul, and put the 
 devil to flight." He learned to play on the guitar and the 
 flute, and when his ascetic fervors came on, these instru- 
 ments could sweeten and sanctify his hours of penance. 
 But his favorite haunt was the library of the convent. 
 Here, among other literary treasures, he found the Bible, 
 newly printed in attractive dress. It was in Latin, but 
 Latin . had already become familiar to him as his mother 
 tongue. He read in this book with delight. It opened a 
 new world before him. All that he had been learninsf 
 seemed worthless before this hisrh wisdom. He lonsfed to 
 own the treasure. His mstructors, eminent as they were in 
 literature and science, seemed small to him when he com- 
 pared them to Moses and Paul. He began now to feel 
 the emotions of a religious nature, to be stirred by self- 
 reproach, and to suspect under the leading of the Eccle- 
 siast the vanity of the things he had before loved. First 
 his own sickness, and then the sudden death of his 
 nearest friend, confirmed his resolution to forsake the 
 world and live for God. 
 
248 MABTIN LUTHER. 
 
 The vow which he made when he saw his friend struck 
 down at his side bv lisfhtnins:, he was not slow to execute. 
 And though he had just taken his degrees as Master of 
 Philosophy and Art, he renounced them ; sent back to the 
 University his s^own and rins:, the sisfns of his diiinitv. 2:ave 
 a parting musical entertainment to his friends, and on the 
 seventeenth of July, 1505, in his twenty-first year, entered 
 the Augustinian convent at Erfurt. Under his arm was a 
 little package, containing merely a copy of Plautus and 
 Virgil. He knocked at the convent door. " Open, in 
 God's name," said he. " What do you want," replied the 
 porter. "To consecrate mvself to God." "Amen!" 
 answered the brother, and admitted him. 
 
 It was not a pleasing step to Luther's friends. The pro- 
 fessors of the University did not like to lose a pupil so 
 brilliant, and they sent his classmates to remonstrate with 
 him ; he would not see them. His father, indignant and 
 disappointed at the failure of his ambitious schemes, 
 answered ans^rilv the letter which Luther wrote to inform 
 him of his act. But the resolve had passed ; the step 
 was taken. There was no vieldinsr in this man's nature. 
 The gifted student went straight to his cloistral cell, and 
 for two years practised there the austerities of monastic 
 life, taking upon himself its most menial offices, sweeping 
 the cells, opening the doors, and going round through the 
 neighboring country to beg for the convent. But they 
 tell, nevertheless, of the relaxation of his ascetic pain, 
 how in the small choirs of the brethren, his fine tenor 
 voice would lead the Gregorian chant, how the hvmns of 
 the Church fell sweetly from his lips, and how after 
 preaching to the shepherds, he would lie at the foot of 
 some tree and be lulled to sleep by their simple pipings. 
 
 Like the fathers of the Catholic Church Luther had his 
 demoniac experiences in this period of his life. The 
 devil visited him, and sometimes he was tempted to feel 
 that the devil possessed him. But this early experience 
 was made harder when he was admitted to the priesthood. 
 In 1507, when he was twenty-four years old, he finished 
 his novitiate, took his vows and celebrated as priest his 
 first mass. It was a solemn time for him and he almost 
 
 sank under the burden of this great change. He felt as 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 249 
 
 if all faith had left him and all sin were upon him. His 
 father's presence at the ceremony was an additional trial, 
 for he knew that his father was vexed at the step he had 
 taken. He hardly dared to repeat the prayers at the altar. 
 And it touched him closely, when at the dinner which 
 followed, his father asked, " Is it not written in the Word, 
 that a man should honor his father and mother ? " The 
 joy which the peasant showed at his ordination did not 
 bring joy to his soul. For now he plunged deeply into 
 the mazes of the doctrine about sin. The rector of the 
 convent, Staupitz, was a believer in the moral inability 
 of man, and teaching of that kind could not raise the 
 soul of the young priest, already too prone to accuse him- 
 self. He kept brooding over his lost and ruined state till 
 he became weak and sick. Once they found him lying on 
 the floor of the cell apparently dead. Only music could 
 drive out the demon that tormented him. The sweet 
 notes of his flute would arouse his better nature, and 
 make him for the time forget his pains and his sins. In 
 these inner torments he did not find much sympathy. The 
 monks of the sixteenth century were not much troubled 
 by the visits of demons, and they tried to argue away the 
 vain fears of their brother. But the nature of Luther was 
 not one to be reasoned with. Only one great doctrine 
 could give him peace, and to the elaboration and clear 
 vision of that doctrine his soul groaned and travailed. 
 
 Luther tells, himself, how early this great characteristic 
 doctrine of "justification by faith " had broken upon his 
 soul. When a schoolboy he was struck by the phrase in 
 St. Paul's Epistle, " the justice of God is revealed by 
 faith." And when the terrors of the law began to rise 
 before him, and the cruelty of God to seem manifest, this 
 doctrine of faith came in to relieve his perplexit3\ He 
 saw in this the solution of his doubt. If he had been 
 attacked by idle terrors, if he fell into despair, if he feared 
 for his salvation, and trembled at God's justice, it was 
 because he did not believe ; in want of faith, he saw the 
 source of all his misery. But in the light of faith the justice 
 of God seemed a different thing, not part of vindictive 
 wrath, but part of abounding mercy. It was glorious to 
 think upon it. Joy came again to the poor monk's soul. 
 
250 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 The nightly visions of demons ceased. He stood gladly 
 at the altar. He could now show to sinners the way of 
 salvation. God no longer seemed to him a great tyrant, 
 damning the world for its hereditary curse and its in- 
 numerable transgressions. He no longer felt his soul 
 abhorring the Ruler of the Universe. The words of Jesus 
 came to comfort him. " Believe and thou shalt be saved." 
 These seemed to him to make repentance reasonable. 
 We shall see hereafter how Luther drew out this doctrine 
 and how it differed from the Catholic doctrine. But even 
 in this earl}' stage of his history he had come to look upon 
 it as the central power of the creed. He had already 
 gone back from the later fathers to Augustine, and he 
 could see no way of escape for the sinner through works, 
 whether of ritual or of righteousness, no salvation except 
 by faith in Christ, before he departed on his mission to 
 Rome. 
 
 This visit to Rome was a most weighty event for his 
 future career. It revealed to him a new feature of the 
 ecclesiastical state. Rome and its sanctity had long been 
 in his dreams and he had yearned towards that city with 
 the enthusiasm of a pilgrim. Rome was venerable to him 
 by its classic memories, as the home of those sweet poets 
 whose verses shared with the Bible his attachment. It 
 was more venerable as the fountain head of Catholic doc- 
 trine and faith. In Rome, to Luther's dream, the joy and 
 desire of the whole world seemed to be centred. Occasion 
 arose for a messenger to be sent to Rome to settle some 
 difficulties between the Augustine order and the Pope. 
 Staupitz made Luther his messenger, thinking probably it 
 might distract him from morbid thoughts and cheer his 
 sombre musings. The journey, cheerfully undertaken, 
 did not turn out quite as he expected. Luther carried 
 across the Alps his own idea of the monastic state, the 
 ancient idea, the ascetic idea, the idea of penance, fasting, 
 poverty, and earnestness in prayer ; but he did not see his 
 idea anywhere realized. He found good cheer and great 
 hospitality, but not much piety or communion with God. 
 He heard all along of the great revenues of the convents, 
 the thousands of dollars which came from rents, from 
 masses, from boarders in the house, but not of their gifts 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 251 
 
 to the poor, or their sacrifices in the Saviour's spirit. In- 
 stead of the rude altars before which it seemed becoming 
 that monks should kneel, he saw marble, alabaster, mosaic, 
 jew^elry and gold, all things rich and rare on the shrines of 
 the self-denying brethren. In Milan, the first great Italian 
 city which he reached, he was amazed at the luxury and tht 
 worldliness all around him. It was Paganism baptised. 
 He had never seen Paganism before. The churches 
 seemed strange. He could not understand the mass which 
 they chanted, for a miracle had commanded them to use 
 the service of Ambrose instead of the missal of Gregory, 
 which was the regular Catholic service. He was shocked, 
 too, at the profane haste with which the mysteries of faith 
 were passed over, at the indifference of the priests to their 
 sacred office. 
 
 His journey through Italy was sad and disheartening. 
 Its beautiful skies were dark to his sight. Its transparent 
 air was heavy upon his breast. He seemed to be travelling 
 in pestilence. He could not breathe at night the free air. 
 At Bolo£:na he fell sick and was onlv restored bv the 
 thought of the justice of God through faith. When he 
 reached Rome there was little to reassure him. He found 
 that religion was the last thino: that man cared for in that 
 city. The warlike Julius, intent upon expelling the French 
 from Italy, had no time to attend to monkish troubles. 
 The cardinals and bishops seemed more concerned to 
 enrich themselves and to gather works of art than to re- 
 member the service of God. They loved the Pagan better 
 than the Christian Latin. Nowhere could Luther find 
 any sympathy with his doctrine of faith. The priests and 
 the monks boasted of their unbelief. At the very altar 
 they declared the bread and wine to be that and nothing 
 more. A fortnight Luther stayed at Rome, indignant and 
 disofusted at all which he saw. Rome could henceforth no 
 longer be the holy place of his dreams. Her dignity was 
 lost for him. All her splendor, luxury and wonder, her 
 rulers on horseback, her kneeling crowds, her vast cathe- 
 drals, could have no charm for him. It was hollow and 
 vain. And he went back to Germany with a desolate 
 heart, for his idol had been broken. But the visit was 
 not useless. " I would not," he says in his table talk, 
 
252 MARTIN LUTIIEB. 
 
 "for one hundred thousand florins hav'e missed seeins: 
 Rome, for I should always have feared then that I was 
 unjust to the Pope in what I said about him." 
 
 Scarcely had Luther returned to his convent when he 
 received the appointment of Professor in the new Univer- 
 sity at Wittemberg. This had been established a few 
 years before by Frederic, Elector of Saxony, a prince of 
 liberal culture, of sincere piety, and zealous in the work of 
 elevating the people. He sought in the various convents 
 for suitable men to fill his chairs ; and among others the 
 monk Luther was represented to him as a scholar of rare 
 promise. The invitation was so pressing that it seemed 
 like a command. Luther could not refuse it. He would 
 have preferred to teach theology, the queen of the arts, 
 but the department assigned to him was that of philosophy, 
 and the master of philosophy was Aristotle, whom he 
 could not love. His furniture for the new charge was 
 extremely meagre. He had hardly a change of raiment, 
 and his library was confined to a few ascetic books, some 
 Latin volumes, a few of Aristotle's treatises, a Concord- 
 ance and two Bibles. 
 
 To this appointment of Professor was joined that of 
 Town Preacher, so that he had all classes for his hearers. 
 Luther was frightened at his burden of duty, and would 
 fain have escaped it. " I shall not live three months 
 under it," said he. " Very well," said his former master, 
 " if you die, 'twill be in the service of the Lord, a noble 
 sacrifice!" His labors now became intense and unremit- 
 ting. He was constant in the class-room ; and yet his 
 sermons were regularly heard in the royal chapel, in the 
 college church and in the monastery at Wittemberg, to 
 which he belonged. These sermons were not hasty pro- 
 ductions, for severe private study preceded his public 
 efforts. His sermons were in one respect peculiar. They 
 neglected the schoolmen and the creeds, and went to the 
 Scriptures for their material and their inspiration. Though 
 he had read the great summary of Thomas Aquinas, the 
 Golden Doctor, he preferred to draw from the Epistles of 
 Paul. His preaching was in all respects remarkable. His 
 fine voice was never more sonorous and impressive than 
 when it repeated the strong phrases of the Epistle to the 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 253 
 
 Romans. His animated tone, his forcible gesture, his 
 sharp emphasis, and his evident sincerity, all told largely 
 in the public applause. His lectures were a place of 
 general resort. Eminent doctors pronounced his explana- 
 tions of the Scriptures to be the most luminous of any 
 which had been heard for a century. The midnight oil 
 which he habitually burned was not spent in vain ; but 
 from the vigils of the student came forth a light which 
 astonished the wisest. Luther loved his task, and bore 
 modestly his fame, glad only to open to others the myste- 
 ries of that Word which was so grand to his soul. In 
 these close studies of his professorship, in these Biblical 
 sermons, he was laying the foundations of his power as a 
 Reformer, and preparing for his service of controversy, 
 his defence of God's Word against the devices and cor- 
 ruptions of men. Already his eminence was predicted, 
 and he was praised by famous men. 
 
 On the sixteenth of October, 15 12, St. Luke's day, 
 Luther received the de2:ree of Doctor of Divinitv before a 
 large assembly. The insignia of his new honor were 
 offered by the Archdeacon, now at once his superior, his 
 admirer and his friend, but in a few years to become the 
 object of his bitterest scorn and contempt. Luther was 
 now twenty-nine years old, in the full vigor of his powers 
 and ready for any service. 
 
 The immediate motive to the Reformation was the sale 
 of Indulgences. These had been sanctioned bv manv 
 Popes before Leo, and the whole system of payments to 
 the Church for sins committed was kindred with them. 
 For it seems reasonable that sins which may be released 
 for a consideration in money should be released in ad- 
 vance as much as in the past. If the offence committed 
 has its price, there is no reason why future offences should 
 not be so anticipated. But Leo carried the system farther 
 than previous Popes. His luxurious schemes of life, his 
 gigantic literary and artistic plans, required more revenue 
 than the ordinary contributions of the Christian world. 
 St. Peter's Church was yet to be finished, and there was 
 no limit there to lavish expense if the design of the archi- 
 tect were carried out. It happened, too, at this time that 
 the Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mayence, Albert, in 
 
254 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 whose diocese Luther lived, was a man of luxurious life 
 and great needs, wanting more than all his revenues to 
 meet his expenses, and yet owing vast sums to Rome as 
 the arrears of unpaid tithes. The indulgences proclaimed 
 by the Pope, then, would meet his sanction as a means of 
 relieving himself of an inconvenient demand. If Luther's 
 story may be trusted, Albert and flie Pope were partners 
 in the scheme and shared alike in its profits. 
 
 Luther had heard before with amazement and ansfer 
 that such abomination v/as allowed. But he was a Catholic 
 still, and he did not feel called upon to interfere in what 
 he had no personal share. But early in the summer of 
 15 17, he heard that the accursed thing had come nigh to 
 him, and that in some of the towns around Wittemberg a 
 monk, by name John Tetzel, was trafficking in sins and 
 souls in the name of the Holy Church. He had known 
 the character and spirit of this man, his shameless licen- 
 tiousness, his bold profanity, his irreverent trifling with 
 sacred mysteries, his insolent dictation and abuse of those 
 who stood in his way. From such a man, however eloquent 
 and ingenious, no good could be expected. It seemed fit 
 that he should be selected for a base and blasphemous 
 service. His expressions were repeated to Luther ; the 
 absurd and noisy pomp with which he entered the towns 
 with a crier before him announcing that God had come, 
 with long and showy processions of priests, and monks, 
 and nuns, of magistrates and scholars, with flaunting ban- 
 ners, and lighted candles, and the red cross, and the 
 pontifical bull on its cushion, profaning by showy mockery 
 the works of Divine Grace in the pardon of sinners. The 
 preacher of righteousness could not be silent when such 
 abuse was acted. He had disciples to warn and he had a 
 flock to protect. He preached therefore at Wittemberg, 
 warning his hearers not to deceive themselves by any such 
 follies, and not to touch the pledges of unlawful pardon. 
 He wrote in remonstrance to the bishop of his diocese, 
 and to Archbishop Albert, beseeching them to heed and 
 stop this scandal to all piety. His words were terse and 
 clear, and spoke a truth not to be mistaken. No answer 
 came from the Archbishop, since it was not likely that a 
 partner in the trafBc would try to prevent it. 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 255 
 
 Luther began to see that the case was pressing. The 
 bearer of Indulgences was now at Juterboch, eight miles 
 from Wittemberg, and the people flocked out to meet him 
 and to purchase his wares. The confessionals at Wittem- 
 bers: were deserted. The excitement for Tetzel and his 
 traffic increased. It was a critical time, Luther took 
 counsel of God, retired to his cell, and spent many days 
 there in preparing a sermon which should put a stop to the 
 affair. On the appointed day the church was crowded. No 
 one could discover from the earnestness with which Luther 
 joined in the prayers and chanting that he had such daring 
 words to speak. His devotion to Catholic faith never was 
 more evident than when he was ready to throw out 
 defiance to Catholic practice. 
 
 We cannot here give even an abstract of the positions 
 of this striking sermon, which really contains the germs 
 of all Luther's heresies. It is enough to say that it gave 
 the lie to all the pretensions of Tetzel, declared that sin 
 could only be pardoned by God, and his free grace, that 
 nowhere in the word of God was it said that a man could 
 buy expiation for the wrong of his life or the evil in his 
 soul, that it was the first Christian work to show mercy, to 
 help the poor, to give to the sick, and suffering, and after- 
 wards, if there were a surplus remaining, to give to the 
 buildino^ of churches. 
 
 The boldness of this sermon frightened his fellow-monks. 
 They feared the result of such a manifesto. One of them, 
 shaking his head, said to Luther, " Ah ! Doctor, you have 
 been very rash to-day. This may be a bad affair for our 
 order. The Dominicans are laus^hino: at us alreadv." 
 "What matter, good father," replied Luther. "If this 
 does not come from God, it will fall ; if it comes from his 
 holy word it will stand;" repeating thus the sentiment of 
 Huss, and Wickliffe, and Gamaliel, the sentiment of all 
 who have learned the world's wisdom or are moved by the 
 prophet's fire. 
 
 This famous sermon of Luther soon came to the ears of 
 Tetzel. It aroused all his wrath. He thought to crush 
 the presumptuous preacher by words of authority. He 
 stormed, he insulted, he threatened. He took one night 
 to prepare a list of twenty propositions which were to 
 
256 MABTIN LUTHER, 
 
 annihilate the Wittemberg doctor. He held him up to 
 ridicule, he hinted at harder pains. "The Inquisition," 
 said Tetzel, "shall be the judge of any who dare to deny 
 what the Pope has ordered." The trial of fire and water 
 he offered to Luther in taunting phrase. His taunts were 
 flung back by satire. "Your cries seem to me," said 
 Luther, " but empty braying. In stead of water I com- 
 mend to you the juice of the vine, and in place of fire 
 inhale, my friend, the odor of a good roast goose, and tell 
 all your inquisitors, all your eaters of hot iron and splitters 
 of rocks, that I, Martin Luther, live at Wittemberg, and 
 that they will find at my house an open door, a table 
 spread, good cheer, and a hearty welcome." 
 
 But the time was come for a greater effort. The affair 
 could no longer be one of mere self-denial. It was time 
 to arouse the scholars and the dignitaries of the Church 
 out of their indifference. The great Festival of All 
 Saints, celebrated in Germany with peculiar zeal, was 
 close at hand. Luther took no human counsel. Alone he 
 ventured to brave the storm. He drew up ninety-five 
 theses. They were clear, vigorous, and deliberately 
 written ; he would stand by them as his word. Alone, in 
 the evening, he went out to the Church ; with his own 
 hand he nailed to the door these theses. (William III, of 
 Prussia, caused bronze doors to be erected in place of the 
 original wooden ones on which the theses were nailed by 
 Luther, and the theses were cast in raised letters upon the 
 doors.) That act made the thirty-first day of October, 
 15 17, memorable in the history of the world. There 
 began a new Christian cycle. The Reformation dates 
 from that All Saints Day. 
 
 On the morning of All Saint's Day, the crowds as usual 
 thronged to the Church at Wittemberg to hear and join in 
 the solemn mass of the great festival. But a strange in- 
 scription upon the door arrested their notice. It gave a 
 new turn to the thought of the people. It offered a new 
 feature in the exercises of the day. They read in the 
 long list of propositions, which rang in their nervous dia- 
 lect like the sound of a trumpet, a defiance to that man 
 who came there in the name of the Pope to make merchan- 
 dise of souls. They saw it announced there that Martin 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 257 
 
 Luther stood ready that day publicly to maintain that the 
 Pope had and could have no power to sell the pardon of 
 sins, or to pardon any sins, but on the Scriptural condi- 
 tion of repentance ; that it was a scandal and a lie to affirm 
 of the Holy Father that he would thus set at naught the 
 word of God ;.that charity and faith, not the payment of 
 money, were the means of salvation. The thins: was im- 
 mediately noised abroad, and before the hour of service 
 had come, priests, monks, scholars, artisans, the noble and 
 the poor, were all talking about the theses. At the ap- 
 pointed hour thousands were waiting in the Church, but 
 Tetzel was not there, and his friends were silent. No one 
 appeared to attack the novel doctrine. And the sun that 
 day went down upon a triumph, the consequences of which 
 no thought of ours can measure. The thousands of pil- 
 grims that had come together dispersed over Saxony again 
 to their homes. But they carried with them the record 
 of the day's achievement. Instead of the certificate of 
 pardoned sin, they bore back in their memories, if not in 
 their hands, the w'ords which they had read. No tidings 
 had ever spread more rapidly. In two weeks all Germany 
 had heard of them ; and before the month had passed, 
 they were read at Rome. I'hey were discussed in priestly 
 conclaves, in colleges, and in workshops. They were 
 translated into foreign tongues. The great classic scholars 
 stopped to heed them, and the oppressed heart of more 
 than one nation beat high with hope. They penetrated 
 even to Spain, the dark and bloody ground of religion, 
 and the recent hecatombs of victims could not prevent 
 the Andalusians from rejoicing in this unlooked-for testi- 
 mony. It was not the intrinsic importance of these theses, 
 but the prophecy of greater things, which men felt that 
 they contained. The world saw that they were the har- 
 binger of a new element in human affairs, of a new day 
 in religion. From all sides came in testimonies to Luther 
 that his act had not been fruitless or unheeded. Such 
 men as Reuchlin and Erasmus were inspired by it with 
 new hope ; and many a young student saw the reality here 
 of his recent vision, and welcomed the words of the Saxon 
 teacher as an assurance that the second coming of Christ so 
 
 17 
 
258 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 long delayed was now at hand. Even Pope Leo was more 
 struck by the genius of Luther than enraged at his boldness. 
 
 The next critical passage in Luther's life was his ap- 
 pearance before the legate of the Pope at the Augsburg 
 Diet in October, 15 18. We have no time here to detail 
 the events which led to this citation. We must pass over 
 that striking letter to Leo, the most blessed Father, where 
 Luther humbles himself before the rule of the Pope, yet 
 holds to and repeats his opinions ; the discussion between 
 the Emperor and the Elector as to the best place for a 
 hearing ; the defeat of the manoeuvres to draw him to 
 Rome, which would have been sure destruction ; the in- 
 dignation with which the friends of Luther regarded the 
 scheme to entrap him. We must omit here, too, that most 
 important friendship which Luther formed at this time 
 with Melancthon, an event of moment for his whole sub- 
 sequent career. 
 
 The diet of Augsburg was called by Maximilian for 
 political ends, to settle the disputed questions of sover- 
 eignty, and especially to take measures against the invasion 
 of the Turks. It seemed fit to Leo to make this imposing 
 assembly, where the princes and nobles of Germany were 
 met, the scene of trial for a fanatical monk, who had dared 
 to oppose an ordinance of the Church. By a brief dated 
 August twenty-third, Luther was summoned to appear at 
 the Diet within sixty days to answer to the charges of 
 heresy, and to retract his scandalous attacks upon the 
 Church. The business was entrusted to a shrewd, accom- 
 plished and famous doctor of the Church, the Cardinal De 
 Vio, usually called Caietan, from the town where he was 
 born. This man was noted for a moral purity unusual in 
 his time and office, a burning zeal for the interest of the 
 Church and the monastic order, and a truly Italian tact 
 in diplomacy. He was versed in the lore of the schools, 
 and proud in the dignity of his station, — the man, it was 
 thought, at once fitted to refute, convince, seduce, per- 
 suade and overawe a mind like that of Luther. He entered 
 on the mission with confidence and alacrity; success 
 seemed sure; no sane man could dream that a Saxon pro- 
 fessor would hold out against a cardinal legate, armed as 
 he was with power to crush the heretic. 
 
MABTIN LUTHER. 259 
 
 It was with great fear that the friends of Luther saw 
 him set out for Augsburg in obedience to the mandate. It 
 seemed to them a certain renewal of the tragedy of Con- 
 stance. They could not believe that the ^afe conduct 
 which he gained from the Emperor would be more re- 
 spected than that of Sigismund had been. But Luther 
 trusted in the justice of his cause. He wanted no friends 
 to share his danger. His journey was made mostly on 
 foot, and with no conveniences for travel. Yet he found 
 that the people all along had heard of him and were 
 waiting to welcome him. At Augsburg the various con- 
 vents vied with each other for the honor of giving him 
 hospitality. He was summoned as a heretic, but received 
 as an apostle. Even the legate felt the need of treating 
 such a famous man with respect, and made an effort to 
 conciliate Luther in advance of the public hearing. One 
 of the first persons who waited upon Luther after his ar- 
 rival was the Urban of Sena Longa, a courtier of the 
 Cardinal's, subtle, insinuating, and thoroughly master of 
 Italian dissimulation. This man plied Luther with all 
 sorts of arguments, and used all sorts of evasions to per- 
 suade the doctor into submission, and prepare him for the 
 serious interview. But he found that the honest soul of 
 the Reformer was proof against his wiles. Luther under- 
 stood it all, and these attempts to beguile him only gave 
 him more strength in the cause he had espoused. Though 
 friends and foes, the monks and the people were so busy 
 in discussing his probable fate, he awaited calmly the day 
 of hearing, determined in his mind how to act. 
 
 On Tuesday, October nth, Luther found himself for 
 the first time confronted in argument with a high dignitary 
 of the Church. The reverence which he made when the 
 interview began was not a sign of what the word was to- 
 be. The legate saw, to his amazement, that the criminal 
 whom he had summoned was disposed to contest his au- 
 thority. His mild request to Luther to retract, and to 
 pledge himself to good behavior was strangely met by a 
 demand that the errors in doctrine should be pointed out. 
 His statement that the Pope had sanctioned the indul- 
 gences was met by an assertion that the Pope had no right 
 to sanction them. Caietan learned very soon that he had 
 
26o MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 a hard subject to deal with, one who was as little to be 
 dazzled by the show of power, as he was to be silenced by- 
 threats and commands, one who could baffle his ingenuity 
 by words of fe*arless honesty. He had not met anywhere a 
 man of Luther's stamp and there was no rule which he knew 
 for getting hold of such a mind. His diplomacy was at 
 fault. Every snare which he»set was avoided, and he was 
 mortified that the whole day should pass in fruitless discus- 
 sion with no progress made in the humiliation of his an- 
 tagonist beyond the first act of respect. Two more days 
 were spent in the business, all the time with the affair 
 growing worse and worse. The wily Cardinal was flung 
 off his guard. His passions got the better of his pru- 
 dence. He lowered his dignity by ridiculing his foe, and 
 turned the laughter upon himself by his fierce loquacity. 
 One thing he wanted, and that was just what he could not 
 get, Luther's consent to retract. The more he stormed 
 and threatened, the calmer Luther stood before him. He 
 could not be betraved into anv insult. All that Luther 
 would say was, " I will retract when you show me what I 
 have said contrary to the Gospel of Christ. Answer my 
 arguments and I will obey your commandment." 
 
 The violence of the legate aided the cause of Luther. 
 It was good for him that the Pope's emissary refused to 
 hear. It gave him an excuse for departing. There was 
 danger in the Cardinal's threats, and it was not safe to try 
 his invitation too far. Four days he waited at Augsburg 
 after the last interview, to see if the legate would relent 
 and admit him again to his presence. He even added a 
 modest letter, in which he asked pardon for any improper 
 haste or petulance, and confessed his readiness to listen 
 to the suggestions of the Holy Father. But the words "I 
 retract," did not escape him. Without making his inten- 
 tion known, one morning before daybreak, he quietly rode 
 away and left his antagonist with the Italian courtiers to 
 digest the matter as well as they could. 
 
 In the month of June, 1520, two famous documents ap- 
 peared. The one was an address to the German nobility 
 from the hand of Luther proving that the Pope was the 
 predicted Man of Sin and worthy of execration. Four 
 thousand copies of this work were sold in a few weeks and 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 261 
 
 distributed throughout Germany. It was an appeal from 
 the Pope to the nation, to defend their ancient rights, to 
 support the cause of rehgion, of letters, of human free- 
 dom, and Christian purity. It showed the Pope to be a 
 thief, a tyrant and a traitor to God, living on the sweat of 
 the poor and the infamy of the base, the head of a vast 
 system of iniquity. " Let us blow down these walls of 
 paper and straw which the Romans have built around 
 them, and lift up the rods which punish by bringing the 
 wiles of the devil to the light of day." He declares 
 resistance to be the only remedy against the abuses of 
 Rome. The yoke of Rome must be thrown off, its power 
 defied, the tiara dashed from the head of St. Peter's im- 
 pious successor. The Pope must be relieved of his sover- 
 eignty. The Emperor should give him a prayer-book and a 
 Bible that he may leave kings to govern, and betake him- 
 self to preaching and prayer. In a long strain of indig- 
 nant protest he goes over the abuses with which Rome 
 has loaded the Church, and calls upon the kings and the 
 nobles, the doctors, the students, and the people to unite 
 themselves against their common oppressor. Such bold 
 truth had never been spoken since a Reformer preached 
 the new kingdom in the streets of Jerusalem. It re- 
 sounded through the land, and rang like the blare of a 
 thousand trumpets. 
 
 Simultaneous with the appearance of this address, in 
 solemn conclave at Rome, the Cardinals voted to declare 
 to the world the famous bull which separated Martin 
 Luther from the communion of the faithful and declared 
 him a heretic, infamous and accursed. Forty-one proposi- 
 tions were condemned. It was ordered that the Reformer 
 shall burn all the books in which these propositions may 
 be contained. Sixty days were given him from the time 
 of the publication of the bull to retract, or to come to 
 Rome and confess his sins. Otherwise, he and all his 
 friends were to be treated as heretics, according to the 
 ancient method. In the autumn of the year, Eck, bearing 
 this fearful bull, appeared in Germany. It was proclaimed 
 among the people ; some laughed, but many feared. Here 
 and there men began to rid themselves by fire of the 
 works of Luther. He met at first the bull by irony and 
 
262 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 abuse. He treated it as a contemptible mockery of the 
 popular will. But soon he saw that some more daring 
 course must be taken. Three years before he had cen- 
 sured the rashness of the Wittembero^ students in burnins: 
 the theses of Tetzel. Now he invited the officers and 
 students to witness a more imposing auto da fe. On the 
 tenth day of December at nine o'clock a. m., a great 
 crowd were gathered at the east gate of the city, around 
 the cross close to which a funeral pile of faggots had been 
 raised. In solemn march Luther led the procession till 
 they reached the spot. The fire was put to the pile. 
 Luther then took the laws of the Church of Rome, the 
 Decretals, the Clementines, the Extravagants, and the 
 Canon law, which ages had been collecting in the Church, 
 with the writings of Eck and Emser, and flung them on 
 the fire. When these were burned he threw on the Papal 
 Bull, exclaiming, " Because thou has troubled and put to 
 shame the holy one of the Lord, so be thou troubled and 
 consumed by the eternal fire of hell." A loud cheer ended 
 the performance and they returned to town without out- 
 break or confusion. 
 
 On the second day of April, 152 1, Luther set out on his 
 journey to Worms in obedience to the Imperial mandate, 
 with the safe-conduct guaranteeing him an unmolested 
 passage and a sure return. His friends saw him depart 
 with heavy hearts, and those who went with him seemed 
 almost to be going to martyrdom. Melancholy forebodings 
 min2:led with the welcomes which s^reeted him all along 
 the way. The pride which Germany felt in the fame of 
 her hero was troubled by the prospect of his fate. Ob- 
 stacles all along were thrown in his way. Friends dis- 
 suaded him, enemies jeered at him. But his heart was 
 fixed. "I will obey the Emperor's order," was his answ^er 
 to all their words. "Should they light a fire which should 
 blaze as high as heaven and reach from Wittemberg to 
 Worms, at Worms I will still appear in the name of the 
 Lord and overthrow the monster. I will go up to Worms 
 even if there were as manv devils there as there are tiles 
 on the roofs of the houses." His journey lasted fourteen 
 days. On the sixteenth he entered the city more like a 
 warrior returning from battle than a criminal going to 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 263 
 
 judgment. The Imperial herald went before him. A 
 bociy-guard of Saxon nobles were around him. The 
 thousand students who had gathered to the great session 
 welcomed him with their greetings, and all the streets were 
 filled with a dense throng of people anxious 10 behold the 
 man of the age. -As Luther stepped from his carriage 
 and saw this great, splendid crowd swelling before him in 
 its ocean waves, his heart was lifted in the spirit of 
 prophecy, and he exclaimed aloud, "God will be upon my 
 side." Lons: after he had entered there, the crowds waited 
 to see his face, to hear his voice, or to receive his bene- 
 diction. 
 
 The next day, at four p. M., was appointed for the hear- 
 ing. As Luther went slowly along to the hall of meeting, 
 he was at once cheered and awed by the sight before his 
 eyes. It seemed as if the whole German people were 
 poured into this one city. Every place where any one 
 could see him was occupied, doors, windows, roofs, the 
 spires of churches ; everywhere he saw anxious eyes 
 turned upon him. Words of encouragement and of warn- 
 ing fell upon his ear, among them the words of Jesus, 
 " Fear not those," etc. " When you stand before lyings," 
 etc. He saw that he was safe in the hearts of the people, 
 though the powers of the land might condemn him. With 
 great effort he reached at last the hall, and came into the 
 august presence of the assembled empire. A stout heart 
 might have quailed in that presence, not so much from its 
 numbers as from the exalted rank of its members. An 
 Emperor, heir to the crown of the Caesars, an Archduke, 
 six electors, the founders of dynasties, twenty-four dukes, 
 eight counts, thirty archbishops and prelates, seven ambas- 
 sadors from the States of Europe, and behind these a 
 crowd of lesser nobles. It was before such an audience 
 that Luther stood and listened to the word which sum- 
 moned him to humble himself and to retract his teaching. 
 Two questions were asked him. " Are these books (a 
 goodly pile which lay there) yours ? " Next, " Will you 
 declare that you condemn them and renounce their con- 
 tents as heresy ? " The books are mine, answered Luther, 
 when their titles were read. To your other question I 
 must ask a short space to frame my answer that I may not 
 
264 MARTIN LUTIlEll 
 
 endanger my soul nor offend God's word. His enemies 
 rejoiced in this symptom of weakness." "This man will 
 not make a heretic of me," said the Emperor. One day 
 was granted to Luther to prepare his answer. It was 
 spent by the Reformer not in the examination of his works 
 to see how much he might spare from their contents, but 
 in earnest prayer that God would give him strength. 
 
 It was late the next day before they would give him 
 audience. Two hours long he waited in the antechamber, 
 with hundreds gazing there upon him. When at last, as 
 the day was darkening, he stood before the Diet to answer 
 again, all of them could see that the courage of the mar- 
 tyrs was in his soul. His speech was modest, simple and 
 earnest. First in his native German and then in Latin, he 
 repeated it. It asked for a refutation of his errors. It 
 appealed to the Bible as arbiter and God as judge. In 
 respectful terms it reiterated the obnoxious heresy that 
 every man was a freeman in Christ. It spoke a lofty 
 faith in the truth, and implored the princes to act now as 
 the servants of God. " Why do you bring us here ques- 
 tions which the Church has long since decided," said the 
 Imperial orator. " Answer yes or no, will you retract .'' " 
 "Since, then," said Luther, "your most serene majesty 
 and the princes require a simple answer, I will give it 
 thus : Unless I shall be convinced by proofs from Scripture 
 or by evident reason (for I believe not in erring Popes 
 and Councils), I cannot choose but adhere to the word 
 of God which has possession of my conscience, nor can I 
 possibly, nor will I ever, make any recantation, since it is 
 neither safe nor honest to act contrary to conscience. 
 Here I take my stand ; I cannot do otherwise. God help 
 me ! Amen ! " The question was repeated then, with a 
 similar answer. They saw it was vain to tempt this man. 
 He had appealed to a higher tribunal than theirs, to the 
 voice of God in the human soul, and it might seem to 
 those men of earthly might and renown that it was the 
 great voice of God speaking out to them through the dim 
 light of that still hall. The Emperor was awed in such a 
 presence. 
 
 I need go no farther in the narrative, though it were 
 interesting to speak of the visits which Luther received 
 
MARTIN LUTUEB. 26 
 
 D 
 
 from the nobles, the bishops, and the scholars while he 
 stayed in the city, with what arguments they plied him, 
 what lures they spread for him, what compliments and 
 what insults he had to encounter. Nor need we stay to 
 follow back his progress homeward and observe the joy 
 that greeted him, and the gratitude which the voices of 
 the people spoke for his strange preservation. I have 
 finished the sketch of Luther's rebellion and reached its 
 climax. It has now become an appeal from all human 
 authority to the truth and word of God, an assertion of 
 the rights of conscience, a new Gospel of freedom. The 
 scholar of Wittemberg has become to our view the prophet 
 of the world. The truth has been wrested by his arm 
 from all its trammels. He stands before us now separate 
 from the Church, and relying only on the invisible strength 
 of God. Around him we seem to see gathering the hosts 
 of heaven, the company of saints and prophets, to stand 
 over against the hosts of the Church on earth. It recalls 
 for us the old story of Elijah and the priests of Baal. 
 
 But it is time to turn from this public work of the great 
 Reformer to his more private sphere of duty, and see 
 something of the spirit and character of the man. Just 
 one month after the death of Frederic the Elector, Luther 
 married Catherine of Bora, a nun escaped from a Misnian 
 convent. Such an act gave great scandal to his friends, 
 both in the court, and in the schools. It was a reproach 
 upon the lofty virtue and self-denial which heretofore tliey 
 had boasted of their master, and Luther was called to 
 defend for himself what was right and proper on the 
 principles which he laid down. But it was a fortunate 
 step for his peace of mind. The partner whom he chose 
 was beautiful alike in person and in soul, of a sweet, 
 gentle, patient nature, fit to lighten his perplexing labors, 
 and to console him in his sorrows. She had mind enough 
 to appreciate, but not to differ from her husband, and the 
 heart to admire him without the will to contend with him. 
 She gave him the instance and model of what an obedient 
 and loving wife should be. Though he might sometimes 
 wish that she had a larger comprehension of the doctrines 
 of faith and a deeper experience of spiritual struggle, still 
 it was beautiful to turn from the devil who tempted him 
 
266 MABTIN LUTHER. 
 
 so sorely to her serene and tranquil soul. She restored 
 him to his simple humanity, and engaged the man who 
 bore on his heart the creeds of nations and the interests 
 of a future Zion, in the common cares of a humble 
 household. She gave him sympathy with the details of 
 an earthly life, and yet suggested to him visions of higher 
 relations. Luther's marriage helped him at once to bear 
 his poverty and to see how Christ was mystically joined 
 to the bride of the Apocalypse. He found no loss in 
 going back from his study-chamber to the company of his 
 little household. The new experience of the affections 
 interpreted for him the solemn oracles of God's word. 
 
 And all a father's tenderness was called out to the 
 children who grew and frolicked in his home. He learned 
 then what Jesus meant when he blessed the little ones. 
 They showed him the image of freedom, joy and purity. 
 He seemed to be nearer heaven when they were playing 
 around him. Their careless confidence was a sis:n of 
 what the Christian's faith towards God should be ; he dis- 
 covered spontaneously revealed in their souls all for which 
 with such pains and doubt he was striving. Nowhere is 
 his story more charming than in its episodes of domestic 
 love and domestic sorrow. There is an exquisite contrast 
 between his letters of controversy and defiance to Henry 
 the despot, and Erasmus the scholar, and the quaint coun- 
 sels which he found time always to write to his little son ; 
 between Luther dictating formulas of faith and worship, 
 to thousands of preachers and churches, and Luther listen- 
 '\nz at intervals to the sonjjs which his little dausfhter 
 Magdalen sang so sweetly. There is a wonderful pathos 
 in the tones in which he, who could go boldly on to his 
 own martyrdom, speaks of the sickness and death of his 
 child, to see the strong man, whom threats and dangers 
 could not shake, bowed to the grief of a woman and pros- 
 trate beneath the hand of God. We find in the life of 
 Luther what we have not found in the story of all the 
 saints before, a human interest and tenderness, scenes of 
 emotion into which not piety and genius only may enter, 
 but which are identical with those of the most simple life. 
 The reverence of Augustine for his mother, the love of 
 Basil for his friends, the charity of St. Francis for the 
 
MARTIN LUrilER. 267 
 
 poor, the sick, and the forsaken, are all beautiful, but the 
 home of Luther attracts us by a stronger sympathy. The 
 love there is of a deeper and holier sort. The sorrow is 
 more human. 
 
 Few homes were happier than that of Luther though 
 few were more straitened in means. The worst enemies 
 of the Reformer could not accuse him of the love of gold. 
 He cared so little for the goods of the world that often 
 the daily subsistence of his family seemed in danger of 
 failing. He trusted in that Father who gives the ravens 
 their food and clothes the lilies of the field. He had 
 neither envy nor reproach for the rich ; only his heart did 
 not turn in their direction. He had no care to extract 
 profit to himself from the applauses of the world. At any 
 time the chance was offered him of adding by the power 
 of wealth to the dignity of his station. But money to him 
 was of use only in saving others from want and enabling 
 them to live without sorrow. His will speaks of his debts 
 as nearly balancing his possessions and enjoins upon his 
 lovins: wife to discharsre these from the sale of the valua- 
 bles remaining. This carelessness of gain has prevented 
 any charge against the private integrity of Luther. Yet 
 we cannot find that poverty brought to him any pain. He 
 lived on in trusting cheerfulness. 
 
 No man had a more genial nature. With all its robust- 
 ness and earnestness his mind had a keen sense of humor, 
 which even the most serious passages of his life could ex- 
 cite. He had no relish for empty jesting, but he loved to 
 give to grave discussions a quaint and comical turn. Even 
 Satan, who was a terrible reality to him, was the object of 
 his wit. He could laugh at, while he fought with, the 
 Evil One. The ludicrous side of any argument or treatise 
 never escaped him. He would detect and expose it in the 
 letter of a friend, the essay of a rival, or the anathema of 
 a Pope. The terrible decree which made him an outcast 
 from the society of the faithful he answered by sarcasm 
 and derision. Ridicule was a weapon which never failed 
 him and which he used with astonishing power. No theme 
 was so grave, no dignity so high, no issue so momentous, 
 that his satirical taste hesitated to deal with it. His friends 
 were often shocked, his enemies amazed, at the style of 
 
268 MARTIN LUTHER, 
 
 his rejoinders. He almost invented for Germany a new 
 vocabulary of grotesque and sarcastic terms. To many 
 now this is the most repulsive side of the Reformer's 
 character and spirit. His most serious writings seem at 
 times profaned by their buffoonery. What is so charming 
 and fresh in the extravagances and whims of the Table Talk 
 is far from agreeable in the discussion of themes which 
 the reverence of ages should have hallowed. This ten- 
 dency of Luther has given ample materials to his Catholic 
 defamers to hold him up to Qontempt and scorn. His 
 garbled writings are made to attest a low and sneering 
 hatred of all holy things, and the cunning Jesuit is able to 
 show how a blackguard was mistaken for a Reformer. 
 But the more candid critic, while he allows that the humor 
 of Luther was not alwavs of the most dio^nified sort, that 
 his style was lacking in refinement, will see in it the proof 
 of a genial soul, and a genuine cheerfulness. 
 
 One of the most pleasant pictures of Luther's life are 
 those social eveninsr 2:atherin"fs in the Black Eag^le Inn 
 where for fifteen years he was wont habitually to meet his 
 more intimate friends ; and on the oaken benches and 
 with the slight stimulus of the can of ale, to discuss all 
 things known and unknown, the questions of theology, the 
 topics of the day, the character of men, and the nature of 
 God, the stars and the demons, the acts of the Pope, and 
 the intentions of the Emperor, the spirit of poetry, the 
 laws of morality, and the intiuence of woman ; the Scrip- 
 tures, the creeds, the sacred songs and the worth of the 
 Fathers, marriage, and the domestic duties, destiny and 
 the state of the soul ; all things human or divine. From 
 the fragments of these interviews which friendship has 
 recorded, we may imagine what a wealth of knowledge, of 
 thought, of wit, and fancy was poured out by the master 
 for his disciples, how many classic memories were revived, 
 how many gleams of inspiration shot out, how many 
 aphorisms dropped to suggest whole trains of most spiritual 
 thought. Rarely in the reunion of friends do we find such 
 spiritual talk thrown off in the gayety and glee of unbent 
 minds. Here the floodgates of Luther's soul, when the 
 pressure of work was taken off, were opened, and the tide 
 which all day had been forced into the narrow channel of 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 269 
 
 some intense toil, was allowed to leap freely along and 
 spread in its natural current. The Table Talk of Luther 
 contains more materials for essay and poetry, more prac- 
 tical hints, more spiritual wisdom, than all his vast folios 
 of catechism, and commentary, and epistle. The letters 
 of Abelard to a young girl, records of an unmanly pas- 
 sion, make now the fame of that great scholar. The love 
 sonjis which he wrote in secret and not his eles^ant learn- 
 ingf, eive now to Petrarch his renown. And the broken 
 words of Luther at the Black Eagle Inn, which he would 
 never have given to the world, show now the perfect image 
 of the man of his age. 
 
 Kindred to his love for humor, but more free from excep- 
 tion, was Luther's devotion to beauty in all its forms. He 
 was an enthusiastic lover of nature. And he dwelt fondly 
 on the charms of that Paradise which man's sin had 
 ruined. His garden was as sacred as his study, and when 
 the devil was too pressing, the tempter was readily ex- 
 pelled by the diligent use of the spade. He was as 
 sedulous in arranging his flower-beds as in translating the 
 Gospels. He would kneel down to scent the violet, and 
 take the breath of the rose. The rich tint of the peach 
 suggested to him a thought of the beauty of God's spirit- 
 world. I'he murmuring of brooks, the rustling of leaves, 
 the sighing of winds, were all hymns sung to the Creator. 
 The music in his soul was answered by the music of the 
 Universe. This love of Nature, more than any reverence 
 for sacred forms, made him a poet. It kept for him the 
 conception of a living God. It gave a swing and freedom 
 to his magnificent hymns. Luther had only to translate 
 into verse the sentiment which moved him as often as he 
 walked abroad. You can discover in his stanzas nothing 
 of the hard, dry logician, nothing of the creed- maker. 
 His creed seemed to embosom itself in his quick sense of 
 living beauties ; it was not a delicate or refined sense, for 
 he was very little of an artist, but a natural perception of 
 concrete loveliness. No sternness of dogma could alienate 
 from him this perception. When there was want within 
 the house and no resource apparent, there was plenty to 
 him without. He felt no spiritual hunger with the abun- 
 dance of God around him. It was chiefly, I think, this 
 
270 . MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 love of the beautiful which saved the theology of Luther 
 from the dark fatalism to which Calvin was borne by his 
 merciless lo.2:ic. Nature was his antidote to the effect of 
 dialectics, which harden the fibres of the spiritual life and 
 ossify its heart. It was this, too, which saved for the 
 churches of Germany the symbols of ancient piety, and 
 hindered from ruin the grand Gothic piles, with their 
 spires clustering like pine-tree tops, and their flowers 
 blossoming from stone. Had Luther been like Calvin, we 
 should have now no link to bind the Puritan conventicle 
 to the Catholic cathedral. 
 
 'J'he place where Luther's greatness was most apparent 
 was the place where he loved most to be, the pulpit. No 
 audience of students, diplomatists or nobles, was so inspir- 
 ing to his soul as a congregation of sinners waiting for the 
 terms of grace and the bread of life. He had all the 
 gifts of the Christian orator, a burning faith, and an imagi- 
 nation so vivid that its pictures wore all the brightness of 
 reality, an inexhaustible wealth of illustration, a style 
 quaint and flexible, yet equal always to the dignity of the 
 theme, a facility of adaptation, by which he could con- 
 vince the reason while he melted the hearts of all classes 
 of hearers, an earnestness that only subsided into pathos, 
 and a power that relaxed itself only to the sweet tones of 
 prayer ; the physical gifts, too, of a voice clear and 
 sonorous, a restless, piercing eye, a finely-chiselled head 
 on a massive frame, hands that were feminine in their 
 grace, with arms masculine in their strength. His dark 
 hair fell in waves upon his shoulders. His dress was al- 
 ways neatly arranged. The whole air of the man as he 
 stood up to speak must have been inexpressibly charming. 
 He was master of all varieties of dialect ; he knew the 
 idiom of the shop and the street as well as of the college. 
 His preaching ranged over all the level of his auditory, 
 and none could fail to understand or to attend. He usually 
 preached without special preparation, taking for text some 
 passage of the Scripture where he happened to open. But 
 his Scriptural study had been so diligent that he was 
 ready on any part. He composed homilies for others, but 
 he did not want them for himself. He loved better to 
 depend upon the motion of the spirit, and to give himseli 
 
31 AUXIN LUTHER. 271 
 
 freely to the spontaneous flow of his thoughts. He cared 
 for no order but the order of inspiration. 
 
 The sermons of Luther are often too coarse to suit the 
 refinement of modern taste, and too full of personalities 
 and sarcasm to meet our idea of what sermons should be, 
 but they were far more effective than finely written 
 harangues would have been. There was always a pic- 
 turesque background of the more awful doctrines. No 
 matter how local or trivial the immediate topic, whether it 
 were the drunkenness of men, or the vanity of women, 
 the lies of cardinals, or the errors of scholars, always the 
 vision of heaven being like a golden cloud in the sky of 
 his thought, and the fires of hell shot up through its 
 crevices and pauses. Men could see that this was no 
 trifler who was talking to them in so quaint and simple 
 speech. The impression was solemn enough, though the 
 words might seem familiar. What they saw in Luther awed 
 them into silence more than what they heard. It was not 
 of the basket of summer figs that they saw, but of the 
 majestic word of God speaking through the prophet, that 
 tliey most felt and knew. Luther loved to preach. He 
 was not weary in that work. It was his pastime, not his 
 toil. He would preach when he was sick, and never with 
 more power than then. It quickened his sluggish pulse 
 to deal with the word of God before sinners. For years 
 he preached three times in the day. The Sunday before 
 his death he was in the pulpit of the church at Eisleben. 
 He loved to preach in private too, as well as in public. 
 On Sundays and feast-days he was wont to get together 
 his wife and children, with the servants and a few privileged 
 friends around the favorite pear tree in his garden, and 
 there expound to them the laws of domestic duty and love. 
 When it rained, his study was the place of meeting. A 
 volume of these short domestic sermons may be found 
 among Luther's works. 
 
 But preaching, though a delightful, was not a light or 
 easy work to Luther. He knew its difficulties ; he felt its 
 grave responsibilities. Often he resolved to give it up as 
 unfit for such a solemn service. His knees trembled be- 
 neath him sometimes when he went up to his seat. It was 
 not, however, a fear of human criticism or a distrust of the 
 
272 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 human effect of his sermons. "What do I care," said 
 he. " that men say I don't know how to preach. My 
 only fear is that before God I shall pass for not havino; 
 worthily spoken of his great majesty and his royal works." 
 It was the thous^ht of the Saviour who gfave him com mis- 
 sion that dissipated his fear. "Are you afraid," said he 
 to his friend, " So was I. But I thought of the duty 
 and became resigned. We are bound to preach ; no mat- 
 ter for our own fame, no matter for our temptations. Try 
 to preach God our Saviour, and don't trouble yourself as 
 to what the world may think of you." 
 
 Luther's idea, expression, and thought rose with the 
 grandeur of his theme. When he spoke of haughty sin- 
 ners. Popes, and Kings, he seemed to have before his eye 
 the grand pageant of the judgment of the dead. The 
 Judge is there with eye of flame, holding in one hand the 
 Bible, in the other the pen for the fatal sentence. The 
 royal sinner comes up in all the pomp of his garments and 
 badges. One by one Luther strips them from him. First 
 the diadem, then the cloak, then the sceptre, finally the 
 sword, and leaves there only a bare form of clay, upon 
 which he loads in return the sins and iniquities, and 
 secret schemes of an earthly life. No poet had a more 
 daring vision of God's judgment-hall than the preacher 
 Luther was wont constantly to bring into his sermons. 
 
 Luther wrote fluently in Latin as well as German. But 
 he preferred the last. We might almost call him, consid- 
 ering the number, the variety, and the influence of his 
 works, the father of the modern German tongue. More 
 than three hundred treatises came from his pen. He was 
 never dull, though often profound. He was never super- 
 ficial, though often dogmatic and abusive. Many men now 
 could not read intelligently in a life-time what he wrote in 
 these thirty years in the intervals of other labor. Men 
 wonder at the fertility of a novelist's brain, which can 
 produce, as in the case of Bulwer or Dickens, so many 
 original fancies, or as in the case of James, so many pages 
 of words. They are amazed at the seventy volumes of 
 Walter Scott, or the three thousand comedies of Lope de 
 Vega, but let them look at the massive range of Luther's 
 folios which rest on the shelves of our large libraries, of 
 
MABTIN LUTHER. 273 
 
 which one page contains more thought, more wit, more 
 vigorous expression than you find in a whole play of De 
 Vega, or a whole novel of James, and the first wonder 
 speedily falls off. It is a Catholic writer who calls the 
 literary achievement of Luther "miraculous." 
 
 We may not stay to speak of Luther's poetic ability, or 
 to instance any of his hymns in proof of his rhythmical 
 skill. If he were less eminent in this sphere than as a 
 preacher it is because he was pre-eminent there. Luther's 
 poetry was all written for music. He composed at once 
 the word and the tune. He was a lyrist, with no epic or 
 elegiac tastes. He sang not according to the rules of 
 poetic culture, but to the needs of Christian worship. To 
 reproduce in his native tongue the grand old chants of the 
 early Church, to revive the fraternal choirs of Christians 
 at Antioch and Ephesus, to popularize that glorious inar- 
 ticulate voice which came to saints and emperors once as 
 a celestial harmony, to diffuse among the churches of his 
 land the fine traditions of Gregory and Ambrose, to trans- 
 late from the monkish canticle and litany into the popular 
 song that which made the life of the old Christian poetry, 
 this was Luther's desire and this he accomplished. He 
 gave songs and music to the German people which they 
 will never let die, and still his chorals are sung in the 
 churches with a spirit and a joy which put to shame the 
 elegant monotony of our English psalm singing. 
 
 We have but a few words to sav of the man Luther. 
 That his mind was rapid, acute, comprehensive, powerful, 
 may be inferred from what has been said already ; that 
 his heart was tender, affectionate, pure, the unswerving 
 attachment of so many friends and the sweet pictures of 
 his home are evidence. That his conscience was quick 
 and living, not to be frightened, not to be seduced, is 
 shown us by the scenes at Leipsic and Worms. There 
 are passages in his life which seem to dull its transparency. 
 There are inconsistencies which we must leave as we find 
 them. His words are not always pleasant to the ear ; his 
 spirit seems very often unlike that of his Master. But in 
 contrast with the great elements of his character its small 
 defects are but as spots upon the sun. A fair analysis 
 and estimate of what he did, what he said, and what he 
 18 
 
2 74 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 suffered, leaves the conviction that here was a true man, a 
 great man, even a holy man, one of the world's heroes, 
 one of God's saints. In his soul the fear of God was 
 paramount and supreme. No mean bondage to human 
 opinion had power over him ; he believed in God and 
 God's truth, and spoke from his faith and for it. There 
 was no sign of h^'pocrisy about him ; the world knew him 
 and saw what he meant and wanted. He served not the 
 expediencies of men, but their eternal interests. If he 
 compromised ever, it was like Paul to win souls to Christ. 
 If he prophesied harsh and bitter words, it was like Isaiah, 
 to humble the pride of kings and vindicate the honor of 
 God. If he was sometimes eccentric and wild, it was the 
 eccentricity of one who in the desert, in raiment of camel's 
 hair, called on the people to repent. If he was sometimes 
 intolerant and severe, it was that the truth of God might 
 suffer no harm, and in memory of the apostolic counsel 
 " not to be yoked with unbelievers." He lacked some of 
 the special graces of his cotemporaries ; he had not the 
 elegance of Erasmus, the sweetness of Melancthon, the 
 self-forgetfulness of Zwingle, or the rich fervor of Martin 
 Bucer. Calvin was his superior in logic, and yEcolam- 
 padius had clearer insight into the spiritual truths of the 
 Gospel ; but Luther combined more heroic elements than 
 any one, more than all together. Not his position and 
 influence merely, but his gifts and his character entitle 
 him to a place with the chief of apostles and the greatest 
 of prophets. He is the Pontifex of the Reform, not only, 
 according to the charming conceit of an English poem, be- 
 cause he builded the bridge across from the ancient to the 
 new Church of God, but because to him as to the high 
 priest of old the mysteries of God were revealed and 
 made visible, because he saw whereof he spoke. Other 
 names of Reformers may be joined to his and impart 
 perhaps new lustre by their connection, but no name can 
 be mentioned as that of Luther's peer. 
 
 The characteristics of Luther were never brought into 
 bolder relief than in the closing days of his life. Wasted 
 by a painful internal malady, which had preyed upon him 
 for years, and which irritated every sensitive nerve, he set 
 out from Wittemberg on his Christian office of reconciling 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 275 
 
 strife between princes. It was in the dead of winter ; the 
 way was blocked with snow, and the streams were choked 
 with ice. It was a perilous time for a strong man to travel, 
 but the faith in the sick man's heart could work for him 
 strength. After several narrow escapes he reached at last 
 the dear Eisleben, where he drew his first breath, and 
 where too he was fated to die. He was near perishing 
 at the outset, but at the thought of preaching his courage 
 revived. Four times he ascended the pulpit, and his 
 sermons were never stronger or clearer than then. But 
 the conviction came home to him that he should never 
 preach or travel more. The records of the interviews of 
 these last days have been preserved to us. They show 
 no abatement of the humor, the sarcasm, the freshness, 
 the faith of the great Reformer. He hates the Pope and 
 the Devil as heartily as ever. One might mistake the 
 scene by the bedside for an evening of the Black Eagle 
 Inn. It was strange, some might think repulsive, to hear 
 the gay talk of the sufferer writhing under sharp torments 
 and so close to his end. It was a sign, the Catholics said, 
 that the Devil had come to claim his servant. 
 
 In a few days the fatal morning came. The heart of 
 Protestant Germany has marked well that eighteenth day 
 of February. It is the first saint day of the Reformed Re- 
 ligion. Every father can tell his children how it all hap- 
 pened when Dr. Luther died, how they were sitting around 
 the stove together, he and his little sons, and his friends 
 Dr. Jonas and Caelius, how they were talking about the 
 Pope when the frightful fit seized upon him, what agony 
 he suffered for so many hours, what beautiful words of 
 comfort to friends and of prayer to God he spoke, how he 
 thrice repeated "into thy hands, O Lord, I commit my 
 spirit; for thou hast redeemed me," how his last word of 
 answer was that he died firm in the faith which he had 
 preached, how slowly he breathed his life away, what a 
 grand funeral there was at Wittemberg, and how Me- 
 lancthon spoke of the Apostle of Germany; all this is the 
 burden of many a household tale. 
 
 There are many shrines to which the feet of pilgrims 
 press. The worn stone at Stratford-on-Avon, the monu- 
 ment of St. James of Compostella, the tomb of Virgil, and 
 
276 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 the Holy Sepulchre, will long continue to lead the favorite 
 pilgrimages of genius and piety. Fewer steps turn to the 
 Castle Church at Eisleben. Luther's grave is not the 
 place where his memory is kept. But no year passes that 
 some of the noble and pure of the world do not read with 
 strange emotion that simple epitaph which tells only how 
 the great Doctor was born and died. The feet of 
 trampling horses have profaned that stone. But the Em- 
 peror whom the living man defied once paused there in 
 reverence. When Wittemberg was taken some years later, 
 Charles V wished to see the Reformer's tomb. With 
 arms crossed on his breast he read the inscription. An 
 officer asked of him permission to open the tomb and 
 scatter to the wind the ashes of the heretic. The eye of 
 the monarch flashed. "I am not come," said he, "to 
 war upon the dead. I have had enough of the living." 
 So we here will leave the story of that ingratitude, of the 
 wretched wife, and the neglected children, by which Ger- 
 man princes outraged the memory of its greatest hero, and 
 leave him to rest in his quiet tomb. We sought not out 
 his pedigree. We will not trace the line of his pos- 
 thumous fate. 
 
ST. THERESA. 2*; 7 
 
 XL 
 
 ST. THERESA AND THE CATHOLIC MYSTICS. 
 
 When Luther made his journey to Rome the greatest 
 surprise and sorrow that he met was the apparent want of 
 personal piety in the high places of the Church. The love 
 of God seemed to have forsaken the proper servants of 
 God. The wisdom which men preferred was the wisdom 
 of Pagan deities, and the arts of the sanctuary were but 
 the Pagan arts renewed and baptised. The altars of 
 Jehovah were modeled from those of ancient Jove, and 
 im'ages of Pallas and Venus received the homage due 
 only to the Holy Virgin. The sacred offices were an 
 affair of custom, and few cared for sacred studies. Priests 
 at the altar mocked at the host, while they pronounced 
 the form of consecration, and drank the wine not rever- 
 ently, but lustfully. The convents had lost all scruples 
 about profanity. It was eccentricity there to be instant in 
 prayer, or careful for God's honor. There was not even 
 the poor pretence of piety to offset the moral corruption, 
 and reconcile the devout mind of the Saxon monk to 
 abuses which shocked him. There was not the plausible 
 excuse which fanaticism is ever ready to offer for its crimes 
 that they are committed in the service of God and for his 
 glory. Piety was no longer essential to promotion in life, 
 nor to canonization after death. There were Popes who 
 showed no spark of it, there were saints into whose narra- 
 tive even falsehood dared not force it. 
 
 To restore this lost spirit of piety to the Church might 
 seem to the temper of a man like Luther a hopeless task. 
 Even Loyola did not try to rescue the holiness of a clois- 
 tral life, but began a new order of active Apostles. It 
 was reserved for a woman to attempt and to do for the 
 Church in her own land what neither the zealot nor the 
 reformers stirred themselves to effect. In revivals of re- 
 
2 7^ ST. THEVvESA. 
 
 lio;ion the gentler sex are always prominent. Where mul- 
 titudes press around the dying Saviour, the sisters of 
 Martha and Mary will always be found nearest to the 
 cross. The theology which prefers mystery before logic, 
 and feeling above intellect, will always find, as in history it 
 has alwavs found, its warmest adherents with that sex 
 whose law is the law of love. The men who have written 
 most about the mvsteries of religion have confessed that 
 they learned the rudiments of these at the mother's knee. 
 Faith in God is not often taught by the pedagogue's pre- 
 cept. It is fixed in the heart by the soft influence, stealing 
 inward, of the constant domestic lessons which the infant 
 learns from the lips of her who loves him best. The re- 
 ligion of the creeds, the dogmas which measure heresy, 
 and excite controversy, and give scope to ingenious argu- 
 ment, you go to the books of doctors, the records of 
 councils, the canons of the Church to find. But the re- 
 ligion of the affections, the faith which opens the doors of 
 heaven and joins the soul to God, and kindles continually 
 the flame of devotion, to find this, you go to the hymns 
 and meditations, the words and the life of such saints as 
 Theresa of Avila. 
 
 For the authentic story of Theresa's life we are not left 
 to the extravagant tales of Catholic eulogists. Her own 
 pen tells in simple and truthful phrases what was the dis- 
 cipline she passed, what were the purposes she formed. 
 Her works are the best testimony to her life, but we have 
 also in her own words the narrative of her early decisive 
 experiences. In the year 15 15, on the twenty-eighth of 
 March, the Knight Alonzo of Cepeda, welcomed in his 
 household, already numerous, and soon enlarged to the 
 Scriptural number of twelve, another daughter, whom he 
 named Theresa. He was worthy of such a child, being 
 an example of all the virtues which should belong to the 
 good neighbor, citizen, friend, and father. There was 
 daily almsgiving at his door, there were daily prayers in 
 his family meeting. The books in his library were not all 
 worldly, and the custom of her parents taught Theresa 
 early to prefer the works of the fathers, of Augustine and 
 Jerome, to the romances of chivalry. At seven years the 
 child was familiar with the lives of the saints and was 
 
.ST. THEBES A. 279 
 
 accustomed to talk with a little brother, still younger, on 
 the great themes of eternity and heaven. They read 
 about the martyrs, and one day in the fervor of devout 
 zeal, resolved to go into Africa and labor and die there 
 for the conversion of the infidels. They had actually 
 started and gone some distance, when upon the bridge 
 near the town, an uncle overtook them and led them back 
 again. But this could not stop their pious exercises. 
 They wondered still at the great thought of Eternity and 
 kept repeating the word to each other. They gathered 
 piles of stones in the garden into little cells, and played 
 hermit together. As Theresa grew older, she loved soli- 
 tude more, and prayer became her most delightful pastime. 
 She would spend hours in gazing at a picture of Jesus 
 with the woman of Samaria, which hung in her chamber, 
 and repeat to herself those words, " Lord give me of this 
 water that I thirst not." 
 
 The death of her mother, which occurred when she was 
 twelve years old, was the occasion of very serious reflec- 
 tions, and the orphaned child felt that in her danger and 
 sin she needed the more the protection of the Blessed 
 Virgin. But the loss of this earthly mother left her to 
 temptations from which the favors of the Virgin was 
 hardly a protection. She soon reached an age w^hen the 
 charms of the world are apt to exert a prevailing influence, 
 and even the surroundings of religion are not able to pre- 
 vent the natural impulses. The romances which were as 
 attractive then as now to young ladies in fashionable 
 circles drew her by their fascination. She learned from a 
 young female cousin, who had seen the world and knew 
 its tastes, how to curl her hair and trim it, how to use per- 
 fumery, and dress handsomely. The change in her senti- 
 ments could not long be concealed, and her Puritanic 
 father, whose courtesy forbade him to refuse these dan- 
 gerous visits of kindred, secured his daughter from their 
 risks by sending her to a convent. Here it was very dull 
 at first. The pious nuns, who spoke only to leprove, and 
 who never smiled, were a hard exchange for gay com- 
 panions who talked about knights and castles, about balls 
 and dress, and about the tender passion. But Theresa 
 soon got accustomed to it, and listened at last with respect, 
 
 fe 
 
28o ST, THERESA. 
 
 if not with profit, to the devout homilies which a convent 
 sister used to deliver from the text *' Many are called, but 
 few are chosen." A year and a half spent here, however, 
 enfeebled a constitution not naturally strong, and her 
 father took her home again. 
 
 The decisive epoch in Tlieresa's life was in a visit which 
 she made soon after this to the house of an uncle in the 
 country. The exceeding piety of this uncle, whose heart, 
 naturally religious, had been subdued by affliction, and 
 his habitual conversation about God, wrought upon the 
 heart of the young girl so that she felt the call of God to 
 a religious life. Severe fever, repeated more than once, 
 confirmed this decision. She would not wait for her 
 father's consent, and remembering that Jesus had said, 
 *' he that loveth father or mother more than me, is not 
 worthy of me," she determined to leave her home and go 
 to Christ. The convent which she chose was of the order 
 of Mount Carmel, more rigid in its rules than the Augus- 
 tinian where she had been a pupil before. Her season of 
 novitiate was passed with a constantly increasing joy. Her 
 public vows at last were taken with singular enthusiasm, re- 
 markable in one whose twentieth year was not yet com- 
 plete. The same year that Theresa gave her vows to a 
 life of prayer, Ignatius and his brethren in the chapel of 
 Montmartre vowed themselves to a life of action in the 
 service of God's Church. The torments of Ignatius and 
 his brethren were self-inflicted. But Providence ordained 
 for Theresa more terrible trials of the flesh than they were 
 called to bear. Such complication of maladies, such awful 
 sufferings, such burnings of fever, racking of nerves, such 
 emaciation and pains of hunger, few have endured so long 
 and lived. Sometimes she would lay for days in a lethargic 
 trance, sometimes the least drop of water in the mouth 
 would bring suffocation, and the presence of any one near 
 agony of the whole frame. Three years she remained a 
 cripple, able with difficulty to crawl about. Yet God, who 
 tried her so severelv, sent comfort to her soul. 
 
 For in this period she learned the sublime secret of that 
 mejital prayer^ of which she was afterwards enabled to be 
 the prophetess to the Church. She had occasion in those 
 long years to find by what process the resigned spirit con- 
 
ST. THERESA. 281 
 
 quers the weak and fainting flesh. Left alone by the 
 world, helpless and hopeless, she could find how excellent 
 is a Christian trust in God. She could examine her own 
 soul by the most searching tests, could watch and compare 
 her varying sensations, and discover the closest hiding of 
 her sin. She could learn that love and custom, and not 
 corporeal strength, were necessary to unite the soul to 
 God, that sickness is a better stimulant to prayer than any 
 solitude. She could commend, too, by patience and calm- 
 ness and a fervent heart the faith which sustained to those 
 who wondered at its triumphs. And when after three 
 years' interval she went back to her convent again, it was 
 with a degree of perfected virtue which no convent life 
 could possibly bring. Now, her father, who had before 
 been jealous of her spiritual integrity, began to find in 
 her a teacher of spiritual wisdom. Very touching is the 
 account which she gives of his parting hours, when she 
 waited at his bed with her brothers and sisters, received 
 his last instructions and joined in his prayer, how, when 
 he complained that his shoulders were pained, she re- 
 Tiiinded him what pain Christ bore, when he carried his 
 cross, and what he promised to those who should share 
 with him that burden, how he expired, with blessings to 
 his children and the words of the creed upon his lips. It 
 was a scene which no renunciation of the world could 
 erase from her memory. 
 
 We may pass rapidly the next decade of years in the 
 life of the young nun. Outwardly, they have no variety 
 to offer. There is nothing salient in the monotony of the 
 cloister. The days succeed each other with the same even 
 round of prayers and duties, and in the nights come 
 blessed visions to one and all of those who watch and 
 pray in the proper spirit. If Theresa's own statement can 
 be taken, her heart was not yet wholly pure, nor her pur- 
 pose firmly fixed. There were intervals when other visi- 
 tors than those of her confessor were welcome at the grate 
 of the convent. She was drawn at times to talk about the 
 things of the world, and to indulge memories of scenes 
 forbidden to a daughter of Christ. Much, no doubt, of 
 this pretended worldliness was mere self-accusation, but 
 there is no doubt that the mind of the recluse had not 
 
282 ST, THERESA. 
 
 attained yet the state of perfect calmness in which it 
 could repose satisfied with the love of God. We may at- 
 tribute this in part to the saint whose writings Theresa 
 best loved to read, and who for a thousand years had been 
 the chief instrument in unsettling the thoughts and emo- 
 tions of the women of the Church. While Jerome of 
 Bethlehem, that restless and complaining spirit, had 
 dominion over her soul, she could not ev^en in piety, be 
 happy. It was not until she escaped from his fascination, 
 and left his distracted pages to ponder the sweeter visions 
 of the son of Monica that she found the true peace of 
 believing. Augustine was the reconciler of her soul, and 
 as she read those glowing pages of his Confessions she 
 felt as she had not before since the days of her childhood, 
 the rapture of a true submission to God. 
 
 It was a strange feeling for one who had wandered long 
 in anguish of mind, a saint to the eyes of observers, but 
 in her own heart a weary pilgrim, to find herself at last at 
 the feet of the Saviour, a kneeling penitent. She remem- 
 bered now as something strange, how Christ was wont 
 before to appear to her, with a stern look, and an air of 
 displeasure, as she ventured to approach him, as he looked 
 down once upon the diseased woman. But now how 
 lovely was his countenance, how gentle his demeanor. 
 The confessors to whom she related her experience were 
 suspicious of so sudden a change, and bade her beware 
 lest Satan were seducing her into a vain confidence. But 
 a Jesuit who came that way, to whom the new spiritual 
 light of Ignatius and his friends had given new insight, 
 welcomed such an experience as a divine promise, and 
 bade her continue her meditations upon the love of God 
 and the life of Christ. In the year 1557, Francis Borgia, 
 third general of the order, returning from a visit to the 
 worn-out emperor Charles, passed through the village 
 where Theresa dwelt. His counsels to the recluse did not 
 weaken her ardor, and his recital of his own strange ex- 
 perience became as fuel to the flame. The contest with 
 the world grew fiercer, troubles seemed to thicken around 
 her. As her sanctity seemed to be more real to her, it 
 became doubtful to those around her, and lying tongues 
 pronounced that what were to her the whispers of Christ's 
 
.Sr. THERESA. 283 
 
 voice were really demoniac sug^gestions. She began to 
 fear for herself and to mourn her own exquisite joy. 
 Forsaken by the world, and hardly daring to kneel with 
 her sisters at the Lord's table, she yet leaned when alone 
 upon the arm of Christ as her sufficient friend. 
 
 The great consolation of Theresa's life at this period 
 was the habit of mental prayer. This is the radical idea 
 of the mystic theology, and as Theresa, in her journal, 
 draws out at length and describes its proper signs, we 
 mav take occasion here to review her system. She com- 
 pares the influence of prayer upon the soul to water upon 
 the soil of a garden. The garden can be watered in four 
 ways, from the well, by constant and laborious drawing 
 and pouring, or by raising it with a wheel to run down in 
 little conduits, a process less tiresome than the first and 
 more abundant in its supply, or by turning the course of a 
 brook or rivulet, so that it shall spread over the garden 
 instead of rushing along in its narrow bed, a method 
 which distributes equally its refreshments and requires 
 from the gardener more watchfulness than toil, or lastly, 
 by a full shower, which saves all human labor, and drops 
 upon the soil to penetrate but not to harm, incomparably 
 the best of all the methods. So prayer can be applied to 
 the soul. It may be first a mental effort, wrung out from 
 the pains of sinful remembrance, from remorse and shame, 
 from weariness and toil. This is the first beginning of 
 prayer. It comes as water drawn from the well, requiring 
 a collection of thought, a self-examination, an interior 
 exercise of discipline which make the soul stronger, but 
 give it all the time the sense of effort. But all mental 
 prayer must so commence, and there are always single 
 roots and plants of virtue so dry, that they will need to be 
 watered by that prayer which is drawn from the fresh 
 fountain of flowing tears. 
 
 Next to this comes what Theresa calls the prayer of 
 ^tii'ef. This is an even, steady process of concentrating 
 the powers of the soul upon the great thoughts of Jesus 
 and God. It turns in the soul that wheel of its powers 
 and emotions that the waters of reverence and gratitude 
 shall fall of themselves into their true direction. It is 
 not, like the first kind of prayer, a laborious repetition of 
 
284 ST. THERESA. 
 
 many single efforts, but a constant spiritual operation. 
 The will guides, indeed, the stream of divine grace, but 
 the weakness of the spirit does not hinder its even flow. 
 In the prayer of quiet, meditation is an effort, but not a 
 painful or wearying effort. It is like the work of the bee, 
 which flies from flower to flower, gathering honey from all, 
 but bringing all home together joyfully to its cell. This 
 is the proper sequel to the first step of mental prayer. 
 That is taken when the heart pressed down by its sins, 
 cries out for the livinsr God. This follows w^hen it fixes 
 itself upon the great conceptions of Christ and heaven. 
 In the first process one is forced to go over the dry field 
 in every direction and water each root of virtue with a 
 special baptism of prayer, to look upon the sins and needs 
 of the heart. In this second process, one has only to sit 
 at the fountain, look down into its depths, and draw con- 
 tinually, only to contemplate the sources, and not think of 
 the issues of the friendly stream. This kind of prayer 
 belongs to that stage of religious experience which longs 
 after God, but has not quite found him. It has got beyond 
 penitence, but it has not reached a perfect spiritual union. 
 This is reserved for the next stage. 
 
 The prayer of union which corresponds to the brook 
 turned in upon the field and flowing over it, is what 
 Theresa calls a sleep of the soul, a sleep of all its powers, 
 in which they are not entirely lost, but in which they are 
 unconscious of their own action. It is to the previous 
 stage w^hat reverie is to 7neditation. The grace of God is 
 turned by it to meet the soul, but so turned that the active 
 powers are not used in the process. It is that state of the 
 heart when it surrenders itself whollv to that influx of 
 holy and refreshing thought, which bathe it all over with 
 beauty and joy. It seems to unite the soul to God, to the 
 eternal flow of his love. It makes the soul a channel of 
 his grace, covering it all over and touching it at every 
 point, and yet it was in the beginning a voluntary act. 
 The condition of this inundation of divine grace w^as es- 
 tablished when the barrier was fixed in the brook. And 
 the relation of this kind of prayer to those that we have 
 described is clearly marked. Penitence, longing, union, 
 these are three steps, thus far. But even union does not 
 
ST, THERESA. 285 
 
 exhaust the capacities of prayer. The soul is here joined 
 to God, flooded by his grace, at one with him but is not 
 yet penetrated through and through by his searching love. 
 It knows how it is refreshed. It feels the weight of the 
 stream. And there may be points here and there of its 
 life not yet touched, as there are plants in the garden 
 whose nodding summits wave over the top of the stream. 
 There is one other step of prayer to be taken, one other 
 process by which God shall become to the soul all in all. 
 And this Theresa calls the pra3'er of 7'apture, when God's 
 grace falls upon the soul all from above as showers upon 
 the field. 
 
 Upon this last kind of prayer Theresa expends all the 
 force of her eloquence and enthusiasm. Words are weak 
 in describing its heavenly joy. This is the prayer that 
 raises one truly from earth, and in humbling the soul, 
 exalts it. In this, the ravished soul sings of the glories 
 and the loveliness of God's Paradise and forgets all that 
 belonirs to self. Its 2:ladness is that of the vounsr bird 
 that has flown about all day in wood and pasture, seeking 
 food and pleasure, but warbles now at rest on the spray 
 above its nest. In this spiritual state the soul is dazzled 
 by God's light, amazed by his love, trembles and thrills 
 continually to his touch. To describe this state as Theresa 
 describes it, one must have dwelt in it long, else the 
 description will seem extravagant. All nature showed 
 symbols to her gaze of this sublime self-renunciation. 
 All men are dust and ashes, and belonor bv nature to the 
 ground. But as dust is raised by the wind till it shall be 
 held in the air and borne onward, so the mortal spirit is 
 lifted and borne on by the breath of prayer till it floats 
 impalpably in the region of light. 
 
 I ought to follow this treatise concerning prayer still 
 farther, to do justice to the idea of the Saint. But I fear 
 to lead you too far into the mazes of her mysticism. 
 Prayer was the foundation of the system which she taught, 
 the first principle of the religious life. But it was not 
 vain or fruitless prayer. And it is remarkable that one 
 who could indulge in such raptures, should speak such 
 sensible words as we find in a letter which she wrote to 
 Father Gracian. "The best prayer," says she, "and most 
 
286 ST. THERESA. 
 
 acceptable to God, is that which leaves the best effects 
 behind it ; not results pleasant to vanity and pride, but 
 works which are wholly for the glory of God. Beautiful 
 is the prayer which brings not satisfaction, but holiness to 
 our hearts. As for me, I want no other prayer than what 
 shall make me increase in virtues. Even if great trials, 
 temptations, thirst, come with it, if it make me humbler, 
 I will think it good. What pleases God best, I will count 
 the truest petition. It is not by tears, but by patience 
 and submission that we offer to God the most worthy 
 honor." 
 
 Many years were passed in the exercises which proved 
 and the writings which pictured this elementary piety. 
 Day by day the fervor of Theresa's heart was newly in- 
 flamed. The Confessors, experienced men of the several 
 religious orders, could not quite understand such spiritual 
 elevation. It passed the comprehension of Baltasar 
 Alvares, the Jesuit, who rejoiced in what he could not ex- 
 plain, John of Avila, the learned Dominican, whose wis- 
 dom Theresa found useful in her doubts, could find no 
 parallel in the stories of the Saints to an exaltation at once 
 so mystical and so methodical. And Peter of Alcantara, 
 whose Franciscan habit made him a teacher of practical 
 benevolence, could not reach by his counsels spiritual 
 needs which went far bevond his own. Soon even the 
 strictness of the Carmelite rule failed to satisfy a heart 
 that wanted to be absorbed in God. In the sisterhood of 
 the Incarnation there was not sympathy enough with the 
 visions which constantly came to Theresa's cell. The 
 nuns there were good and devout, but they lacked that 
 hunger and thirst after immortal life which would gladly 
 be released from the body. They were contented to eat 
 and drink, and sought no personal suffering. 
 
 Among the fancies which crowded the chambers of her 
 imagery, a vision began to take more shape and form of a 
 new religious order, which should consecrate life wholly to 
 prayer, as the Society of Jesus was vowed to action. She 
 dared to indulge the dream that the old theory of convent 
 life was possible still, that the world might be wholly shut 
 out from the saintly heart and die to the desire, and even 
 to the memory of a daughter of Christ. Long in silence 
 
ST, THERESA. 287 
 
 this imagination was cherished. At first it was whispered 
 only to her Jesuit adviser, in the secrecy of the confes- 
 sional. Then a young nun, her niece, was taken into 
 confidence, and as a third, a pious widow, whose husband 
 had recently died. These three together set themselves 
 to establish a new house of prayer, where God should be 
 all in all. Great outcry was instantly made about the in- 
 solence of a few thus settins: themselves as holier than the 
 rest. The magistrates, the nobles, the priests, and the 
 nuns of Carmel, protested against granting a license 
 to a scheme at once so arros^ant and foolish. The miracu- 
 lous preservation of her little nephew, who, taken up for 
 dead when a wall had fallen upon him, had been restored 
 in the arms and by the prayer as was thought, of Theresa, 
 enlisted another sister of the Saint in the sacred enterprise. 
 More friends were speedily added. Obstacles appeared 
 only to be overcome. The Pope's brief silenced all cavils 
 and calumnies. The corner-stone of the new convent was 
 laid ; in spite of frequent accidents the walls rose thick 
 and strong; and on the twenty-fourth of August, 1562, the 
 religious house of St. Joseph in Avila, was dedicated by 
 the solemn service of the mass. Five women knelt before 
 the altar, vowing themselves there to silence, solitude and a 
 life of praver. At their head, renouncing openly all worldly 
 goods and all former titles, the daughter of a knightly 
 house, and the nun of the Incarnation, with the words of 
 the Psalmist, " Thou, O Lord, art the portion of my in- 
 heritance and my cup, thou shalt keep me forever," upon 
 her lips, assumed the name of Theresa of 'Jesus. 
 
 It seemed a mean and pitiful abode to those accus- 
 tomed to the apparatus of convent life. The little bell of 
 the chapel, weighing but three pounds, seemed to satirize 
 the weakness which would begin such a reform. The 
 coarse dress of black serge, the towel on the head, and the 
 sandalled feet of the new recluses, became subjects of 
 ridicule to profane wit. The first months of her new life 
 were months of mental sufferino: and strife with all sur- 
 rounding influences. The governor of the city prohibited 
 their performance of the sacred rites. The superior of the 
 convent to which Theresa had formerly belonged ordered 
 her back ag-ain to her former duties. For a time it was 
 
288 -ST. THERESA, 
 
 feared that the new altar would be thrown down, and the 
 grave soon conceal the despair of the weak and persecuted 
 Virgin. But the Society of Jesus, whose name she now 
 shared, used their art to sustain her, and when the year 
 1564 began she was able to rule in peace a convent in 
 which ten had taken already the extremest vows. 
 
 And, now, the great purpose of long years of prayer 
 fairly secured, Theresa commenced that series of labors 
 which, if we consider the age. the person and the influ- 
 ence upon the future of more than one nation, are cer- 
 tainly as extraordinary as woman ever performed in the 
 same space of time. She became at once the missionary, 
 the legislator, and the prophet of the cloister, making such 
 journeys as might have broken the strongest health, 
 miraculous almost for a frame so worn by disease and 
 sorrow, inventing such laws, that even the bishops of the 
 Church confessed that a Spanish recluse was wiser to 
 govern than those who had been trained in court and 
 school, and uttering such sweet and holy revelations, that 
 the doctors all confessed in her the guidance of the spirit 
 of God. The pen of her eulogist drops in the vain en- 
 deavor to record the multitude, the variety, the greatness 
 of her services in the cause of Christian piety. The 
 wondering critic suspends his censure on the obscurity of 
 those folios of mystical allegory and spiritual meditation, 
 which rival the achievements of the great teachers of the 
 Church. One who is daring enough now to venture upon 
 the perusal of those hundreds of epistles, all filled and 
 inspired with the one great theme of prayer and the di- 
 vine life, stops to wonder at the physical endurance which 
 could have produced them, and hardly ventures to enter 
 the secrets of their rapture. It is hard even to classify 
 the writings which are compressed into those six ponderous 
 volumes. We have heard much of the fecundity of 
 Spanish writers in the age of Theresa, what hundreds of 
 romances one, what thousands of dramas another wrote, 
 how Lope de Vega could furnish in a single night a comedy 
 that should shift fifty times its scenery, and consume al- 
 most as many hours in the theatre as in the chamber of 
 its composer ; we have heard, too, of Cervantes in prison, 
 and that solace of his lonely hours, which should at once 
 
ST. THERESA. 289 
 
 annihilate and immortalize the follies of chivalry, we have 
 heard of the industry of Ximenes, the cardinal law-giver, 
 who could frame for a despotism statutes which a republic 
 might covet for their justice and wisdom, but the wonder 
 of all these is equalled in the daily epistles, so long and 
 full that a day might be needed to read them, and the pro- 
 found treatises in which not sarcasm but ecstasy winged 
 the eloquent phrases, and the wise laws for an humbler 
 life, which should keep in force long after the laws of 
 Ximenes had ceased to restrain men, which all came from 
 the cell of Theresa of Jesus. 
 
 Two of the treatises of Hieresa have been classics in 
 the Mystic Theology. The " Path of Perfection " is the 
 manual for all who would discover a spiritual way to the 
 abode of God. It surveys and sets landmarks all along 
 the heavenly road. It follows the influences of prayer in 
 their secret windings through the soul, showing how it is 
 possible to escape here by discipline of the heart from 
 trammels of the flesh. It carries the soul of the penitent 
 recluse up through the conflicts and trials of earth till it 
 is left at the outer gate of heaven. This treatise is the 
 Catholic's guide in self-examination and in prayer. It 
 deals with the means of grace. It teaches how to conquer 
 the world and subordinate all material goods to the glory 
 and love of God. It vindicates that spirit which would 
 lead one to give up all ties of kindred, all attractions of 
 friendship, the love of brethren and of country, all things 
 brightest and most precious, even the luxury of doing 
 good, for the sake of a single communion with Christ. Its 
 doctrine is that there is nothing good but constant medita- 
 tion. Its precept is to pray without ceasing. Its warning 
 is to keep the soul with all diligence, that it may be ready 
 for the Redeemer's coming. Its promise is of a life hid 
 with Christ in God. 
 
 "The Castle of the Soul " completes the process which 
 the " Path of Perfection " opens. Here the way described 
 is not the wav of the seekino: soul towards heaven, but the 
 way of the believing soul in heaven. Through the seven 
 abodes of the celestial world it conducts the soul till it at 
 last reaches the highest crowning glory of a perfect union 
 
 with God. Marvellous and daring are the flights of this 
 19 
 
290 ST. THERESA. 
 
 mystic treatise. The humility of the penitent is here 
 changed to the vision of the saint. In the former work 
 we learn what the experience of long years of sickness 
 and trouble, of doubt and sin had taught the devotee con- 
 cerning this worthless world. In this last work we learn 
 what the swift hours of rapture had revealed of that world 
 where God and his angels dwell. The other work gave 
 the counsels of the disciplined guide, this the oracles of 
 the inspired seer. It burns on with a strange religious 
 fire, and its imagery is of the most etherial. In this 
 work Theresa seems to soar with the steady daring of the 
 young eagle in his flight. No comparison is too bold for 
 her grasp. The changes of the soul as it passes through 
 the mansions of heaven are as those which transform by 
 many stages the small seed of the mulberry tree into the 
 butterfly with golden wing. In the sixth dwelling of 
 heaven, the sensation chiefly is of a strong hunger and 
 thirst after the seventh and highest. It is a thirst which 
 burns in the soul with an unquenchable desire, which 
 nothing can satisfy but that water which Jesus promised 
 to the woman, drawn from the well of living water. Sixty- 
 two years old was the Saint when the pages of this strange 
 book were written. It had few readers in her dav, it has 
 fewer now, since the patience and understanding of the 
 fewest are fitted to such lofty treatment of such lofty 
 themes. 
 
 But we cannot stay to analyze these works on which the 
 fame of Theresa as an exponent of the spiritual life rests 
 in the Catholic Church. We may turn to see for a mo- 
 ment the Saint as the missionary of the cloister. Scarcely 
 two years had the first convent of reformed Carmelites 
 been fairly established, when other neighborhoods became 
 anxious to enjoy the presence and benediction of so sacred 
 a sisterhood. Noble women, not a few, were ready to 
 dedicate their goods and their lives in such a cause. It 
 seemed to Theresa the manifest call of God that she 
 should multiply the foundations of her order. It was sad 
 for her to break away from the solitude which she loved, 
 but she was willing to heed the Spirit. It was midnight 
 on the eighteenth of August, 1567, the festival of the 
 Assumption of the Virgin, when in the city of Medina, 
 
ST. THEBES A. 291 
 
 sixty miles from Avila, the superior of the convent of St. 
 Joseph, with a few young nuns, went on foot to the humble 
 house which had been bought for them. It was dangerous 
 to be in the streets at that hour. Maskers were abroad, 
 and the wild bulls which should supply the next days' 
 cruel sport were driv^en by men as wild to their place of 
 preparation. But we thought, says Theresa, of nothing 
 but the Lord, who will deliver his own from every danger. 
 In the darkness our house seemed very desolate. Earth 
 was thrown up around the gate and the walls were sadly 
 broken and defiled. The night was deepening, our candles 
 burned dimly, and we had only three poor mats to cover 
 the ruins where was to be our dwelling-place. Where 
 should we set the altar of God in this confusion. Prayer 
 showed us the way, heaven came to our aid, our hands 
 worked busily, and when morning dawned, a modest table 
 of stone was prepared, the little bell of the corridor 
 sounded, and the inhabitants of the city thronged to see 
 the convent and the altar which a few poor recluses had 
 raised as by enchantment in a single night. The crowd 
 was so great that it interrupted the Holy Sacrifice, and the 
 unprotected nuns were forced to seek refuge behind the 
 altar which they had built. But it was a joyful season to 
 Theresa. She could remember that meeting of a few 
 brethren just thirty-three years before in the Chapel of 
 the Martyrs, and what wonderful issues had come from 
 their vov/, and trust in the omen for a revival of piety 
 now, as zeal had been there revived. And yet a sad 
 heart-sickness seized her as she looked out of the window 
 and saw the piles of rubbish which encumbered the court- 
 yard, and blocked up the doors of her house of prayer, 
 and thought of the ruin of the Church by its fatal schisms, 
 its concessions to heresy, encumbering the courts of God 
 by vain logical subtleties, and beheld in fancy the hideous 
 and drunken phantom of Reform pressing already at the 
 gates of her dear Catholic Spanish land. Night and day 
 for a week she watched there, lest the mysteries of the 
 faith should be profaned. And she ceased to guard the 
 treasures of her altar only when the piety of a merchant 
 of the city had given them a secure resting place. 
 
 The year had not passed when she was called to estab- 
 
292 ST. THERESA. 
 
 lish another house of her order. And the number which 
 she founded soon exceeded the years of her remaining 
 Hfe. In the old knightly city of Toledo and in Valladolid, 
 so rich in quaint romantic legends, in Seville, where the 
 luxury of Moorish life still lingered, and in Grenada, 
 where the finest trophies remained of Moslem downfall, 
 in Segovia, the centre of frivolity and cruelty, and in 
 Brugos, the scene of eighty battles, in Salamanca, where 
 science boasted a rivalry with religion, and in Alva, where 
 the strong hand of power pressed heaviest upon the peo- 
 ple, in these and in many other places, the reformed nuns 
 of Mount Carmel taught and exemplified the superior 
 glory of a life of prayer. Before her death seventeen 
 convents could claim Theresa as their founder, and thrice 
 that number of recluses could be mentioned who had 
 come down from stations of wealth and influence, from 
 the most exalted social rank, giving their fortune to the 
 treasury of Christ, and their hearts to the Saviour. 
 Fourteen convents, too, of the other sex reckoned Theresa 
 by the rules which she gave them, to be their proper head. 
 In the work of establishing these, a singular zealot, styled 
 John of the Cross, was the efficient apostle. The rich 
 legends of fanaticism in the Catholic Church nowhere 
 surpass what they tell of this high-priest of penance and 
 woe. To him suffering and gloom were the luxury of 
 existence. To be immured in the cloister was to be lifted 
 to God. The most hideous and doleful devices became 
 his types of the beautiful, and wailing was his sweetest 
 music. He loved to dwell in cells where he could not 
 stand erect, but must kneel or lie prostrate. He loved to 
 pour out his soul in floods of tears, and groans of sorrow. 
 The hymns which he wrote might have been composed 
 among the tombs. His spirit was not certainly at one 
 with the joyous and serene temper of Theresa, but she 
 saw that there was genuine piety under his morbid asceti- 
 cism, and knew that he could be useful in bringing back 
 to the degenerate order of Mount Carmel its ancient 
 sanctity. She defended him against ridicule and calumny, 
 aided him to keep good courage, and mourned in touching 
 stanzas his untimely death. 
 
 We cannot dwell upon the labors of Theresa in the 
 
ST. THERESA. 293 
 
 hard task of lesfislatinor for the convents which she had 
 founded. Her discipHiie was an admirable union of 
 variety and simpHcity in the proper duties of the monastic 
 Ufe. Prayer was to be the bej^inning and end, the great 
 purpose oi the Hfe of every day. At five o'clock in sum- 
 mer and six in winter each member of the sisterhood was 
 to commence her morning devotions, to which one hour 
 must be given. The more perfect and fervent were to 
 pray alone in their cells ; the more gay and light, together. 
 After the prayer the nuns were to recite a chant according 
 to the season, select passages from the Breviary or daily 
 service of the Church. Then all retired to their cells, to 
 work there in silence until the call to mass. At eight or 
 nine this service was held in the chapel. Then before 
 dinner, which, except at seasons of fasting, was taken 
 early in the day at ten, a quarter of an hour was spent in 
 self-examination, in which the recluse was to call up every 
 thought or emotion of sin since she awoke. Then came 
 the dinner of the simplest food, of fish, or eggs, or common 
 vegetables. Then until two o'clock the ordinary labors of 
 the day went on in the common hall, and discreet conver- 
 sation was permitted. At two came the service of Vespers, 
 after which all retired to their cells, to spend the hours 
 before the evening meal, in the reading of spiritual books 
 and meditation upon the great Christian doctrines. At 
 six they supped together. At eight came another hour of 
 mental prayer, followed by another period of self-examina- 
 tion. At eleven the final signal was given, all lights were 
 extinguished, and the convent day was closed. So ran the 
 order, day by day, throughout the year. 
 
 Theresa did not choose for her severe discipline those 
 who were naturally of a sombre and sorrowful spirit, but 
 rather those of joyous and happy temper. She wanted 
 those whose hearts were buoyant enough to bear all their 
 trials and hardships, those who could endure reproof, and 
 keep good courage. She preferred the young and strong 
 to those already broken by infirmities. Feeble always in 
 her own physical frame, she loved to have around those in 
 whom piety should have a substantial house to dwell in. 
 She loved to hear the fresh and confident tones of health 
 pouring out the words of prayer. Severe in her reprimand, 
 
294 ST. THERESA. 
 
 she was kind in her encouragement. She searched the 
 hearts of all her companions and nothing was so offensive 
 as the least sign of falsehood. That element of Jesuit 
 morality which makes all thinsfs lawful when done to the 
 glory of God, did not enter into Theresa's schemes. She 
 used to say "that our Lord is a great lover of humility, 
 because he is a great lover of truth ; and humility is a 
 certain truth, by which we know how little we are, and 
 that we have no good of ourselves." She required as the 
 first condition of entrance into her convents a complete 
 self-renunciation. There must be no evasions, no reser- 
 vations, no retaining of any earthly love or any earthly 
 treasure. God must have the whole heart, or the candi- 
 date would find no room in her house. Sometimes this 
 scruple seems to us extreme, as when one day, a young 
 girl, distinguished for piety and as it seemed to others 
 every way adapted to the ascetic life, applied for admis- 
 sion. A time was assigned for her entering, but as on the 
 eve of the day appointed the novice took leave of Theresa, 
 she modestly added, " My mother, I will bring to-morrow 
 a little Bible which I have." " A Bible, my child," quickly 
 replied Theresa, " Do not come here then, for we have no 
 need of you or of your Bible. We are nothing but poor 
 ignorant women who know how only to spin, and do as we 
 are ordered." Theresa saw that the novice had not the 
 perfect spirit of submission, and her biographer, who tells 
 the story, praises her penetration in rejecting one who 
 afterwards became subject to the penalties of the Inquisi- 
 tion. 
 
 The judgment of Theresa concerning her novice was 
 not superficial. She did not decide hastily, but watched 
 and waited. "You make me smile," she writes to a friend, 
 the Father Mariano, " when you say that you can tell the 
 character of a girl only by looking at her. We are not 
 so easy to understand, we women, and whoever has been 
 confessor to any one for a term of years is astonished to 
 find that he knows so little about us." She did not form 
 her idea of fitness from the present tastes of her appli- 
 cants, but from their radical tendencies. She preferred 
 often to take her nuns from the houses of opulence and 
 worldliness than from straitened fortune and pious educa- 
 
ST. THERESA. 295 
 
 tion. She did not reject the timid, nor did she always 
 accept the brave. It is told how at the first foundation of 
 the convent at Salamanca on the night of All Saints, 1570, 
 she took with her a companion older than herself, who 
 lay awake all night, trembling in the cold air, at the noise 
 of the students in their carousing, and the bells tolling 
 solemnly in their towers. I could not help laughing, says 
 Theresa, when I woke at midnight, and saw my poor 
 friend with eyes open and in such a fright. What are you 
 thinking of, my sister, that you do not sleep, I asked. " I 
 was thinking," she answered, "what you would do if I 
 should die here, and leave you alone." My sister, I 
 answered, when that comes I shall find well enough what 
 to do. 
 
 We have left but little space to speak of the personal 
 character of Theresa. Nor is it needful. . For her native 
 temper was so changed and subdued by the spirit of her 
 mission that she stands out to us rather the type of an idea 
 than as a distinct personality. She embodies for us the 
 Christian devotee, the idea of Catholic piety in its extreme 
 manifestation. To restore the spirit of prayer to the 
 Church, she lived, she labored, she wrote, she suffered. 
 This makes the basis of her praise and the authority for 
 her sainthood. For this the poetry of the Church cele- 
 brates her name in those hymns adopted into its service, 
 which twice in each year are sung in every Catholic Church 
 throughout the world. So religious art depicts her, giving 
 no expression to the features or the figure, but centering 
 all the interest in the symbols which surrounded her, the 
 floating cloud which bears her up, the anchor at her feet, 
 the Bible on her lap, the vase of incense and the wreath 
 of flowers on either side, the sun around her head, the 
 cross held in the left hand, and the flaming heart raised 
 high in the right hand, the emblems of a concentrated 
 and entire devotion. She was the instance, if Christian 
 history affords us any instance, of prayer without ceasing. 
 
 If she was a bigot in faith, rejoicing over the punish- 
 ment of heretics, and ready to consent to the severest 
 measures, this temper sprung not from a malicious heart, 
 but from the very earnestness and glow of her faith. To 
 her there was no salvation except where Christ and his 
 
296 ST, THERESA. 
 
 Gospel might be found, in the pale of the ancient Church. 
 The very elements of the Reform were odious to her, be- 
 cause they seemed to set reason above authority, and 
 knowledge above piety. Dispute about dogmas seemed 
 to her to destroy spiritual life. It was earthly, sensual, 
 devilish. The fervor of Theresa's love made her abhor 
 all separation from the source of love and peace. She 
 felt called upon to warn the Church of the pestilence of 
 heresy, lest it should be turned by this away from the 
 sweet fountains of grace. She was not a natural combat- 
 ant, and could not wield gracefully the weapons of con- 
 troversy. Rapture, some will say rhapsody, was her 
 proper sphere. She loved to fly and soar in the upper 
 sky of mystic thought, and here she stands first in the 
 number of those who have prophesied concerning things 
 visible to the inner sense. We can find among- the mvstics 
 themselves no one who offers with her a fair parallel. 
 Madame Guyon was also a Catholic, but a woman of 
 larger culture, of wider sympathies and sweeter soul. In 
 her case, Protestants forget the recluse in loving the 
 woman, while in the case of Theresa, Catholics forget the 
 woman in marvellino^ at the devotee. George Fox had 
 visions and meditations, and a temper too, not unlike those 
 of the Spanish Saint, but he was an active, healthy man, 
 not careless of the world, though he prophesied about the 
 spirit, while she was a weak, sick woman, despising the 
 world and longing ever for rest. There are books of 
 Protestants, of the German Boehmen, and the Englishman 
 Law, which may be placed for obscurity, for ardent pas- 
 sion toward Christ, for elevation of thought and style, by 
 the side of her " Castle of the Soul," but on the whole, 
 there is no mystical writer so far removed from the tone 
 of Protestant thought and from the fair comprehension of 
 Protestant readers. 
 
 The culture of Theresa was defective. She had studied 
 the pietism of the Church too faithfully to catch those 
 graces of fancy, which adorn the pages of Christian 
 classics. Yet with such a fiery faith, she must have spoken 
 in verse. Her poetry is scant, and not of the purest, not 
 musical so much as earnest and lyrical. It is rather the 
 scream of an eaglet than the song of a nightingale j yet 
 
ST. THERESA. 297 
 
 it has found admirers even among Christian scholars. 
 Her famous song, " Muero porque no muero," which her 
 French biographer has rendered into prose, I have tried 
 in vain to adapt to any Enghsh metre which should pre- 
 serve at once its form and meaning. I give only a single 
 elegiac song of her early life, which Mr. Longfellow has 
 translated with more elegance than literal accuracy. It is 
 the sonnet beginning "No me mueve, mi Dios, pava 
 quererte : " 
 
 'Tis not thy terrors, Lord, thy dreadful frown, 
 
 Which keep my step in duty's narrow path, 
 
 'Tis not the awful threatenings of thy wrath, 
 
 But that in Virtue's sacred smile alone, 
 
 T find a peace or happiness. Thy light 
 
 In all its prodigality, is shed 
 
 Upon the worthy and the unworthy head , 
 
 And thou dost wrap in misery's stormy night, 
 
 The holy as the thankless. All is well ; 
 
 Thy wisdom has to each his portion given ; 
 
 Why should our hearts by selfishness be riven ; 
 
 'Tis vain to murmur, daring to rebel ; 
 
 Lord, I would fear thee, though I feared not hell ; 
 
 And love Thee, though I had no hope of heaven. 
 
 The last days of the life of Theresa were a strange 
 triumph for the worn-out woman. As she went on her 
 journeys now crowds flocked around her carriage, the 
 roads were lined with kneeling men and women, and nuns 
 sang Te Deums as she entered their city. It was too much 
 for her, and as she stopped at Alva on her return from 
 Burofos, where her last monasterv was founded and where 
 she had met these honors, the spirit told her that her time 
 had come. None could more gladly welcome the death- 
 angel. I will not tell what Catholic credulity has related 
 of the prodigies of her dying, of the luminous globe, the 
 dove and the miraculous fragrance as her last breath was 
 drawn. She died in the arms of a sister nun. Her last 
 grasp was on the cross. Her last breath was prayer. The 
 day of her death, October 4, 1582, is memorable as the 
 day on which Pope Gregory changed the calendar, adding 
 eleven days to the year. The Church celebrates her 
 festival on the fifteenth of October. 
 
 Many years ago I chanced to reside for a few months in 
 
298 ST. THERESA. 
 
 the city of Baltimore. When I first arrived, society was 
 all in commotion about some awful stories which had been 
 circulated about a nunnery in a retired street of that city. 
 The churches were alive with denunciation and horror, 
 and the ablest preachers were not ashamed to rouse the 
 \vorst passions of the people against the iniquity of the 
 convent system. A public investigation was made, the 
 convent doors were opened, their mystic retreats invaded 
 and their secrets unveiled. Nothing was found but a few 
 poor women, in coarse garments, with sandalled feet, sur- 
 rounded by the symbols of Catholic piety, and owning a 
 few pictures of a Spanish virgin. The excitement sub- 
 sided and the reaction came. They ceased to talk about 
 the wickedness of the Carmelite convent, in admiration of 
 the simple piety discovered there. And when I left the 
 city a revival was in full progress in the same churches 
 which had before been loudest in denunciation, and the 
 preachers of violence were praying with the new converts 
 around their altars. 
 
 So the exposition now of the spirit of the founders of 
 that convent will do its best office if, in revealing the nar- 
 rowness and bareness of her religious life, it awakens in 
 our hearts a more quick and living glow of devotion, if we 
 leave the cloister which we curiously entered to feel more 
 our need of the piety of the Spanish Saint. 
 
LOYOLA. 299 
 
 XII. 
 
 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. 
 
 On the twenty-seventh day of September, 1540, the 
 chief bishop of the Christian world signed the charter of 
 a new reHgious order to be called the Society of Jesus. 
 It was a duty more agreeable to the Catholic than the 
 ruler. For while the rules of discipline and breadth of 
 purpose might prophecy for this order a vast efficiency for 
 the faith, the power of its autocratic head might easily grow 
 into rivalship with the Supreme Pontificate. Great as might 
 be the service of this new order, would not its influence 
 and its holiness eclipse yet the proper light of the Church ? 
 The Pope hesitated long before he gav^e sanction to a force 
 so mighty either for weal or woe. The condition of the 
 monastic orders then would hardly justify more in that 
 kind. They had ceased, even the most ascetic, to sustain 
 the failing piety of the Church or to offer signal examples 
 of virtue. Knowledgfe had forsaken the Benedictine 
 cloisters to illumine the unhallowed labors of heretical 
 scholars, and men ceased to remember the folios of Bernard 
 in amazement at the wit and learning of Erasmus and 
 Bucer. Zeal had become dark and narrow in the Domini- 
 can heart, a zeal for destruction more than for conversion ; 
 and the followers of the Spanish Saint were content to 
 omit the apostolic duties in the cruel tasks of the Inquisi- 
 tion. Charity had ceased to designate the Grey Friars of 
 St. Francis. They swarmed in the streets of cities as 
 drones and beggars more than ministers of bounty. 
 
 In the degradation of the monastic orders, there might 
 seem to the good sense of the Church but little hope of 
 restoring the piety or the purity of the Christian world by 
 new experiments in that kind. And Paul III, a sagacious 
 and prudent Pontiff, would gladly have escaped commit- 
 ting himself to a decision which might prove a fatc.l error 
 for the peace and unity of the Church within, while it 
 
300 LOYOLA. 
 
 would fail to strengthen it without. But he was overruled 
 by the pressing instances of his cardinals, backed by the 
 earnest persuasions of more than one Catholic king. The 
 dangers of the time were represented, a vigorous and 
 triumphant heresy constantly advancing upon the central 
 home of Catholic faith, the defection of learning, the un- 
 certain loyalty of rulers, the monstrous and patent abuses, 
 for which there could be neither apology nor veil ; all de- 
 manding some instant remedy. It was urged that an order 
 like this now proposed would give to the Church that new 
 ability which it most needed in the crisis ; teachers for the 
 young where teaching had become obsolete, priests who 
 should differ from the world by their holiness, and not by 
 their dress or manners ; an order in which the active and 
 contemplative life were most admirably harmonized ; an 
 order fitted by its elastic method and comprehensive plan 
 for all situations and duties. These arguments had their 
 weight with his Holiness. But the chief argument was 
 the presence in Rome of the men who solicited this boon, 
 the spectacle of their zeal, their fervor, their self-sacrifice, 
 and their perseverance. The founder of the Society of 
 Jesus owed its establishment not to the friendship of any 
 kings or cardinals, but to the persistence of his own re- 
 solve. 
 
 Six years had passed since, on the heights of Mont- 
 martre in Paris, on the very spot where tradition had 
 placed the death of the Apostle of France, seven teachers 
 and students in the schools of Paris bound themselves bv 
 an original vow into a new religious union. Before the 
 holy sacrifice which one of their number celebrated, they 
 repeated in turn the solemn pledge of perpetual poverty" 
 and chastity, and added to this the vow that they would 
 become absolute servants of the Holy Pontiff, to go into 
 whatever land he should send them. The vow was sealed 
 by the transformed body of the Redeemer which they ate. 
 No others were near to witness the terrible earnestness of 
 that oath. But no one who joined in it ever forgot it, or 
 lost the thrill of its memory. Never since the Apostles 
 broke bread in that upper, room with their Master, did so 
 remarkable a band kneel together. Never were the sacred 
 elements pledge of a more vital purpose and union. In 
 
LOYOLA. 301 
 
 that chapel of the martyrs the society was born which 
 should restore the ancient work of the Church and realize 
 that divine commission which sends Evansrelists into every 
 land. The 2:reatest of modern Catholic saints, and the 
 greatest of all uninspired apostles were kneeling there to- 
 gether. By the side of the accomplished scholar and the 
 consecrated priest, were the flower of Spanish chivalry 
 and the worn frame of a shattered soldier, in the persons 
 of Francis Xavier and Ignatius Lovola. A society to 
 which tw'o such spirits were pledged was fated from the 
 first to be miohtv in the world, to defend relig^ion at home 
 as it had never been defended, and to carry it on the earth 
 farther than it had ever gone. 
 
 A hard and long experience had prepared the leader of 
 this band for the great work he was here beginning. From 
 his hereditary temper, a scion of the noble Spanish house 
 of Loyola was fitted to command. Catholic biographers 
 delight to show how the very accident of birth seemed to 
 predict the eminence of the Jesuit father. In the year 
 1 49 1, the same year in which Columbus gained from the 
 rulers of Castile and Arragon a sanction for his Western 
 voyage, the Knight of Loyola gave the name of Ignatius 
 to his new born son, the last of eleven children, and in 
 1497, when Vasco de Gama sailed first to the East to find 
 the region of spices and gold and conquer it for Portugal, 
 Francis Xavier was born to conquer these realms hereafter 
 for a holier ruler. Between the career of the chief Re- 
 formers and the lives of these saints they reckon also 
 other coincidences. When Luther was meditating in the 
 Wartburg his libels against the monastic state, and con- 
 
 triving how the faithful might be turned from their 
 obedience, Ignatius, in the solitude of Manresa, was com- 
 posing those spiritual exercises which should regenerate 
 the life of the cloister and vindicate its superior beauty. 
 When Calvin studied at Paris how to destroy the ancient 
 faith, Ignatius was learning there how to defend it. And 
 in 1534, the year that Henry of England prohibited all 
 his subjects from naming the name of any Pope as spiritual 
 lord, Ignatius and his companions took that vow which 
 made the Pope wholly their lord, body, soul, and spirit, to 
 be obeyed in the least or the greatest requirement alike. 
 
302 LOYOLA. 
 
 Ignatius was educated bv his martial father and brother 
 to the profession of arms, and soon became conspicuous 
 for his skill and gallantry in the arts of war. The promise 
 of his youth was of an eminent soldier and a brilliant 
 cavalier. But an accident at the siege of Pampeluna 
 saved for the world a spiritual hero. A cannon shot re- 
 bounding from the wall broke his right leg, and bruised 
 its fellow. In this helpless condition, the blundering of the 
 army surgeons first setting the limb badly, and then being 
 obliged to break it again, gave chance to St. Peter to in- 
 terpose by miracle in his favor. On the eve of that mar- 
 tyr's feast, he was supposed to be dying, but in a dream 
 the Saint appeared to him, touched the wounded part, 
 and when he awoke he found the bones restored to their 
 places, and his cure complete. St. Peter's surger}^ how- 
 ever, was not perfect. A fragment of bone still protruded 
 at the knee, and fearful self-inflicted agonies were tried by 
 the proud young knight to relieve a deformity so fatal. 
 With o^reat firmness he waited while the bone was sawed 
 off, and for many days lay stretched upon a rack which 
 should draw him into shape again. But St. Peter was not 
 to be so baffled, and his lameness became permanent. 
 
 In the long confinement which ensued, the mind of 
 Ignatius was beguiled by such books as the castle of his 
 ancestors could furnish. The romances of chivalry then 
 abounded in the chambers of Spanish nobles. With these 
 he was from childhood familiar. But now by chance there 
 was handed to him a book of the Saints, in which he could 
 read the achievements of the knights of the cross, and 
 see what devotion and service self-denying faith had ren- 
 dered to the most blessed of women, the mother of God. 
 From his reading came strange meditations. Contending 
 feelino^s disturbed his soul. On one side visions of 
 worldly grandeur and honor, of a place at court, and 
 marriasre with a rich Castilian whom he loved. And over 
 against these, thoughts of ascetic denial, of the beauty of 
 humility and the glory of apostleship. Should he be a 
 noble in the king's house and partake of temporal abun- 
 dance, or should he be like Jerome and Basil a hermit in 
 Palestine, and live upon spiritual food ? From this he 
 began to reason upon and compare his sensations. He 
 
LOYOLA. 3^3 
 
 found that his worldly visions had but transitory bliss, and 
 left vacancy, bitterness, and disgust behind them; while, 
 as spiritual thoughts subsided, a very sweet comfort, and 
 peace and joy filled the chambers of his soul. Was it not 
 better, then, once for all to renounce the world and be- 
 come a child of God? Wonderful prodigies aided his 
 desire to answer that question. At night, as he prayed, 
 the house was shaken, and the wall of his chamber was 
 rent. Holy Mary with Jesus in her arms, came and 
 smiled upon him. His ecstasy grew daily. His kindred 
 became troubled. But their expostulation only added fire 
 to his devout zeal. Hardly were his wounds healed, when 
 he set out on a pilgrimage which he intended to close only 
 at Jerusalem, but as yet he was unfit for that sacred journey. 
 He had to pass through a course of spiritual discipline 
 and physical endurance, before he was worthy to trace 
 the steps of the crucified Saviour and to kneel where he 
 knelt in his as^onv. 
 
 And the austerities which Ignatius practised were enough 
 to subdue the strongest lusts of the heart. All the tor- 
 ments which his fancy could invent his patience endured. 
 His horse was soon given away, and his sword hung up 
 before the altar of the convent of Montserrat in token 
 that his secular warfare was relinquished for the service of 
 Christ. A besfsrar whom he met received his fine clothes 
 in exchange for ragged garments, and great was the sorrow 
 of Ignatius to find that his gift of humility and charity 
 had caused the arrest of the poor man as a thief. His 
 food was of the meanest kind, boiled herbs sprinkled with 
 ashes. His girdle was a band of iron, a hair shirt was his 
 raiment, and his bed was the ground. His chosen com- 
 panions were the beggars of the streets and the sick of 
 most loathsome diseases. The children hooted at him as 
 he went creeping along, asking his alms in the basest 
 tone ; and they flung stones after him. One day he was 
 found lying nearly dead in a foul cavern which he had 
 chosen for his abode, and was carried into the hospital. 
 But his bitter experience grew heavier in his soul. He 
 was weighed down and crushed by the burden of his sins, 
 frequently almost maddened. Long fasting, constant 
 penance, much meditation, brought him no relief. To the 
 
304 LOYOLA. 
 
 lassitude of frequent fevers, succeded the worse prostra- 
 tion of deeper melancholy. Only celestial visions revived 
 him. In a trance which lasted seven days, the chief of 
 the mysteries were exposed to his view. He saw the Holy 
 Trinity dividing to each other their marvellous work, and 
 ordaining the system of Nature and of man. He saw the 
 great wonder of Redemption illustrated, and how it was 
 with the miracle of the mass. 
 
 In the rapture of his prayers all the glories of heaven 
 and earth seemed to open before him, and he came out 
 from his days of vision renew^ed in spirit and furnished for 
 his relijrious work. He exchansred now his hours of sor- 
 row for hours of studv. He addressed himself to able 
 teachers who could best impart the science of the spirit, 
 and such was his proficiency that the learner soon be- 
 came a master, and discovered to his guides what dis- 
 ciplined piety could do in overcoming the defects of 
 scholastic training. His hours of meditation were varied 
 by the composition of the book of spiritual exercises. 
 This remarkable treatise on the discipline of the Christian, 
 if we consider the facts of its authorship, is more wonder- 
 ful, because more authentic, than the revelations in our 
 time of the Poughkeepsie seer. By the sanction of a Pope 
 this book became afterward a manual for the faithful, and 
 it is the boast of Jesuits to-day that it has prepared more 
 souls for the kingdom of heaven than any uninspired 
 v^olume. Books of meditation had been common before 
 in the Church, and in some convents whole shelves were 
 filled with them. The deep devotion of Thomas a Kempis 
 had long directed the reverie of pious believers, but the 
 Exercises of Loyola are on a new plan. They systematize 
 the method of conversion. They divide the needful medi- 
 tation into periods. In four weeks the soul of the believer 
 with their help may pass through the necessary stages. In 
 the first week he is made to go over his past life and see 
 his un worthiness, his baseness, his awful wickedness, and 
 the sure hell which opens before hmi. From this he is to 
 turn in the second week to the story of Christ; and con 
 trasting the armies of Christ and Satan, to choose delib- 
 erately which standard he will bear. In the third week, 
 the contemplation is to be of the woe from which Jesus 
 
LOYOLA. 305 
 
 saved the race of man and of his deep humiliation. And 
 from this, at last, in the fourth week, the soul is to rise to 
 heavenh^ imaginations and mystic flights, and spiritual 
 songs, and to behold the perfect beauty of the regenerate 
 state and of a life hid with Christ in God. 
 
 The most remarkable feature of the Spiritual Exercises 
 of Ignatius is their union of devout speculation with 
 practical good sense. They deal with the human soul in 
 its actual condition. They take man on his own ground 
 and reason from his consciousness and experience. Do 
 you hesitate, says he to the convert, whether to choose be- 
 tween Christ or the world ? What advice would you give 
 in such a case to vour dearest friend ? Or which would 
 you choose on your own death-bed ? He would not trust 
 to the sudden raptures of an hour of exhilaration, and 
 his book offsets the fanaticism of instantaneous conversion. 
 To its religious value not only the testimonies of the 
 Jesuit order and of the Catholic Church but the numerous 
 imitations of Protestants bear witness. The luxuriant 
 scholarship of an English prelate, the plain, pious wisdom 
 of an English Dissenter, and the spiritual science of a 
 German professor have chosen the model of Ignatius as a 
 frame-work for their finest productions, and whoso de- 
 lights in Tholuck's hours of Christian devotion, or Dod- 
 dridge's Rise and Progress, or Taylor's Holy Living and 
 Dying, drinks of water from the fountains which were 
 opened to the soul of the Spanish zealot in the solitude of 
 Manresa. 
 
 Ten months spent in prayers, meditations and austeri- 
 ties had fitted Ignatius to continue his journey. Rapidly he 
 passed through the Italian cities, wondering at the splen- 
 dor of the Easter festival, and saddened by the visible 
 corruption of the Church which he loved. The charm of 
 Venice could not detain the Christian pilgrim. Yet his zeal 
 in prayer did not prevent him from observing the wickedness 
 of the sailors in his ship and openly rebuking it. After 
 numerous strikino^ adventures his feet at last touched the 
 soil of the Sacred Land. Soon the holiest spots were 
 familiar. He stood before the Temple Hill and groaned 
 in spirit that infidel worship should profane that shrine of 
 the nations. He knelt where Jesus had knelt in the 
 20 
 
3o6 LOYOLA. 
 
 garden. And thrice he traced the foot-prints of the sufferer 
 who bore along the painful track of the Olive mountain 
 the great curse of a fallen race. May we not believe that 
 there indeed, as he declares, was revealed to him the 
 vision of a new Evangel, of another company, who from 
 the witness of trial, pain, and sacrifice should go out, like 
 the first disciples, to convert the world to God ? He, too, 
 had reached now the ao:e when the Saviour of men was 
 called to suffer and die. Might not his suffering now 
 begin the era of a new regeneration .'' But he had been 
 trained in the school of obedience, and though his heart 
 longed to begin in Palestine the conversion of the impious 
 followers of Mohammed, yet the command of the Fran- 
 ciscan ruler there sent him speedily back to his native 
 shore. 
 
 And now began a regular course of preparation for the 
 great plan which he had conceived. He needed to learn 
 the wisdom of the Fathers, and to gain sufficient human 
 knowledge to fit him for influence over the minds of men. 
 He could not be a priest without the Latin tongue, and 
 with the little boys he went to school to learn it. One 
 favorite word seemed to give him the key at once to the 
 hardest intricacies and the highest delights of his study, 
 and the inflexions of the verb amo were to him of deeper 
 significance than the jest which custom commonly makes 
 of them. "To love" was to love God. "To be loved" 
 was to feel God's love. Amabam, "I was loving," recalled 
 to him sorrowfully past states of spiritual rapture, and 
 amabo, "I shall love," restored him by its glorious promise. 
 The school of Barcelona was changed two years later for 
 the new University, where Ignatius soon became learned 
 enough in the various sciences to be accused of heresy. 
 His exceeding sanctity became suspicious. His style of 
 thought seemed novel and dangerous. His love for Eras- 
 mus was hardly consistent with a pure and undoubting 
 faith, and there were not wanting those who ascribed his 
 influence in healing the diseases and winning the souls of 
 the poor and the profligate alike, to arts of magic. The 
 imprisonment of forty-two days which he suft'ered gave 
 him a delightful season of prayer. And he asked nothing 
 better than that God would graciously multiply to him 
 
LOYOLA. 307 
 
 trials in the flesh and the hatred of the wicked. He was 
 released only to beg more humbly, to preach more openly, 
 and commend to men with more earnestness the virtues 
 of the Saviour. 
 
 In the year 1528, we find him at Paris, whither he had 
 travelled on foot in mid-winter, entering on a seven years' 
 course of study in the University of that city. His means 
 were supplied by begging in the streets. In the vacations 
 he would go even to Holland and England to gather for 
 his companions and himself the means of subsistence. 
 He gained very soon great influence among his com- 
 panions, awakening a new spirit of prayer, and encourag- 
 ing a broader aim of study. It is told how the master of 
 his studies, who had ordered for him a public whipping, 
 publicly knelt and begged his forgiveness. New and 
 strange methods he adopted to touch the hearts of sinners, 
 sometimes joining in their sports, sometimes doing penance 
 for their sins. He chose a wicked priest as his confessor 
 and so made this man see his own wickedness. No scene 
 could be so horrible or so disgusting that he did not nerve 
 himself to endure it, till the sight of his resolute valor 
 shamed the feebleness of his companions. One by one 
 congenial friends attached themselves to his study and 
 life. P'aber the priest, and Xavier the brilliant worldling, 
 James Laynes, a master of many tongues and all philoso- 
 phies, Alonzo wSalmeron, and Nicholas Bobadilla, youths 
 of the highest promise, with Simon Rodrigues, all except 
 the first and last, Spaniards of noble birth, became the 
 elect members of his society. The new company of Jesus 
 on the heights of Montmartre, numbered around their 
 leader only half as many as met in the chamber at Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 The vow taken by the brethren on the day of Assump- 
 tion was followed up by assiduous exercises of penitence 
 and prayer. It was agreed that their studies should finally 
 close on the twenty-fifth of January 1537, when they 
 would meet at Venice and surrender themselves to the 
 Pope for such service as he might think fit to employ 
 them. The conversion of the heathen was their principal 
 hope ; but they were ready to labor in schools, in hospitals, 
 in prisons, or wheresoever the interests of Christ's cause 
 
3oS LOYOLA. 
 
 mii:;ht most demand tlicm. No property was any one to 
 own ; but the L^ifts of the charitable were to be their de- 
 pendence. Henceforward all their knowledge, all their 
 eloquence, all their discipline were to be for Christ and 
 God, and not for selfish olorv. If tiie renown of sanctity 
 joined itself to :.iis devoted band, the slanders of envy 
 were not wantinsj. Ridicule followed those who would 
 give up to this chimera the solid honors of science. It 
 seemed insanity to endure so much for the dream of savinij 
 a world so corrupt. The day was too late for a new dif- 
 fusion of the Gospel. The experiment had been tried 
 too often. And though Ignatius might be received by his 
 kindred with the reverence due to his suffering and his 
 holiness, he had to meet entreaties and reproofs for wasting 
 the vigor of his life on so hopeless a vision. But no re- 
 bukes or persuasions could quench in his soul the sacred 
 lire. He knew what he meant to do. He had meat to 
 eat which they knew not of. And the temptation of his 
 castle walls could not seduce him back to a life which his 
 heart had long forsaken. On the eighth of January of the 
 appointed year, he met at Venice the companions of his 
 choice with three more who had been added to their 
 number. There they received ordination to the priest- 
 hood, and on Christmas of that year Ignatius Loyola said 
 his first mass at the altar. 
 
 It was essential to obtain from the Pope the public 
 sanction of their order, and we have before alluded to the 
 long delay and the weighty reasons which prevented them 
 from entering so soon as they wished upon their work. 
 But they were not idle in the interval. Like the Saviour, 
 they went about among the villages of Italy preaching, 
 teaching, healing the sick, and showing the example of 
 self-denying lives. The principles of their order were 
 digested and developed. Their vows were renewed, and 
 when the bull "regimini " was issued from the Vatican on 
 the twenty-seventh of September, 1540, they were prepared 
 with unanimous voice to choose Ignatius general of their 
 order, and swear to him perfect and instant obedience. 
 Twice he refused the offer. But finding, at last, through 
 the lips of his confessor, that he was called by God to the 
 charge, he waived his scruples and consented to rule the 
 
LOYOLA. 309 
 
 society which he had founded. The name which he gave 
 it was" the Society of Jesus;" for the divine Saviour had 
 appeared to him on his journey, bearing a cross, but with 
 brow all radiant with light and had said, as to Paul of old, 
 " Go on, l2:natius, I will be favorable to vou at Rome." 
 His task was now to give a constitution to the new brother- 
 hood, to increase its numbers and to prove its missionary 
 purpose. Scarcely had its charter been given, when 
 Francis Xavier sailed from Lisbon on that mission beside 
 which all labors of Evangelists since the days of Paul and 
 Peter are insignificant. Another of the band,. Hoves, was 
 speedily translated by death and Ignatius was able to tell 
 from a vision which he saw before the altar that their 
 society had already a representative with the saints in 
 heaven, and with Christ, whose name they bore. Soon 
 the Catholic princes of the world began to solicit some of 
 these laborers of Christ to awaken the faith of their 
 kingdoms. The numbers of the community increased so 
 rapidly that in a few years no part of the Catholic world 
 was left unvisited by them. They penetrated to the 
 heretical lands of Flanders and Britain. They taught the 
 Christian slaves in Morocco and along the African shore. 
 In Portugal the sovereign gave them the chief direction of 
 religion, and the Indians of Canada and Brazil heard 
 from their lips the same holy faith to which thousands 
 listened on the coasts of Malacca, Japan and Sumatra. 
 They were present in the assemblies of the Church to 
 watch and guide the course of affairs. They were present 
 in the courts of kings to remind monarchs of their duty 
 to a higher ruler. Men saw them ministering to disease 
 in its most loathsome forms, and braving the most fatal 
 dangers of pestilence, war, and famine. Habited like 
 common priests, they were found where no priests would 
 go, and lived a life which few priests lived. Their numer- 
 ous colleges became to the nations seminaries of the 
 soundest learning. It was a principal feature in their 
 plan that they should educate the children of every 
 Catholic land and rear so a generation of true believers. 
 In the view of Ignatius, all education which was not Chris- 
 tian was worthless, and no education could be called 
 Christian which did not, along with the sciences of the 
 
3IO LOYOLA. 
 
 world, teach the better science of spiritual discipline 
 and absolute obedience to Christ in his Church. 
 
 The constitution which Ignatius gave to his new society 
 shows his remarkable wisdom, penetration, and practical 
 skill. It borrowed all the good points of the other monas- 
 tic systems, omitting their defects and supplying their 
 deficiencies. In government he made it an elective des- 
 potism. The power of the general was absolute and entire 
 over all the other officers and members. To him universal 
 obedience was due, subject however to the negative of 
 the Supreme Pontiff. Only the Pope could absolve a 
 Jesuit from the duty of submission. There were various 
 grades of membership. One month of confession and 
 prayer was to precede all study in the order. Then came 
 two years of novitiate, in which the duties without the 
 vows of the order were laid upon them, and it could be 
 decided whether they were fit for the order or the order fit 
 for them. If this probation is satisfactory, then the novice 
 is admitted to take the three ordinary vows of poverty, 
 chastity, and obedience, and to be called a religious man, 
 though not a perfect Jesuit. He is now subject to the orders 
 of the general. He must work and study where his 
 place is assigned, but he is only an assistant, a spiritual co- 
 adjutor in the house of Ignatius. A long trial must prove 
 his fitness to take the fourth irrevocable crowning vow of 
 entire submission to the will of the Pope. He then be- 
 comes one of the "professed," and is liable to any burden 
 or any fate which it may please his superiors to set upon 
 him. None proceed to this last degree except such as are 
 accomplished in study and endurance, furnished and dis- 
 ciplined for the hardest Christian work. 
 
 The company was to have many hands, but a single 
 will and a single mind. And this end was reached by a 
 system of mutual confession. Every inferior told all his 
 thoughts, desires, and acts at once to the brother above 
 him, and wdth him this revelation need not be secret, but 
 he had the right to hand it upward to the head of the 
 order. Every rector of a college and every ruler of a 
 province had to report monthly to the general, and once 
 in three years to give an account of all the Jesuits in his 
 dominion. The general was chosen for life, and could not 
 
LOYOLA. 3" 
 
 be resisted or deposed except by the congregation of the 
 whole order. Five assistants help him to prepare work 
 and assign the tasks for the brethren. No man can be 
 admitted member who has come from any other religious 
 order, from the Carmelite, Theatine, Franciscan, or even 
 from the regular priesthood, for Ignatius wished no divided 
 love in the heart of any Jesuit. No man once a member 
 can accept any religious honor, neither bishop's seat nor 
 cardinal's hat ; he must decline all titles or authority but 
 that which his vows have bestowed. Even for the Papacy 
 he is not a lawful candidate, and must refuse it if offered. 
 Unlike the other monastic systems, the constitution of the 
 Jesuits subjected the heart and will, and not the habits of 
 its members. They might choose their own dress, their 
 own litany, their ov/n method of penance, prayer, and 
 praise. They might follow that course of life which suited 
 best their natural bent, might be politicians, soldiers, 
 students, orators, physicians, even traders, if they would 
 only keep true to their vows, remember in all things the 
 good of Christ's cause, and receive the command of the 
 superior as the sovereign voice of Christ. 
 
 In the Jesuit institution the duties of the active and 
 contemplative life are admirably balanced. There is 
 room for all the agonies of penitence, and raptures of en- 
 thusiasm, but they are prevented from excess by contact 
 with the practical affairs of life. The followers of Loyola 
 were to be in the world, but not of it. They were to pre- 
 pare for the joys of the saints to come by dealing with 
 sinners now. No convents were given them to dwell in. 
 The House of the Professed which was assigned in Rome 
 to their Order by the Pope, was not a monastery, but a 
 sort of headquarters to the order. If the general dwelt 
 there it was rather as a king dwells in his castle, than as a 
 prior in his abbey. There the dispatches were opened 
 and read from all parts of the world where the brethren 
 were gone. Thence the decrees went out. It was a place 
 of discipline indeed, stern, long, and constant. But the 
 discipline was not monastic, only the choice of each indi- 
 vidual for his own perfection. If the world did not much 
 enter there, it was not because barred doors and grated 
 windows, and an awful gravity seemed to shut it out, but 
 
312 LOYOLA. 
 
 because the hearts of the brethren in that centre of light 
 and holiness, so near to the great head of their company, 
 were naturally filled with unworldly thoughts and pious 
 emotions. There they knew that the holy father wrote 
 and prayed, and there they believed that the Holy Spirit, 
 with fiery tongue, descended to guide his pen as he com- 
 posed his decrees, and to breathe through every sentence 
 the glow and unction of a new apostle. Well might a 
 more than convent silence reign, a more than cloistral 
 piety be practised, in the house where the messages of a 
 world's redemption were daily left. 
 
 The system of study which Ignatius enjoined finely com- 
 bined the spiritual and practical elements. It allowed all 
 secular sciences, but required that all should be devoted 
 to the glory of God. Every day mass was to be heard by 
 every scholar. Every exercise must begin with prayer. 
 The writings of the Fathers must be made familiar to the 
 students of philosophy. The native tongue of each nation 
 should be studied in its colleges, and preachers should 
 aim to give the Gospel in the most familiar speech. Igna- 
 tius, prized sanctity higher than learning, but he did not 
 confound sanctity with ignorance. He required the sacri- 
 fice of the heart and will, but not of the taste or intellect. 
 He was glad to enlist logic or letters on the side of God's 
 truth. He would encourage and develop individual traits 
 of character while he brouirht his followers all to be one 
 in Jesus. There were grades of proficiency among them, 
 but not of honor or privilege. The child of noble parents 
 should fare no better than the peasant's son, though he 
 might bring his treasures as a gift to the altar. The use 
 of ability, but not the claim of rank, were recognized in 
 the Jesuit constitution. Whatsoever sphere of Christian 
 labor any were best qualified to fill, to that should their 
 powers be guided, whether to controversy or to instruction, 
 whether to diplomacy or to alms-giving. There was no 
 room in his scheme for any pride, the pride of holiness, 
 of success or even of extreme humilitv. When all the 
 command was fulfilled and the worn body and weary mind 
 could labor no longer, the Society of Jesus were to say as 
 their great Master had bidden, '' We are unprofitable ser- 
 vants. We have done what it is our duty to do." 
 
LOYOLA. 31 
 
 o 'o 
 
 It is impossible to doubt the testimonies of the super- 
 human zeal and enero^v with which Ignatius labored to 
 establish in the hearts of his society the spirit of their 
 vows and to extend their influence far and wide. And yet 
 he was scrupulously watchful that no violations of the 
 rule should take place, and that no unworthy members 
 should be enlisted in the order. Often he rejected those 
 who seemed most lit by their fervor and ascetic zeal, 
 because he discovered elements of weakness in their na- 
 ture. He could not be propitiated by flattery or deceived 
 by intrigue. His keen eye detected pretenders to holiness 
 beneath their mask, and his searching tests revealed every 
 lurking remnant of selfish love. Yet he was not harsh 
 towards those in whom worldliness seemed obstinately 
 to linger. If he rejected them, it was without scorn 
 or rebuke. Some whose natures were so lisiht and triflinsr 
 that spiritual exercises seemed to be shaken from their 
 hearts as rain-drops from the branches, he encouraged to 
 persevere, till at last their natures were subdued. He 
 read almost intuitively the inner characters of his friends, 
 and discovered often in the beginning what it took years 
 of hard discipline to prove to the eyes of others. Often 
 his disposition of one or another to different spheres of 
 duty seemed strange and of doubtful wisdom, but the 
 event always vindicated his sagacity. He interpreted to 
 all their proper oflice beneath their transient preference, 
 and made them confess that he knew them better than 
 they knew themselves. 
 
 Ignatius had learned in his long course of trial and 
 endurance one great virtue of a spiritual ruler, a stoical 
 firmness. No catastrophes could frighten him, no persua- 
 sions could move him. His fiery heart seemed wholly 
 submissive to his calm and even will. He was every day 
 the same, never joyful, never sad, receiving all tidings, 
 whether of the success or failure of his plans, of new 
 colleges founded, or the death of friends whom he trusted, 
 with equal serenity. He was always ready for the busi- 
 ness of the hour, whatever had been his most recent ex- 
 perience. One evening a brother of his order came to 
 speak with him about an important affair, but finding that 
 Ignatius had just returned from a long and fruitless wait- 
 
314 LOYOLA, 
 
 ing at the Papal court, postponed his business till the 
 morrow. Explaining then the reason of his delay, he re- 
 ceived such a reprimand that for a week he dared not look 
 upon the face of the holy father. He could assume, in- 
 deed, severity of countenance to give force to a rebuke, 
 but was never betrayed into a loss of that majestic sweet- 
 ness of look which awed while it fascinated every beholder. 
 The expression of his countenance was one of deep, 
 spiritual repose, and from his round black eye and furrowed 
 brow there fell at once the expression of ineffable pity 
 and immovable peace. The smile that was wanting on his 
 closely drawn lips played over all his features, and seemed 
 to his enthusiastic friends to touch them with an angel's 
 grace, inspiring confidence, while it prevented a too near 
 approach. They entered before him with fear, hardly 
 daring to meet that still, abstracted, passionless gaze. 
 But his gentle voice at once restored them. 
 
 Few men have ever learned so completely to despise 
 physical pain and danger. They tell how under a severe 
 surgical operation he gave no sign of any suffering, either 
 in quivering muscle or sound of complaint. One day 
 descending a high flight of steps, he fell and was supposed 
 to be killed, but he rose with no remark, not even looking 
 behind him to see how the accident had chanced. He 
 was not afraid of evil tidings. As he was conversing with 
 some pious friends about heavenly things, a messenger 
 came in suddenly in consternation and whispered some- 
 thing in his ear. "Very well," said Ignatius, and dismissed 
 him, continuing for an hour longer without change the 
 conversation which had been interrupted. At the moment 
 of his leaving, some one ventured to ask if the messenger 
 had not brought him some bad news. "Onlv this," said 
 he, " that the officers have just come to seize our furniture 
 in payment of a debt of a few crowns which we have con- 
 tracted. But if they take our beds, we will sleep on the 
 floor, which is very proper for poor people like us. I only 
 hope that they will leave some of my papers. But if they 
 take these I shall not quarrel about it." A story got 
 round once that the Jesuits were encouraging a revolt 
 against the Papal power and had a large quantity of arms 
 stored in their house. Such a report might well be ex- 
 
LOYOLA. 315 
 
 pected to vex, if anything could, the loyal heart of Igna- 
 tius. But when the officers came, at the order of the Pope, 
 to search the establishment, he conducted them into every 
 room, and dismissed them with the same politeness that 
 he would have shown to a visit of friendship. 
 
 This firmness of temper in Ignatius manifested itself in 
 great moderation and evenness of speech. He was not, 
 like Luther, prodigal of words, or strong in his phrases of 
 like and dislike. No one who has so won the attachment 
 of his brethren ever praised so sparingly. No one ever 
 blamed with less asperity. His words were choice, clear, 
 and frank, but not copious ; truthful more than beautiful. 
 It was w/iaf he said which they remembered, more than 
 how he said it. He was specially careful to speak no ill 
 of his enemies, whether in or out of the Church, and those 
 who brought to his ear the floating calumnies of the world 
 about himself and his order, did not hear the natural 
 bitter reply. In all affairs of business, every syllable, in 
 sense and sound, was maturely considered before it was 
 uttered. And every letter which his secretary wrote he 
 read over, examined and corrected. It is a remarkable 
 circumstance in the life of Ignatius when you consider the 
 manifold varieties of temper and character with which he 
 dealt, and the important and delicate relations in which 
 he was placed at once to his own brethren, to the Church, 
 and to the world, that seldom, almost never, did a misun- 
 derstanding arise from any thing which he said. His 
 prudence of speech would have seemed almost miraculous, 
 if his wisdom had not seemed so divine. 
 
 And the reverence which his disciples had for the wis- 
 dom of their general amounted quite to idolatry. His 
 slightest hint became for them a rule of action. A single 
 word of encouragement from him was lasting joy to them. 
 His spiritual exercises became for them a manual of devo- 
 tion more sacred even than the work of Thomas a Kempis, 
 which Catholics, and Ignatius more especially, prized next 
 to the Bible. They knew that his scholarship would not 
 compare with that of many doctors of the Church, or 
 brethren of their own order, and inferred that his superior 
 insight into heavenly truths must be the result of inspira- 
 tion. Was that human skill merely that with such narrow 
 
3i6 LOYOLA. 
 
 means of knowledge could declare a science beyond all 
 the philosophy of the schools, could frame and organize a 
 society of such wonderful poise and harmony, could give 
 the reason so profoundly, while it showed the sacred issue 
 so well of perfect humility and constant suffering ? His 
 common acts accordingly became miracles, and a long list 
 of these is given by his biographers, though we may pro- 
 fanely refuse to allow in them the miraculous element. 
 He was worshipped as a saint before his death, and after- 
 wards at the altar, one more daring than the rest, ventured 
 to substitute in the mass for the name of Jesus, " Sante 
 Ignati, ora pro nobis," "Holy Ignatius, pray for us." 
 Even fragments of his dress, and the refuse of his nails 
 were prized and worn as amulets. Francis Xavier, who 
 wore around his neck a small bone of the Apostle Thomas, 
 the first Evangelist of India, was accustomed to tear from 
 the letters of Ignatius his signature, and fasten it to this 
 bone that his teachings with the heathen might have more 
 
 efficacy. And it is said that his letters in return were all 
 written on his knees and bathed with his tears. Charles 
 Spinola, a Jesuit who was roasted in Japan before a slow 
 fire, gave to his friends as the last treasure with which he 
 parted a small fragment which he had worn next his heart, 
 of the shirt which Ignatius wore in the hard penances of 
 the cell at Manresa. 
 
 The radical and central virtue of the system which 
 Ignatius gave to his order is Jnwiility. Upon this he based 
 all other Christian graces. Even the practical rule of 
 obedience must grow from this to contain any merit for 
 him who observes it. He counted that obedience which 
 was only the submission of a reluctant will to superior 
 strength as of no moral worth. It must come always from 
 a true humiliation of the mind, the heart and the will. 
 His sharpest rebukes and his hardest penance were for 
 those who paraded their holiness or claimed honor for it. 
 He would not tolerate any boasting about success, any 
 religious pride. Some of his followers were sent to the 
 courts of kings, but not as to any more honorable station 
 than with the heathen tribes. Though he contrived so 
 skillfully the plan of the order that it should be sure to 
 gain influence and power, to win souls, and secure for the 
 
LOYOLA. 317 
 
 truth a favorable hearing, yet he dreaded a season of too 
 great prosperity, and was accustomed to say that it would 
 be sad for the brethren when they ceased to be persecuted. 
 As the perfection of an artist is to conceal his art, so the 
 perfect Jesuit virtue conceals its own humility. To reach 
 the spiritual state one must become so humble that even 
 one's own heart becomes accustomed to humility so far 
 that it does not notice the virtue. 
 
 Probably the world never saw a more extraordinary in- 
 stance of the study and practice of this virtue than in the 
 case of Ignatius Loyola. He differed from the old as- 
 cetics in this, that whereas they sought the admiration of 
 the multitude for their austerities, he courted the ridicule 
 of men for his follies. He studied to gain the contempt 
 of men, so far as he might without compromising his in- 
 fluence for good. He would change his method of self- 
 humiliation when he saw too much attention drawn to the 
 method. His hardest mortifications were the most private. 
 The tattered peasant's garb in which he began his spiritual 
 experiences, he exchanged afterwards for a decent robe, and 
 men could not see in the grave, reserved countenance of 
 the solitary priest who halted along the streets of Rome, 
 the traits of that menial service he was every day per- 
 forming. Few have ever been so favored with celestial 
 visions, with the visits of angels, with the private consola- 
 tions of the Son of God and his holy mother. Yet only 
 his nearest friends, and they but sparingly, were privileged 
 to know of these privileges. They were withheld, lest 
 any might think their subject greater than his brethren. 
 With a will as stern, and a soul as intolerant as that of 
 Luther, Loyola never aimed to exalt himself in the eyes 
 of his brethren. He was distressed by their praises, he 
 thanked them when they dared to rebuke him. When the 
 charitable were moved to leave their property or bring 
 their gifts to the treasury, he rejoiced in it as an evidence 
 of divine love. But no gifts would he accept for himself 
 more than the simple requisites for food and raiment. 
 The head of the Society of Jesus must be as his Master 
 before, poor and friendless, and hungry, feeding only on 
 the bread of life and through sweet communion with his 
 Father in heaven. The title which he gave his followers 
 
3i8 LOYOLA. 
 
 was "this least society," and his own favorite device was, 
 " To the greater glory of God." 
 
 The Society of Jesus was the first religious order since 
 the time of the Apostles which had been organized on 
 a truly philanthropic basis. Love to God here could 
 not prove its sincerity except in practical love to man. 
 The proper charter of the society was that closing text of 
 the Saviour's word, "Go and teach all nations in the name 
 of the Father and Son and Spirit." And herein it proved 
 a strong bulwark against the Protestant movement. It 
 had a more directly humane end than the preaching of the 
 Reformers. It tried not to convince men of doctrines so 
 much as to convert their souls, not to reform their opinions 
 so much as to educate them for life eternal. Luther and his 
 friends gave themselves to the emancipation of the human 
 mind from the trammels of worldly subtlety and error. 
 Loyola and his brethren labored to subjugate the human 
 heart to the simple rules of the Christian life. Luther 
 spoke to men as Jesus to the Samaritan woman about the 
 true spiritual worship, or to Nicodemus, of the new birth 
 in faith. Loyola urged upon them the answer of Jesus 
 to the young ruler and showed them the way of salvation. 
 On the two great commandments of love to God and one's 
 neighbor hung all his law and prophecy. Luther was 
 zealous in propagating his truth, but his zeal was the zeal 
 of controversy ; he would send out his opinions to men 
 because they were new, fresh, and antagonistic. Loyola 
 was a propagandist of the most ancient faith. He had no 
 controversy but with worldly souls sin-blinded and corrupt. 
 He sent his disciples to preach the word of reconciliation, 
 "good tidings of great joy." 
 
 The great doctrine of the Reformation was Justification 
 by Faith. Whoso could comprehend this, might find the 
 grace of God. Whoso heartily believed this was not far 
 from the kingdom of heaven. The great precept of the 
 Society of Jesus was the duty of penite7ice. Whoso could 
 feel this, might enter into the new life of the spirit. Whoso 
 was filled by this feeling was already crowned with the 
 glory of life eternal. Luther explained that process by 
 which man, nothing in himself, becomes everything in the 
 strength of Christ. Ignatius enforced that necessity by 
 
LOYOLA. 319 
 
 v/hich the sinner must see that Christ makes him strong 
 only through his own weakness. The first showed man 
 the avenue to redemption through a free and searching 
 love of truth, the second showed man the way to hohness 
 in a deep self-abasement and submission. The one en- 
 couraged the feeling among brethren of personal liberty, 
 no man might control the faith or worship of his brother. 
 The other enjoined the constant sense among brethren of 
 dependence on each other and all together on God, no 
 man might cherish a creed or use a ritual but such as God 
 had given in his Church. The German reformer told men 
 of their rights, reminded them of their manhood. His 
 rival in the new society told men of their needs, reminded 
 them that they were all children of the Church and the 
 Saviour. The influence of the Reform could train the 
 poor scholar that he should be a champion of the Bible in 
 the halls of debate and the courts of princes, that he 
 should die a martyr to his unbending creed. The Jesuit 
 theory could subdue the pride of birth, and take from the 
 very palaces of kings those who should carry the practical 
 Gospel, the name and life of Jesus, into the homes of the 
 lowly, and live a long life of martyrdom that the poor 
 heathen might find Christ's full salvation. Luther taught 
 that the truth of God is the object of the life of man, that 
 there is no higher work than to find and defend this truth. 
 But Loyola declared that the highest work of man is to 
 love God and serve him ; that so his truth is revealed 
 without man's seeking. The spirits which came to Luther 
 were demons of the mtellect^ disturbing his reason, and 
 vexing the balance of his mind. He drove them away 
 with his inkstand and his copy of the Epistles. The 
 spirits which came to the Catholic Saint were angels of the 
 aff^ections, sweet messengers of God, beckoning him up to 
 join with the heavenly hosts. He heard their voices, he 
 saw their light when he knelt before the crucifix, and read 
 the words of the Saviour of men. Both prized the office 
 of prayer. Both used it habitually, spending nights and 
 days in its earnest pleading. Both enjoined it as the 
 chief of duties upon their disciples. But with the Span- 
 iard prayer was to humble the spirit to a sense of its own 
 poverty, till it should welcome the aid of the heavenly 
 
320 LOYOLA. 
 
 powers, while with the Saxon it was to fortify the soul that 
 it might stand alone and fight with the powers of evil. 
 Both were fond of the imagery of warfare and wrote much 
 about the Church militant. But the one showed how the 
 officers might best lead their hosts to victor3% while the 
 other showed how the ranks of the armies should bear 
 themselves under the great leadership of Christ. 
 
 There is strong temptation to carry this parallel farther, 
 but I dare not try any longer your patience. Perhaps 
 enough has been already said, even if loosely and imper- 
 fectly, to give you an idea of Ignatius and his system. I 
 had hoped to add some sketches of the chief of his com- 
 panions and successors ; of Francis Xavier, the most 
 wonderful of all Christian missionaries, whose journeys 
 in the service of his Master reached to three times the' 
 circuit of the globe, whose knightly graces, ^.nd large 
 culture, and sw^eet affections were all consecrated to the 
 Gospel work, wdth a quite miraculous constancy, to whom 
 God gave as with a continual Pentecost the gift of tongues, 
 so that China and Japan, and the Isles of the sea could 
 hear from his lips while he was still a stranger on their 
 shores, the word of God in their native speech, in wdiose 
 labors fact outruns even Catholic fancy, and whose seven 
 hundred thousand converts need no embellishment of 
 angels to complete the sublimity of the picture of his life ; 
 of James Laynes, the second general of the order, whose 
 rare acumen, whose vast learning, whose mastery of all 
 the arts of the sophist and the debater enabled him to 
 reduce to a technical system the great designs of the 
 founder of the fraternity and to control the creed of the 
 Church for all future time by his presence and eloquence 
 in the Council of Trent, an overmatch there for legates 
 and Cardinals ; and of Francis Borgia, the third general 
 of the order, wdio brought the pride of royal descent, the 
 accomplishments of chivalry, the patrimonies of princely 
 estates, the memories of love, and the experience of glory, 
 all as an offering to this new crusade; who, whether as 
 husband or courtier, as priest or warrior, in the discipline 
 of the cell, or in argument with an emperor, alike aston- 
 ished and charmed all who listened to his eloquence or 
 beheld his fervor, who organized the schools of Jesus, so 
 
LOYOLA. 32 T 
 
 that the thought of Loyola was made clear to the infant 
 mind of all Catholic lands ; of all these I had hoped to 
 give at least the characteristic outline ; to say something 
 also of the progress of the order and its influence upon 
 the civilization of the world, to show how its purity of 
 purpose had been frustrated by the vice of its principle, 
 how it had come to be everywhere the manager of intrigue 
 and the ally of despotism, the servile tool of arbitrary 
 kings and arrogant popes, how the manlier virtues have 
 faded always beneath its shadow, and the symmetry of 
 Christian character has been blighted bv its touch, how it 
 has hindered everywhere the progress of thought, and 
 separated art and science fatally from the affairs of re- 
 ligion, how adopting deceitfully the manners and dress of 
 the world, it has infected the world with the subtle poison 
 of its false morality, till the name Jesuit has come to de- 
 scribe one who can compromise all truth, and excuse the 
 violation of all faith, and teach men a Gospel never taught 
 by the Redeemer. 
 
 Loyola saw in his life-time the beginning of his vision 
 revealed ; twelve provinces, a hundred colleges, and a 
 mission reaching over two hemispheres, were reckoned on 
 his register before he was called awav. He saw its zeal, 
 its vitality, its sure success. Had he prophecy also of its 
 departures from the precepts of Jesus ? Could he see 
 that the time would come when it should be exoelled from 
 
 L 
 
 Catholic kingdoms and even the holv Pontiff should con- 
 sent to its suppression, when its cunning should be the 
 fear, and its crimes the shame, even of the city of its na- 
 tivity, when the brethren of the Jesuits should share the 
 stigma of the Jews and be hunted from land to land along 
 with the hated race of Abraham? No such vision dis- 
 turbed the last hours of the life of Ignatius. His life of 
 labor closed so peacefully that few knew when he died. 
 True to his principle of humility, to the last he would 
 make no complaint and ask no relief. He wanted no re- 
 nown of a saintly departure, and though he felt his strength 
 decaying, and heard the summons of the death-angel, he 
 called no brethren to his death-bed, and sought no friendly 
 hand to smooth his pillow. He gave no orders about his 
 funeral, named no successor, but died like a common man. 
 21 
 
322. LOYOLA. 
 
 His body rests in the Chapel of the Casa Professa at 
 Rome. There is a silver shrine beneath the altar, his 
 bones are daily shown to the faithful, and before that 
 shrine, blazing with gold and jewels, adorned with the 
 statue of the saint, the knees of countless myriads, pray- 
 ing there for his powerful intercession, have worn away the 
 marble pavement. 
 
-SI". CHARLES BORROMEO. 323 
 
 XIII. 
 
 ST. CHARLES BORROMEO. 
 
 A PROMINENT divine of one of our cities who now graces 
 in his own person the Episcopal chair, happened in an 
 after-dinner speech to let fall the incautious remark that 
 there could be " no Church without a bishop." And 
 speedily a controversy arose in the religious and secular 
 prints which for three months alternately amused and 
 amazed those not wonted to the style of ecclesiastic war- 
 fare. The controversy was silenced only when it passed 
 from an abstract to a practical question, when it began to 
 bear upon sensitive points, and to suggest uncomfortable 
 but undeniable facts of contemporary religious history, 
 when it slid into the thesis that there can be no living 
 Christian Church where the bishop is not a decent, vir- 
 tuous, and pious man. This would have been a delicate 
 theme to argue, and the public debate was adjourned by 
 mutual consent. And this lies beneath all discussion 
 about the rights of spiritual lordship. One unworthy to 
 rule will hardly sustain his claim by the show of his 
 Episcopal lineage or by the pretence of a transmitted 
 sanctity by the laying on of prelatical hands. But to the 
 true apostle, to the overseer of the Church who joins the 
 zeal of Peter to the love of John, earnest believers always 
 submit and defer, whether or not he claim the authority of 
 an anointed bishop. His right enters not into controversy. 
 His yoke the Church is glad to wear, and only by such as 
 he and not by any arrogance of Church assumption will 
 the ancient theory be upheld of the need of the bishop's 
 office. 
 
 The theory is that the bishop is at once the wisest, 
 purest, and holiest of pastors, chosen among the rest for 
 his superior ability and superior sanctity, to rule not only, 
 but to guide by word and by character the Churches of 
 
324 ST. CHARLES BORROMEO, 
 
 his chars^e. And this theory is still maintained even in 
 our own land in defiance of the verdict of more than one 
 Diocesan Council. It is not even here necessary that a 
 bishop should be honest, temperate, or pure, to retain his 
 rank and title. But in the age of the Reformation, there 
 was no theory of piety or virtue as essential to the sacred 
 office. A bishop was not expected to be holier than other 
 men of his rank and birth. There was no reserve asked 
 of him of any pleasure, or any taste. He might live as 
 he chose, he might feast like a Sybarite, spend like a 
 prince, or swear like a pirate, wear the dress of a courtier, 
 or hoard the revenues of a banker. He was not required, 
 often not expected, to dwell in his diocese, or to know by 
 name his subordinate priests. And the Council of Trent 
 could not be forced to make residence obligatory, though 
 urged to do so by more than one royal demand. Nay, 
 even the preliminary of ordination was not essential, and 
 it happened sometimes that the archbishop of the richest 
 sees was not a priest or a deacon, or a monk, and had no 
 consecrating power. As in Thibet, the grand Lama is 
 frequently a child of tender years, so Europe in the six- 
 teenth century was compelled to recognize in beardless 
 youths the lawful overseer of great Christian provinces. 
 Promotion to Episcopal station came not from the free 
 choice of presbyters and laymen, but from the Pope's 
 nomination, and every new occupant of St. Peter's chair 
 was expected to enrich his family with the goods and 
 honors of all vacant sacred offices. The one apostolic in- 
 junction that the chief bishop of the Church regarded, was 
 to take good care of his own household. 
 
 In no department was reform in the Church more need- 
 ful than in its ecclesiastic life. The Christian world 
 craved more examples of practical holiness than new evi- 
 dences of soundness in faith, earnestness of zeal, or con- 
 stancy in prayer. Men asked for a bishop who should 
 truly instance to them the proper spirit of his office ; who 
 should restore the almost forgotten Apostolic type of 
 clerical life ; who should show how the sacred character 
 might dignify the sacred office, and how real worth might 
 wear the honors of the Church. They wanted the spec- 
 tacle of a consistent and manly Christian life, in which 
 
ST. CHARLES BOlillOMEO. 325 
 
 there should be no eccentricity, no blaze of novelty, but 
 only the use and practice of common duties. Ig^natius 
 was indeed a saint, but he was the austere founder of a 
 mysterious brotherhood, and came not in contact with the 
 multiplied duties and relations of men. Theresa, too, was 
 holy among women, but her holiness was of the cloister, 
 and a Spanish nun could not show priests what to do, 
 though she might teach them how to pray. In the solemn 
 decrees of Trent, the faithful might rejoice that the Rock 
 foundations of religious truth were laid again. What they 
 waited for now was for priests of unstained robe and celes- 
 tial bearing, to break to them at the new altar the bread 
 of life, for a tread and voice along the choir that should 
 consecrate again the renewed house. And the signal in- 
 stance of this was given when Charles Borromeo wore the 
 cardinal's purple, and filled the pastor's office. 
 
 It is a pleasant task to review a life so beautiful, to de- 
 scribe character so almost faultless as that of this eminent 
 Saint. Rare in Christian history is a spiritual temper so 
 finely balanced, a practical wisdom so chastened by piety 
 and love. No word of detraction has been uttered con- 
 cerning him either by Protestant prejudice or Catholic 
 envv. With singular consent, the extremest zealots of 
 party stop to praise this good man who belonged to no 
 party but that of Christ. He illustrates for us in a more 
 familiar way than Loyola's society the union of a life of 
 labor and prayer. He offers a more graceful sacrifice of 
 noble birth and knightly tastes to the duties of the pastoral 
 office than the regal Borgia, changing the hopes of a Span- 
 ish throne for the deep humiliation of a Jesuit's vows. 
 His is one of the few ecclesiastical lives which even in 
 this nineteenth age are fit to be taken as models of duty, 
 of devotion, of true efficiency. If Luther had delayed 
 for a score of years his sojourn in Milan, he would have 
 wept, not tears of bitterness but tears of joy, at the feet 
 of this disciple of Christ. If such as he had gone legate 
 into the Saxon land, no subtlety of Wittemberg monks, 
 and no schemes of ambitious princes could have matched 
 the persuasion of his sanctity. If his advice had been 
 followed in the quarrel with Henry of England, that strong 
 outpost of faith would not have been broken from the 
 
326 ST. CHARLES BOllROMEO. 
 
 Holy See, and the first power of the world might uphold 
 a universal, in place of a merely national Church. If he 
 had made that pastoral journey through the valleys of 
 Switzerland a few years earlier, Calvin had not then be- 
 come the spiritual tyrant of Geneva, and no Puritan 
 exodus had secured to freedom and faith the shores of an 
 unknown continent. 
 
 The impulse has been warm within me as I have studied 
 the life of Charles Borromeo, to translate those two an- 
 tique volumes in which Godeau, Bishop of Venice, has 
 recorded so eloquently what the Saint was and what he 
 did. And it is hard to limit to the hour of a single lecture 
 the just survey of so lovely a life. I cannot, at any rate, 
 dwell upon those early forming influences in which the 
 biographers of great and holy men delight to show the 
 prophecy of the future of their heroes ; or show here what 
 hereditary graces may have come to St. Charles through 
 the counts of Avona, of whom his father bore the insignia, 
 or through the great race of the Medicis, of which his 
 mother was a daughter. It is enough to say that both 
 these parents were better than their lineage, that Count 
 Gilbert Borromeo could set before his son the example of 
 a ruler so faithful that the Emperor Charles V multiplied 
 his trusts, so prayerful that his knees became hardened by 
 much kneeling in the little chapel which he had built, so 
 compassionate that the orphans of his tenants all called 
 him their father, and so constant in almsgiving that he 
 never ate a meal till the poor had received some charity 
 from his hand, that none named the mother but to praise 
 her for that sweet domestic fidelity which forgot the pride 
 of descent in her single care that the sons and daughters 
 of her house should grow up to serve Christ in his Church. 
 In the castle of Avona the religion was of practice and 
 not of profession merely, and as the family sat at evening 
 before that loveliest of Italian landscapes, looking out 
 upon the still waves of the Lago Maggiore, and the rich 
 foliage of their beautiful island, and sang there the Hymn 
 to the Virgin, Nature might join with parental lessons to 
 teach the rudiments of the religious life. 
 
 In this castle of Avona, on the second of October, 1538, 
 the second son of Count Gilbert Borromeo was born. It 
 
ST. CHARLES BOHROMEO. 327 
 
 was the feast-day of the Holy Angel Guardians, when 
 Catholics are wont to call to mind that sentence of the 
 Scriptures, "he shall give his angels charge concerning 
 thee."' The omen of his birth seemed to be fulfilled from 
 the first in the tastes and tendencies of the growing child. 
 He loved the works which angels might choose. He was 
 destined from the cradle to service in the Church. His 
 passion for the holy offices, and his progress in religious 
 studies outstripped the diligence of his father's instruc- 
 tion. The boy soon exhausted the literary privileges of 
 his home. But more remarkable than his progress in 
 learninof was his readiness in alms-givino^. He became 
 the steward of the household to the poor, and administered 
 the surplus revenues of the estate in a manner at once 
 generous and impartial. In the University of Pavia, 
 where he went at an early age to complete his education, 
 he was marked at once as a model youth, not in eloquence, 
 for he was slow of speech, not in physical grace, for his 
 form did not fit him for athletic amusement, not merely 
 for scholarship, for there were some who read more deeply 
 in ancient lore, and divided more skilfullv the subtleties 
 of the civil and canon law ; but in character, in meekness, 
 self-denial, firmness ao^ainst temptation, strict regard for 
 truth, for disinterestedness, and fervent piety, he took at 
 once the highest place. All haunts of vice he avoided as 
 the pestilence ; and it was said of him in Pavia, as once 
 of Gregory and Basil in Athens, that he knew but two 
 streets in the city, one leading to the school and the other 
 to the church. He chose for his companions the men of 
 noted religious principles, and taught them by his example 
 as no precept could teach them, the beauty of holiness. 
 
 In 1558, when he was twenty years old, the death of his 
 father called him home to Milan. It would be pleasant to 
 relate the manner in which he discharged the trust of 
 settling the estates of his family, and baffled the schemes 
 of selfish agents who sought to draw him into dishonesty 
 and profligacy ; and how he disposed of the large revenues 
 of two abbe3^s which his uncles on either side had given 
 him. But these trusts were speedily eclipsed by far higher 
 dignity and promotion. Hardly had he taken his doctor's 
 degree at Pavia, when John of Medicis, his mother's 
 
328 ST. CHABLES BORROMEO. 
 
 brother, was chosen to the Papal chair, and sent for him 
 to come to Rome. A Pope's nephews were in that age in 
 the way of highest honor, and it was not deemed strange 
 that Charles Borromeo was created cardinal and sat as the 
 Archbishop of his native province, though he had not com- 
 pleted his twenty-second year. Youth seemed no objection 
 in one so worthy. Various offices of trust and emolu- 
 ment were pressed upon him, which he refused. It was 
 rare that any one had declined to be Grand Chamberlain, 
 the second office in Rome, and if Borromeo accepted the 
 charge of grand peiiitentiary^ it was for the chance it gave 
 him to guide the discipline of the Church and reform its 
 morals. He was placed at the head of the council, with 
 power to sign all decrees in the name of his uncle, and in 
 fact made the virtual ruler of the Papal State. If he did 
 not govern the church absolutely during the Pontificate of 
 his uncle, it was because his wise counsels were sometimes 
 overruled by the more worldl}'' plans of his associates in 
 the sacred body. 
 
 It was a hard position for one so young to occupy, re- 
 quiring a weight of wisdom, and a measure of discretion, 
 far beyond the years of one fresh from college life. Yet 
 the duties of the place were discharged in such wise that 
 all fears were disarmed ; and even disappointed rivals vied 
 in their praise. Accessible to all classes of citizens he 
 had good words for those who needed advice and sufficient 
 j^ifts for those who needed aid. He discourasred bes^garv 
 by removing the tax on food and making bread plentiful 
 and cheap. He took care to forestall complaints by re- 
 moving their causes. Insensible to flattery from others, 
 he loved to see the smile of gratitude on the faces of 
 those whose wants he relieved, and whose wrongs he re- 
 dressed. He thought it fit to keep up the state of a bishop 
 and a prince ; and none who went to his sumptuous feasts 
 and enjoyed his royal hospitality, could complain that he 
 degraded his rank or was mean in his style of life. Yet 
 there was no sign of personal indulgence. The seductions 
 of pleasure could not corrupt a heart early filled with the 
 love of God. To set aside all chance of luxury, the Car- 
 dinal became a man of labor, wrote with his own hand the 
 dispatches of his office and the decisions of his courts, 
 
ST. CHARLES BOliEOMEO. 3~9 
 
 divided liis time by method, took hours for study, and 
 hours for prayer, and showed to the dissolute cardinals 
 around him how it was possible to be at once a magistrate, 
 a scholar, and a saint without losing the society of the 
 world or courting any cloistral seclusion. His palace be- 
 came an academy of letters and the fine arts, and his 
 domestics were the companions of his exercises of elo- 
 quence, poetry and song. Rich were the delights of those 
 attic, or as he called them, Vatican nights, when after 
 the fatigue of the day's complex affairs, the wits and doctors 
 of Rome met in the library of the young Cardinal to hear 
 him read from Epictetus, or recite the sublime passages of 
 Cicero about the nature of the gods and the dignity of 
 old age, and compare the style and spirit of Pagan phil- 
 osophy with Christian doctrines and duties. Many a 
 future dignitary of the Church learned there how to sepa- 
 rate the wheat from the chaff in the writings of classic 
 ages, and what portions might be turned to Christian uses. 
 And in that academy was taught the philosophy of life, 
 which would temperately use its good things for the service 
 of God and not spurn beauty for the sake of sanctity. 
 
 It was a splendid and honorable life to lead, every taste 
 met, every want gratified, power enoujrh to satisfy ambi- 
 tion, wealth enough to prevent the greed of gain, a youth 
 beginning where age rarely ends. Yet Borromeo was not 
 quite contented. He was a cardinal, but he was also a 
 bishop, and it seemed to him wrong that a bishop should 
 dwell separate from the homes of his people. He knew 
 what corruptions abounded in the churches of his charge. 
 He knew under what oppressions the people were groan- 
 ing, and it seemed to him wrong to be living in luxury at 
 Rome while in his native province abuses were unchecked 
 and the Christian rites were profaned by their ministers. 
 True, he had power as Papal legate to exercise discipline 
 over a much wider dominion. Not the States of the 
 Church alone, but Portugal, Holland, and Switzerland 
 were made subject to his command in religious things. 
 But the empty possession of power could not satisfy him. 
 He longed to be not the head of a court merely, or the 
 centre of a brilliant circle but the true pastor of a tiock, 
 the shepherd and bishop of souls. The death of his elder 
 
330 ST. CHARLES BOHROMEO. 
 
 brother Frederic, which occurred in 1562, increased this 
 desire. His heart now was divided between duty to his 
 aged uncle and longing to dwell with his kindred and 
 countrymen. The great enterprises which he ruled from 
 Rome could not still this secret longing. Now ha)3pily 
 through his management, the protracted labors of the 
 Council of Trent had been brought to their close. Colleges 
 had been founded, and legates sent out to enforce the 
 sacred decrees. And the cardinal determined that if 
 he could not dwell with his people, he would at least go 
 and see them. Before his going, however, he prepared 
 himself by ordination to fulfill the duties of the priest- 
 hood. For until now he had been a ruler of the Church 
 without the right even of an humble minister. This was 
 not a step quite agreeable to his friends. The honor of a 
 knightly house seemed to rest upon him, and even Pius 
 IV, whose pride of descent was at least equal to his zeal 
 for the faith, pressed his nephew to resign his religious 
 offices, to marry, and maintain as a secular noble the 
 dignity of the race of Medicis. In the face of all remon- 
 strances, however, Charles bound himself to the altar by a 
 solemn vow, and henceforth began to curtail the splendor 
 of his life, and adopt the simpler style becoming to a 
 priest. He was willing to descend in spiritual dignity. 
 There are few instances on record of cardinals stooping 
 to the office of the priesthood, fewer even than of 
 monarchs abdicating thrones. And bv this act of humilia- 
 tion, Borromeo tacitly rebuked the unjust and irregular 
 manner of his appointment. 
 
 On the first of September, 1565, with a retinue of the 
 most eminent and skillful men of the Church, the Cardinal 
 set out on his visit to his native city. The fame of his 
 coming had gone before him, and all along the way the 
 monks, the nobles and the populace came together to wel- 
 come one who bore not only the high authority of a Papal 
 Nuncio, but brought with him such precocious sanctity. 
 On Sunday, the twenty-third, he entered Milan, amid ac- 
 clamations and blessings, beneath triumphal arches and 
 windows garlanded and public buildings hung with sacred 
 emblems. The patron saint of that ancient city seemed 
 now restored to their prayers and the people shouted that 
 
ST. CIIARLES BOBROMEO. 331 
 
 Ambrose was risen again in Milan. The most aged could 
 hardly remember when their bishop had been seen in the 
 streets, and the long interval of eighty years seemed 
 hardly longer than the one thousand which had passed 
 since the great Archbishop died. The enthusiasm rose to 
 its height when the young Archbishop ascended the cathe- 
 dral pulpit and took for his text the words, " with a great 
 desire have I desired to eat this passover with you." The 
 sermon was not eloquent by the rules of the school, but it 
 had an appeal to the hearts of the hearers such as no 
 brilliant discourse could make. It was their bishop preach- 
 ing to them. It was the great Roman Cardinal, virtual 
 ruler of three kingdoms and heir apparent not only to a 
 temporal sovereignty, but to the lordship of the Christian 
 world, who was preaching to them as their pastor. Can 
 we wonder that the simple words seemed dictated by a 
 special inspiration and that he whom men pitied in. the 
 Church of St. Maria Maggiore at Rome for his timid and 
 halting speech, seemed a very Apostle in the Cathedral of 
 Milan. 
 
 We next find the young prelate presiding in a provincial 
 council of his diocese over a most dignified assembly of 
 cardinals and bishops, and astonishing all by his majestic 
 presence, his prudence, his comprehensive grasp of the great 
 matters of discipline and the singleness of his zeal for the 
 interests of religion. Scarcely is this over when he is attend- 
 ing with all the grace of a courtier, the two sisters of the 
 Emperor on their journey through Italy. Then we see him 
 in Rome in the chamber where his uncle is dying, praying 
 there that strength may be given to the aged servant of 
 God to meet the common trial of all the children of men. 
 Holding the cross above the sufferer, *' Most Holy Father," 
 said he, "all your desires and thoughts ought to be turned 
 towards heaven. Behold Christ crucified, the only foun- 
 dation for our hope, our mediator and advocate, the 
 victim and sacrifice for our sins. He is all goodness, all 
 patience ; his mercy is moved by the tears of sinners, and 
 he never refuses pardon to those who humbly ask it." 
 "One more favor I ask," said he, "in addition to the 
 many that you have showed me, greater than all the rest. 
 It is that you will lay aside all thoughts now of the worlcj 
 
332 Sr. CHARLES BOEROMEO. 
 
 and your office, and turn your mind wholly upon the great 
 theme of your own salvation and prepare your soul for 
 your last passage." Many days he waited at the bedside, 
 speaking words of cheer and counsel, reading from the 
 sacred volume, administering the last sacraments of the 
 Church, and rejoicing in that Christian death of the Head 
 of the Church where the last words were those of aged 
 Simeon, '' Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in 
 peace." 
 
 From the death chamber of one Pope the scene changes 
 to the mysterious conclave where another is to be chosen. 
 And there we behold him who had just closed the eyes of 
 a beloved uncle, supporting for the vacant station the 
 hereditary enemy of his house and race, sacrificing all 
 personal affection, all family feeling, all pride and ambi- 
 tion to his sino^le sense of the need and the grood of the 
 Church, overruling the schemes of princes, and baffling 
 the intrigues of interested men, that Christendom might 
 have the ablest ruler. Gladly would Pius V have kept at 
 his court one on whose wisdom he might so well rely, but 
 the bishop remembered his flock, and hardly a year had 
 passed since his visit to them before he went to dwell 
 among them. It was a reformins; work which he went first 
 to do, a work which, beginning in the purification of his 
 own soul, should extend in widening circle till it should 
 reach the whole bound of his dominion. 
 
 The work commenced with himself. Self-denial, absti- 
 nence, were virtues which he would teach. They were 
 virtues which he began to practise in a novel way. He 
 knew well how to labor. He learned now how to fast. 
 Bread and water with a few herbs, chestnuts or apples, on 
 the feast-davs of the Church, became the rule of his diet. 
 One meal in a day was the limit of his indulgence. In 
 Lent, dried figs supplied the place of the customary bread, 
 and in Holy Week, by bitter peas, he commemorated the 
 mockery of the Saviour. Friends remonstrated with him 
 for this strange temperance, and predicted that his life 
 would be shortened by it. But the Cardinal answered 
 that he did it if not for his own health, at least for the 
 health of his Church, and if his own life were shortened 
 by it others might be saved from more hurtful luxury. 
 
ST. CHARLES BOEROMEO. ZZZ 
 
 It became a proverb to call long abstinence "Cardinal 
 Borromeo's remedy." He curtailed the hours of sleep 
 and was wont to ask "if generals could in their warfare 
 content themselves with the short rest which they might 
 take sitting, should not a bishop engaged in warfare with 
 Satan and his hosts, do at least as much ? '^ He inured 
 his body to privations and hardships of every kind, not 
 like some ascetics that he might mortifv the flesh, but 
 rather that he might discipline his frame for the trials and 
 exposures of his station. His private expenditures were 
 all retrenched and only enough was reserved from charity 
 to meet the bare necessities of food and raiment and the 
 decencies of hospitality. He would not even have a 
 garden to his house, much less an episcopal palace. "The 
 garden of a bishop," said he, " is the Holy Scripture and 
 his proper palace is an eternal house in heaven." Even 
 the orliaments of his ducal house were put out of sight, 
 all the fine paintings, marbles, trophies, suits of armor, 
 and blazonrv. He wanted evervthing to remind him not 
 that he was Count of Avona or heir of the Medicis, but 
 that he was bishop of Milan. His own coarse robe of 
 black was always worn under his priestly vestures. It was 
 so coarse they say once a beggar refused to accept it in 
 charity. Even the art which was the passion of his youth 
 was half-forbidden, and he restricted himself to the music 
 of the hymns of the Church. He became his own ser- 
 vant, employing his dependants only in those duties which 
 were for the service of others or of the Church, and doing 
 for himself all, even the most menial, duties. 
 
 The reform which he began with himself, where it 
 seemed hardly needed, he continued in his household, 
 where it was more important. He knew that the best evi- 
 dence of fitness to govern abroad is good discipline at 
 home. His domestics were men fit, if occasion called 
 them, to be teachers and priests. They had constant em- 
 ployment, some in copying manuscripts, some in visiting 
 the sick, some in helping the poor. None could hope for 
 any Church preferment or any favor because they were ser- 
 vants of so high a Master. The only offices which any 
 might hold were offices of duty within the house. There 
 was the chief steward, and the chief spiritual prefect, cham- 
 
334 ST. CIIAIiLES BORROMEO. 
 
 berlains to watch his actions, and censors to reprove his 
 faults, priests to hear his confessions, and deacons to read 
 to him spiritual books. The dress of all was to be modest, 
 without embroideries, showy colors, jewelry, or any mere 
 secular ornament. They were allowed to bear no arms, 
 to have no private instruments of music, and were ex- 
 pected to fill up their intervals of leisure with religious 
 reading and conversation. The Cardinal made it a point 
 to know every one by name, the mind and heart of every 
 one. Often they were surprised in the evening by his soft 
 step entering their chambers, and when any were sick he 
 was there to administer help both to body and soul. In 
 all religious offices daily prayer, confession, mass, the ob- 
 servance of holy days, feast times and fast times, each, 
 from the humblest to the highest, must be regular and 
 punctual. The poor and the rich, the worldly and the 
 pious, were forced to see and ready to confess that if any- 
 where the sentence of Paul of a " church within the 
 house" were realized in life it was in the religious house 
 of the Cardinal Borromeo. 
 
 From his own household he proceeded to seek out and 
 reform those households where Catholic faith by profession 
 was the principal treasure, to inspect the numerous par- 
 ishes, monasteries and nunneries in the province of his 
 religious rule. No village where was a church, a convent 
 or a school was left unvisited. The hamlet curate was 
 not too mean for the archbishop to question concerning 
 his svstem, nor was anv con£^re2:ation of monks so in- 
 trenched in proscriptive lawlessness that he hesitated to 
 bring them to an even rule of discipline. Into the wildest 
 and most secluded parishes he penetrated, where the light 
 of a bishop's countenance was quite unknown, journeying 
 on foot at hours when Italian bishops were wont to sleep. 
 He made however no visit without declaring his intention 
 to the suffragan bishop, wishing them to show respect to 
 the right even of inferiors. When he reached a village, 
 his custom was to go directly to the Church without change 
 of raiment, without refreshment, and speak from the pulpit 
 the words of his errand. His acquaintance with the 
 people began always at the altar. He would lead their 
 prayers before he relieved their wants or rebuked their 
 
ST. CHARLES BOlUiOMEO. 335 
 
 sins. He was always the guest of the curate of the par- 
 ish, refusing all temptation to lodge with the rich or noble, 
 and avoiding the occasion of any scandal. Where the 
 curates were poor he carried his own provisions with him. 
 His observing eye detected at once the wants and the de- 
 fects of the sanctuary and the pastor's house. It seemed 
 to him a personal charge that no church in his spiritual 
 dominion should hinder throusrh anv lack or abuse the 
 decent worship of God. He examined every altar, every 
 ceiling, every pavement, the baptismal font, the adjoining 
 chapels, the robing rooms of the priests, the doors and the 
 windows, that nothing should anywhere be found out of 
 place, broken or decayed, that no sign of carelessness 
 should be left. 
 
 Painful and tedious were the long journeyings which 
 the cardinal was forced to take in these parochial visits. 
 But they were pleasant to him, as showing what force of 
 faith still remained in the humbler ranks of the people, 
 and bringing him into nearer acquaintance with the various 
 details of human life. Generally his visits were welcomed. 
 When he came, the honor of such a presence surprised 
 them ; while he staid, the beauty of such a spirit capti- 
 vated more and more. With the convents his task of 
 reform was not so agreeable or easy. Long impunity had 
 made the monks of some orders bold in their profligacy. 
 Discipline with them had relaxed as treasures multiplied. 
 The pretence of sanctity with many was discarded, and in 
 numerous instances the whole force of a single convent 
 was limited to a provost, who, with his servants, lived like 
 a prince upon the wealth which the piety of former ages 
 had gathered there. Especially was this case with the 
 order of the Humiliati which, founded some four hundred 
 years before, had now ninety monasteries with only one 
 hundred and seventy monks in all. In dealing with these 
 convents the cardinal found that ready acquiescence was 
 not to be expected. At every point his decrees were re- 
 sisted. They laughed at his pietistic canons. They 
 defied his commands. They barred their doors against 
 his entrance. They appealed to the Pope against his in- 
 vasion of their rights. Their gold was freely used to 
 corrupt his officers. All that slander could invent or 
 
33^ ST. CHARLES BOB ROMEO. 
 
 malice distort concerning his character and life was freely 
 circulated. When his decrees were published, some of the 
 friars ran to the bells and sought to create a riot in the 
 city. Finding all their measures in vain, and learning that 
 with the full authority of the Pope the reform in their 
 convents would go on, the profligate would be expelled, 
 and the houses would be filled onlv with men of decent 
 life and living piety, they determined as a last resort to 
 assassinate this contumacious prelate. Already the car- 
 dinal had been exposed to an attempt of this kind in his 
 controversv with the canons of the Colleg-iate Church of 
 La Scala, where the cross which he carried was shot at in 
 the verv door of the Church. The issue of this outragfe 
 had been that the lives of the offenders had been spared 
 only through the clemency and prayers of the Cardinal, in 
 whose heart no temper of revenge seems ever to have 
 found place. But the scheme of the monks was still more 
 daring. Money hired even a priest to murder at the altar 
 the bishop who prayed there for his enemies. As the holy 
 father was on his knees in the chapel at the hour of even- 
 ing devotions with his household around him, and the 
 choir chanting those words of Jesus, " Let not your heart 
 be troubled, neither let it be afraid," the sound of a blun- 
 derbuss rang through the chapel, the music ceased and the 
 service was likely to end in consternation. In the con- 
 fusion the assassin fled. But the cardinal commanded 
 them to resume their kneeling, to continue their prayers, 
 and the service was finished in the usual manner. Exami- 
 nation then revealed a marvellous escape. The robe and 
 cassock of the Cardinal were pierced with shot, the table 
 hard by was penetrated deeply in several places, and the 
 ball was found at his feet, having struck the socket in the 
 middle of the back and fallen down without entering the 
 body, leaving only a slight bruise upon the surface of the 
 bone. The people called it a two-fold miracle, a miracle 
 that Providence should so preserve the life of their bishop, 
 and an equal miracle that he so calmly should meet and 
 suffer the outrage. The whole city was aroused at once 
 to gratitude and vengeance. The murderers were quickly 
 discovered and all the entreaties of the good cardinal 
 could not hinder their execution. The order of the Hu- 
 
ST. CRABLES BORROMEO. 337 
 
 miliati was forever abolished and the revenues which ages 
 had accumulated given back to the poor from whom they 
 came in the beginning. The result of this daring crime 
 was a warninsr to the other monastic orders ; and he found 
 no more resistance in his efforts to restore the discipline 
 and purity of convent life. More than one religious order 
 consented to recognize him as their spiritual father, and 
 offered themselves to serve him in any way that might be 
 for the salvation of souls. He had a harder task to sub- 
 ject the nuns to his rules. The self-willed sisterhood were 
 not so readv to accept a system which required them to 
 labor as well as pray, and his exceeding modesty forbade 
 him to press his suit by the same arguments which he 
 used with the other sex. But patience prevailed at last, 
 and the fair recluses joined with the rest of the city in 
 praising the wisdom and virtue of the ruler whom God 
 had sent them. 
 
 Next to the convents came the seminaries of teaching, 
 from the great Cathedral chapter down to the parish 
 schools. The cardinal was not content with a mere ritual 
 service to illustrate the influence of the metropolitan 
 Church. It was grand on the holy days, indeed, to show 
 the crowds the gorgeous spectacle of the mass in that 
 Cathedral which stood then, as it stands now. one of the 
 wonders of the world ; and he had too much filial piety to 
 diminish the splendor of a church where the generations 
 of his kniHitlv ancestors had brou2:ht their gifts and 
 offered their prayers. The magnificence of worship did 
 not fall off there under his direction. But he left the 
 choir of that stupendous edifice a marvel of wealth as 
 well as of beautv. The service of no Roman Cathedral 
 could vie with the mass as Borromeo appointed it in the 
 Church of Milan. 
 
 His idea of a metropolitan church however was that it 
 should be a centre of light and truth as well as of splendor. 
 He appointed for it a three-fold system of instruction. 
 Twice in the week were lectures in divinity to be read 
 there and every Sunday a sermon was preached. This 
 service was entrusted to a distinsruished theoloirian. Then 
 there was a penitentiary appointed, whose business it was 
 to hear confessions from all parts of the diocese, to decide 
 22 
 
338 ST. CHARLES BOEROMEO. 
 
 cases of discipline and aViswer questions concerning the 
 duties of priests and curates. A third office was given to 
 a Doctor of Laws, who was to instruct young clergymen 
 in the canons of the Church. Around this centre in the 
 plan of the Cardinal were grouped the colleges of theology 
 and law, the seminaries of rudimental religion, and finally 
 the parish schools. The number of these schools which 
 he founded is almost incredible ; seven hundred and forty, 
 with three thousand and forty teachers, and forty thousand 
 and ninety-eight scholars are recorded. Beside these 
 every parish priest was required to teach the children of 
 his flock, and for failure in that duty was liable to forfeit 
 his office. In no part of his Episcopal work w^as St. 
 Charles more careful than in this training of the young. 
 He believed that the Church had a right to all children, 
 and that all children, whether in lowly or noble station, 
 had a claim upon it for Christian knowledge. It was a 
 heavy sin upon his heart that any child should grow up 
 through his neglect in ignorance of the truth of God. 
 
 Next to reform in education came reform in criminal 
 discipline. In spite of the opposition of the magistrates the 
 cardinal insisted upon a new administration of the prisons 
 by which punishment should not be indiscriminate or wan- 
 ton, but should be proportioned to the offence and the ob- 
 stinacy of the convicted felon. He took care that no of- 
 fender should die without the prayers and consolations of 
 the Christian Gospel. He sought pardon for all who seemed 
 truly penitent. He established an order of . visitors, w^ho 
 should bring to every cell daily invitations from the Sa- 
 viour, and went himself often in person to see the des- 
 perate and hardened that others dared not visit. He 
 would have criminals treated not as wild beasts, but as 
 human beings, erring and guilty indeed, but still as capable 
 of salvation and not alien from the love of God. And he 
 sought to prevent crime by drying up its sources. He 
 would gather into hospitals the classes of the abandoned 
 that they might be saved from a worse destiny before it 
 was too late. And great numbers of those whom society 
 had first destroyed and then deserted blessed in him their 
 gracious rescuer from infamous death. He had his re- 
 ligious police to watch and check the beginnings of crime. 
 
ST. CHARLES BOB ROMEO. 339 
 
 and to bring all who were tempted into the circle of Chris- 
 tian influence. And so striking was the change that his 
 twenty years of seryice wrousfht in Milan and its neisfhbor- 
 hood that from the most turbulent, profligate, ill-governed 
 and pauperised city in Europe, it became proverbial for 
 neatness, safety and tranquillity. Even the magistracy, his 
 foe at every step, thwarting, hating and threatening him, 
 denouncing his interference as insolent and his schemes 
 as ridiculous, was changed through his agency to the most 
 admirable of municipal bodies. 
 
 And never had the poor a more diligent and untiring 
 friend. No sufferer came in vain to the Cardinal's door. 
 In the byways of the city his messengers sought out the 
 distressed, and from the highways and hedges they came 
 in to the royal feast. Of him men repeated the parable 
 of Job: "When the ear heard, then it blessed me, and 
 when the eye saw, it gave witness to me ; because I de- 
 livered the poor that cried and the fatherless and the 
 helpless, the blessing of him that was ready to perish 
 came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for 
 joy." No treasure did he count his own so long as there 
 were any needy in the sphere of his benevolence. The 
 patrimonies of his fathers he sold and distributed in alms. 
 The gifts of popes and nobles went to feed the hungry 
 and clothe the naked. When forty thousand crowns, the 
 price of a principality in Naples which he sold, were 
 brought to him he said that a bishop ought not to hold in 
 his house so much treasure, and sent his almoners to be- 
 stow it in the lowly houses of his flock. In one day it 
 was all expended ; nor would he rectify an error of two 
 thousand crowns which had been added by mistake. The 
 proceeds of his brother's estate in furniture, jewels and 
 paintings, amounting to thirty thousand crowns, found the 
 same honorable use. An equal sum was raised by the 
 sale of his own effects, in a season of special distress. 
 The legacy of twenty thousand crowns which his brother's 
 widow left him was instantly appropriated. Two hundred 
 crowns per month were the regular sum which he ordered 
 his steward to pay to the poor of the city, but that amount 
 was but a fraction of what he really gave. He came to 
 Milan one of the richest prelates in Europe. He died 
 
340 ST. CHARLES BOEROMEO. 
 
 almost poor. Yet where he found beggary and want, he 
 left comfort, thrift and gratitude. If the palace was strip- 
 ped of its ornaments, the lanes and alleys were tenanted 
 bv a more decent class and mendicants had ceased to 
 swarm in the public places. It is said in praise of the 
 most benevolent man in New England, long since called 
 away from his works of beautiful charity, that he gave 
 away for twenty years half of his income. But of St. 
 Charles Borromeo it is recorded that in twenty vears he 
 gave away ten times the amount of the most princely for- 
 tune. His gifts were measured not by his increase but by 
 the needs of those who besought him. 
 
 Nor was his care for the poor confined to the supply of 
 their temporal needs. He counted it better to give them 
 the bread of life than food for their bodies, and he was 
 very constant to watch for their spiritual welfare. He 
 did not turn over to them priests of the inferior sort, or 
 leave them to the dangers of heresy without able protect- 
 ors. He set in the most ignorant and destitute quarters 
 men to teach and preach, who were wise to discover and 
 interpret the true interests of the people and skillful to 
 apply the Gospel to their condition. The most retired 
 valley of his diocese heard a Gospel as pure as that 
 preached in the cathedral pulpit. With no class was tiie 
 Cardinal so severe as with those priests who took ad- 
 vantage of the remoteness of the position or the ignorance 
 of their hearers, to neglect their proper Christian work. 
 He held that a slothful pastor was responsible for the 
 errors and sins of his flock, and indirectly, too, accounta- 
 ble for their poverty, inasmuch as ignorance and crime 
 are the fruitful source of indigence. And in no part of 
 his visitations was he a more scrupulous observer than 
 where nature or fortune seemed to have limited the privi- 
 leges of worshippers. 
 
 And in his spiritual visitations the Cardinal did not 
 confine himself to the proper territory of Milan. In the 
 cantons of Switzerland he also found work and welcome 
 for his wholesome reforms. And the journeys which he 
 made through the Grisons and among the high Alps few 
 pilgrims even in that age dared attempt. He traversed 
 the wildest forests and the most dangerous passes. The 
 
ST. CHARLES BOlUiOMEO. 
 
 341 
 
 torrents and eternal snows could not hinder him from his 
 labor of love. Days long he went tramping over the 
 glaciers and the rocks, catching in the crevices a foothold, 
 hungry and thirsty, yet borne along by an invincible cour- 
 age, stopping in each place only long enough to care for 
 its needs and learn its spiritual state, opposed sometimes 
 by the heretic officials, but winning them always by his 
 courtesy and moderation. When he came into a Protestant 
 neighborhood it was his custom to go first to the Church 
 and prove his devotion by a season of prayer. On a 
 second visit which he made to the wild Alpine regions he 
 had to deal with a species of sorcery which had spread 
 there, in which old women officiated as witches in chief, 
 and had suffered even for the abominable crime. The 
 good sense of the Cardinal could not quite conquer the 
 superstitions of the people. Nor is it certain that he was 
 so far before his age in knowledge as to doubt that the 
 strange phenomena which they told were works of the 
 Powers of Darkness. An Italian priest may well be par- 
 doned for believing what an English judge a century later 
 confessed to be a hideous crime. But certain it is, that 
 with the visit of St. Charles to the Grisons and his 
 preaching, the sorcery ceased, and no more executions for 
 witchcraft shocked the people. 
 
 The passage in the life of St. Charles which has been 
 most famous in history and which the genius of modern 
 Italy has made the theme of its finest romance, is his con- 
 duct during the plague. The brilliant colors in Mansoni's 
 style have in no wise exaggerated the heroism of the 
 Archbishop of Milan in his dealing with that terrible 
 scourge. The profane sports of the carnival of the year 
 1576 were observed with unusual zeal. All the remon- 
 strances of the Cardinal could not hinder the nobles and 
 people from their favorite mummeries. There were tour- 
 naments in the public square, and the public authorities 
 witnessed and shared in the general license. The Holy 
 Father could only predict the wrath of God upon a prepa- 
 ration so hideous for the season of religious fasting and 
 prayer. He was at Lodi attending a funeral service when 
 news was brought to him that the plague had broken out 
 in Milan, that the governor and nobilitv had tied and that 
 
342 ST. CHARLES BOEROMEO. 
 
 the riotous joy of the people was changed to consterna- 
 tion and terror. He mounted instantly and returned. 
 Crowds of people, wild and affrighted, met him in the 
 streets, and "misericordia," "mercy," was the universal 
 crv. His vicars and canons crowded round him and urged 
 him to depart from the plague-stricken city and save his 
 valuable life. He answered them only by avowing his 
 resolve as a faithful pastor to lay down his life for his 
 flock and claimed their assistance in his works of mercv. 
 According to Catholic custom he sought to propitiate the 
 Deity by an act of public penance, and three times 
 walked through the streets with naked feet, and ashes on 
 his head and a cord about his neck, bearing in his hands 
 the crucifix, at the head of a grand procession of penitents, 
 with all public m-^rks of the deepest sorrow. He preached 
 continually and fasted every day. He went through the 
 wards of the hospital praying with the sick, administering 
 remedies, and composing decently the limbs of the newly 
 dead. No house in the most infected districts was omitted 
 in his visit. He carried the holy wafer and oil into the 
 most squalid abodes, that no one should die without the 
 comforts of faith. Contending with the cow^ardice of 
 magistrates, he organized the heroic priests that devoted 
 their lives with his into bands which should do the work of 
 charity and attendance on the sick which the occasion 
 called for. The churches and the episcopal houses were 
 given up to the terrified fugitives from the infection. By 
 his will he made the hospital of the city heir to his estate, 
 if he should be carried off with the rest. His plate was 
 melted down and was sold with his furniture to buy bread 
 for the hungry mouths of the homeless. Even his straw 
 bed was given up and he slept upon a board. As the 
 plague increased, his strength seemed miraculously aided. 
 Day and night, on horseback, and on foot, often alone, he 
 went about on his errand of mercy. When the neighbor- 
 ing villages caught the infection he was there to advise, to 
 assist, and to provide for Christian burial. Severe were 
 his rebukes to those who tried in reckless debauchery to 
 forget their danger. Yet when these were attacked, he 
 was at hand to hear their confession and pardon their 
 sins. The danger of famine came to increase the horror. 
 
ST. CHARLES BOBIiOMEO. 343 
 
 Great as was the Cardinal's charity, his private stores 
 among so many were but as five loaves to five thousand 
 men. But if he could not repeat the Saviour's miracle, 
 he found means in a way almost as strange to open the 
 purses and hearts of his people. He became a beggar at 
 the gates of the rich and opened the doors of luxurious 
 houses to the forsaken and destitute. Sometimes his 
 heart almost sank within him when he saw how every day 
 seemed to make the prospect more awful. But he trusted 
 in God. One night when he came home from his weary 
 rounds, hungry and worn, he found no morsel of bread in 
 the house. He knew not where to turn. The charity of 
 all his friends was exhausted. He had borrowed until he 
 was every man's debtor. And it seemed now that he must 
 die with his people. But as he prayed in his oratory, a 
 gentleman came there with an offering of a thousand 
 crowns from the chief men of the city. God so answered 
 his prayers. He rose refreshed, and before he slept it was 
 spent in his mission of mercy. 
 
 Months long the scourge of Milan lasted, and ceased 
 only when winter came. Seventeen thousand, one hun- 
 dred and twenty of them ecclesiastics, had died of the 
 pestilence. Commerce had been prostrated, the right arm 
 of labor paralyzed, and the rich city was poor. But the 
 people thanked God that he who had been instant for 
 them in season and out of season, whose prayers had 
 turned aside the anger of God, whose goods had been 
 divided to their hunger, who had courted hardships, dan- 
 ger, insult and humiliation, that he might save them from 
 perishing, so young and yet so holy, was still spared to 
 them. From all sides congratulations came. The selfish 
 Italian Cardinals could hardly comprehend such heroic 
 devotion. The sternness of heresy relented at such an 
 evidence of the Christian spirit and confessed that a 
 Catholic prelate might still be a Christian apostle. The 
 only answer to these praises which the Cardinal made was 
 to profess that he had done but his simple duty, that he 
 should have been guilty before man and God if he failed 
 in such an extremity to show himself the shepherd of his 
 flock. 
 
 But I fear lest the fascination of ihis theme may lead 
 
344 ST. CflABLES BORROMEO. 
 
 me to tire you by too numerous details. I omit, therefore, 
 the account of his journeys to Turin and to Rome, the 
 works which he did, and the honors which he received in 
 those cities, to add only a general view of his character 
 and influence. He is the onlv instance that I have found 
 in Christian history of a faultless bishop, not faultless as 
 a man, but faultless in his office as a priest and ruler of the 
 Church. He had the ability to master all the intricate 
 duties of his office, and the patience to endure all its 
 trials. An inflexible firmness tempered by an unfailing 
 charity, a prudence which waited always upon most fer- 
 vent zeal, a practical spirit, keeping him from the excesses 
 of ascetic piety, a heart in which the love of God and the 
 love of brethren were beautifully balanced, all fitted him 
 to have the charge of the Church of God. He preached 
 as a bishop should preach, ambitious of no display, seek- 
 ing no praise for originality of idea, or splendor of diction, 
 not striving by charm of voice or by grace of style to win 
 praise to himself, nor yet thundering in their ears a mes- 
 sage of terror, but always as if he were breaking to them 
 bread at the altar. His words were simple, slow, weighty 
 in spiritual wisdom, lofty in religious faith. They gained 
 their force from the character of him who uttered them, 
 and it was always a mystery to the rhetoricians of Rome 
 how one so heavy and awkward in speech should draw 
 such crowds to his preaching. The secret of it was that 
 the preaching came from the heart and life. It was not 
 the eloquence of scholarship, or art. or even of vehement 
 zeal for dogmas, but the eloquence of a tried and ex- 
 perienced faith. The people knew that their bishop loved 
 them and would lay down his life for them, knew that he 
 had sacrificed for them rank, wealth, luxury and personal 
 ambition ; that he lived for their welfare. It was enough 
 for them that he had refused the temptations of advance- 
 ment at Rome to come and be their pastor. 
 
 The true bishop aims to be useful., not to be great. He 
 is set not to be ministered unto, but to minister. And 
 usefulness was the first, last, and only end of the life of 
 St. Charles Boiromeo. To this he gave up the tastes of 
 his station and even the impulses of his piety. This 
 saved him first from the office of a senator, and afterward 
 
ST. CHARLES BOEROMEO. 345 
 
 from the solitude of a cloister. He was never weary in 
 doing good, and he had the fertile mind which suggests 
 continually new methods and occasions of benevolent 
 action. The multiplied duties of his place only delighted 
 him the more. He wanted no recreation but a change 
 from one philanthropic work to another. It is recorded 
 that in all his twenty years of Episcopal service he never 
 once walked or rode for pleasure merely, never read or 
 wrote except for some practical immediate purpose. He 
 left no book of meditations, and spent no time in the 
 poor work of nourishing his own interior life as separate 
 from the salvation of his flock. The folios of his works 
 are the digests of his rules and laws, and letters on busi- 
 ness connected with his charge. He had no stint of labor 
 "but time and strength. And he fasted and denied himself 
 always for a practical end. 
 
 There was a wonderful mingling, too, in his address of 
 that grace and sincerity which should mark a bishop's 
 demeanor. No man ever accused him of deception in 
 look or word, yet his kind condescension would make the 
 poorest feel at' ease with him, and his tender smile disarm 
 the hatred of his bitterest foe. He had no patience with 
 the least word of flattery or sign of deceit. " My Lord," 
 said one of his courtiers to him, " I will tell you frankly 
 what I think of this affair." " What, Sir," instantly re- 
 plied the Cardinal, '-Do you not always speak frankly ? 
 Know that I want no friends whose tongue is not always 
 true to their thought." He had confidence in the good 
 will of those who pretended to love him, and despised 
 only those who threatened. When a package was brought 
 to him revealing a scheme to destroy his life, he quietly 
 burned it, taking no means to arrest the guilty parties. 
 He was wont to say that if his life were lost in the dis- 
 charge of duty, God would bless that loss to his Church. 
 His rebukes to the negligent were so directed as to bring 
 shame and remorse without hostility. One of his bishops 
 incautiously remarked that he did not know what to do. 
 When the Cardinal reached home, he sat down in his 
 study and wrote out a list of duties of a good bishop, 
 adding under each article, "and after this shall a bishop 
 say that he knows not what to do," and sent it to the 
 
34^ ST. CHARLES BOliliOMEO. 
 
 offending prelate. The remark was not repeated. No 
 one could say that he degraded the dignity of his purple, 
 and yet he was always ready to take upon himself the 
 neglected work of his dependents. 
 
 He had, too, in rare perfection that individualising 
 faculty on which the success of a bishop so much depends. 
 He knew the children by name and by person. He kept 
 in his memory the wants and circumstances of all his 
 colleges, convents, almoners, and prelates. He knew who 
 were deserving and who were promising, and he kept his 
 eye upon them. With intuitive sagacity he detected the 
 signs of future eminence in the Church, and helped to 
 hasten it. Youngest of all the cardinals, he was yet most 
 powerful in the conclave, and more than one Pope was 
 chosen bv his susrsrestion. Yet he was as careful to select 
 wisely his parish priest as the Head of all Christendom. 
 He listened respectfully to all honest opinion, though it 
 might not suit his own, and loved no servility. He wanted 
 every one of his dependents to act according to conscience, 
 and not according to his master's plan. He did not ex- 
 pect that all should be like himself, and probably never 
 any man in the Church had so much power and zeal with 
 so little of doGcmatic arrogfance. He burnt no heretics. 
 He uttered no anathemas, though he was a Catholic of the 
 truest stamp, and could see in heresy no good and no 
 hope. He was, as the Apostle says, swift to hear, slow to 
 speak and slow to wrath. 
 
 yVnd never was bishop more methodical in the ordering of 
 his duties. His multiplied charges were all arranged by 
 da3's and weeks and months and years, so that he knew 
 always what to do and when to do it. There was no par- 
 tiality and no omission in the distribution of his care. 
 And by this extraordinary system he accomplished in 
 twenty years an amount of Episcopal labor which no other 
 bishop has approached. His personal influence was felt 
 in every city, village, parish, convent, hamlet, and home of 
 one of the most populous provinces in Europe. And yet 
 with all this capacity of la])or, the temperament of St. 
 Charles was sluggish, and the action of his mind heavy 
 rather than brilliant. One of the weaknesses which he 
 knew and fought against, was a sleepiness which some- 
 
ST. CHARLES BORROMEO. 347 
 
 times caught him at unseasonable hours, even in church, 
 so the gossips complained. One day when this fit seemed 
 to come upon him, a prelate who had been preaching 
 whispered to his neighbor, " If I were Director to Car- 
 dinal Borromeo, I would make him sleep in his bed, and 
 keep awake in the sermon." But when the guests were 
 assembled at dinner the Cardinal amazed them by repeat- 
 ing passages from the sermon, of which they supposed 
 that he had not heard a word. 
 
 It is hard to find a parallel to this great Christian 
 pastor. The Catholic Church furnishes no other, the 
 Protestant no peer. The name which most readily sug- 
 gests itself to the comparison is that of Thomas Chalmers. 
 But he with all his wide parochial efficiency and his su- 
 perior genius, must yield the pastoral palm to the Italian 
 Cardinal. There were many points of resemblance in 
 their character and work. They were alike in physical 
 constitution, in power of endurance, in practical tastes 
 and tendencies, in care for the suffering classes, in heroic 
 exposure of life in their Master's cause. The quality of 
 faith in both was the same, and the burden of preaching, 
 too. But while the eloquence of Chalmers was great as 
 it rose to the highest themes, as it lightened and thundered 
 in the upper skies of thought, the word of Borromeo 
 gained power as it came down and entered into the sim- 
 pler offices of home and domestic life. The piety of 
 Chalmers inspired men to see visions and awakened 
 great thoughts about the spirit-world, about heaven, and the 
 judgment. It lifted men to God's world. The piety of 
 Borromeo comforted men to go on in duty below and 
 taught them what to do to make life serene, and beautiful, 
 and happy. It led God in his Church from home to home 
 to visit the believers. 
 
 But I will not pursue this parallel. A single page shall 
 close this protracted story, too long to hear, it may be, but 
 all too short for tJie theme. On the night of the second 
 of November, the day of All Souls, the report was given 
 in the streets of Milan that their Archbishop was dying. 
 The whole city was soon excited. Every man left his 
 house. Some thronged to the churches to pray. Some 
 waited to hear instant tidings at the gate of the palace. 
 Solemn processions of penitents passed along the way. 
 
348 ST. CHARLES BOREOMEO. 
 
 Cries were heard and sobs from the chambers, where 
 women lamented. The convents, in the height of their 
 grief, forgot all discipline, and set no bounds to their 
 sighs and tears. Wiih the earliest light the solemn tolling 
 of all the bells told that a great sorrow had passed upon 
 the people. It renewed the traditions of battles and 
 sieges. Every one felt that he had lost his father and his 
 defender, and feared some sfreat calamitv to come. Soon 
 every man had told with his neisfhbor the storv of his last 
 hour, what a peaceful, beautiful. Christian death the great 
 father had died, so vouns:, vet so mature in sainthood. 
 Such a funeral was nev^er seen in that Cathedral, in which 
 the terrible grief of a whole people was so condensed, 
 and unrestrained even by the majesty of the place and 
 scene. The funeral eulogy was pronounced by a friend 
 of his household, and the tears and sobs which broke its 
 flow were witness that it was no formal praise. Solemnly 
 into the vault before the choir where the holv man had 
 been wont to lead their devotions the body was lowered, 
 and the people who for so many centuries had kept first 
 in their honors the name of Ambrose consented now to 
 place above the saint of their fathers this greater Apostle 
 of Christ. His tomb became at once the shrine of pil- 
 grimage. The piety of the nations knelt there. Such 
 gifts were left there as no palace could show. And now 
 no estimate can reach the wealth of gold and silver which 
 adorn that shrine. The curious stop in the Cardinal's 
 chapel to wonder at the richness of this tomb. But the 
 reverent student of history, who remembers what life these 
 costly testimonies commemorate, beholds in this splendid 
 sepulchre the proof that the heart of man is more loyal 
 to goodness than to greatness, to the saint than to the 
 hero. So in the great Cathedral of England a nation 
 has just solemnly entombed the body of its greatest 
 man, with a funeral more splendid than the nation ever 
 saw. But the grave-stone of Wellington will soon be read 
 with no more reverence than that of other heroes who lie 
 there. While Protestants beyond the sea will continue to 
 leave at the tomb of the good bishop of Milan if not 
 silver and gold, at least a tribute of gratitude and rever- 
 ence to a virtue that recalled in a desrenerate age the 
 blameless life of the Saviour of men. 
 
THE SOCiyi. 349 
 
 XIV. 
 
 SOCINUS AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 
 
 At a meeting some years ago of the American Bible 
 Society in New York, it chanced that one of the speakers 
 appointed was a distinguished lawyer from the neighbor- 
 hood of Boston, a man of wide reputation both for 
 wisdom, worth and piety. As he came forward to speak, 
 after several addresses which made up in length what they 
 lacked in interest. I remarked to my neighbor, an intelli- 
 o:ent looking Presbvterian divine, that I thought now we 
 should have something worth hearinsr. "No !" answered 
 he quickly, "I believe the man is a Socinian." And his 
 tone conveyed the idea that it was impossible for a So- 
 cinian to say anything true, good, or beautiful. I wanted 
 to turn upon him the argument that if so shrewd, learned, 
 and excellent a man could be a Socinian it was a fair pre- 
 sumption that the name was honorable to bear, and the 
 system it si2:nitied a true one. It is likelv that this fre- 
 quent reproach has made, too. many ashamed of the 
 name, when an investigation of the history connected with 
 it would show that far more praise than blame belongs to 
 it. If the character and spirit of its founder gives honor 
 to any sect I would far sooner bear a name which was 
 illustrated by men so pure and noble as Laelius and 
 Faustus Socinus than the name of the stern ruler of 
 Geneva, the murderer of Servetus. 
 
 Many persons have an idea that the Unitarian heresy, 
 as they choose to call it, is a small and recent affair, be- 
 ginning in New En2:land some fifrv or sixtv rears ago. 
 The better informed, indeed, have a tradition about a cer- 
 tain Arius, who made a 2;ood deal of stir bv denving the 
 Trinity in the early age of the Church but was finally put 
 down. Some perhaps have heard that another teacher 
 bv name Socinus, went farther in his denials and said that 
 
35 o TUE SO CI N I. 
 
 Christ was a mere man, and that he was put down too ; 
 though who Socinus was, where he came from, when he 
 lived and what his character and influence were thev are 
 quite unable to conjecture. About as far as any one gets 
 in the matter is that Socinus had something to do with 
 Poland, and that he lived not a great while after Luther 
 and Calvin. It would surprise a good many to be told 
 the fact that Socinus did not originate any sect or broach 
 any novel heresy, that he taught only what a large number 
 of the most eminent in the Church had believed before 
 him, and that his opinions, though persecuted fiercely by 
 the dogmatism of the reformers, were never put down, but 
 gained strength, and in spite of obstacles have continued 
 to this day to flourish where they were first preached. In 
 Poland, Hungary, Transylvania, not to speak of Switzer- 
 land, Holland, and England, the Unitarian system of re- 
 ligion is as ancient as the Puritan, and so far as the char- 
 acter of its confessors is concerned quite as respectable. 
 That faith is neither novel nor heretical in which such 
 men as Locke could teach, Newton could live, and Milton 
 could die, and which is joined so intimately to the tragic 
 heroism of the most unfortunate nation of Europe, 
 
 We have spoken before of the beginnings of the Re- 
 form and of the men who were leaders in the great schism 
 of the sixteenth century which severed half of Europe 
 from its allegiance to the Catholic Church. We are to 
 take up now the earliest developments of reform, its off- 
 shoots, its extreme movements, not so much the sects to 
 which it gave rise as the directions in which it moved. 
 And the four directions of development which we specify 
 are not merely fanciful. They have each separate marks 
 and characteristics, and they correspond too with the 
 phases of reaction in the Catholic Church, which we have 
 just been surveying. The antithesis to Catholic reform in 
 doctrine, in action, in piety and in life is found in the sepa- 
 rate religious movements in Northern Germany, of France, 
 of Holland and of England. Hardly had the finished de- 
 crees of the Council of Trent been proclaimed to the 
 world when the acts of the Polish brethren set forth a 
 creed diametrically opposite, built on another foundation, 
 with other dogmas, and in another spirit. The zeal of 
 
THE SOCINI. 351 
 
 Ignatius and his companions was met and matched by the 
 fanatic enthusiasm of the Huguenots, who burned to 
 spread in their native land the views of Calvin, as the 
 Jesuits were ready to carry the Gospel of Christ far and 
 wide. In the Low Countries, subject to the same rule as 
 mountainous Spain, a theology came in which spurned the 
 convent life and was the fiercest foe of piety like that of 
 Teresa of the flaming heart. The lawyer and scholar 
 Grotius established on the plain a practical faith quite 
 unlike that castle of the soul which the Spanish nun went 
 about among the hills to fortify and build. And with 
 many points of resemblance, the most striking contrast to 
 the sweet charity and benevolence and forgiveness of St. 
 Charles Borromeo was shown in the cold, stern, terrible 
 sanctity of the Puritan life. 
 
 We speak in this lecture of what may be called the ex- 
 treme dosrmatic movement of the Reformation, and of that 
 party which carried its principles to their legitnnate con- 
 clusions, in a Christian and Scriptural Rationalism. Luther 
 emancipated human reason from its fetters to tradition 
 and authority, but he did not apply it when freed to the 
 investigation of all Christian truths. He was a disciple of 
 the fathers, though he denied the authority of the Pope, 
 and the submission which he refused to the decrees of 
 Leo and the Councils he yielded to the dogmas of Augus- 
 tine and the ancient Church. He did not use the freedom 
 which he claimed except to rebel against existing powers. 
 But there were others who acted upon his protest more 
 thoroughly and dared to question many things that were 
 taught as Christian truth beside the scheme of indul- 
 gences and the folly of the mass ; who ascended to first 
 principles, and sought to construct for themselves a faith 
 that should harmonize with right reason in all its parts 
 without losing its Scriptural basis, which should leave to 
 the Divine Nature the mystery of unspeakable grandeur, 
 but not of a mathematical puzzle, and rescue the Divine 
 government at once from the charge of weakness, fickle- 
 ness and cruelty ; which should recognize the admitted 
 facts of physical science in regard to the nature of man, 
 while it preserved the promise of his immortal destiny, 
 and should not contradict his consciousness ; which should 
 
352 THE SO C IN I. 
 
 give Christ all the honor which he claimed and make his 
 salvation a practical and broad spiritual influence instead 
 of a mere forensic scheme ; which should make of religion 
 in a word, a genuine science, friendly to all other discov- 
 ed truth. 
 
 This tendency to a rational religion was confined at first 
 to no one land, but broke out in all the countries of Eu- 
 rope on the first proclamation of religious liberty. Carl- 
 stadt, at first the friend and ally of Luther, but afterward 
 bitterly hated and persecuted by him, was its Apostle in 
 Northern Germany ; and the number of his disciples was 
 not small. The Spaniard Michael Servetus carried it from 
 place to place, fleeing from the Inquisition till at last he 
 suffered in Geneva for his temeritv. At Basle and Zurich 
 where the free spirit of Zwingle had made the people 
 hospitable alike to learning and misfortune, it found a 
 w^elcome, and the former city was three centuries ago, as 
 it is to-day, the retreat of exiled scholtirs and of harassed 
 faith. But the earliest centre of the new Rationalism 
 seems to have been Venice, where liberty of conscience 
 was granted by the government, and the Inquisition was 
 held in bad repute. Here the great scholars of Italy 
 gathered to study the Scriptures in their original tongue, 
 to discuss theology and to compare with each other the 
 results of their inquiries. Here, if not encouraged by the 
 public authorities, they were at least not molested in their 
 assemblies, and in several towns of the republic, particu- 
 larly at Vicenza, regular meetings, weekly or monthly, as 
 the case might be, were held to consult concerning the 
 reform of the creed. And hither came on the very year 
 when the first action of the Council of Trent began, to 
 unite by his comprehensive wisdom, to guide by his pru- 
 dence, and to dignify by his blameless life, the delibera- 
 tions so rash, of an attempt so daring, the man whose 
 name still designates the chief of Protestant heresies, the 
 Etruscan Laelius Socinus. 
 
 The citv Sienna in Etruria is famous in Christian his- 
 tory from its union with the name of Catherine, one of the 
 holiest of Catholic saints. But it was more highlv honored 
 in being the birthplace of the elder Socinus. By the 
 lineage of both his parents, Laelius was allied with the 
 
THE SOCINl. 353 
 
 noblest families of Tuscany, the Piccolommi, the Petrucii, 
 and the Salvetti, Eloquence, beauty, culture and courage 
 were his proper inheritance. Law was the profession of 
 his ancestors, and his father and elder brother well sus- 
 tained in that profession the family tradition. From 
 childhood Laelius was taught that a free spirit of inquiry 
 was the only foundation for sound knowledo:e, and that 
 patient investigation was the sure pioneer of truth. The 
 rules of evidence which his father applied to the details 
 of cases and books of statute, Laelius applied to the great 
 record of all law, and ventured to interpret the Scriptures 
 as he would have read the Institutes and Pandects of 
 Justinian. His keen scrutiny failed not to observe the 
 incongruity between the doctrines of the Church around 
 him and its ancient text books of faith. He could not 
 find in them many of the articles which the creeds made 
 essential to salvation. Doubts began to arise in his mind, 
 which more thorough investigation only confirmed. The 
 studies of his kindred did not run in the same direction, 
 and the wisdom of his father did not lie in the same 
 province. In the great law schools of Italy at this period 
 the Gospel was not deemed important enough to foster 
 study. At the age of twenty-one Laelius, as we men- 
 tioned, came to Venice, hoping to find in the societies of 
 that republic a solution of his doubts and sympathy with 
 his inquiries. He found this among the scholars there, 
 but he lost it almost as soon. 
 
 For that decisive year 1546, memorable in so many ways 
 for the death of Luther, the opening of the Council of 
 Trent, the reconciliation between the Pope and the Em- 
 peror, brought also the Inquisition to Venice. The fires 
 of persecution began to burn and the free thought of 
 Italy furnished its martyrs. The meetings were broken 
 up. The Doge and Senate were forced into a weak com- 
 pliance with the demands of foreign lords and withdrew 
 their protection from the heretics. The scholars scattered 
 themselves to the Protestant nations, some to England, 
 some to Poland, many to Switzerland. Laelius left Venice 
 not as an exile for his opinions but as a traveller and 
 scholar. Four years he spent in visiting the principal 
 countries of Europe, making the acquaintance of men of 
 
 23 
 
354 THE SOCINL 
 
 letters, and comin^j into bonds of the most friendly al- 
 liance with the chief reformers, which even his heresies 
 could not break. Melancthon was his constant corres- 
 pondent. The months which Socinus passed at Wittemberj^ 
 were spent in the closest intimacy and such testimonials 
 from the hand of the Reformer went with the young Italian 
 that he was received everywhere among Protestants with 
 honor. Calvin was one of his earliest acquaintances and 
 continued until his death to advise and warn him. In 
 Zurich he found a home with the pastor Bullinger, the 
 successor and friend of Zwingle, and the relation between 
 them was almost that of father and son. But nowhere 
 in all his travels did he find a place where it was safe or 
 comfortable to preach his opinions openly. Nor did he 
 care to be a preacher. He felt that the time had not 
 quite come to make public this radical protest against 
 Rome, this protest against the whole system of faith from 
 its foundation downward. He was content to wait for 
 some bolder hand to seize a more favorable moment. 
 
 But in the circles of private friendship the nature of 
 Laelius Socinus was too frank to allow any concealment 
 of his views. There was not one of the principal mys- 
 teries of faith of which he did not make question in some 
 of his letters. The Trinity, the Atonement, the resurrec- 
 tion of the body, all form the subject of ingenious discus- 
 sion with Calvin and others. His position as ambassador 
 from Germany and Poland to the Venetian state gave to 
 his opinions more importance, and when, at the death of 
 his father in 1556, he went home to settle the estate, they 
 discovered in his reluctance to receive many of the doc- 
 trines of Catholic faith that his radical views still, after 
 the travel and experience of ten years, remained un- 
 changed. Six years later he died at Zurich. Earnest 
 efforts had been made to have him expelled from the 
 btate as a heretic and a blasphemer. And some who re- 
 spected him as a scholar and a man of uprightness feared 
 so much the poison of his influences that they secretly 
 approved these efforts. But the early death of Socinus 
 anticipated them. And he left behind, if not a wide at 
 least, a high reputation for Christian virtues and liberal 
 spirit. His denials of dogmas did not embitter his temper 
 
THE SOCINI. 355 
 
 or make him a destructive. He granted to others the 
 liberty which he chiimed. The sternness of Cahnn's re- 
 l)ukes could not irritate him, while it could frighten him as 
 little from his free inquiries. No one could say that the 
 heir of aristocratic races lowered his dignity by associating 
 with rebellious priests. Without concealment or com- 
 promise, yet without violence or importunity, he uttered 
 liis views when the occasion served him, and died predicting 
 that his nephew would become an apostle of the truth, 
 which he only dimly prophesied. 
 
 The wider fame of Faustus Socinus has unjustly 
 eclipsed the services of his uncle in the cause of liberal 
 religion. In age they were not widely separate. Laelius 
 had not reached the full stature of manhood, when his 
 brother Alexander's son was born. Deprived of his 
 parents at an early age, the young Faustus had few advan- 
 tages of literary culture, and studied but little of that 
 philosophy which his father had taught with such renown 
 in the University of Padua. It is strange that with so 
 slight a discipline in logic and theology, he was able to 
 write so soon and so well on the great subjects of religious 
 controversy. Much, indeed, had been done for him by his 
 uncle. But he was still a child when Laelius departed on 
 his long years of travel, and he was left chiefly to his own 
 resources. But the boy had a mind of rare acuteness and 
 an insatiable thirst for knowledge ; and what fortune failed 
 to do for him nature accomplished. He adopted with 
 great ardor the opinions of his uncle, and found soon that 
 to profess them freely, he must leave his native land. The 
 death of his uncle broke the tie which bound him to Italy, 
 though he passed after that twelve years in honorable em- 
 ployment in the Tuscan Court. He had reached the 
 mature age of thirty-five when he took up his residence at 
 Basle, on the Rhine, hoping in that hospitable city to find a 
 permanent home as a teacher of Christian theology. In- 
 heriting the numerous manuscripts of his uncle, he em- 
 ployed himself in giving them shape and method, and 
 framing into a consistent system what had been left there 
 in a crude and undi2:ested form. And he s^ave himself 
 with more intense zeal to the study of the Scriptures. 
 Three years passed on, when he began to appear as a 
 
35^ THE SOCINL 
 
 public debater, boldly defending the thesis that the Trinity 
 was a pai^an and no Christian doctrine, and that Christ 
 was the created Son, and not the uncreated God. These 
 controversies irave him fame. He was called into Tran- 
 sylvania, where the eloquence and learning of George Blan- 
 drata had already established many churches of Unitarian 
 views. Here a fantastic zealot, by name Francis David, 
 had advanced views which threatened to destroy the 
 harmony and sound faith of the reformed churches, and it 
 
 was thou2:ht that the clear reason of Socinus mi^ht be 
 useful in checking the disorder. But the enterprise failed, 
 and a contagious disease sent Socinus still farther, to visit 
 the churches of Poland, where he might expect more 
 sympathy and success. An early visit of Laelius Socinus, 
 accompanied by one Spiritus from Holland, and a discus- 
 sion which they held on the question, " whether there are 
 three gods," had left doubts in the minds of several 
 eminent men whether the common notion of the Trinity 
 were true. The suggestions of separate teachers passed 
 into the discussions of the Synods, and with every new 
 meeting the Unitarian side gained proselytes. The doc- 
 tors of the church took the alarm. Remonstrances were 
 sent against all discussion of this great fundamental 
 mystery. And the result finally was a schism, which 
 separated into unequal branches of the Reformed Church 
 those who held to the Trinity, and those who received the 
 simple unity of God. In this latter division there were 
 wide differences of opinion, some taking the name of 
 Famovius, holding to the high Arian notion of the pre- 
 existence of Christ, and his superhuman, though not his 
 divine, nature ; and others, bearing the title of Budneans, 
 maintaining the simple humanitarian view that Jesus was 
 a man, though the best and holiest of men. By union and 
 perseverance, however, they succeeded in obtaining from 
 the government an edict of toleration, and made such 
 progress that before long the chief cities of the south of 
 Poland were substantially possessed by them. 
 
 This was the state of religious parties when Socinus 
 arrived in Poland. He did not find there the hearty wel- 
 come which he expected. His view of Christ, midway 
 between that of the two leading parties, satisfied neither. 
 
THE SOCINI. 357 
 
 It was too radical for the strict party, it was too strict for 
 the radical party. He seemed to the teachers of the land 
 presumptuous in attempting to instruct them. How 
 should an Italian vairrant enli2;hten a land where the 
 Bible had so long been read, and studies in theology were 
 native to the people .-* To avoid persecution Socinus re- 
 tired to the estate of a nobleman, a few miles from 
 Cracow, where his person was secure and he was treated 
 with such kindness that he could forget the enmity of the 
 churches. A marriage with the dau2:hter of the house 
 seemed to secure his fortune, but it was the prelude of 
 most bitter reverses. Death deprived him soon of his 
 wife and his benefactors. Sickness prostrated his frame 
 and weakened his mental powers. News came to him 
 that his estates in Italy were forfeited, and that he could 
 hope no longer to receive any income from that source. 
 The position of the Unitarian church in the land was in- 
 secure by the struggles of competitors for the elective 
 monarchy, and the jjoor exile might feel that his lot had 
 fallen in an evil time. 
 
 But his courage did not fail. As worldlv prospects 
 -grew darker he gave himself with a more single devotion 
 to what he believed to be the cause of truth and God. In 
 the Svnods he maintained his views with g^reat vi^or and 
 fertile argument, and one book after another came from 
 his pen. Neither persuasions nor threats could silence 
 him, and when, after the publication of his work "on the 
 Saviour," he was assaulted in person, dragged from his 
 sick bed into the street, exposed half naked in the market 
 place, menaced with punishment, with his furniture broken 
 and his manuscripts destroyed, they could extort from him 
 no word of recantation. He found protection for the 
 remainder of his life at the house of another nobleman, 
 where he spent his time in reconciling the differences 
 of the liberal creeds, and refuting the errors of the 
 ancient systems. He died at the close of the year 1604 in 
 his sixty-fifth year, welcoming the event as a release from 
 earthlv troubles and a summons to nearer visions of great 
 spiritual truth. On his tomb was inscribed the couplet : 
 " Luther destroyed the house of Babylon, Calvin the walls, 
 but Socinus the foundations." " Tota licet Babylon destruxit 
 tecta Lutherus, muros Calvinus, sed fundamenta Socinus." 
 
35^ THE SOCINL 
 
 The sin2:le child which he left became the wife of a dis- 
 tinguished Polish nobleman, and through her descendants 
 he is to this day the ancestor of many eminent Unitarians, 
 both in the State and Church. His grandson, Witsowa- 
 tius, was a divine of great influence in the body of liberal 
 Christians, both through his acquirements and the weight 
 of his character, and his filial piety never forgot the first 
 confessor in the family of the views which he cherished. 
 
 The character of Socinus needs not to be elaborately 
 drawn. His enemies have freely admitted that he was an 
 able, an attractive, and a virtuous man, captivating by the 
 force of his genius, the fervor of his eloquence and beauty 
 of his life. Less learned than many of the doctors of his 
 age, few could surpass him in acquaintance with the text 
 of that sacred word which in all disputes is the Christian's 
 authority. If he lacked acquaintance with Plato and Tully, 
 he was familiar with the mind of Paul and John. A defender 
 of reason and the intellect, he never gave these the mastery 
 over the clear precepts of Christ. His insight seemed to 
 reveal at once the meaning of obscure passages, to make 
 the dark places light, and the rough places plain. It was 
 at once rapid and wide, seeing things quickly and seeing 
 them thoroughly. And he had a singular mental integrity. 
 There was no weak spot, through which error could gain 
 entrance. Logical absurdities had no insinuation bv which 
 his seat of conviction could he reached. He believed that 
 the only faith good for anything was one which a man might 
 justify to himself and to others, which he could hold on its 
 own merits, not on any traditional authority. He had no 
 such reverence for great names that he would allow them 
 to persuade him into a surrender of right reason. He was 
 an independent thinker, independent of his own party as 
 much as of the party of prescription, a Protestant of the 
 Protestants. And if he believed less than other great 
 teachers, he believed what he did believe with all the 
 intensity of a clear knowledge. He looked before and 
 behind, and saw where his faith arose and whither it 
 tended, its relations both to abstract truth and to practical 
 life. 
 
 He was a true enthusiast, some would say, a zealot. He 
 did what few are apt to do, sacrificed family pride, rank, 
 
THE SOCINL 359 
 
 fortune, station, the most flattering worldly prospects to 
 the promulgation of his unpopular views. Many have 
 relinquished worldly advantages to serve in the ranks of 
 Christian confessors, and the lives of Ignatius and Borgia 
 had proved that the flower of knighthood may humble 
 itself to shed the Gospel fragrance. But the religion to 
 which these eminent saints gave up their fortune was pop- 
 ular and powerful. They sacrificed nothing for abstract 
 ideas. But Socinus had faith in abstract ideas, and his 
 zeal went to establish that which for one thousand years 
 had borne the Church's anathema. For this he wrote, and 
 labored and prayed, travelled from place to place, and was 
 ready, if the need came, to suffer death. He knew that 
 heretics like himself could have no place amon'g the 
 honored martyrs of the Church ; that their labors and 
 sacrifices would be hastily passed over, and no honor be 
 left to them on the pages of history. But he did not 
 repent of the part which he had chosen. He would accept 
 no gifts where they might weaken or unsettle his earnest- 
 ness in his faith, or modify his opinion. Nor would differ- 
 ence or enmity on minor points hinder him from working 
 with those who mainly agreed with him. He prized the 
 cause of God hisrher than his own comfort. " When I 
 came into Poland," said he, " I desired nothing more 
 earnestly than to be united to the brethren in the closest 
 ties of communion, though I found that in many points of 
 religion, they thought differently from me, as many do to 
 this day : and God knoweth, what and how great things I 
 suffer on this account ; declining in the meantime no 
 labors, however hazardous or hard, which either the breth- 
 ren themselves have enjoined me, or which I hope may be 
 useful to our Churches." 
 
 As has been finely said of another, Socinus had a 
 Protestant mind, but a Catholic heart. He cherished no 
 theological hatreds. If his words at times seemed harsh 
 and even fierce, they were not malignant. He conceded 
 to an opponent all the freedom which he claimed for him- 
 self, and he endeavored to judge candidly the arguments 
 which he tried to refute. His was no spirit of intolerance. 
 And he brought into his debates no personalities. In his 
 most sharp controversy, he tells his adversary, "if you 
 
3^o THE SOCINI. 
 
 study to practice purity of life and Ciiristian sanctity, 
 whatever may be your sentiment on the subject of our 
 debate, I will always acknowledge you for my brother in 
 Christ, and will think there is a sufficient agreement 
 between us." Nothing was more abhorrent to his heart 
 than the thought of propagating or suppressing a religion 
 by force. He might deny future salvation to Papists and 
 infidels, but he would not shut these out from their earthly 
 civil rights. He might call the opinion of Francis David 
 and his party, subordinating Christ to Moses, and the 
 Gospel to the Jewish Law, " an impious and detestable 
 doctrine." But he clears himself by an elaborate defence 
 from the charge of persecuting this unfortunate man. Yet, 
 like Luther and the other reformers, he is not unwilling to 
 have such blasphemers shut up as madmen, where their 
 corrupting influence may do no harm among the people. 
 He did not think it expedient that men whom he believed 
 insane should be set in the Churches to preach and teach. 
 If his theory of toleration be not the perfect one of this 
 age of light, it was at least far in advance of the theory of 
 his cotemporary Reformers. 
 
 Few heretics have escaped so completely the charge of 
 personal immorality. No one could say that Faustus 
 Socinus flung off the restraints of the prevalent faith, that 
 he might give more license to his appetite or gratify his 
 pride. In all his habits, he was exemplar}'. Modesty, a 
 hereditary virtue, grew upon him with his years. His con- 
 fidence was the confidence of truth, and not of vanity. 
 Taking no means, like the Catholic zealots, to mortify the 
 flesh, he was yet sparing as a monk of physical indul- 
 gences, and preferred to give in charity what he could save 
 from appetite. Making no parade of his humility by 
 squalidness of dress, or servility of manners, he showed it 
 best in the style of his phrases an<I his unaffected diffi- 
 dence. He was sensible of his own infirmities and had a 
 quick and tender conscience. Yet he cared less about 
 himself than about the truth. Naturally quick to take 
 offence, he schooled himself to bear personal insults and 
 reproaches, and the misfortunes which came so rapidly 
 upon him. His piety was a deep, warm and continual 
 glow of love to God, not expressing itself in tears and 
 
THE SOCIXI. 361 
 
 prayers so much as in a manly persuasion of other men to 
 his faith. The singleness of his worship helped him to 
 feel a sfenuine s:ratitude. His letters becrin and end with 
 the name of the Divine Being. In all his discussions 
 about the Nature of God, he never forgot the reverence 
 due to that great name. In affliction, he leaned upon the 
 invisible arm, and in joy, he referred all his good gifts to 
 God. No writer is more free with those expressions which 
 mark the presence of a living and unfeigned faith in a 
 spiritual Father. 
 
 That Socinus was a good man, even malice could not 
 deny. His enemies confessed his eminence in the practi- 
 cal Christian graces. Yet he was a heretic of the 
 heretics. He held opinions which some called infidel 
 then, and which manv is^norantlv call infidel now. His 
 view of God and Christ, of the nature and needs of man, 
 was certainly different from the received creed, and no 
 portrait of his moral excellence can remove from him the 
 honor or the stigma, as men may choose to think it, of 
 beinsf the chief orsfanizer in modern times of Unitarian 
 views in religion. It is fit, therefore, that we should state 
 the principal articles in his creed, that it may be judged 
 whether he ridnlv deserves the name of Heresiarch. The 
 materials for our judgment are ample. The works of 
 Socinus make two volumes of the seven folios which illus- 
 trate the literary industry and genius of the Polish 
 brethren. And the Racovian catechism, which still re- 
 mains a text-book in the churches of Hungary and Tran- 
 sylvania, is mainly compiled from his words and writings. 
 The writino^s of Socinus are not onlv numerous but ex- 
 ceedingly various. Sometimes they are controversial, 
 sometimes expository, sometimes epistles, and then homil- 
 ies, now theological, and now practical. Yet his peculiar 
 system forms the basis of all the argument, the criticism, 
 the exhortation and the friendship. It comes into the in- 
 terpretation of the sermon on the Mount, not less than 
 into the discussion of John's Logos. The tracts on 
 Baptism, the Supper, and the duty of believers, could not 
 have been written by a Trinitarian more than the book on 
 the theme "Christ' the Son of God." The creed of no 
 teacher was more solidly built or more clearly expressed. 
 
362 THE SOCINl. 
 
 The chief article of the heresy of Socinus was his view 
 of the Saviour. He held that Christ was born miracu- 
 lously of a pure virgin, yet was human in his person and 
 attributes, a brother of the race of man ; that his relation 
 to God was not that of identity, but of sonship. He was 
 the Christ, the anointed of God, honored above all other 
 mortals, though subject like them to the physical laws. 
 He was sent by God to bear to men tidings of his will. 
 He was empowered by God to show men the way of salva- 
 tion. He was to be a king of God's people. He was to 
 be the chief bishop of God's church. He was to be the 
 great High Priest who should distribute pardon ; the 
 Mediator to reconcile man and God. In him were the 
 ancient prophecies fulfilled. In him are the wants of all 
 nations met. In his own day he was the promised Jewish 
 Messiah. In our dav he is still the sufficient Redeemer. 
 Between him and Moses there was strict historic analogy. 
 The Hebrew lawgiver was the type of the later Saviour. 
 He existed in the thought of God before all worlds, but 
 his actual life be^an when he was born in Bethlehem of 
 Judea. His eternal Being is of the future rather than of 
 the past, and that all men shall share with him. He sav^es 
 men from their sins by his death and by his life ; by his 
 word and by his example ; by his influence upon their 
 hearts and wills, and not by any change in the plans of 
 God. He takes away the sins of men, not forensically, 
 according to a scheme, but actually, with no deception, not 
 by taking upon himself all at once their penalty, but by re- 
 moving their substance, not in the way of an atonement to 
 God, but of a reconciliation of man. 
 
 This view of Christ and his mission Socinus very fully 
 illustrates. His logic binds in an iron chain the testimonies 
 of Scripture, which defend it. He explains frankly, with- 
 out explaining away those passages of Scripture which 
 men have brought into the defence of opposite views, and 
 shows how they harmonize with his view. He will take 
 what St. John says about the Word in the beginning, the 
 Word with God and the Word made flesh, and show that 
 the common use of language among the Hebrews allowed 
 such description of a created being. He shows us St. Paul 
 confessing the doctrine of the Unity, and writing, too, in 
 
THE SOCIXI. 3^3 
 
 the style of the Psalmist, about gods of inferior honor. 
 *• For although there be who are called gods, whether in 
 heaven or earth, as there are gods many and lords many, 
 yet to us there is but one God. the Father, of whom are 
 all things." He brings readily the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 so long the unfailing arsenal of the Trinitarian party, into 
 clear confirmation of the opposite view, and proves that 
 the powers ascribed there to Christ are derived and not 
 original. He quotes the words of Christ in his conversa- 
 tions with friends, and his replies to foes, in his formal 
 discourse, and his occasional parable, in what he said 
 to Pharisees seeking to entice him to blaspheme, and 
 what he said to the vounsr ruler askins: the wav of salva- 
 tion — in what he claimed of himself, and svhat he refused 
 of himself ; his words at the well with the woman, at the 
 table with his brethren, and on the cross with the multitude 
 around him, to prove by accumulation of evidence and 
 by the irresistible weight of earnest sincerity, that the 
 power of Christ was delegated power ; that his help came 
 from a higher source, and that the most honorable epithet 
 due to him was the epithet that the apostles, the multitude 
 and the Roman soldiers gave him, the *' Son of God." 
 
 Socinus is ven,- careful that none shall accuse him of 
 desrradino^ the work of Christ bv denvins^ Christ's share in 
 the Gk)dhead. He is never wean,- of discoursing upon the 
 lofty perfections and the sweet influences of Christ's char- 
 acter, and to no believer could grace and redemption be 
 more sweet and charming themes. He shows how a just 
 regard to the inliuence of Christ's gospel upon the sinners' 
 heart renders needless the scheme of a sacrificial atone- 
 ment ; how if sin can be purged away by the imitation of 
 Christ its punishment may be justly remitted. To him 
 forgiveness is a word of great meaning and power ; and 
 repentance, the word which John and Jesus so often used, 
 which the apostles were commanded to preach as the pre- 
 liminary- step to the inheritance of God's kingdom, joined 
 to the rite of purilication and the feast of communion, 
 their words forgiveness and repentance were far holier 
 than the word atonement, which neither Jesus nor his 
 companions ever used. He would not, by unduly exalting 
 the death of Christ, depreciate his pure and blameless 
 
364 THE SOCINI. 
 
 life, or have men forget that the last great martyrdom was 
 but the noble close of long months of heroic service to 
 men. He could not rest upon the small passage of Cal- 
 vary, with all its physical marvel and moral grandeur, as 
 containing the whole of redemption. He looked at the 
 life which went before, and at the glory which came after ; 
 at the meek, long-suffering and loving missionary, who 
 went teaching and preaching, healing and restoring from 
 city to city, and at the risen and ascended Lord, exercising 
 still from on high sovereignty in his church. And he en- 
 couraged prayer to Christ for spiritual blessings and for a 
 place in the kingdom of the liedeemed. He could not 
 seal the work of Christ forever by the clotted blood from 
 his veins, but saw him reigning on High and interceding 
 for sinners with the Father. 
 
 In this view of Christ lay the chief of Socinus's here- 
 sies. But they reckoned also as unsound his view of the 
 nature of man and the origin of sin. He did not count 
 physical death as the worst of calamities, or refer this to 
 sin as a necessary consequence. Man, he believed, was 
 naturally mortal, created in the beginning with a frame 
 subject to decay, and set under a law of death as absolute 
 as the law of life. The death which sin brought into the 
 world was spiritual, a loss of the soul's immortality, joy 
 and hope. To restore this Christ came. To bring im- 
 mortal life to light he ministered to man. To awaken the 
 dormant capacity of holiness and develop the power of 
 life in every soul ; to sanctify the earlier revelations, and 
 fulfill, by the disclosure of heaven, the longings of the 
 heart after a rest not of earth ; to renew the balance of 
 spiritual forces, and make man not what he was in the be- 
 ginning, so much as what he was meant to be in the end; 
 
 this was the thought of Socinus concerning Christ's reli- 
 gion in the soul. He denied alike the original righteous- 
 ness and the original sin of man, asserting only the 
 original possibility of both virtue and sin. Sin began 
 with Adam when wrong was first committed, and it so 
 begins with every man. The reproach of conscience is 
 its proper witness. Virtue begins when man refuses 
 temptation, and sensible of his freedom, rejects those 
 things which the word of God, in Scripture or in reason, 
 
THE SOCINL 365 
 
 i:ells him is wronsf. A man cannot be c^uiltvfor his father's 
 transgression, neither will a just God hold him responsible 
 for sins which he has never wilfully committed. He is not 
 to blame for the infirmities of his spirit more than for the 
 M-eakness of his bodily frame. His sin is a result of per- 
 sonal choice and not of natural pravity. His righteous- 
 ness is his own and his guilt is his own to every man. 
 
 Socinus followed Pelagius in his view of the freedom of 
 the will. He anticipated Arminius in his view of the 
 grace of Christ. He would not have any man claim sal- 
 vation for his own good works, but it was even more 
 abhorrent to his soul that any should claim salvation 
 through the bare merits of Christ, without their own per- 
 sonal obedience. He taught that a virtuous life is the 
 proper evidence of faith, and that the life acceptable to 
 God is one in which the love and good works of Jesus are 
 repeated. His views of practical duty, too, were in har- 
 mony with this theory. The punishment of death seemed 
 to him barbarous in principle and of doubtful utility.. 
 Aggressive warfare was a monstrous perversion of justice 
 and love. He would not have men do evil for the sake of 
 possible good, or violate God's laws in the pretence of serv- 
 ing him. The use of deadly weapons, except for purposes of 
 self defense, he held to be contrary to the Christian spirit. 
 All luxury and vain show, all avarice and sordid lust of 
 gain, all uncleanness, whether of person, word or thought, 
 was a hindrance in his view, to the Gospel in the heart. If 
 he prized the rite of baptism less as an ordinance, he 
 prized it more as a symbol. As applied to infants it 
 seemed to him but a form. But as received bv the mature 
 man, it fitly presented the proper purification of the spirit. 
 The Lord's Supper was to him not a mystical feast, but a 
 fraternal commemoration of the Saviour's dying love. 
 
 One word may be added on the idea of the church 
 which Socinus gave. "The church," he says, "is either 
 visible or invisible. The visible church is an assembly of 
 men, who hold and profess so much of the true religion of 
 Christ as is necessary to salvation. The invisible church 
 is an assembly of men who have a genuine and justifying 
 faith in Christ, and who are scattered over the world. The 
 visible church may be considered as one body, because it 
 
366 THE SOCINI. 
 
 comprehends all the particular churches or assemblies of 
 those who profess the Christian doctrine of salvation as 
 its members. Any single society, and so any, as it were, 
 single member of the body we have spoken of, belonging 
 to the universal church, may be deemed and called a 
 church, which distinction does not hold with respect to the 
 invisible church. 
 
 In regard to the ministry, Socinus taught that its author- 
 ity came not from a transmitted virtue, but from the free 
 choice of the people. The pastor of every congregation 
 should be one whom they have selected from his superior 
 wisdom and piety to explain to them the sacred word and 
 to show them the issues of iheir sin. His power with the 
 people was the power of the truth which he preached, and he 
 had no right to compel any to assent to his opinion. All 
 action within the church should be done by the votes of its 
 members, and none should be hindered from the free ex- 
 pression of his views. The people might admonish the 
 minister, if they saw anything in his character or conduct 
 inconsistent with his office. The system of Socinus was 
 what we call Congregational ; and we live under a form of 
 church discipline and order which he proved to be Scrip- 
 tural and rational, just alike to the minister and people, 
 and consistent with the Saviour's word. 
 
 Such was the scheme of doctrine embodied in the cate- 
 chism of the Unitarian Church of Poland, and compiled 
 from the writings of Socinus, and published in the year 
 1609. It was dedicated to James I. of England, and 
 found soon many adherents in the English realm. In 
 eleven sections it treats of the great doctrines and duties 
 of the Gospel, and its conciseness, its perspicuity, its hu- 
 mane and generous spirit, its comprehensive morality, and 
 its genuine piety, have extorted for it the admiration of 
 the most orthodox historians. It has always been the 
 pride of the Socinian chuches, and after centuries of per- 
 secution, which they have passed in defending it, they may 
 be pardoned in regarding it to-day as hardly less than in- 
 spired. Few of the more famous doctors of the church 
 have left such a monument of their genius and faith. We 
 here may justly prize the early testimony to what we believe 
 is to be at some time the faith of the universal church. 
 
THE SO C IN I. 3^7 
 
 The fame of Socinus rests not on the short story of his 
 life, but on this better creed than the creeds of the coun- 
 cils. From his sound beginning the great order of the 
 ages has yet to grow. 
 
 It does not fall within my plan here to tell the hard for- 
 tunes of the Socinian party — what injuries they bore, 
 what changes came over their fraternities. No sadder 
 chapter in the history of religion is written ; but it belongs 
 to a later age. Socinus left at his death a strong and 
 hopeful party. And his early followers so shared his 
 spirit that an English archbishop could say of them, when 
 half a century had passed, that they were the strongest 
 managers of a weak cause, and were in heart and head 
 above the doctors of every communion. 
 
368 THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 " So absolute, indeed, was the authority of the crown, 
 that the precious spark of Liberty had been kindled "and 
 was preserved by the Puritans alone ; and it was to this 
 sect, whose principles appear so frivolous, and habits so 
 ridiculous, that the English owe the whole freedom of 
 their constitution." Such is the testimony which the 
 philosophic historian of England, who hated the manners 
 and despised the dogmas of the Puritan fanatics, is con- 
 strained to bear to their influence in the age of Elizabeth. 
 Hume would gladly have avoided, if he might, an admis- 
 sion so troublesome to his favorite skepticism. But no 
 prejudice could cover for him the great fact which the 
 succeeding centuries have only continued to interpret on 
 both sides of the ocean, that these contemptible Puritans 
 have been the chief architects of civil and religious free- 
 dom. The spirit of individual right, which they fixed for- 
 ever in the statutes of the English realm, gave to the 
 philosopher the chance to publish unmolested his infidel 
 opinions, and substituted the grave answers of respectful 
 arguments for the rack and the fire by which skepticism 
 like his in an earlier day would have been speedily si- 
 lenced. It is to the very men, whose grotesque exterior 
 and whose blind enthusiasm are matter for satire to the 
 wits and scholars of the eighteenth century, that these owe 
 their freedom to laugh at things sacred, and to set before 
 the world their sophisms and their blasphemies. 
 
 No candid writer to-day, whatever his estimate of the 
 character or the theologv of the Puritans, will venture to 
 deny the statement of Hume, made more than half a cen- 
 tury ago. Indeed, in these last days, men of all parties 
 vie with each other in extolling the people whose name in 
 
THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 3^9 
 
 their own day was a synonym with the learned for narrow 
 bigotry, and with the refined for disgusting cant. The 
 American Anglo-Catholic even, in whom mental hallucina- 
 tion in this dav seems to reach its extreme, saves his talk 
 about the English Rebellion and Archbishop Laud from 
 perfect imbecility by admitting that the Puritans loved 
 liberty and established it. Even the crazy Romanist of 
 New England apologizes for the hard words which his sys- 
 tem compels him to say about the sect which produced 
 such men as Cartwright, Pym, Hampden and Winthrop, 
 and keeps pride in his lineage, though he hates the faith 
 which his ancestors prized. A reactionary criticism, in- 
 deed, delights just now to fasten upon the weak points of 
 the Puritan character; and men who have not manliness 
 enough to understand its self-sacrifice will enlarge upon 
 its harshness, its tyranny and its hatred of beauty. The 
 class of amateur Christians, to whom groined arches, and 
 costly pews, and luxurious music, and a sweet-voiced, 
 fashionable preacher make the substance of religion, are 
 given now to thank God that the Puritan Church exists 
 no longer, and that those grim sectarians are all in their 
 graves. The worshippers of Pagan art who go mad before 
 an undraped statue, wonder how men existed in the days 
 when truth and law was so much more than beauty. It is 
 quite common now to hear beardless youths, whose infor- 
 mation on the Puritans is derived from the vivacious pages 
 of the lighter magazines — a class of works into the secret 
 of which the soul of no Puritan could ever come — passing 
 severe judgment upon the men who have left Old and New 
 England what they are to-day. But when candor, and 
 learning, and philosophy, and genius and piety to-day 
 speak about the Puritans, they magnify this name. The 
 ringing sentences of Macaulay, which thrill every school- 
 boy as he reads, summon for us the array of praying war- 
 riors, with their sad, determined constancy, and their 
 terrible faith in God. The quaint sharpness of Carlyle's 
 tangled stvle shows us in clear outline from the Puritan 
 stock the genuine heroic profile. The swelling periods of 
 our native historian, Bancroft, rise to the dignity of elo- 
 quence when his filial reverence turns to describe the vir- 
 tues and glory of his fathers. Even the French Stoic, 
 24 
 
370 THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 calm in his praises of the liberals and the zealots of his 
 own brilliant nation, chooses for his warmest eulosT the 
 Calvinists of England and the statesmen of the Common- 
 wealth ; and Guizot has said what Mackintosh was always 
 hoping to say. The scholarship of New England has 
 widely departed from the creed of the Puritans. The 
 stvle of life and the style of thought for which they suf- 
 fered and fought has become curious, almost obsolete in 
 its chief features in the land which they colonized. Their 
 descendants worship now to the sound of organs and in 
 the sight of colors, and dread the tedious sermons to which 
 thev thronged with delight. The sports which they pro- 
 scribed are commended now, and the Sunday which we 
 keep is not the Sabbath wdiich they sanctified. Yet the 
 scholars and preachers of this land are loyal to their her- 
 itasre, love to renew the memory of their Pils^rim fathers, 
 and describe still in sermon and sonor the worth which 
 thev have learned from childhood to honor. When the 
 anniversary of their winter landins: returns, in what affec- 
 tionate fervor their tale is repeated, and the proud fulfil- 
 ment of their hope contrasted with the pains which they 
 bore. I have read a dowinsf tribute to their memory from 
 a descendant on the Pacific shores, where thirty years ago 
 there was an unbroken wilderness. 
 
 The materials for a just estimate of the character and 
 influence of the Puritans are ample. From every point of 
 view' they have been criticised, and have passed the ordeal 
 alike of party brand, of sectarian, of literary and of aesthetic 
 judgment. The high tory and the flaming radical, the 
 Romanist, the churchman, and the dissenter of many de- 
 grees, the lyceum lecturer and the college professor, have 
 taken care to make the world familiar with these singular 
 men. The relics of their industry in every department 
 are abundant. The tomes of their theolosfv still lend 
 weight to the libraries of divines, and many ministers still 
 delight in the solid thoughts of Baxter and Owen, of Chav- 
 nock and Howe. The epic of their great poet is one of 
 the world's classics ; no library is complete without the 
 Paradise Lost; and no student has learned of what the 
 composite English tongue is capable, unless he has spoken 
 the grand sentences, Saxon in their nerve and classic in 
 
THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 371 
 
 their roundness, of the prose works of John Milton. Who 
 has not followed the pilgrim's progress as the Puritan 
 Bunvan has marked it ? What fi2:ure stands out more 
 clear before us from history than the fisfure of Cromwell, 
 the plebeian ruler, whom Nature made for a despot, but 
 whose religion so teinpered his ambition that he stays in 
 perpetual contrast with the upstart tyrant of France. And 
 whose words of cheer and prophecy are uttered so often, 
 the blazon of progress and faith, as those noble parting 
 words of the Leyden pastor, " I am verily persuaded that 
 the Lord has more truth yet to break out from His holy 
 word." Truly, the educated child of New England parent- 
 age may write from his memory alone about the Puritans 
 and not write amiss. If he mistake about these men, it 
 must be through wilful blindness. 
 
 It would be a needless rashness, therefore, in me, to at- 
 tempt here an original estimate of the Puritan character, 
 or to trace the issues of their movement in the free insti- 
 tutions of England and America, when the most popular 
 English historians of both hemispheres have done this so 
 brilliantly. I shall go back to the origin of the Puritan 
 sect, and dwell upon the causes of the movement and its 
 earlier developments, and leave aside the tempting pas- 
 sages of the Commonwealth and the civil wars, in which 
 Puritanism proved itself in parliament and the field, bran- 
 dished its secular weapons, and wore its invincible armor. 
 The pictures of its early fortunes and sorrows have, per- 
 haps, a feebler coloring, and we cannot eliminate from 
 them such striking portraits. The names of which Puri- 
 tanism makes boast come chieflv in the later reisrns of 
 Charles and his successors. But there is enouofh in the 
 martyr period of the sect to attract our thoughtful regard. 
 The persecuted preachers of Elizabeth's reign were the 
 worthy precursors of the statesmen of the Commonwealth. 
 Cartwriiiht was not unworthv to be forerunner to Milton. 
 
 The name Puritans was not new in its application to a 
 party in the English Church. In the third centurv after 
 Christ, the word Cathari^ or pure^ had been applied to a 
 sect which denied the need of many ceremonies or much 
 display in the administration of worship. In the year 
 1564, it began to be used by a similar portion of the sub- 
 
372 THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 jects of Elizabeth. The Reformation of the English 
 Church had now reached a point when all danger of a 
 return to Rome seemed to be over. The atrocities of 
 Mary's rule had confirmed the Protestant spirit of the na- 
 tion, and with the expiring Smithfield fires fell the last hope 
 of regaining England to the authority of ultramontane 
 rule. The exiles of faith, returning from their continental 
 homes, brought with them an aversion to Popish rites and 
 practices which they would fain settle into law. They 
 hoped great things from the known firmness and the Prot- 
 estant education of the new queen. The daughter of Anne 
 Boleyn could never forgive the power which had slan- 
 dered her mother, and could never imitate the acts of that 
 sister whose unlawful supremacy had postponed her own 
 royal accession. But it was soon found that little favor 
 to religion was to be looked for from the cold-hearted, 
 self-willed, violent heir to the temper of Henry VIII. 
 Elizabeth was a Protestant indeed, so far as hatred to 
 Rome went, but not in loving the ritual or principles of 
 the Protestants. She had no idea of encouraging freedom 
 of will or freedom of thought among her subjects. She 
 dreaded the intrusion of ideas which might conflict with 
 her prerogative. Fond of display, she coveted the splen- 
 did apparatus of the Catholic service to add to the dig- 
 nity of her religious supremacy. The doctrines of the 
 ancient Church she had not renounced. The sacrifice of 
 the mass she pretended still to believe in, and authorized 
 the sign of the cross in her chapels. She wanted prelates 
 to discipline the church to her use and will, and hated 
 preachers who felt a motion to declare the word of God. 
 Everything which might keep and establish the majestic 
 order of the old hierarchy she favored. Everything which 
 tended to simplify religion, or awaken idea in the place of 
 form, she obstinately resisted. Neither the sagacity of her 
 counsellors nor the entreaties of her bishops could soften 
 her arrogant resolve. Heresy was to her less malignant 
 than schism ; she could pardon unsoundness in faith bet- 
 ter than uneasiness in service. At the beginning of her 
 reign, she found it difficult to force the English prelates 
 into conformity with her views. But when her determina- 
 tion became manifest, the reluctant loyalty of these men 
 
THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 373 
 
 consented, and they became partners in a persecution 
 whicli they had learned before to abhor. Two parties 
 greeted her accession. The one was the English party 
 proper, who had taken pride in their exile in holding to 
 all the customs and institutions of their native land, and 
 had refused in Frankfort and Geneva to identify them- 
 selves with the system of foreigners ; who wished to show 
 that they were loyal, though afflicted, and did not change 
 their hearts, though they might change their sky. The 
 other party was the Puritan party, who counted the re- 
 form unfinished in their own land, and gladly availed 
 themselves of the chance of exile to study the creeds and 
 the system of the foreign reformers. These remembered 
 the noble refusal of the martyred Hooper to wear at his 
 consecration the robes of a superstitious church. They 
 had treasured up the arguments of those doctors who had 
 declared in the reigns of Edward and Mary that a half 
 reform was contemptible, and that compromise with Anti- 
 christ was an insult to God, and had suffered for their 
 bold avow^al. The middle way of the more moderate 
 party seemed to them at once mean and dangerous, lack- 
 ing the first principle of all true protest. They found in 
 Geneva the model of a rational and scriptural church in 
 which freedom and order existed side by side, and moral 
 purity was the crown of their union. Fierce disputes arose 
 between these parties even in the time of their exile. The 
 encroaching zeal of the Puritans did not conciliate their 
 adversaries. Their doctrinal unity only made their an- 
 tipathy of system worse, as family quarrels are worse than 
 all other ; and they brought back to England a rooted 
 jealousy. It became soon evident that the adhesion of 
 the queen to the principles of the Church party proper 
 would not be meekly assented to. If the Puritans were 
 not formidable by numbers, they were well officered by 
 men of learning, and they had on their side a trenchant 
 and ready logic, and a terrible earnestness. Their preach- 
 ers were men of the people, and the bishops knew enough 
 of the English people to feel that there was danger in 
 irritating too far the masters of the popular mind. The 
 wiser among them advised concession and objected to any 
 process which should force recusants to violate their con- 
 
374 THE PUniTANS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 sciences in their submission to external forms. But Eliza- 
 beth was not to be reasoned with. She asked not advis- 
 ers, but only instruments of her will and pleasure. 
 
 On the twenty-fourth of June, 1559, the famous act of 
 uniformity became a law throug-hout the En^^lish realm. 
 By this act, all ministers were required to conform in dis- 
 cipline and in ritual to the canons of the Church as laid 
 down in the prayer-book of King Edward, under severe 
 penalties. The first opponents were of the Catholic party, 
 and all the bishops but one of Queen Mary's reign refused 
 to sign, and left their offices. Twelve months passed be- 
 fore men could be found to accept the vacant places in 
 sufficient numbers to consecrate the new archbishop. And 
 when Matthew Parker was solemnly ordained to the prima- 
 cy, the absence was noted of many of the ceremonies and 
 vestures which usually accompanied that service. The 
 new archbishop executed most unwillingly at first the 
 rigorous provisions of the new act. He felt at every step 
 that he was strengthening public opinion against the 
 Church. And though he had a heart not averse to perse- 
 cution, and was not troubled by any compassionate feel- 
 ings for the sufferers, he tried every expedient to evade 
 the impolitic service which the instances of his royal mis- 
 tress pressed upon him. The fifteen years of his ecclesi- 
 astic rule were, on the whole, more favorable to the growth 
 of the Puritan sect than might have been expected from 
 his habits and character. There were instances of cru- 
 elty, indeed, and burnings at the stake on trifling pre- 
 texts. Some were exiled. Some were imprisoned. Many 
 were deprived of their livings. They were insulted by the 
 mockery of trials. Their arguments were answered by 
 sneers and their plea of conscience was laughed at. Some 
 conformed, with mental reservations, as many do in sign- 
 ing the creeds to-day. But a large body, who go by the 
 name in history of non-conformists, utterly refused. 
 
 It is proper to state the grounds of the non-conformists, 
 that we may know exactly what it was which separated 
 our Puritan fathers from the national Church. In doctrine 
 they did not differ substantially from the dominant body. 
 The Arminian theory had not yet been adopted into the 
 English liturgy, and the peculiar views of the Romish 
 
THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 375 
 
 Church had bf.en dropped from the creed. It was heresy 
 to teach the "real presence," and John Knox found sym- 
 pathy among English prelates for his ultra-Calvinistic 
 views. Doctrinal ly, the Church of Elizabeth, and of those 
 who protested, were one. But the general objections of 
 the Puritans to the Church were summed under nine 
 general heads. 
 
 First — They denied that the bishop had any superior 
 right over his brethren in the ministry, or any title to lord- 
 ship in the state, and protested against the supremacy and 
 the worldliness of the Episcopal class. Second — They 
 held that the subordinate offices of deans, archdeacons, 
 etc., in which the Church abounded, were unlawful and 
 unscriptural. Third — They declared that the bishop had 
 no right of excommunication or punishment, no right to 
 depose, line or imprison men by virtue of his office, and 
 contended that such acts belonged exclusively to the secu- 
 lar power. Fourth — They denied that the bishop had any 
 right to admit members to the Church on his own respon- 
 sibility, and contended that it was the duty of the brethren 
 of the Church to decide upon the fitness of members 
 Fifth — To many parts of the liturgy they took serious ex- 
 ception, especially to parts of the marriage and burial ser- 
 vice, and to the frequent responses, which they considered 
 unmeaning and impertinent. The apocryphal books they 
 rejected. Sixth — They insisted that preaching was the 
 most important part of public worship. A man might 
 pray in private, but he went to church to hear the word of 
 God explained. They opposed, therefore, all sinecures in 
 the Church, all mere reading of a set written form. Sev- 
 enth — They repudiated the whole system of church festivals 
 and fasts as savoring of Popery, and unwarranted by Scrip- 
 ture, would not keep saint-days, Easter. Christmas or Lent, 
 but insisted that the Sunday was the Christian sabbath, to 
 be kept with the strictest holiness. Eighth — They vehe- 
 mently opposed the profane pomp of worship, as they 
 deemed it, especially in chanting the prayers and in the 
 use of musical instruments, and argued that they were the 
 late innovations of luxury upon worship. Their ninth ob- 
 jection, apparently most trivial of all, was in reality most 
 influential and grave. It pointed out numerous particu- 
 
376 THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 lars in the rubric which savored of superstition, and justi- 
 fied false views of Christian duty. There was the sign of 
 the cross in baptism, of which they doubted the sense ; 
 there was the bow at tlie name of Jesus, which seemed to 
 them to imply that Jesus was greater than God, that the 
 Son was more worthy of honor than the Father ; there was 
 the change of raiment during service, as if prayer de- 
 rived sanctity from the dress of the priest, or could not be 
 offered as truly in a black gown as a white one, as if sim- 
 plicity were not more acceptable to God than show ; there 
 was the whole formula of marriage, and especially its ring, 
 which seemed to them worse than folly, since it favored 
 the idea that marriage was a sacrament, instead of a civil 
 contract; there was the kneeling to receive the Lord's Sup- 
 per, a posture hostile to the idea of a feast of communion, 
 and tending to show a humility before men rather than God ; 
 there was the folly of godfathers and godmothers stand- 
 ing sponsors for children in whom they had no natural 
 right, and hindering the proper obligation of parents ; 
 all these and more abuses were denounced by the Puritans 
 as needless, profane and irreligious in their tendency. On 
 these points they took issue with the national Church and 
 insisted upon reform in each and all. For these they ar- 
 gued, voted and suffered. They preached in their churches 
 against these relics of Popery, and they confessed without 
 fear before the courts that to all these things they were 
 hostile. 
 
 The immediate successor of Parker in the archbishop's 
 chair, Edmund Grindal, whose learning and eloquence 
 had raised him to a station of which the mildness of his 
 temper seemed to unfit him to exercise the authority, pur- 
 sued with the Puritans the policy of conciliation ; nor could 
 the threats, or even the punishments which the queen 
 bestowed upon him, induce him to act the part of a perse- 
 cutor. He loved the system of Calvin too well to deal 
 harshly with its adherents. And though he indignantly 
 repelled the accusation of being a Puritan, and pretended 
 that he was a zealous friend to the Establishment, it is 
 certain that many of the contumacious preachers were left 
 unmolested in sowing their sedition. Their places of wor- 
 ship were resorted to, to the neglect of the parish churches. 
 
THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND, 377 
 
 The men and ladies of noble families went to visit them in 
 prison ; and their writings were preserved and prized. 
 The eight years of Grindal's primacy gave the Puritans 
 abundant chances to explain and commend their doc- 
 trines, and to justify before the people their contumacy in 
 resisting abuses. 
 
 But the death of this prelate, in the year 1583, changed 
 at once their prospects. Dr. John Whitgift, the champion 
 of the Church in the halls of debate, a man of great abil- 
 ity and acuteness, but of an energy and iron will after the 
 queen's own heart, was raised to the vacant see. Whit- 
 gift hated the Puritans with all the vehemence of his fiery 
 nature. He remembered how Thomas Cartwright had ven- 
 tured to dispute with him at Cambridge, and what the 
 popular verdict was upon their reasoning. He rejoiced 
 in the occasion of now venting that wrath which want of 
 power for so many years had compelled him to restrain. 
 He decreed that no Puritan minister should teach in the 
 English land. All non-conforming ministers were sus- 
 pended from their official functions. They went out into 
 the fields and woods, but it was declared a crime to hear 
 them there. It became daniierous for the nobles to har- 
 bor Puritans in their houses. The haughty sovereign 
 commended her archbishop, and though her civil minis- 
 ters remonstrated and pointed out the sure disaster of 
 alienating so large a portion of intelligent and influential 
 men, she justified the establishment of a Court of High 
 Commission, whose business it should be to hunt out and 
 punish Puritans. Many thought of the Inquisition, and 
 some dared to say — even privy counsellors to her Majesty 
 — that it was only the introduction to England, under an- 
 other name, of that infamous tribunal. But it was de- 
 creed, and it pursued with vigor its fatal work. It sent 
 spies into the houses even of faithful churchmen, and dif- 
 fused everywhere fear, distrust and indignation. The 
 result was what might have been foreseen. The con- 
 sciences of men could not be forced. And the zeal of the 
 Puritans took on the darker fire of a sullen vengeance. 
 
 In the beginning the Puritans were far from wishing to 
 be schismatics, or to break their connection with the 
 Church in their land. Tiiey would gladly have retained 
 
378 THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 its offices, and they were true Englishmen in their unwil- 
 lingness to rebel. They wanted to reform the Church, 
 not to break from it. They wanted to purify the altar 
 already built, not to build a rival altar. But now oppres- 
 sion drove them to more radical thoughts. Was it need- 
 ful to bear any longer with that which so cruelly cast them 
 out.'* Was that a true Church of Christ which kept so 
 many of the features of the false Church at Rome ? 
 Should they try any farther to redeem what God had 
 evidently maddened to its own destruction ? The Bible, 
 newly translated, helped the Puritans to decide their 
 course. They compared the Church of Elizabeth with 
 the model of that hierarchy which God, through Moses, 
 founded, and saw how widely it lacked the old Hebrew 
 strength, simplicity and reverence. They seemed to be 
 the remnant of the faithful in an idolatrous nation. And 
 though loyal still to the crown, ready to fight in the armies 
 of the queen and to pray against her enemies, they began to 
 meditate their mission as the heralds of a new crusade. 
 The time had not come for an outbreak. The day of sub- 
 mission was not over. The wilderness wandering had not 
 fulfilled its forty years. But the queen could not live for- 
 ever. And it was permitted then to look with longing to 
 the prospect of another freer rule when their childless 
 tvrant should be laid with her fathers. The heir to the 
 throne was nurtured in a church modelled more on the 
 apostolic plan. The people of Scotland had now banished 
 all prelacy from their borders, and installed the ideas and 
 customs of the Church at Geneva. The encouraging word 
 of Knox and Maitland came to remind them that God was 
 living, and a just God would care for his own. And great 
 thoughts of the future consoled them for their present 
 affliction. It became their duty now in every lawful way 
 to accustom men to liberal ideas of church law, and to 
 prepare the way for an overthrow of the Episcopal power. 
 Driven out from the churches, the Puritans claimed their 
 place as citizens and statesmen in the popular branch of 
 parliament. Questions of prerogative came to discussion 
 at that bar, where the votes of the people fixed their rights 
 and gave to the crown its supplies. There were not want- 
 ing those who hinted that an outraged people might be 
 
THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 379 
 
 constrained to resist by force what they could not conquer 
 by pleading. Cartwright had declared that the enemies of 
 God's Church might deserve death as well as common 
 murderers. And the Saxon lineage of his followers pre- 
 pared them to take the field, like Israel of old, in defense 
 of their faith. The ministry, ejected from their pulpits, 
 found places to speak and multitudes to listen. The spies 
 of the archbishop could not frighten them from the duty 
 of prophesying. "Woe is me," was their language, *' if 1 
 preach not the counsel of God unto you." The greater 
 danger only added to the vehemence. What they could 
 not do so safely or so often, they did more intensely. If 
 the churches could not add the associations of familiar 
 worship to their meetings, they had the Bible, and carried 
 it with them, and could expound from it the truths of sal- 
 vation wherever men gathered to listen. The words of the 
 prophets could ring with as clear a sound, though heard 
 along the highway, as within sacred walls. 
 
 Fanatics are appointed in God's providence to go before 
 every moral and religious movement, and to utter in ex- 
 travagant speech its inspirations. They offend the taste 
 and the prudence of those who stop to reason, but they 
 declare a word which prudence and culture will take up and 
 apply. It is unjust and unwise to condemn for their vio- 
 lence those in whom sincerity and zeal outruns discretion. 
 The Puritans had their fanatics, who became party lead- 
 ers, and perilled the cause of religious freedom by their 
 untimely violence. Chief among these was Robert Brown, 
 who gave his name to a numerous sect, which was for a 
 time confounded with the whole Puritan party. Brown 
 was a young man of noble connections, a graduate of the 
 Cambridge University and a clergyman of the Church. 
 But his temper and his tongue were alike under weak con- 
 trol. His opinions prevented him from gaining any liv- 
 ing in the establishment. But in default of this, he be- 
 came an itinerant missionary of the new opinions, went 
 about the country haranguing against the ceremonies of 
 the Church and the whole system of ordinations, bishops 
 and festivals, challenging the clergy everywhere to debate 
 with him, and courting their violence. He was imprisoned 
 again and again, but only to boast the more when released 
 
380 THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND, 
 
 of his patience in bearing hardness and his resemblance 
 here to the great Christian apostle. In 1582 he published 
 a book on the Life and Manners of True Christians, in 
 which he urged ministers not to wait for any official decree, 
 but to take the reformation of the Church into their own 
 hands. Disciples, of course, thronged around him. If his 
 spirit were not quite meek and saint-like, nor his speech 
 of the choicest, he would be a religious hero, who could 
 tell of thirty-two prisons which he had occupied, some so 
 dark that he could not see his hand at noondav. His con- 
 gregation, dispersed by royal authority, fixed themselves 
 at Middleburg, in one of the Dutch provinces, where for a 
 few years they kept their worship and held together. But 
 the character of their leader was not stable enough for a 
 quiet life ; his zeal grew cold ; he went back to England, 
 took orders in the Church, became a profligate, and died 
 without reputation at an advanced age. But his principles 
 did not fall with his apostasy. The truths which he had 
 spoken took root in the hearts of many more pious and 
 faithful. They appealed to the sober reason of men not 
 easily deluded; and they attracted many before John Rob- 
 inson worthy to be reckoned as his companions. 
 
 The principles of the Brownists were few and simple. 
 Their model of discipline was the Church of the Apostles. 
 The centre of their church union was a covenant similar 
 to the' New England covenants to-day, declaring the Bible 
 and its ordinances the sole guide of their conduct. All 
 signed this, and each new member made before his breth- 
 ren profession of the essentials of his faith. The ministers 
 had no power but what the people gave them. A majority 
 of voices chose them and ordained their duties. There 
 were pastors to administer the rites of the Church, teach- 
 ers to speak its word, and elders to pray with its sick and 
 succor its poor. Every man had a right to question his 
 Christian guides as to their opinions, and to speak at the 
 proper time and place any word which the spirit might 
 move him. All congregations were independe7it. No min- 
 ister had any right out of his own, even to preach, and no 
 interference was allowed of any other in an act of disci- 
 pline. There were no set forms of worship. The govern- 
 ment was a democracy. 
 
THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 381 
 
 Martyrdom sanctified the radicals' theory of this new 
 body of separatists. The queen chose to construe a denial 
 of her supremacy in the Church as treason against her 
 state ; and in spite of the protest of the Brownists that 
 they were ready to die in her defense, and that they loved 
 her as their lawful ruler, they were tried and condemned 
 as traitors. Henry Bawawe, after Brown the most zealous 
 preacher (5f the new views, with Greenwood, a learned and 
 eminent divine, were executed at Tyburn like the vilest 
 criminals. The weak denial of John Udell of the party 
 whose principles he had defended, extorted by his severe 
 trials, did not save him from death in a prison. The 
 Brownists had a double foe to contend with — the party of 
 the queen and the Puritan party proper, whose sympathies 
 went with the Presbyterians of Scotland rather than with 
 the Independent system. The beginning of that long 
 strife now appeared which raged so fiercely in the wars of 
 the next century and brought the army in to crush the 
 parliament. The Puritans were more indignant with the 
 Brownists, because they suffered for the bad name of these 
 men. They had to bear the obloquy, as moderate reform- 
 ers in all time must, of the extreme opinions of their 
 party. The repudiation of an unpopular name did not 
 screen them from the royal hatred. It mattered little to 
 Whitgift and his brethren how far the Puritans went — 
 whether to a criticism of the Church forms or a rejection 
 of the whole Church system. The fault was in encourag- 
 ing at all the rebellion. The archbishop and the queen 
 knew but two parties — those who were for and those who 
 were against them — and were as indifferent as Pilate to 
 the quarrels of Puritans among themselves. It was joy 
 only to find such unquestionable fanaticism as might au- 
 thorize persecution. Cartwright and his brethren, who 
 would do everything but acknowledge the queen's suprem- 
 acy, denounced in vain from their prison the excesses of 
 Racket and his prophets ; a raving blasphemer, who called 
 himself King Jesus and stirred up the people to revolu- 
 tion. The moderate party failed alike with the Court and 
 the people — with the Court, because all shades of schism 
 were alike criminal, and with the people, because they 
 seemed afraid to follow their principles to just conclusions. 
 
382 THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Nobody pitied them for their sufferings, and many despised 
 them for their faintheartedness. 
 
 In the meantime, the Puritan party made constant prog- 
 ress. All the vigilance of Whitgift could not prevent the 
 books of the Reformers from finding their way among the 
 people. In numerous noble houses the domestic chaplain 
 was a preacher of the new sect. The reformed book of 
 discipline, signed at first by more than eight hundred min- 
 isters, found sympathy with a much larger number. In- 
 genious expedients were discovered to evade the law about 
 worship. This act, one of the most arbitrary and disgrace- 
 ful of Elizabeth's reign, provided that any who should 
 print, write or speak words against the established wor- 
 ship, or should attend any unlawful meeting, or, being 
 above sixteen years of age, should fail for one month to 
 hear divine service in some regular church or chapel, 
 should suffer perpetual banishment. The moderates got 
 along with this last provision by going to church when ser- 
 vice was almost over and compromising with conscience ; 
 but the Brownists would not yield, and mostly went into 
 exile. 
 
 Such was the state of things in the year 1603, when 
 James of Scotland succeeded to the throne of Elizabeth. 
 The number of Puritans of various parties was estimated 
 at several hundred thousand, a considerable portion of 
 w^hom adopted the extreme opinions. The Church at 
 Amsterdam had become consolidated, and in other towns 
 of Holland and other states of Europe the refugees gath- 
 ered their communities and held their worship. The Eng- 
 lish people, weary of the tyranny of their arbitrary queen, 
 rejoiced at her death, and all believed that the policy of 
 her successor would lie in another direction. The Pres- 
 byterians relied upon his known and expressed admiration 
 of their religious system. And the first greetings of his 
 reicfn were a demand of the Puritans for a restoration of 
 their rights and a repeal of the unjust statutes against 
 them. Before he entered London, the great Millenary 
 petition, subscribed by a thousand ministers, was put into 
 his hands, in which the grievances were set forth and re- 
 dress demanded. In the next year a solemn conference 
 was held at Hampton Court in the presence of the king, 
 
THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. ^8$ 
 
 in which four leading Puritan divines sustained the cause 
 of reform against all the chief prelates of the Church. 
 The splendor of attire in which these prelates appeared, 
 their sophistry, their entreaties and their subtle flatteries, 
 contrasted with the simple, frank and bold manner of the 
 Puritans, fatally wrought upon the weak mind of the mon- 
 arch. His arbitrary temper could not brook any language 
 which savored of freedom. His manner to the churchmen 
 was as o^racious as it was harsh to the Reformers. And 
 when Whitgift exclaimed, in the utterance of an opinion, 
 " undoubtedly your majesty speaks by the special aid of 
 God's spirit," the submission of James to the will of the 
 Church was complete, and the Puritans saw that there was 
 nothing more to hope for. The declaratioil of the king 
 was absolute, sharp and final. He claimed entire con- 
 formity, declared that he would have no judges of his right 
 or authority, and that he would harry all recusants, what- 
 ever their station, out of the land. The stubborn should 
 hang for it. He declared that the prayer-book should be 
 the approved manual of worship, and confirmed by new 
 sanctions the court of High Commission. His assump- 
 tions were more confident from the pedantry with which 
 they were supported. James imagined himself to be a 
 profound theologian and a univ^ersal scholar. He fell into 
 the common error of believing himself competent to decide 
 points about which he had merely heard others talk. Edu- 
 cated in the midst of the religious controversies of Scot- 
 land, and wonted to the long sermons of those painful 
 preachers, in which the metaphysics of most abstruse 
 divinity were so skillfully dispensed, he seemed to himself 
 to possess the requisites of a consummate doctor, and had 
 always longed for a field where he might prove without 
 hindrance the quality of his knowledge. In Scotland, he 
 had been hampered by the obstinacy of the preachers, who 
 knew his weakness and would not flatter it, and who made 
 him a tool of their purposes. But in England he saw in 
 the hierarchy a proper tool of arbitrary power, and he 
 eagerly seized it. Here he could be a dictator of faith, 
 and men would acknowledge the ability and the learning 
 that his native land had so liirhtlv esteemed. 
 
 His Sacred Majesty, therefore (for that was the title 
 
384 THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 which James assumed), began by assuring the Church of 
 his favor and protection, and by increasing the penalties 
 of the Puritan heresy, as he called it. Three hundred 
 ministers were at once deprived of their charges, and 
 Bancroft, the new archbishop, was encouraged to rival 
 Whitgift in his execution of discipline. Suspicion of Pu- 
 ritan sentiments became as bad as the crime itself. And 
 he who could recommend to the Dutch states to burn their 
 Arminian professor, proved by various examples in that 
 kind that he was sincere in his advice. But the rack and 
 the stake could not now hinder the fanaticism which had 
 possessed the people. The strong men, driven into for- 
 eign lands, were not silenced. And the king was defied to 
 seal the lips which God's spirit had opened. The warning 
 voice of the great Lord Bacon prophesied of danger to 
 come in such summary dealing. But the great philosopher 
 had learned to cringe, and James could not fear his venal 
 spirit. Everything seemed to work against the Puritans 
 — the influence of law, of royalty, of wealth — yet their 
 numbers increased ; their zeal waxed warmer ; their preach- 
 ers discussed the divine right of kings, and hope pointed 
 them vaguely to a near promised land of deliverance. 
 They could rejoice in the choice of Abbot as archbishop, 
 whose suffrage was uniformly given for liberal and chari- 
 table measures, and who, half a Puritan at heart, would 
 not execute the laws to which he was compelled to assent. 
 The luxurious and dissolute habits of the king offered a 
 striking contrast to their stern and austere sanctity. The 
 taxes under which the people groaned to supply his ex- 
 travagance, were arguments in favor of a purer religion. 
 They could take courage in the fact that a new translation 
 of the Bible, by the king's authority, was now given to the 
 people. The distant churches of Scotland and Ireland 
 sent word to their suffering brethren to persevere in the 
 faith. And in Leyden a notable pastor was preaching 
 with vigor and success the gospel of a full religious free- 
 dom. 
 
 To John Robinson is assigned the honor of being the 
 father of the Independent sect. And if his recorded words 
 testify to the spirit of his teaching, the name was not un- 
 justly given. In England he had been a Brownist of the 
 
THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. ^8; 
 
 o'-'j 
 
 most earnest kind, and had shared with his small congre- 
 gation many perils and wanderings. But his heart was 
 not naturally violent. And when, in 1610, he established 
 his church in peace at Leyden, he was able to see, m com- 
 paring his own church with the churches of the friendly 
 land which received him, that the difference was not very 
 wide, and that a reasonable charity was better than a rigid 
 separation. Adhering to the theory that each church was 
 free to choose its own guides and ordain its own rules, he 
 yet recognized the fraternal tie among Christians of differ- 
 ent name, and welcomed to the table of his communion 
 members of all Christian bodies. He would pray with the 
 Arminians and invite them to preach in his stead, would 
 ask their advice in troubles, and take counsel with them 
 on questions of doctrine or duty. The consistent and 
 beautiful life which he lived won the regard even of the 
 bigoted Calvinists of Holland, and they tolerated the bold 
 Englishman, who preached a creed, unlike theirs, looking 
 forward for its development instead of backward for its 
 sanction. Ten years in peace the congregation kept to- 
 gether. But it pained the catholic heart of Robinson to 
 behold the discords of his adopted land, and to see the 
 brethren of a noble religious heritage neglecting the war- 
 fare with Antichrist to fight about the obscurest notions of 
 theology. He feared that the congregation could not 
 dwell in peace much longer in a land which could deal so 
 basely with the noblest of its children. 
 
 A new world, in which England and Holland had al- 
 ready planted colonies, invited them at once to a home of 
 safety and a missionary achievement. They had heard 
 of the fair lands of Virginia, and the noble river on which 
 Hudson had sailed. Would it not be a noble work for 
 them to found on this virgin soil the substantial structure 
 of a true Christian Church, and anticipate prelacy on what 
 might be the future seat of a mighty empire.? In the 
 Dutch land, the language was uncouth, the style of living 
 ungraceful, and there was nothing to give them the home 
 feeling which they longed for. However kindly treated, 
 they were always strangers there. They longed for a 
 country which they might call their own, and hear only 
 the music of their own tongue, and be free from the exile 
 
 25 
 
386 THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 feeling. It seemed hopeless to wait longer for a change 
 in the English state, which might give them return to the 
 pleasant fields which they had left. The prince on whom 
 they had fixed their hopes, that Henry, whose generous 
 word had gone forth that his first royal act should be to 
 abrogate all that his father had done against the Puritans, 
 and to free his realm from religious bondage, had been 
 cut off prematurely, and in the hard, willful and morose 
 temper of the single remaining son of James they feared 
 only a more implacable ruler. 
 
 Their resolve was taken. Agents, sent over to England, 
 with some difficulty procured a grant of land in the north- 
 ern portion of the Plymouth patent. A few men of capital 
 were enlisted in the enterprise, one ship was bought and 
 another hired, and in July of 1620, one hundred or more 
 of the congregation of John Robinson set sail for the New 
 World. They were of either sex and there were children 
 among them. The parting at Delft Haven is one of the 
 touching incidents which the gratitude of the world will 
 not suffer to be forgotten. Every child to-day has in 
 imagination a picture of that scene; the noble pastor, 
 John Robinson, uttering such brave words of cheer, bid- 
 ding them inscribe on their covenant as its first article, 
 that they be ready to receive whatever truth should be 
 made known to them from the written word of God, — the 
 embraces, the tears, the prayers and psalms, as parents 
 and children separated, uncertain of ev^er meeting again, — 
 why need I dwell upon the household story of New Eng- 
 land ? History has called that little band by the name 
 of Pilgrims, repeating so, not the memories of the Chris- 
 tian ages, when the feet of the devout were turned to the 
 city of David's reign and Jesus' dying, and faith knelt at 
 the shrine of the nations, but that elder tradition which 
 showed the wanderers of God seeking, as he should guide 
 them, the house of their refuge. If the new land had, to 
 the Church of Robinson no legendary holiness, its very 
 bleakness and desolation became beautiful, because there 
 the promise rested. It was sacred, because in that barren 
 field they could raise their Ebenezer, the sign of a king- 
 dom which God should build and bless. 
 
 Shall I leave the track of Puritan history to follow the 
 
THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 387 
 
 fortunes of that little band, their hardships on the sea, 
 and their hardships on the shore, the struggle with the 
 elements which greeted them so roughly, and the pesti- 
 lence, not more kind to them than to their savage foes, 
 shall I tell of their journeys in the forest, shall I examine 
 that charter of government, which, drawn up on the ocean, 
 became on the land the pledge of their stability and free- 
 dom, and which is held now in reverence by all who love 
 God and liberty, shall I show you the custom of a New 
 England home in that early day, or a New England Court, 
 or a New England Church, how Allerton appointed his 
 household, how Bradford governed, or how Brewster 
 preached and prayed ; or need I describe to you the later 
 rise of the larger Colony of Massachusetts, when the hun- 
 ted Puritans came, not by hundreds but by thousands, 
 and the pupils of Oxford and Cambridge, with their wives 
 of gentle blood, gladly exchanged their hopes of prefer- 
 ment and the turmoils in the land of their birth, for peace 
 and security as the pioneers of their faith had found it ; 
 or mark for you the character of that company, the ances- 
 tors of patrician races, Winthrop and Endicott, born to be 
 magistrates, and Cotton and Higginson, in whose numer- 
 ous descendants the religious constancy and the large 
 genius of their honorable line is still manifest ? 
 
 We leave, therefore, the Puritans of New England, 
 whose fortunes and character it is a shame for any intelli- 
 gent child whose school-days have far advanced not to 
 know by heart, to take a parting view of that larger body 
 of which the colonies of New England were but a slender 
 offshoot. We go back to the fatherland, where, during 
 the settlements on these shores, the Puritan elements have 
 been working to fearful issues. We pass over fifty years 
 of English history, and take our stand in the middle of the 
 seventeenth century. Puritanism has now reached the 
 apex of its power. It has gone steadily upward, battling 
 with royal prerogative, asserting popular rights, striking 
 down tyranny in its outworks, surrounding it with deter- 
 mined rebellion, till at last it has voted in solemn session 
 that no right divine doth hedge a king, and has brought 
 in the face of the princes of Europe, the descendant of 
 fifty monarchs to the traitors' block, it has numbered 
 
388 THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 among its orators such men as Pym and Hampden, and 
 Sidney and Vane — models to-dav and forever of the for- 
 ensic orator and the ardent patriot, it has proved the 
 true alHance of Church and State in the principles of free- 
 dom and the recognition of human rights on which both 
 rest, and torn asunder the false alHance of form and statute ; 
 it has organized armies more than a match for veteran loy- 
 alty, and shifted its field of conflict from the halls of Par- 
 liament to the red fields of Marston Moor, Naseby and Wor- 
 cester; its keen diplomacy has become dangerous abroad, 
 and its words of menace at home the signal of triumph. It 
 has Cromwell now to lead its invincible hosts, and Milton 
 to defend its acts of daring. It has turned upon the 
 primate of the Church his work of tyranny, stripped him 
 one by one of all his ecclesiastic robes, tortured him with 
 the mockery of an almost endless trial, and consigned him 
 at last to the doom of the vilest criminal. The great ene- 
 mies of God's people are vanquished, and Laud has shared 
 the fate of Strafford. The great University of Oxford, the 
 bulwark of the ancient church, has passed to its control, 
 and the painful preachers take the place of the exiled 
 heads of the schools, and compel the students to listen to 
 their long expositions of the word of God. In the cathedral 
 pulpits, Presbyterian divines now dispense the metaphysics 
 of Calvin and denounce the idolatrous pomp which before 
 marked worship there. The great assembly of divines has 
 met at Westminster and passed upon the form and dis- 
 cipline of a true Church of Christ ; has composed larger 
 and smaller manuals of faith, to remain forever as cate- 
 chisms for the believers, and has decreed that the Protest- 
 antism of England shall lie in its soundness of faith more 
 than its gorgeousness of ritual. Fanatics of a new stamp 
 have arisen, who proclaim the Puritans of England to be 
 the first artificers of the new and final monarch of God, 
 and add the English Republic as fifth to the empires of 
 Assyria, of Persia, of Greece and Rome. Millenaries pro- 
 claim in the ranks of the army that the acceptable year of 
 the Lord is at hand, and Separatists call upon the ignorant 
 to hear the inspiration and come out from the ministry of 
 those whom knowledge hath puffed up. The catalogue of 
 heretical sects proscribed by parliament is already a long 
 
THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 389 
 
 one, in doctrines from the Arminians to the Skeptics, in 
 discipline from the Antinomians to the Familists and 
 Ranters. The land is full of pamphlets which hot brains 
 have forged and busy hands are scattering. The leisure 
 of the camp and the peace of the Lord's Day are disturbed 
 by the jangling of controversy. The most abstruse questions 
 mingle with the most practical debates, and the speech of 
 Scripture makes the burden of forensic eloquence and 
 martial dispatches. In the ranks of the armies the Hebrew 
 names have nearly supplanted those of the ancient Saxon 
 day, and the fiercest bear strangely the titles of some 
 milder christian virtues. A new style of morality has 
 come in, and the profane sports of monarchy are made by 
 statute unlawful. The wearing of hair, the attendance on 
 spectacles, the indulgence in dancing and music, the keep- 
 ing of the Sabbath, are all cared for by statute, and woe 
 now to any offender. Gravity, sobriety and the fear of 
 God have cast out the implements of divided worship. 
 The revenues of the Episcopal office are sequestered to 
 the needs of the troops or the services of the tabernacles, 
 and pictures no longer adorn the walls of the ancient 
 churches. The Bible has survived alone the iconoclasm. 
 The cross reminds worshippers no longer of the Calvary, 
 and even from Lambeth Chapel, where archbishops for 
 many centuries had knelt to the solemn chanting, the 
 oro:an is taken awav. The Sabbath eveninsr stillness is 
 broken even in London city only by the psalms, as one 
 hears them from the window sung by the pious father 
 with his children around him. Beneath all the fanaticism 
 an avv'ful seriousness reigns. There is the consciousness 
 of power, but the stillness of fear, godliness without hap- 
 piness, union without love, the life of those who live on the 
 volcano slope, quiet on the surface but heaving beneath 
 them with its mighty forces, and folding over them the 
 lurid shadow of its smoking cone. 
 
 It is from this culminating point of Puritan history, when 
 the name was dropped but the reality was intensest, that the 
 novelists and historians have drawn their pictures of the sect. 
 The Puritan character, as we know it, appeared then in all 
 the concentration and force of its elements. Its deep, un- 
 doubting, immovable faith, that sense of God's presence 
 
39 o THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 which dwarfed all fear of man ; its fiery, resolute, daring 
 energy, rushing on against every obstacle and every foe ; 
 its conflicts of humility and zeal, of austere sanctity and 
 bitter penitence ; its rage in battle, balanced by its ear- 
 nestness in prayer ; its calmness in demeanor covering a 
 heart steeled against compassion ; its stern sense of jus- 
 tice, bearing timid men even on to regicide ; its stoical 
 firmness, caring not for the praises or the abuses of men, 
 but relying only on the approving voice of God ; its indi- 
 vidualism, making every man the keeper of the trust of an 
 infinite soul, and its spirit of congregation, binding all the 
 brethren into a church of God's elect, to whom the king- 
 dom of heaven was promised — all show the finest illustra- 
 tion in this period of Cromwell's power. 
 
 No single name can be selected as giving the complete 
 type of the Puritan character. But in Richard Baxter 
 more than any other are the elements of that character 
 found, and in finer combination. His long life of seventy- 
 six years was spent throughout in service to the cause of 
 pure religion. He deserved well the reproach upon his 
 gravestone, that " he was the sworn enemy of kings and 
 bishops and in himself the very bond of rebels." He 
 loved virtue better than honor, truth better than applause, 
 and God more than any man. His affectionate v^^ord was 
 the mediator between the contending sects of the Puritan 
 party, and yet none were more faithful than he to the 
 principles of freedom. His ever-busy pen gave testimony 
 that he was at once constant to watch and earnest to per- 
 suade ; and one hundred and sixty-eight publications are 
 the memorial of his industry, his piety and his genius. 
 His Call to the Unconverted was the marvel of. his own 
 day in its wide influence and its rapid sale ; twenty thou- 
 sand were disposed of in a single year. And even now, 
 sects which have widely departed from his dark theology 
 commend this tract to their disciples, and place it by the 
 side of that other sweeter tract of the same author, the 
 Saints' Everlasting Rest. He has given us from his own 
 pen the story of his life and experience, and his reflections 
 are worthy in their wisdom to stand by the side of the 
 great philosopher, whose universal fame his childhood 
 early learned to envy. Forced all his life into controver- 
 
THE PURITANS OF ENGLAND. 391 
 
 sies of various kinds, and sustaining tliem with matchless 
 vigor, he yet longed in his heart for peace, and learned 
 with advancinor davs to be charitable with error. The 
 pressure of calumny could not deter him from duty. The 
 misunderstandings of friends could not weary him of main- 
 taining their cause. He was bold before his accusers, but 
 to the insolent Jeffries he returned only the answer of a 
 Christian. A lover of philosophy, he sought the best 
 philosophy in the teachings of the gospel. He could not 
 blame the zealous for their excess, when he remembered 
 that it was for the service of Christ. Yet he counselled 
 no violence and praised no evil done to the glory of God. 
 He was one of the Puritan saints, unyielding, uncomprom- 
 ising where principle was at stake, yet humble as a little 
 child when he spoke of the goodness and love of God. 
 His enemies admired his learning, confessed his purity 
 and dreaded his power. Cromwell felt from him the 
 check of that single love of God in which worldly ambition 
 could find no place, and the usurper was cautious of one 
 who could refuse the emoluments and honors of a bishop's 
 place. A virtual martyrdom allies him to the noble army 
 who aforetime suffered for the faith, and the Puritans 
 proudly compare him to that bishop of the church who 
 was from the first his rival in eloquence and letters. If 
 the scholarship of Jeremy Taylor was more luxuriant, and 
 his fancy more quaint and various, the theology of Richard 
 Baxter was more robust and his reasoning more close to 
 conviction. No library is complete which does not hold 
 the chief productions of both these great men. But the 
 works of Taylor will be rather the joy of literary leisure, 
 while the works of Baxter will be the food of the spiritual 
 life. The prelate will take captive the senses by the 
 charm of his genius, while the Puritan will fasten the soul 
 to the power of his divine wisdom. 
 
392 UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES. 
 
 KYI. 
 
 UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES AND DOCTRINES. 
 
 " Who art thou that judgest another man's servant ? To his own 
 master he standeth or falleth. Let every man be fully persuaded in 
 his own mind." — Romans xiv. 4, 5. 
 
 These words of Paul to the Romans are suitable to 
 preface a statement of the principles and doctrines of the 
 Unitarian sect of Christians. Those who deny to this sect 
 the name of Christian show only their want of acquaint- 
 ance with its writing and its preaching. It is very easy to 
 make the charge of "infidelity" against a religious body ; 
 but to intelligent minds those who make this charge only 
 exhibit their own want of charity or knowledge. Men do 
 not build churches, hold public worship, support ministers, 
 and spend money in works which look exactly like Chris- 
 tian works, and are just what other churches do which call 
 themselves Christians, while all the time they are infidels 
 or atheists. There are some absurdities so patent that 
 they refute themselves, and bring confusion upon their 
 prophets ; and to say that Unitarians, who have churches 
 in America, and England, and France, and Holland, and 
 Switzerland, and Germany, and Austria, and have had 
 them for hundreds of years ; who pray in Christ's name, 
 and sing hymns in his honor, and commend his example, 
 and repeat his characteristic works, — to say that a sect 
 of this kind is not " Christian," is one of the absurdities that 
 would be incredible, if men were not found foolish enough 
 to utter it. A similar utterance was that of those Phari- 
 sees who ventured to say that Jesus could not be God's 
 prophet, because he did not keep the Sabbath day in their 
 fashion. More sensible men at once answered them that 
 the acts of the healer, and the words of the teacher, 
 proved sufficiently that he was a prophet from God. 
 
UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES. 393 
 
 There were "blind leaders of the blind" in Judea eight- 
 een hundred years ago, and there are blind leaders of the 
 blind in our time. And there are no persons whom these 
 words of Jesus more accurately describe than those who 
 deny the Christian name to a religious body of whose ideas 
 and principles they are ignorant, which they take no pains 
 to know, and who only care to foster the illusion of those 
 who know as little of it as themselves. Paul has v/ords of 
 this class of men, too, in that first letter of his to Timothy, 
 where he speaks of persons "desiring to be teachers of the 
 law : understanding neither what they say, nor whereof 
 they affirm." 
 
 There is no need of refuting a charge which refutes it- 
 self to a thoughtful mind from the facts which cannot be 
 denied. But a simple statement of Unitarian principles 
 and doctrines, which might be made throughout from the 
 very words of Jesus, may show more clearly the folly of 
 the charge so loosely brought. We separate the princi- 
 ples from the doctrines, since the first are the working 
 force of a religious body, the second only its temporar}?^, 
 possibly its shifting, opinions. Every church must be 
 judged by its principles, by its ideas, by the ideas which 
 move it and give it power. Now, no church has principles 
 more distinctly defined, more universally admitted, than 
 the Unitarian Church. The Episcopal, or Presbyterian, 
 or Baptist, or Methodist bodies cannot be surer of their 
 ideas than the Unitariaji. There are certain principles, 
 on which all our churches, all our ministers, all our men 
 and women, communicants and non-communicants, what- 
 ever their different notions about one or another do2:ma ; — 
 certain principles, upon which all are agreed, which all in 
 our body recognize and magnify. 
 
 I. The first of these principles is the grand Protestant 
 principle of the right of private judginent. We hold to this 
 in the fullest extent. We say that every man has a right 
 to form his creed for himself, from his own investigation, 
 thought, and conviction, and that no one has a right to 
 hamper him in the process of finding this, or to dictate 
 to him by authority what he shall believe ; that there 
 shall be absolute and perfect freedom for all men in com- 
 ing to religious truth as much as to any other truth. We 
 
394 UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES. 
 
 say that no councils, no synods, no catechisms, no fathers 
 of the church, no doctors of the church, no preachers, no 
 editors, whether of the ancient time or the present time, 
 have a right to lord it over the souls of men, or to say 
 what they musf or mtisf not believe. Every man must 
 settle that for himself. Catechisms, councils, wise men, 
 may help him in his decision, but cannot decide for him 
 beforehand. This is a principle which every Unitarian 
 Church in this country or in Europe maintains with all 
 positiveness, and from which no temptation could draw it 
 away. Every Unitarian asserts the right of every man to 
 think for himself in coming to his saving belief. 
 
 2. A second principle of the Unitarian Church is, that 
 no one ca7i be required or expected to believe what is con- 
 trary to reason^ or what seems to be so ; that reason is the 
 arbiter of truth, and that all truth is to be tested bv rea- 
 son. Unitarians hold that reason was given to man as his 
 light and his guide, that this is the " logos " of which John 
 speaks, and that the only faith which is good for anything 
 is that which reason accepts. All beyond this is profes- 
 sion, — phrases, but not truth ; of no use to any one. All 
 Unitarians are rationalists in this sense, that they do not 
 wish or intend to say that they believe anything which 
 seems to them to be mathematically, metaphysically, or 
 morally untrue, contrary to the accepted laws of science 
 or of soul, — anything which is absurd to the reason, or 
 revolting to the conscience. They will not believe a mathe- 
 matical falsehood, or a falsehood of any kind, though it 
 may be called a mystery and pretend to be revealed by an 
 angel. Every church in the body, every intelligent mem- 
 ber in the body, holds to this principle, however high or 
 deep their thought of God and Christ may be. We are 
 all rationalists in vindicating reason as the ground of 
 faith. 
 
 3. A third principle of the Unitarian Church is, that no 
 man is infallible ; that no creed can be framed that shall 
 be beyond the reach of error, or that shall not be open to 
 change ; that no form of words or even of ideas can set 
 forth the absolute truth as it is in the mind of God. The 
 wisest men make mistakes, and they make mistakes in in- 
 terpreting and deciding religious truth as much as in 
 
UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES. 395 
 
 interpreting or deciding any other truth. There is no 
 infallible teacher, there is no infallible church, and there 
 never can be. A thousand men. or a million men, agree- 
 ing to say the same thing, do not make that thing true. 
 A doctrine is not true because it has been repeated for a 
 thousand years in thousands of churches. The Catholic 
 Church is not infallible, in spite of its claim to own the 
 Holy Spirit. The Protestant Church, in any branch, is 
 not infallible, in spite of its claim of going by the letter of 
 the Bible. There never was a saint or a prophet, since the 
 Church began, who could say that he was exempt from the 
 possibility of error. All Unitarians hold to their principle. 
 We have no infallible standard in the word of any man, or 
 in the words of any set of men. 
 
 4. A fourth principle of the Unitarian Church is, that 
 no creed can contain the whole of religion ; that religion, 
 religious faith, cannot possibly be summed up in the words 
 of a creed. No formula, however ingeniously phrased and' 
 arranged, can possibly contain all that the soul believes 
 and feels about man and God and the relation between 
 them. Religion is broader, deeper, higher than any creed 
 can possibly be. • A creed may attempt to tell what faith 
 is, may tell some things which we believe, but it falls short 
 of expressing all our belief even now, much less all that 
 we may believe hereafter. It may have five articles or 
 thirty-nine articles, or a hundred articles, and still be in- 
 adequate. It may be very simple or very complex, very 
 clear or very obscure, and still fail to conclude all faith. 
 Some Unitarians like creeds, while others do not ; but all 
 agree that a creed can never be a finality, never be fixed 
 for all time, and for the substance of all faith, never stand 
 as the barrier to all farther religious advance. There is 
 not one Unitarian, anywhere, in any Unitarian Church, 
 who sums up the religion of all men, or even his own 
 religion, in the words of any creed. 
 
 5. A fifth principle of the Unitarian Church is, that there 
 can be^ and that there ought to be, no tiJiifor?nity of religious 
 faith. Differences of faith are inevitable. Men cannot 
 all believe alike more than they can look alike or act 
 alike. Their faith will vary with their temperament, with 
 their education, with their habits of thought, with the 
 
o 
 
 96 UNITABIAN PlilNCIPLES. 
 
 influences around them. Some will be able to believe 
 what others cannot possibly believe. Some will accept 
 readily what others cannot be persuaded to accept. All 
 attempt to establish one creed for the various branches of 
 the church is preposterous. Sects and parties in religious 
 things are as natural and as necessary as they are in secu- 
 lar things. And it is just as impossible to force unanimity 
 upon the major points as upon the minor points of the 
 creed. All men cannot be made to see God in exactly 
 the same way, or to find salvation in exactly the same way, 
 more than they can be made to take precisely the same 
 view of Baptism and the Sabbath. This principle of per- 
 mitted and inevitable diversity of religious opinion is one 
 which all Unitarians, whether of the right wing or the left 
 wing, most strenuously maintain. 
 
 6. A sixth principle of the Unitarian Church is, that 
 sincere faith is the only true faith ; that a mere form of 
 words or phrases does not express a man's faith, unless he 
 knows what he is savins;. A man's creed is not what he 
 utters with the lips, but what he utters with the mind and 
 heart ; not what he repeats following the dictation of a 
 priest, but what he repeats out of the motion of his own 
 soul. His real belief is not his professed belief, but his 
 hofiest belief, be this much or little, be this identical with 
 or different from, his professed belief. Everything which 
 one adds to his honest conviction is superfluous, however 
 it may coincide with the dogmas of the church. It is a 
 principle of all Unitarian churches, that saving faith is not 
 in form of sound words, but in the sense of clear ideas ; 
 that sincerity is the prime requisite in all religious state- 
 ments and confessions. They will never ask a convert to 
 say that he believes one jot or tittle more than he does 
 sincerely believe, even if he may be kept out of the king- 
 dom of heaven by the defects of his faith. Strict and per- 
 fect sincerity is the avenue by which they would send forth 
 their confession of belief. 
 
 7. A seventh principle of the Unitarian Church is, that 
 character is better than profession of any ki?id, and that pro- 
 fession without character is o-qocI for nothing:. The char- 
 acter of a man tells what he really believes better than 
 his words can tell this. The acts of a man, his general 
 
UNITARIAN rRlNCIPLES. 397 
 
 tone of thous^ht and habits of life, are the expression of 
 his real creed. We look for his belief at what he is, and 
 not what he says he is. We ask for better proof than any 
 declarations, specially made. The creed is written in the 
 life, and the world reads it from the man's life. Every 
 article must be practically witnessed by the general tenor 
 of the man's acts or words. This all Unitarians assert, 
 whether they have a creed or not, that the creed is second 
 to the life, and must never be made the evidence or the 
 substitute for the risfhteousness of the man. They infer 
 no man's Christianity from the ease and readiness with 
 which he repeats the phrases of the catechism ; but they 
 look first at the work which he does, at what he shows 
 himself to be, whether his life and acts have any resem- 
 blance to the acts and life of the Christ. That is first, 
 last, and always their test of the Christian character. 
 
 These which we have mentioned, — the right of private 
 judgment ; reason as the arbiter of truth ; that no man is 
 infallible ; that no creed can contain the whole of religion ; 
 that difference of faith is necessary and inevitable ; that 
 sincere faith is the only true faith ; and that life and char- 
 acter prove real belief; — are prhicipks admitted by all 
 Unitarians. Turning from these to speak of doctrines, we 
 have to say at the outset, that no person can pretend to 
 tell more than the average faith of the body to which he 
 belonsrs. The Unitarian Church have not, and thev never 
 will have, any authoritative creed, any series of articles of 
 which one may say, "that is the creed of the sect," any 
 thing which corresponds to the Augsburg Confession of 
 the Lutherans, or to the Westminster Catechism of the 
 Presbyterians, or to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Eng- 
 lish Church. One who attempts to tell the doctrines of 
 the Unitarian body must gather these from his study of 
 the books which have been published by leading writers, 
 and from his general acquaintance with the men and 
 women of the body. He can only speak from impres- 
 sions, and he has no right to commit any one else to his 
 opinion. 
 
 The first and hiHiest doctrine of a religious svstem is 
 the doctrine of God. If there is no doctrine of God, there 
 can be no theology. What do Unitarians, in their average 
 faith, believe of God.? 
 
39^ UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES. 
 
 1. They believe in the existence of God, and in his per- 
 sonal existence ; that he is a personal being, with mind, 
 will, feeling, and power, all infinite ; that his attributes of 
 infinite knowledge, infinite power, infinite love, all inhere 
 in a substance which is real. They do not attempt to 
 show the form of this great person, to show the mode of 
 this infinite existence, to show what kind of a being a self- 
 existins: beins: — who never was born and who can never 
 die — is. They simply say that they believe that there is 
 a God : they are not atheists. 
 
 2. Then, in the second place, they believe in God as the 
 Creator of all the things which are in the universe, giving 
 in the be2:innin2r the orerm of all worlds, and establishing: 
 the laws of generation and development, by which the 
 universe has become what it is ; that what we seem to see, 
 and what we call matter^ existed originally in the Divine 
 thought ; that God is the author of all being, mediately, or 
 immediately ; that all things come from God, on earth or 
 in heaven. 
 
 3. In the third place. Unitarians believe that God is a 
 just God ; in other words, that he rules the world by laws 
 which are sure, unvarying, impartial, and universal ; that 
 there is nothing in the universe which is not subject to 
 law ; that spiritual processes are as much under the do- 
 minion of God's law as material processes, — every being, 
 high and low ; a grain of sand, or a planet in its orbit ; 
 the flowers of the morning faded at night, or the cedar of 
 Lebanon with its thousand years ; the meanest reptile and 
 the greatest man ; everything that has being, is subject to 
 a law which the Infinite Ruler keeps for it. They say 
 that God's will is just, because it is according to law, and 
 that when men have discovered the law of any being's 
 life, they have found the Divine justice concerning it. 
 The sternest Calvinist could not believe in the justice of 
 God more absolutely than the Unitarians believe in it. 
 The laws of God are liis decrees, and he has decrees for 
 everything that he has made. There are no exceptions 
 to these laws ; what seem to men the exceptions, are only 
 the result of laws which they have not yet discovered. 
 God is the Infinite and Supreme Ruler of all the things 
 that are made. 
 
UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES, 399 
 
 4. In the fourth place, Unitarians believe that God is 
 a loving and tender Father, having in infinite measure all 
 that love for his creatures which earthly parents have for 
 their children ; that God's creatures are his children ; that 
 he loves them all, blesses them all, wills the best good 
 of them all, and is never weary of loving them. This 
 fatherly love is his providence for them, — general for all 
 together, special for every one. Unitarians do not believe 
 in any partial providence, any love or care which is for 
 one family and not for another, one people and not for 
 another, one race and not for another, one church and not 
 for another, one age and not for another; — but in a prov- 
 idence which extends to all ages, all churches, all races, 
 all peoples, all families, all men, and all creatures, special 
 always, because always present and never wanting. The 
 fullest idea of an ever-present, ever-active, ever-tender, 
 ever-kind love of the Father of all creatures is the Unita- 
 rian idea of Providence. In their idea God can never be 
 a hating God, can never cease to love and care for any of 
 his children. His love is incomprehensible, only because 
 it is so immense and infinite, so much beyond all human 
 love. 
 
 5. And the name of the Unitarian body suggests 
 another peculiarity of their belief concerning God, — in 
 his Unity. They believe that he is one, not divided in 
 his Deity, not dual, or triple, or quadruple, or centuple, 
 but strictly one. They believe that he exists in one being, 
 and one person, that all his manifestations are gathered 
 and concentrated in this single personality. They speak 
 of him as one person in describing his work. They ad- 
 dress him as one person when they pray to him. His being 
 is single and singular. It is not the society of Gods of 
 which Unitarians think when they think of God. They 
 keep this conception of unity because it is simple, is ra- 
 tional, and best explains the work of Providence and Cre- 
 ation. They believe in the unity of God as distinguished 
 from Pagan Polytheism, or from philosophical Trinities, 
 such as those of India and Greece, and such as those of 
 the church-creeds. They find it entirely possible to wor- 
 ship God the Father without having any other God to 
 divide his worship. And in worshipping God the Father, 
 
4CO UNITARIAN PEINCIPLES. 
 
 they worship the God whom Jesus himself worshipped, 
 and whom his word has taught them to worship. 
 
 This, then, is what the Unitarians believe of God : that 
 he exists as a person ; that he creates all things ; that he 
 is just, as he rules by law ; that he loves, as an Infinite 
 Father, all his children ; and that he is one God, not di- 
 vided in his essence. How his being is, what it is, what 
 is his form, they do not know, they do not care to know. 
 The finite cannot comprehend the infinite. And they say 
 of God, that no searching can find him out, and that all 
 dictation of what he miist be and what he must do, is fool- 
 ish and irreverent. They afiirm, as much as any sect, the 
 mystery of the Godhead ; only it is to them real mystery 
 by its greatness and fulness, and not by its mathematical 
 enigma. God is the eternal wonder of the human soul, so 
 high, so vast, so complete in glory, that no thought can 
 attain his being ; — but he is in no sense the puzzle of the 
 soul, vexing it continually by an existence which seems 
 false and wrong, according to the laws of thought. The 
 mystery of the Godhead in the Unitarian creed is not the 
 part of God which lies nearest, but the outlying greatness 
 which shades the farther circle, and is lost in the infinite 
 distance. 
 
 Next to the doctrine of God, in a system of theology, is 
 the doctrine of Man. What do Unitarians believe con- 
 cernins: Man ? 
 
 I. They believe, in the first place, that in his physical 
 nature man is part of the orderly sysfe??i of organic crea- 
 tions. He makes one of the series of animated and organ- 
 ized beings. He has wants, instincts, desires, in common 
 with other animals. He eats, drinks, sleeps, walks and 
 runs, rises and rests, utters sounds, and communicates his 
 feeling as beasts, birds and insects do. The structure of 
 his frame is not essentially different from the structure of 
 other animal frames. It has the same proportion and ad- 
 justment of bone, and nerve, and muscle, of heart and 
 brain. Man is animal, is born as animals are born, dies 
 as animals die, in bodily organization, has the same limi- 
 tations to his physical being. His spiritual nature exempts 
 him from none of the physical laws. . He is as much under 
 these laws, subject to physical conditions, as the humblest 
 
UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES. 401 
 
 creature of God. Anywhere on the earth, man has his 
 place and his share in the physical order of the earth. 
 Physically, he is not more wonderfully made than any 
 plant or crystal. 
 
 2. But Unitarians believe, in the next place, that man 
 is af the head of this series, is the highest and most impor- 
 tant of all the visible works of God's hand. They believe 
 in the dignity of his nature, that he is, and was meant to 
 be. Lord of Creation, the master of the forces of the world, 
 and of the lives below him ; that he has larger powers, 
 finer feeling, quicker perception, greater range of action, 
 than any of the other beings with which he stands in line ; 
 that there is nothing above him in this world, and that 
 the imagination can conceive nothing of which his nature 
 is not capable. They believe that man has an intelligence 
 more perfect, a will more energetic, than any brute beast; 
 that he has, in short, a nature more spiritual than any, — • 
 that man has a soul. Concerning the nature of that soul, 
 they hold differing opinions. There is no uniform Unita- 
 rian psychology, as there is no uniform orthodox psychol- 
 ogy. But upon the fact that man has a soul, they are 
 generally agreed. The spiritual worth and dignity of the 
 human soul is more insisted upon in the writings of the 
 Unitarians than in the writings of any religious sect. 
 
 3. And then Unitarians believe that this spiritual dig- 
 nity is a possibility of the whole human race, and is not 
 the property or prerogative of any particular portion of 
 the race. They are far from maintaining that all men are 
 actually equal, in the life that they have, but they main- 
 tain that all men are potentially equal, in what they may 
 become, and that they have the same spiritual rights. 
 They have all the same Father, no matter where they are 
 born, under what sky, in what corner of the earth, to what 
 custom of life, to what kind of influence. The savage is a 
 man, and has the rights of a man. The negro is a man, 
 and has the rights of a man. The idolater is a man as 
 much as the Christian. Woman is human, and human 
 rights are hers. Unitarians have no dogma about the 
 first human pair, or the first creation of the race ; where 
 it was; in Asia or America; when it was, six thousand 
 years ago, or six hundred thousand years ago ; in one pair 
 
 26 
 
402 UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES. 
 
 or in one hundred pairs, or by development from lower 
 races ; but they believe in the unity of the human race, 
 as men everywhere have moral sense and religious sense, 
 and may be educated to a spiritual life and into a kingdom 
 of heaven. All men are spiritually children of God. 
 
 4. Yet, on the other hand, Unitarians believe in the 
 actual imperfection of 7nen. None, anywhere, are as good 
 as they might be, as good as they ought to be. All men 
 are sinners, to use the common word, because they trans- 
 gress laws which are appointed for their physical and 
 spiritual welfare. This transgression is sometimes volun- 
 tary and deliberate ; men know that they are transgress- 
 ing. Oftener it is involuntary, and is discovered only by 
 the penalty which it brings. Unitarians say that even 
 the best man, who is most careful of his heart and way, 
 is not perfect ; that he does, or says, or thinks what is 
 not best, that he makes mistakes, that he violates law. 
 There is no one who is in all things wholly righteous. On 
 the fact of sin, Unitarians have a doctrine as positive as 
 the doctrine of any sect. All men are sinners, all women 
 are sinners, all children even, are sinners, in the sense that 
 they do what they ought not to do, and leave undone the 
 things which they ought to do. All who violate the laws 
 of their being commit sin, and will be punished for that 
 sin ; the smallest or the greatest violation of law has its 
 inevitable penalty. 
 
 The condition of man as a sinner, as a transgressor of 
 law, makes it necessary to have a doctrine concerning De- 
 liverance from Sin, — concerning what, in the ecclesiastical 
 dialect, is termed "Salvation." What is the Unitarian 
 doctrine of Salvation ? 
 
 I. Unitarians believe that salvation \s deliverance from 
 si?i itself — from its influence, its mastery, its inner force 
 and outer force. They do not expect or ask for deliver- 
 ance from the penalties of sins committed, or from the 
 penalties of sin while the sins themselves are retained. 
 They believe that the only way of escaping the punish- 
 ment of sins is to get rid of the sins themselves. They do 
 not believe in sin as an abstraction, but in sins as realities. 
 The best way, and the only way, of getting rid of sin is by 
 dealing with sins as realities, as things, and not as an in- 
 
UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES. 403 
 
 fluence in things. Deliverance from sin is wrought by 
 rectifying the sources of transgression, by substituting 
 right principles for wrong principles, right affections for 
 wrong affections, a right direction of life for a wrong di- 
 rection of life, by getting temptations out of the way, by 
 purifying passions and appetites. 
 
 Unitarians believe that f^e method of salvation varies 
 in the case of different persons. Where men are conscious 
 of any violation of law, the first step must be repentance 
 and a resolution to change from such violation. Where 
 they are not conscious of such violation of law, the evil 
 must be remedied by better surrounding influences and 
 better education. The ordinary means of saving men 
 from sins are training: them from childhood in the wav of 
 virtue, giving them good precepts and good examples, 
 encouraging all that is pure and righteous in their con- 
 duct and conversation, keeping around them an atmos- 
 phere of purity, removing all that imbrutes and debases. 
 As so much of the sin of men comes from the circum- 
 stances of men, — their mode of life, their society, the in- 
 fluences around them, — they will be saved by setting 
 these circumstances right, by making them more comfort- 
 able. As so much of sin comes from disorder in the phys- 
 ical frame, salvation comes in sanitary reforms, in better 
 air, more light, moi'e exercise, more physical health. Uni- 
 tarians believe that men are saved by the application of 
 the remedy exactly to the need ; not by any arbitrary and 
 artificial scheme which is the same for all, and has no 
 connection with the special offence, but by the remedy 
 that belongs to the disease. They would not deliver one 
 person from melancholy by the same process which is to 
 deliver another from drunkenness. They would not save 
 one person from jealousy as another is saved from the 
 habit of stealing. The salvation must be adapted to the 
 offence, whatever that offence mav be. Salvation has its 
 difference in degree as well as its difference in kind. A 
 great deal more of it is needed in some cases than is needed 
 in other cases. Those who are spiritually wise need very 
 little of it ; those who are spiritually blind and ignorant 
 need a great deal of it. It is much more difficult in some 
 cases than in other cases ; more difficult when the sin is of 
 
404 UNITARIAN PRINCirLES. 
 
 habit and temperament than when it is of sudden temp- 
 tation, and not natural; more difficult when it is bound 
 up with interests and passions than when it stands aside 
 from the daily course of life. There are some occupations 
 and positions in life in which deliverance from sin is ex- 
 tremely improbable, some callings in which life seems only 
 possible through continued sin. 
 
 Unitarians believe in change of heart, where the emotion 
 and direction of the heart need to be changed, but the 
 saving change in their theology means always a change of 
 life and actioji; a coming back from violation of law to 
 obedience to law. Salvation is the reconciliation of the 
 life to the laws of God, the restoration of the transgressor 
 to obedience. In this work all the change is in the life, 
 spirit, and purpose of men ; there is no change in the 
 Divine Father or in his laws. God does not repent ; only 
 man repents. God does not alter his work or his coun- 
 sels ; only man changes his work and his counsel. Unita- 
 rians do not believe in any transactioii between God and 
 man in this matter of salvation, or any scheme by which 
 Divine attributes are adjusted in a work which is wholly 
 the concern of the creature. Change of heart and life 
 does not merely guarantee salvation, not merely win 
 this, — // is salvation. The salvation comes ifi the obedi- 
 ence to law, not merely after the obedience to law. Uni- 
 tarians believe in future salvation as identical with present 
 salvation ; and hold that the only real salvation is present 
 salvation. A man is saved in the spiritual world as he is 
 saved in the natural world, — by obedience to the laws of 
 his being. 
 
 The most important influence in this deliverance of the 
 soul and life of man from sin is the Christian religion. 
 This saves men in most civilized lands ; though Unitarians 
 believe, too, that heathen religions have saving qualities, 
 and that the Chinese are saved from sin by the teachings 
 of Confucius, the Persians by the teachings of Zoroaster ; 
 that men are made better by the moral truths even of 
 idolatrous faiths. But they believe that the best of all re- 
 ligions — the religion which gives the highest, broadest, 
 and most spiritual salvation — is the religion which holds 
 the name of Christ. They accept Christ as the Saviour of 
 
UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES. 405 
 
 those who become his disciples, and know his Gospel ; and 
 as indirectly the Saviour of many who are not called by 
 his name, and are not conscious that they know his Gospel. 
 The average Unitarian faith' exalts the salvation which is 
 from Christ, and gives it all the practical force which it 
 has in any creed. No epithets of honor are too strong to 
 describe this great salvation. 
 
 But the Unitarian idea of this salvation is not that it is 
 mystical, unnatural, outside of the ordinary ways of influ- 
 ences, but strictly according to the natural way of influ- 
 ence. Christ saves men by his teaching^ by telling them 
 what is just, pure, good, true, noble, and divine, by giving 
 them good instruction, by giving them right moral and 
 religious ideas. He is the great teacher, whose words are 
 wiser than those of prophets and sages. Christ saves men 
 by his example ; showing in his own conduct and conver- 
 sation, as we read his biographies, what way of life, what 
 kind of intercourse, makes men happy, and gives a clear 
 conscience and the sense of God's nearness. Christ saves 
 by the spirit of his work, which was in healing and bless- 
 ing men. Christ saves by his fortitude in suffering, in- 
 stanced in many ways, but especially by his death upon 
 the cross ; which is, moreover, the supreme sign of self- 
 devotion and sacrifice. Christ saves, as he shows in his 
 word and his act, in his life and death, the incarnation of 
 the Divine spirit, — the life of a Divine Man. In speaking 
 and thinking of the salvation of Christ, Unitarians do not 
 separate the human from the divine in his nature, or one 
 part of his life from another. Men are not saved by his 
 miraculous birth, or by his miraculous death, or by any- 
 thing in his history that is apart from practical adaptation 
 to the human soul. Men are saved by forming his life 
 within their lives, by becoming like him in spirit, in pur- 
 pose, in virtue, and in faith, by the whole of his life, and 
 by the general influence of his work. They are saved by 
 the Christianity which has got into the customs of society, 
 which has been fixed in the statutes and laws, which has 
 entered into the relations of life, of business, of the State, 
 or of the Church. Among Unitarians there are various 
 views of the nature and the being of jesus of Nazareth. 
 Some think that he was different by constitution from all 
 
4o6 ry IT A ni AS peixciples. 
 
 other men. with no human father ; while others think that 
 he was what his own Apostles supposed him to be, the 
 son of Joseph the carpenter, and that he had brothers and 
 sisters, as the narrative says. Some think that he lived in 
 an angelic state before he was born, while others give to 
 him no more pre-existence than to any man. Some think 
 that his rising from the dead was in tJie flesh with which 
 he died, while others think, like the women at the sepul- 
 chre, that it was a spirit which appeared in the form of 
 man. But whatever these differing views about the kind 
 and degree of the humanit}- of Jesus, all Unitarians believe 
 that he saves men by natural influence on their hearts and 
 lives, as he teaches them, shows them their sin, inspires 
 them to seek better things, and demonstrates to them the 
 kingdom of God. the man of God. and the life of God. 
 All Unitarians find this sufficient, without any scheme or 
 contrivance by which God has to appease his own wrath 
 in the slaughter of an innocent person for the sins of a 
 guiltv world. In the Unitarian phrase, the word '"atone- 
 ment " always means, as it meant in the one place where it 
 is used in the Xew Testament. — reconciliation ; and that re- 
 conciliation is in bringing the souls of men to sympathy 
 with God and his laws. The Unitarian Christolog}* is of 
 one who prepares the souls of men to be the dwelling- 
 place of God's spirit, of a mediator who gives to the soul 
 the message and the substance of the life of God ; who 
 showed in a simple human life of compassion, love, and 
 faithfulness, the visible inspiration of God. 
 
 And this leads us to say that Unitarians believe that 
 there is a special influence of the spirit of God upon the 
 souls of men. They believe that men are inspired, are 
 quickened, are enlightened and energized by this divine 
 influence ; that it is in the word of prophets and in the 
 acts of saints. They believe that there was inspiration in 
 the ancient time, and that there is inspiration in the mod- 
 ern time ; that there is a faith in spiritual things, a sight 
 of spiritual truths, which is not the result of investigation, 
 or of logical process, but which is given directly, which 
 comes in conscious communion with God. They believe 
 i\\2it prayer is the natural and the effectual method of this 
 communion with God, that the Divine Spirit always comes 
 
ryiTARIAX PRIXCIPLES. 407 
 
 near to the souls of men when they pray sincerely, when 
 they pour out their souls in petition for spiritual gifts, or 
 recognize the providence and love of a living God. Uni- 
 tarians use prayer, and believe in it, though they attach to 
 it no superstitious ideas, and do not think that its influence 
 is in any sense supernatural. They believe in prayer as 
 wholly according to the spiritual law ; as the necessan,' 
 wav of orainino^ o^races of the soul, and of holding: conscious 
 intercourse with God. They hav^e not all the same philos- 
 ophy of its working. Some think that it may move the 
 mind of God, while others see its effective work in the 
 minds and hearts of men. But all confess that it has its 
 place in the way of the spiritual life, and that inspiration 
 comes through prayer. 
 
 Unitarians believe, as really as Evangelical sects in their 
 prayer meetings, that men may be, and ought to be, in- 
 spired to-day as truly as in any former day ; as really, too, 
 as Roman Catholics, that inspiration ought to be, and that 
 it is, in the Christian Church. They have a very positive 
 doctrine concernins: ///<? Church. Thev sav that the Church 
 is the spiritual union and fellowship of all Christian men 
 and women, of all men and women who have the spirit of 
 Christ in their hearts and are tr\-in2: to do his work ; that 
 it is not to be fastened in any sectarian enclosure, or de- 
 scribed by any sectarian name ; that no denomination of 
 Christians has a right to call itself "the'' Church, exclu- 
 sive of other denominations ; that all righteous and God- 
 fearing men and women, who are trying to realize the 
 kingdom and justice of God, as revealed by Christ, are in 
 the Church, members of the Church, whether thevT^elonsr 
 to any particular Church or not, whether or not they have 
 taken any sectarian name ; that the Holy Spirit admits 
 .men to the Church, and not the laying on of a priest's 
 hands or the uttering of a few phrases ; that a great many 
 persons are in the Church who have never confessed their 
 faith before men, and have never gone through any pro- 
 cess of conversion that they have known. Unitarians 
 believe in the " Holv Catholic Church *' in the lars^est 
 sense of that phrase, not as meaning Roman Catholic, or 
 Anglo-Catholic, or Presbyterian Catholic, or Catholic with 
 any local or sectarian prefix, but as meaning the whole 
 
4o8 UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES. 
 
 company of those who have been influenced by the great 
 salvation. The Church is as wide as the world and as 
 wide as the presence of the Lord. They believe, as Paul 
 believed, that even a multitude of the heathen, without 
 knowing it, are in the Church of Christ; that the only 
 Church which Christ formed, or intended to form, was 
 this spiritual Church, which knew no distinction of name, 
 and had no rejection of any who might wish to come into 
 it. Unitarians do not believe in a Church which bars or 
 bolts its doors to any that wish to come in, or which sets 
 in the gateway any barrier or test of human opinion or 
 human creed. They believe in a free Church, not in a 
 fenced Church, in a Church which is recruited always and 
 is never full. 
 
 Unitarians have no doctrine of sacraments, except as 
 all obligations, all solemn promises, are sacraments. Bap- 
 tism they call a sacrament, as it is a pledge of a man or 
 woman for themselves, or for their children, that they will 
 try to realize the righteousness of God in their own lives, 
 or in the lives of their children. Unitarians have no holy- 
 water, and pray when they baptize that the man may con- 
 secrate himself or his children by that sign of purification. 
 The external act is only a sign, and they regard the man- 
 ner of administration as of no importance, whether it is 
 by touching the forehead or plunging the body. Marriage 
 is a sacrament, as it is the promise of two souls to keep 
 spiritual union, and to be faithful to one another in the 
 most momentous of earthly relations. The Lord's Supper 
 is a sacrament, as it renews from time to time the promise 
 of brotherly love. Unitarians attach no superstitious 
 ideas to this so-called rite. It is not to them a repetition 
 of the tragedy of Calvary, or a peculiar privilege of men 
 initiated into a secret society or a reward of religious 
 merit ; — in no sense an awful mystery. It is simply a me- 
 morial feast, calling to mind the last supper of Jesus and 
 his disciples, and signifying the relation which the disci- 
 ples of Jesus always bear to one another. Some Unita- 
 rians attach more importance to this memorial than others, 
 but all agree in making it a means of religion, and not in 
 any sense an end. None that I know would keep any 
 person away from the Lord's table who may wish to come 
 
UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES. 409 
 
 there, whatever his name, his profession, or his character. 
 Unitarians believe that the communion of the Lord's Sup- 
 per ought to be always free, as it was free in the beginning, 
 and they have no measure of fitness for it. They make 
 their invitation to it as broad as was the invitation of Paul 
 and Timothy. The Lord's Supper which they believe in 
 is not the Mass of the Catholic Church, or the solemn 
 symbol of the Evangelical elect, separated from the world, 
 but the memorial feast as they find it in the Scriptures of 
 the New Testament. 
 
 Unitarians take the books of the Bible as the record of 
 the teaching of God to the Jewish people and to the early 
 Christians through their wise men and their prophets. 
 Their doctrine of the Bible is, that it is a collection of 
 books on various subjects, — historical, biographical, poeti- 
 cal and moral, of various value, but mostly with a relig- 
 ious bearing and purpose. The inspiration which they 
 find in the Bible is an inspiration of the men whose story 
 is told, not an inspiration of the words and letters. The 
 Old Testament is the literature of the Jewish people ; the 
 New Testament is the early Christian literature. Unita- 
 rians prize the Bible as much as any sect ; use it in their 
 churches, use it in their homes, gladly assist in its circula- 
 tion ; but they do not make an idol of this sacred book, 
 and worship its name. They prize it for the ideas which 
 it holds, and the truth that if contains, and do not make 
 more of it than it really is, or contend that it is what it 
 never claims to be. To them the Bible is in the words of 
 men, — Hebrew and Greek, Latin and English ; and it has 
 the characteristics of human thought and speech, even 
 while it tells the will of God. 
 
 And the Unitarian doctrine of the Sacred Day is that it 
 is the Lord's Da}\ which preserves in memory that great 
 event in the life of Christ which took away from his fol- 
 lowers the fear of death. They do not think of this day 
 as the Jewish Sabbath, loaded with prohibitions, a day on 
 which it is sinful to walk or ride, to laugh or to be joyful, 
 but as a day for the exercise of all the best and freest 
 natural affections. It is no more sacred in itself than any 
 other days of the week, and has no moral code peculiar 
 to itself. The Unitarian doctrine is that the Sabbath 
 
41 o UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES. 
 
 was made for man and not man for the Sabbath ; that 
 there is no more reason for wearing sad countenances 
 when men worship together than when they work to- 
 gether. The dignity of the day comes in the spiritual 
 quickening which it gives ; in its associations with what is 
 beautiful, and pure, and friendly, and fraternal ; in its 
 separating men from selfish cares and joining them in com- 
 mon prayers for mutual good ; in giving them experience 
 of the heavenly life, which is the immortal life. On the 
 Lord's Dav men feel their true life, and thev have this 
 more abundantly. 
 
 And the Unitarian doctrine of death is, that it is on/y a 
 change in the condition of life, not an extinction of life itself. 
 It has no power to destroy the soul, but all its work is in 
 taking vitality from the bodily frame, and leaving the 
 parts of this to dissolve and enter into new material forms. 
 The soul, the living spirit of the man, unclothed from its 
 mortal part, assumes now a spiritual body, suited to a new 
 world and new needs of life. The philosophy of the spir- 
 itual world is not uniform with Unitarian believers. Some 
 have it nicely drawn out, and can make pictures of it, 
 while with others it lies vague and undefined. But all 
 that I know agree in rejecting the crude notion of the res- 
 urrection of the physical body, and in denying any neces- 
 sary union between the soul and body after death has 
 parted them. Most Unitarians believe in the recognition 
 of departed friends, that souls which have been joined on 
 earth in love will still keep union in the spiritual world ; 
 that in the disembodied world there are near societies, 
 families and kindreds, though the physical ties exist no 
 longer. There are some who think and speak of Heaven 
 as a place ; but the faith of the wisest treats Heaven as a 
 state, which may be as real on the earth as beyond the 
 earth. 
 
 In regard to rewards and punishments in the future life, 
 Unitarians have no doctrine separate from their general 
 doctrine of law and its violations. They believe that all 
 good deeds have their inevitable reward, cannot fail to 
 bring the happiness and peace which they deserve, but 
 that the thought or expectation of personal happiness, 
 here or hereafter, is not the proper motive of Christiajt 
 
UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES. 411 
 
 z'/rfue. Men should do good, because that is right, because 
 that is the will of God, not because it will give them some 
 individual blessing. So they believe that every sin has its 
 penalty which cannot be escaped, and that the spiritual 
 penalty of sin will endure as long as the sin lasts, and un- 
 til it shall have wrought its due and needful reformation. 
 How long in time this will be, they cannot tell; but they 
 believe that God's counsel will not fail through man's 
 transgression, and that it is the Lord's will that not one 
 of his rational creatures should utterly and forever perish. 
 They expect, in the consummation of all things, the uni- 
 versal reign of the Lord. 
 
 This is a rapid and concise statement of the average 
 Unitarian opinion upon the principal points of religious 
 doctrine. Unitarians claim that these views are rational, 
 and can be maintained without doing violence to reason ; 
 that they are Scriptural, and can be justified from the 
 spirit and from the letter of the Christian record, rightly 
 read ; that they are agreeable to the best instincts of the 
 soul ; that they are harmonious with the science of nature, 
 and w^ith the needs of human life ; that children can un- 
 derstand them, and that the mature mind does not out- 
 grow them ; that they are good to live by, and that they 
 are good to die by. This system of doctrine has satisfied 
 and still satisfies,' the wisest men and the best men ; men 
 who are honored, trusted, and loved ; men w^ho are listened 
 to respectfully, and are followed by the praise and rever- 
 ence of the whole community. Three of the American 
 Presidents have been members of the Unitarian Church, 
 and two others have given this faith in substance as their 
 creed. Of Judges, Governors, Senators, Congressmen, 
 elected by votes of the Evangelical sects, who have pro- 
 fessed this faith, the list would be a very long one._ The 
 most distinguished of the writers of the country, in his- 
 tory, in poetry, in philosophy, in art, are nearly all Unita- 
 rians. The ablest public speakers find inspiration in these 
 views of God and man. So far as great names lend credit 
 to any doctrine, this Unitarian doctrine certainly has it. 
 But it has in quite as large measure the better credit of 
 noble and beautiful lives, of saintly men and women, who 
 rise, a cloud of witnesses, to tell what it has done for 
 
412 UNITARIAN PBINCIPLES. 
 
 them. The worst bigot in Massachusetts would not dare 
 to call Governor Andrew an *' infidel," though he was as 
 faithful to care for his Sunday-school class in the Unita- 
 rian Church of the Disciples as for the wounded in the 
 hospitals and the soldiers in the field. No faith has ever 
 been more ready to prove itself by works of love and 
 mercy than this faith. If it has not sent many missiona- 
 ries to fight against idolatry in heathen lands, and substi- 
 tute for this idolatry the creeds of Augustine or Calvin, it 
 has sent far more than its proportion of missionaries into 
 the waste places at home, into the haunts of wickedness, 
 to convert the blind, and the erring, and the sinful. " No 
 one can deny that Unitarian Christianity makes ministers 
 of practical righteousness. 
 
 Unitarians are not indifferent to the good-will of the 
 Christians around them. They do not like to be misrep- 
 resented, or to be treated as outlaws, even by ignorant 
 and bigoted men. But they can stand alone, and are not 
 to be driven from their position by any slanders. They 
 will hold fast to what they believe to be truth, even if they 
 are denounced as unbelievers, or are denied a place in the 
 great salvation. They want no Heaven which is won by 
 compromise and hypocrisy ; and they will lose the society 
 of men whom they respect rather than be false to the 
 word of God as it is spoken to their souls. They hold 
 their doctrine not as a finality or a perpetually binding 
 creed, but as ready always to revise and improve it, as 
 the spirit of God shall give them more light and knowl- 
 edge. They own no master but the great Teacher, the 
 great source of spiritual wisdom, and they are content to 
 abide his judgment. They ask no triumph or success, but 
 the triumph which truth shall give them, as shown in the 
 logic of their argument, and as shown in the lives of their 
 confessors. 
 
I 
 
 CEARACrEIUSTICS OF THE JEWS. 413 
 
 XVII. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEWISH RACE. 
 
 Nothing in our time is more remarkable than the 
 change in the kind of interest which is taken in the for- 
 tunes and character of the Hebrew race. For a^es, Chris- 
 tians have had rather an archaeological heed of the people 
 who were their religious ancestors, and have limited their 
 concern to the religious books and the ancient doings of a 
 nation once the people of God, but who forfeited their 
 right by their rejection of the Christ, and virtually became 
 heathen. Since that fatal act of impiety, the Jews have 
 been as good as dead to a vast majority of the Christian 
 world, and have been known only as subjects of persecu- 
 tion and outrage of every kind, illustrating in their fate 
 the sure Divine vengeance upon wickedness. A hundred 
 years ago the praise of a Jew by a Christian would have 
 brought suspicion upon the Christian, and almost have 
 condemned him as a blasphemer and an infidel. In the Mid- 
 dle Age, the Jew was the type of all that was mean, treach- 
 erous, false, and infamous. His squalid garb, his cringing 
 gait, his malignant leer, his avaricious heart, were the mark 
 of the satirists, and the proof for the preachers of the 
 justice of an offended God. The Jew had no rights that 
 Christians were bound to respect. He was an outlaw, 
 only tolerated from prudence or policy. He could be 
 abused in his person, robbed of his purse, driven like a dog 
 from his home, could be spit upon, beaten, burned, with 
 no one to defend him, or even to pity him. To call a 
 Christian "Jew" was the height of insult. The foot of a 
 Christian was polluted in crossing the threshold of a Jew, 
 or the barrier of his quarter in the cities. It was sacrilege 
 for a Christian to marry a daughter of the hated race. 
 Kings and lords might use the rich Hebrews for the neces- 
 sities of luxury or war, but the convenience of their loans 
 
414 CHARACTERISTICS OF TflE JEWS, 
 
 did not bring more consideration for their lineage. 
 Shakespeare in his Shylock, Walter Scott in his Isaac of 
 York have not overdrawn the scorn and contempt which 
 followed the Jew of the former centuries. 
 
 But all that is strangely changed. The lost honor of 
 the Jews has been restored. The persecutions have ceased. 
 In most civilized lands the Jews stand equal with the 
 Christians, with the same rights, with the same privileges, 
 with as good consideration from the rulers, and less harmed 
 by bigotry than the Christian sects around them. They 
 are in the high places of trust and power, — ministers of 
 finance, ministers of education, peers of the realm, mayors 
 of great cities, senators in the assembly, close counselors 
 of the kings. Their worship is recognized as lawful, 
 and even supported by largess from the State, as much 
 as Catholic or Protestant worship. In the very lands 
 where they were once fiercely hated and driven, their syn- 
 agogues now surpass in splendor the most costly of the 
 Christian temples. In Berlin, the Hebrew temple to-day 
 is larger than the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, and 
 has beauties which the Temple of Solomon could not 
 show. In America — in New York, and Cincinnati, and 
 in many more places, — the synagogues rival the grandest 
 of the Christian structures, and they stand proudly on the 
 corners of the principal streets. 
 
 The Jews now claim their full share of public duties and 
 public rewards. They seek offices and they get offices. 
 They supervise the doings of Christian Boards of Trade 
 and in Boards of Instruction. The Rabbi may be the 
 Committee in a school where the words of Jesus and the 
 story of the crucifixion are read by the teachers to the pu- 
 pils. The secular and the sectarian journals chronicle the 
 acts of the Jews as carefully and candidly as they chroni- 
 cle the acts of any Christian sect ; give abstracts of their 
 synagogue sermons, reports of their solemn feasts and fasts, 
 their Passover and Pentecost, and their Vom Kippur^ 
 and their joyous Piirini^ as much as of the Christian 
 Christmas, and Lent, and Easter. In the almanacs, the 
 Jewish calendar accompanies the Christian. The Jewish 
 newspapers abound, and in vigor and variety compare 
 favorably with the Christian weeklies, and furnish edifying 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEWS. 4^5 
 
 reading to the disciples of Jesus. If tiiey have in our 
 hmd no university as yet, the Jews have famous seminaries 
 in other lands, and the sons of their race bear off high 
 honors in the Christian colleges. The reproach of the 
 name has utterly vanished, and no horror is expressed 
 when Christians renounce their faith ; when " love " makes 
 of the son or daughter of some Christian communion an 
 Israelite of the ancient pattern. A change of that kind 
 does not degrade tlie social standing of the person who 
 
 makes it. 
 
 In the novels and dramas that are now written, a Jew is 
 oftener the hero than the villain of the piece ; his virtue, 
 his faith, his magnanimity, are set in contrast with Chris- 
 tian selfishness and falsehood. Lessing's "Nathan the 
 Wise " has become the type of nobleness, which is com- 
 mended in orthodox works of fiction. Disraeli is not the 
 only famous writer who finds pleasure in making the race 
 of Abraham the pioneers of civilization, and the arbiters 
 of the world's destiny. Writers who have no Hebrew 
 blood, and no filial feeling in their discourse, expatiate 
 upon the great service of the Jews to the world, in art and 
 science, in letters and music, in commerce and discovery. 
 In the current literature of Europe, the Jew has a singular 
 prominence, more than rivaling that given in America to 
 the negro, its former pariah. Japhet is concerned for 
 Shem as well as for Ham ; and while enthusiasm for the 
 negro is declining, interest in the Israelite is gaining. 
 Christians are not unwilling to look at their own religion 
 as it appears from a Jewish position, and to listen to Jew- 
 ish judgment upon their claim. They are reconsidering 
 the case of the ancient Jews, are allowing that the rabble, 
 and even the better class, who shouted at the crucifixion, 
 sinned from ignorance rather than will, and that many of 
 the Pharisees were godly and faithful men. Some prejudice 
 against the Jew may remain, but it is not religious prej- 
 udice. There are missions for the conversion of Jews 
 in Moslem lands,— a feeble one in Jerusalem; but few 
 expect or care for the conversion of the Jews in the West- 
 ern lands. The least trusted of the race are those who 
 pretend to be Christians ; and dealing with them is as un- 
 safe as of the Jews with the ancient Samaritans. This 
 
41 6 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEWS. 
 
 change in the position and honor of the Jewish race is cer- 
 tainly one of the most striking social phenomena of our 
 age. It realizes the saying of Zechary the prophet : " Ten 
 men shall take hold, out of all languages of the nations, 
 shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a .Jew, saying, 
 ' We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with 
 you.' " 
 
 This new favor which the Jewish race has found, invites 
 to a study of its characteristics. Rabbi Jellinek, of Vien- 
 na, in his admirable treatise, has drawn these very sharply, 
 and has said only what the observation of intelligent minds 
 will justify. The study of these characteristics is a study 
 of contrasts, for the character of the Jew is a constant 
 paradox in its apparent contradictions. The race is at 
 once universal and special ; enthusiastic and sagacious ; 
 conservative and progressive ; subjective and objective ; 
 proud and humble; passionate and patient; economical 
 and lavish; dogmatic and tolerant; — all these contra- 
 dictions we find in its character, to mention no more. 
 It is a race which justifies by its style and its spirit the 
 most opposite estimates. This combination of contrasts 
 seems to warrant the theory of the future triumph of the 
 race as the synthesis of humanity, harmonizing opposites, 
 reconciling discords, and so inheriting the promise of uni- 
 versal dominion. The reasoning which infers this triumph 
 is rather fanciful, and mistakes association of contrasts for 
 fusion. To the minds of careful thinkers these contrasts 
 leave rather an impression of incompleteness than of gen- 
 uine harmony. The dualisms are too evident to give the 
 sense of unity. 
 
 I. The first peculiarity that appears in the study of the 
 Jewish race is, that it is at once universal and special, in its 
 spirit and in its place in the world. It is everywhere, and 
 yet it is a race by itself. It has no particular country or 
 home, and yet it is separated from all other races, in w4iat- 
 ever country it may be. The Jew is found in all the na- 
 tions, barbarous as well as civilized, and yet he keeps indi- 
 viduality of race in all the nations. There are Jews in 
 warm climates and in cold, in old nations and in new, in 
 free nations and in despotic, in Pagan and Moslem and 
 Christian nations ; and yet in all these the race is essentially 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEWS. 417 
 
 the same. The English Jew is brother not only to the 
 American, but to the Moorish and Egyptian and Persian 
 Jew. The spirit of the race is the same under whatever sky. 
 No race better adapts itself to circumstances, yet no race 
 more resists circumstances in change of character or faith. 
 The Jew makes himself everywhere at home, in great cities 
 or small cities, in wealthy communities or poor, yet remains 
 the same person in all, not to be mistaken for those with 
 whom he dwells. In France, he is a Frenchman, and has 
 French manners ; in Egypt, he is an Egyptian, with E2:yp- 
 tian manners ; in Russia, he is a Russian, and lives like a 
 Russian ; nevertheless, no one mistakes him for a French- 
 man, or an Egyptian, or a Russian proper, and the sign of 
 dress is the least important of the marks which distinguish 
 him. He speaks the language of the nation in which he 
 lives, and correctly enough ; but with a peculiar tone and 
 accent, as distinct in Semitic and Turanian dialects as in 
 the European tongues. The words of a German Jew are 
 different from the words of a Spanish Jew, but the tone 
 and the quality are the same. The Jew enters as heartily 
 as any into the politics, the civil and social affairs of the 
 country in which he dwells. He enlists in its armies ; 
 he votes in its assemblies ; he is eager in its amusements ; 
 he is foremost in its traffic ; he does not stay aloof from 
 any social call ; he has no conscientious hindrance from 
 any civic duty. He adapts himself perfectly to exigencies 
 of time and place. Yet, after all, the Jews mingling with 
 the throngs in London and New York are as truly a pecu- 
 liar people, as in the Ghetto of Rome, or the Judenstadt 
 of Prague, or the huddled hovels of Mount Zion in 
 Jerusalem. They are a community by themselves as much 
 when they are gay and glittering in the Opera House of 
 Chicago, the new Lake City of yesterday, as when they 
 are bent and sad-eyed in the ruined lanes of ancient Ti- 
 berias. 
 
 This external peculiarity of the Jews is also manifest in 
 their spirit. They keep by themselves and are tenacious of 
 their ideas, yet no people in the world are more sensitive 
 to the opinions of the people around them, or more anxious 
 to secure the good-will of the Gentiles. The Jewish 
 authors, poets, artists, musicians, do not work only or 
 27 
 
41 8 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEWS. 
 
 mainly for their own people, but more for the alien races. 
 Auerbach writes for Christian readers ; Meyerbeer com- 
 posed for audiences of the heathen, while his enduring 
 love was for the brethren of his faith. The Jewish com- 
 posers, in music and in story, choose their themes outside 
 of their own history. Moses in Egypt was the work of the 
 Catholic Rossini ; while the Huguenots^ and yohn of Ley- 
 den, and Robert the Devil, were the heroes of the Jewish 
 master. The complaint runs back to the time of the 
 Alexandrine Philo that the Hebrew^ people are so greedy 
 of Gentile praise, and so ready to adopt foreign ways in 
 neglecting their own traditions ; and the very Philo, who 
 thus grumbles, shows the fault which he rebukes in his own 
 love for Greek speculations. That illustrious ambassador 
 at the Roman Court not only used the Greek tongue in 
 pleading for his people, but the very phrases of the Greek 
 philosophy. Indeed, Jewish historians have marked the 
 close resemblance of the spirit of Jews and Christians 
 dwelling together, — how quickly Israel in its dealing 
 and its thought borrow^s the temper and method of its 
 neighbors. A noted German proverb runs : " Wie es sich 
 Christelt, so yuedelt es sich " — " As the Christian tone is, 
 the Jewish tone will be." The direction of the Judaism 
 can be iud^'ed from the Christianitv around it. Where 
 orthodox Christianity has sway, Judaism, too, will be 
 orthodox; where Rationalism is stronger, Judaism will be 
 rationalistic. 
 
 This distinction is even shown by Jewish writers in their 
 classification of the Biblical books. The Law is special ; 
 the Prophets are general. The Levitical precepts are par- 
 ticular ; the Psalms are universal. The Pentateuch is a 
 religion for one people ; the other writings are a religion 
 for all peoples. And a distinction is even made in the 
 Law itself, as some parts of it are shown to be special, 
 while others are shown to be general ; the priestly regula- 
 tions only valid for Jews, the decalogue also for Gentiles. 
 Too much stress may be laid upon these differences, for 
 there are certainly passages of the Psalms and Prophets 
 as intensely special and Jewish as anything in the books 
 of the Torah. But the contradiction of Jewish particular- 
 ity and universalism remains a fact, which it is impossible 
 
CUARACTERISTJCS OF THE JEWS. 419 
 
 1:o deny or to neglect. The Jew has always a double 
 nationality, — that of his own blood and heritage, and that 
 of the people with whom his lot is cast. His real home is 
 the earth anywhere ; and yet his other home is always that 
 happy land which God gave to his fathers, and which 
 holds the graves of his Prophets and his Patriarchs. 
 
 2. Equally marked in. the character of the Jewish race 
 are the contrasted qualities of enthusiasm afid sagacity. 
 On one side the Jew is extravagant, while on the other he 
 is keen, careful, and close in his scrutiny. He loves 
 hyperbole ; and the round and exaggerated numbers of 
 the Biblical stories are as common in the familiar speech 
 of the modern Hebrews as in the time of Saul or Joshua. 
 The Jew is sensitive to emotions, — breaks into rapture 
 over fine music, over lyric verse, over ardent sentiment ; is 
 moved easily to joy or grief, and has no bound to his ex- 
 pression of feeling. In his praise or in his blame he uses 
 strong language ; loves vehemently, and hates vehemently. 
 His heart speaks in his look and gesture, and his whole 
 frame is eloquent. All branches of the Semitic race, the 
 Arabs as much as the Jews, have this demonstrative man- 
 ner, this show of earnestness, in all that thev sav or do. 
 Thev work with heart and soul and mind and streno:th. 
 The Jew seems in all that he says or does to remember the 
 phrase of his first commandment. There is nothing 
 languid in his movement. Even when his body is weak 
 his step is quick. Even when his eye is dim its glance is 
 rapid. Even when his voice is broken there is no drawl 
 in it. He talks large, in grandiose style, though he may 
 dwell in a cellar. The poetry of the Hebrews has no 
 metre, no rules of quantity or rhythm, but swells with its 
 theme ; and it expresses the spirit of the people, which 
 has no limit to its sentiment, whether of wonder or grief. 
 The Jew prefers high colors, as well in feeling as in dress, 
 and delights more in tragedy than in comedy. He can 
 laugh on occasion, but weeping is more natural to him, and 
 lamentation in his heritage. The pastime of the Jews in 
 Jerusalem is their weekly wail before the sacred stones of 
 the ruined Temple ; this wail to them is what a bull-fight 
 is to a Spaniard, or a horse-race to an Englishman. 
 Goethe calls the Hebrew language "pathetic"; it were 
 
420 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEWS. 
 
 more accurate to call the spirit of the race pathetic. In 
 all the writings of Jews, romance, or song, or drama, or 
 opera, there is a sad tone, a deep melancholy, even when 
 the talk is of common things. A Jewish author may be 
 affected, stilted, fantastic, prolix in his extravagances, but 
 he is not dull or dry. His writing has glow, even when it 
 is the report of finance or the narrative of a journey. One 
 may not fully trust it, but it wins sympathy by its gushing 
 tone. The Jews write admirable letters. Their money- 
 changers can make, like women, the merest trifles interest- 
 ing by much fervor of phrase. This is a characteristic of 
 the race which no one can mistake. 
 
 But to match this is their equal sagacity, what might 
 perhaps better be called their shi'ewdness or sha?-p-sighted- 
 ness. Is there anv keener race on the face of the earth, 
 any race less drawn away from reason by sympathies, more 
 exact to judge, more clear in vision, and more cautious 
 in conclusion ? With all those swelling phrases, with all 
 those tearful looks of wonder and sadness, with all that 
 pathos of soul, the Jew looks at things as they are, takes 
 facts as he finds them, and will not be led away by imagin- 
 ation. He has none of the credulity which is apt to go 
 with enthusiasm. He believes only what he sees, and he 
 acts from sound reasons. No man is less willing to take 
 the bare word of others, or to take anything on trust. He 
 must see into everything that he believes, — into the propo- 
 sitions of science as much as into the motives of men. 
 Ardent as is his manner, there is caution in his glance. 
 He is on guard against some secret design ; he seems to 
 read something in the soul of the man who talks with him 
 which does not appear in the word or look. The ancient 
 Hebrews had to use that sharp sight in reading their 
 sacred books, where there were no signs of vowels, and 
 the right sound of the words was not easy to see at once. 
 A Jew who reads his Bible without the aid of the Masora 
 has constantly to "judge" in his pronunciation of the 
 syllables. This shrewdness of the race appears not only 
 in their sharp bargains, their transactions in Rag Fair, and 
 on the Exchange, but in their love for verbal subtleties, 
 for puns and puzzles. The Talmud, which holds their 
 character as much as their wisdom, is at once a collection 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEWS. 421 
 
 of wild fancies and of shrewd aphorisms, of imaginations 
 transcending experience, and of quaint sayings coming 
 from microscopic studies. The Jews prefer visions to 
 moralizing, and are not lovers of syllogisms. They will 
 "jump at conclusions" when they can, but they are quite 
 sure of their distance and their footing before they make 
 the leap. They are not loose reasoners, and they use the 
 French point more than the German period. Jewish ex- 
 travagance is not an expansion of the argument, but a dis- 
 play of light around it — a luminous atmosphere around a 
 central core, like the light around the sun. The Jew loves 
 t6 put the truth into a keen question. He is as Socratic 
 as the Yankee. His queries are crushing and decisive, 
 and he asks them, not for information, but as the utterance 
 of an undeniable verdict. All the senses of the Jew are 
 alert and active. He is watching and listening, even when 
 he seems to be negligent or absorbed in his own thought. 
 His highest rapture never carries him away from scrutiny 
 of what is around him. 
 
 3. A third contrast in the character of the Jewish race 
 is that of sfad/e and progressive; or, to use the larger 
 epithets of our time, conservative and radical. The Jew 
 holds fast to traditions, yet is inquisitive of novelties and 
 ready to seize inventions. He prides himself upon his 
 ancient Law which has outlived the laws of civilized lands; 
 boasts that he belongs to the oldest time by the statutes 
 which he obeys, and the customs which he keeps ; that he 
 eats and drinks, works and prays, according to the teach- 
 ing of holy men of old ; his glory is in the consistency of 
 the present way with the former rule. Even the most 
 radical Jew prizes a sort of conservatism, and has a respect 
 for antiquity which no speculations can overthrow. He 
 always feels that his faith is well founded, that there is 
 something solid under him, that his feet are upon the rock, 
 and that if he changes he is not blown about by the wind. 
 He may give up many things which the fathers believed, 
 may condense and expurgate the mass of his traditions ; 
 but in the piocess he only makes their outline clearer and 
 their essence more substantial. He may use for practical 
 ends the dialects of the Gentile peoples, but his own divine 
 language remains. The Hebrew is not corrupted, but is 
 
42 2 CnARACTEBISTICS OF THE JEWS. 
 
 as pure in the synagogue to-day as it was in the Temple in 
 Jerusalem. The Romaic Greek of modern Athens, with 
 all the restorations of modern scholars, is quite another 
 thins: from the Greek of Thucvdides or Plato. The Latin 
 of the Catholic schools, mediaeval and monkish, is not the 
 Latin of Seneca or of Tully. But the Hebrew which the 
 Israelite children hear in Holland and Poland and Mexico 
 and Morocco is just as pure as the Hebrew that was heard 
 in Samuel's schools of the prophets. This sacred lan- 
 guage is fixed, and no improvement will be allowed in it. 
 
 And there is no prominent race in any civilized land 
 which keeps so much of antiquity in their life as the Jews. 
 The Basques of the Pyrenees, the Celts of Brittany, the 
 Finns and the Lapps, and a few other small tribes of 
 Europe, keep very ancient customs, and have the signs of 
 a prehistoric time. But these tribes are insignificant, and 
 are rapidly dying out; while the Jews, with customs still 
 older, are flourishing and increasing,, and are a strong force 
 in the world. In the flux and confusion of modern agita- 
 tions, the Jews show something stable. The claim of the 
 Catholic Church for its doctrine is illustrated in the spirit 
 of this people. They worship ancestors almost as much 
 as the Chinese. English and Spanish pedigrees are short 
 compared with those of the poorest sons of Israel. The 
 most ancient proverbs enter into the conimon speech, — 
 are the daily discourse and the permanent wisdom of the 
 family. Even when Jewish sermons are bold in criticisms 
 and denials, they are full of the sacred phrases. Jewish 
 stories seem to recall the hills and the streams, the vines 
 and the flocks, of the Canaan beloved, even though the 
 scene be laid in other lands. In all that one reads about 
 this race, the impression of stability is constant; every 
 Israelite seems in some sense to realize the legend of the 
 "wandering Jew," holding to life over the changes of 
 empires and ages. The very children of the race look 
 old, as if they belonged to the past more than they belong 
 to the present. 
 
 And yet development and growth have always marked 
 this Jewish race, as they do to-day. The Pharisaism of 
 Herod's time was an improvement upon the Ritualism of 
 Solomon's time. The Babylonish Talmud improved as 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEWS. 423 
 
 much as it enlarged the Jerusalem Talmud. The Jews 
 have had their sects as well as the Christians — their 
 inquirers, their freethinkers. The Caraites keep their 
 synagogue still, as they have for more than a thousand 
 years. The history of Jewish literature seems to show an 
 ardor for novelties, a quick ear for new revelations. If 
 the Jew feels that his feet are upon the rock, his eye and 
 his hand are free, and his lonofinc: is not satisfied bv his 
 solid foundation. He has an insatiate and irrepressible 
 curiosity. "Prove all things " was the word of a Jew, 
 though he coupled with it the other precept, " Hold fast 
 what is good." This progressive spirit is seen in the way 
 in which the Jews handle their Law. They by no means 
 treat this as a fetish, to be shrined, and ignorantly wor- 
 shipped. They are perpetually examining it, making 
 comments upon it, prying into it, bringing it into new 
 relations. No law is more manipulated. It is elastic in 
 their use, and each Rabbin is skillful to make it prove his 
 own theories. The Law is the same as it was in Gamaliel's 
 synagogue, but its exposition is new, and of the nineteenth 
 century. In fact, that Messianic hope, which looks for- 
 ward and not backward, compels the Jew to be in some 
 sense a radical. One who seeks a better country, a new 
 glory, a restoration and renovation, cannot be content 
 with present things. The very restlessness of this for- 
 ward-looking means progress. An unsatisfied race must 
 be an improving race. And every Jew must believe in 
 progress, not only as he hopes for a kingdom to come, but 
 as he compares the condition of his people now with their 
 condition a hundred, or a thousand, or even two thousand, 
 years ago. The fortunes of the race exemplify the doc- 
 trine of progress, as they have risen to the honors of the 
 courts of kings, and hold in their hand the wealth of the 
 nations. 
 
 4. Another evident contrast in the character of the Jews 
 is that of subjective and objective^ or to use a less scholastic 
 phrase, of selfishness and gene?'Osity. The Jew is an egotist, 
 and never loses his personality, never forgets himself, 
 always looks out for his own interest. As Jellinek says, 
 the world is his anvil, while he is the hammer. He cares 
 for his own fortune, his own comfort, his own destiny. He 
 
42+ CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEWS, 
 
 is not content to be a part of the universe, a fraction ; he 
 must be the centre, the ruler, the shaping influence in the 
 surrounding circumstances. He is very jealous of his 
 freedom and his rights, and will not give these up. He 
 has no love for abstractions, or for truth separate from 
 personal gain. He does not take kindly to organizations 
 in which his individuality is compromised or merged. As 
 artisan, or merchant, or banker, he prefers to be untram- 
 meled, and not to be bound by the rules of any guild. If 
 he joins an association, the obligations hold lightly upon 
 him, and a slisfht cause will break them. The clannishness 
 o£ the Jews in questions of race by no means implies the 
 loss of individual itv in the sreneral interest of the whole. 
 There are jealousies, rivalries, and divisions enough within 
 this apparent union. Of each other, the Jews are often 
 unmerciful critics. Their spirit is essentially aristocratic ; 
 each one is inclined to think himself superior to the rest, 
 and to overrate his importance, and to get recognition of 
 personal worth. No people make more use of the first 
 personal pronoun ; no one is more unwilling than the Jew 
 to lose credit for his work, or have another take his proper 
 praise. They do not write anonymously. The thing done 
 is good to the man because he has done it. 
 
 This Jewish egotism is shown in some peculiarities of 
 their ancient tongue. For the pronoun " I," the Hebrew 
 has two forms. For the pronoun '" we," three forms. The 
 word '• self '' has several equivalents. Words expressing 
 subjective qualities are rich in synonyms. There are 
 twelve words which mean to " think," twelve words which 
 mean to '' hide," eighteen words which mean to '" see," 
 twenty-one words which mean to "speak;" while to 
 " speak " and to '' think " can be expressed by the same 
 word. In everything which belongs to personality, to 
 individuality, the Hebrew language is redundant. On the 
 other hand, the language is poor in conjunctions, in words 
 which seem to join men to the men or things around them. 
 And this linguistic peculiarity is seen in the literature of 
 the Jews, which deals with personal fortunes more than 
 with general ideas. The Jew is interested in the illustra- 
 tion of his own experience, and cares little for mere phil- 
 osophy. That slur of the wise Preacher upon mere wisdom 
 
CUAUACTEIIISTICS OF THE JEWS. 425 
 
 suits the Hebrew people still, and they have contempt for 
 metaphysical problems. The Hebrew would know about 
 himself, when he came, what he is, and what will become 
 of him, and has not much heed of the philosophy of other 
 things. He rejects, however, most enerf^etically, the 
 materialist theory of mind as the product of mere sensa- 
 tion, — a sheet of paper on which the senses inscribe all 
 that is written. The Jews prefer a philosophy which is 
 bound up in the events of a human life. 
 
 Other illustrations misrht be sfiven of this es^otism of the 
 Jews, such as the imputation in debate with rivals of 
 personal motives, or the tendency to find the ideas of 
 Gentile writers in their own books, which sometimes 
 betrays them into anachronisms. But the objective charac- 
 ter of the Jews, their unselfishness, is equally marked. 
 First, there is their family love, the love of parents with 
 children, of brothers with sisters, as strong now as in the 
 days of the patriarchs. The finest style of family life is 
 seen in Jewish households. Then there is their hospi- 
 tality, the virtue of an Israelite as much as of an Ishmael- 
 ite. Then there is their spirit of compassion for the poor 
 and suffering. No people care so well for those of their 
 race who are sick or old or wretched as the Jews. The 
 synagogue is not more important than the hospital. 
 Christian mercy is only borrowed from the Jewish virtue, 
 emphatically enjoined in the Sacred Books. There are no 
 Jewish beggars, not only because the people are too proud 
 to beg, but because the want of the poor is met so well by 
 brotherlv kindness. 
 
 And the objective character of the Jews appears in their 
 care for the opinion of other races about them. They are 
 not self-sufficient, thousrh thev are self-conscious. Thev 
 are gregarious, too ; they like to live in neighborhoods, 
 and in the neighborhood of other peoples. History tells 
 us of no Jewish hermits, and the worst curse upon a Jew 
 is that which sends him away from his kind. They go 
 away only as they are driven, and their whole exile is a 
 season of complaining. They have not the spirit of 
 pioneers, and cannot be alone with Nature. Jews do not 
 like to live in communities where there are no Gentiles. 
 They come back to Christian and Moslem cities rather 
 
426 CUARACTERISTJCS OF THE JEWS. 
 
 than build cities of their own, even when they have ample 
 means to do this. They clin": to somethins- outside of 
 themselves, and thrive best when they deal habitually with 
 alien races. They covet the good-will of others when they 
 have no need of help or patronage. 
 
 5. Another contrast in the Jewish character is that of 
 />ride arid humility. Their es^otism is accompanied by an 
 unbounded national pride. The Jew is proud of his blood, 
 of his lineage, of his long history, of his divine right, 
 proud that his people are the chosen people of God. He 
 is even proud of his persecutions, proud that his race have 
 endured such hardness, and yet have kept their purity of 
 faith and their identity of life. The Arab vagabond, who 
 wears the green turban, is more lordly in his assumption 
 than any Pacha, for he has Mohammed for his ancestor. 
 And the Jew in Amsterdam or Frankfort can despise the 
 sleek burghers who pity him, for he has Abraham for his 
 father, while they are men of yesterday. That the Jews 
 do not beg, comes largely from this national pride ; they 
 are afraid and ashamed to disgrace their hereditary dignity. 
 Exacting as a creditor, co?"npelling payment of all that is 
 " nominated in the bond," the Jew asks no favors, and 
 would rather seem to do them than to ask them. The 
 Israelite pawnbroker, who loans on a pledge of five times 
 the value of his loan, with an interest of twenty or of forty 
 per cent., keeps the air of one who is conferring a gift. 
 Every Jew is more or less a Pharisee in this national 
 pride. 
 
 But on the other hand, in outward appearance, the Jew 
 is the humblest of men. His manner is supple and defer- 
 ent. His gait is bent and shuffling. He keeps out of the 
 way of others, and gives them the path. His address is 
 mild, insinuating, full of apologies, excuses, protests of 
 unworthiness. He is ready to accommodate, and take the 
 lowest seat. In public places he keeps in the background. 
 He walks with downcast look, like the publican in the 
 parable. Arrogant as he may be in heart, he is respectful 
 in manner ; his arrogance has no noisy boast. Shylock 
 may despise Antonio as "a fawning publican," but to a 
 looker-on, Shylock fawns and apologizes much more than 
 the Christian merchant. The words are humble, though 
 
CUARACTERISTJCS OF THE JE]VS. 427 
 
 they mav hold a hitent satire. A haughty Jew is a rare 
 phenomenon. The wealthy banker, who handles his mil- 
 lions in London, and ranks with nobles of the realm, 
 is as meek in address as the servile money-changer in 
 Cairo, who sits at the parting of the ways. The Jew may 
 feel like a lord in the heritage of God in which he has the 
 right of the first born, bat his very nobility constrains him 
 in* his intercourse with men to take the servant's place. 
 Jesus was never truer to his nation's spirit than when he 
 said to his followers : "Let him among you that would be 
 greatest be your servant." That is the Jewish way of 
 gaining position, not in the offensive style of command, 
 but in ^a "voluntary humiliation," in taking the servant's 
 place, in seeming modesty. One may notice in the cities 
 that the Hebrew tradesmen make much less parade in 
 their sio-ns and their announcements than the Christian 
 tradesmen, do not hang flags across the streets, or put 
 forth monstrous placards. The largest operators are the 
 least ostentatious. The proud race of Israel, with their 
 pedigree of four thousand years, humble themselves before 
 the Gentiles who have no ancestry. 
 
 6. And equally marked in the Jewish character, is the 
 contrast of passion and patiejice. While " sufferance is the 
 badge of all the tribe," no race is quicker to take offence, 
 and'' to show anger in look and gesture. The wrath of 
 Shvlock, learning his daughter's disgrace and flight, is the 
 sign of an enduring trait in his race. A rash humor runs 
 in'^their blood. They may "pocket the insult," but they 
 feel it, and they show that they feel it. Anger is one of 
 their national passions, and they share it with their Jeho- 
 vah, whose wrath is real, though it abates so readily. In 
 the Jewish ethics, anger is not a sin ; even the Christian 
 Apostle excused it as a natural impulse. The enthusiasm 
 of the race shows itself often in this practical fashion, and 
 even policy or fear cannot always suppress the hot rage 
 which was royal in the wrath of Saul or Moses. In the 
 Jewish quarters of European cities an impression is left 
 upon the mind of the foreign visitor of perpetual disputing ; 
 the language and gesture are those of Billingsgate, and 
 one looks to see a speedy war of blows follow the war of 
 sharp words. In Jerusalem, to-day, the Sephardim speak 
 
428 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEWS. 
 
 of the Ashkenazim in tones which are quite other than 
 kindly. A Jew in whose heart there were no hatreds, no 
 vexini^ wrath, would not be true to his hereditary temper, 
 would deny the gift of his dark-eyed mother. Much of 
 his joy comes in the indulgence of his angers ; this gives 
 vitality to his blood, and arrests physical decay. Fagin, 
 in the Dickens story, relieves himself in his avarice and 
 his falsehood by explosions of wrath upon the instruments 
 of his cunning. The chief artistic defect in the character 
 of Nathan the Wise is that this passion is wanting, that 
 the noble man never gives way to indignation, not only 
 bears injustice, but bears it with so much composure. He 
 is too much of a philosopher to be a genuine Jew. Elijah, 
 denouncing Ahab and Jezebel ; Paul, calling Ananias a 
 whited wall, forgetting in his wrath the High Priest's 
 dignity, are more accurate types of the Jewish character 
 than the calm sage of the German drama, who not only 
 suppresses his anger, but seems never to feel it. 
 
 Yet over against this passion see the infinite patience of 
 the race. To no people on the earth so much as this is 
 the epithet " long-suffering " rightly applied. They have 
 won it by centuries of oppression. If patience were not 
 the virtue of the fathers, it certainly would be the virtue of 
 the children. The wise Koheleth said that " the patient 
 in spirit is better than the proud in spirit," and the wiser 
 son of Sirach exalts this virtue. The proverbs which 
 commend patience are Hebrew in their origin. The Dutch 
 learned their familiar sentence, " Gediild gaat boven geleerd- 
 heid'" — " patience goes beyond learning," — from the Jews 
 who dwelt in their land. The special grace of Job is the 
 national boast of the Hebrews. They need no exhorta- 
 tion to labor and to wait, for there is nothing which they 
 cannot bear, and have not borne ; insults, frauds, false- 
 hoods, blows, every kind of injustice, are all patt of their 
 long training in suffering and patience. The duty now is 
 an instinct as much as a principle. The Jew, in sadness 
 of soul, may cry, " How long, O Lord, how long 1 " Yet 
 he will endure and not faint, though the Lord should still 
 hold back for a thousand years. 
 
 7. The next pair of contrasted traits to be noted in the 
 Jewish character are lavishness and economy. The second 
 
CHARACrEEISTICS OF THE JEWS. 429 
 
 of these is so much brought out in novels and plays that it 
 seems almost a paradox to speak of Jewish luxury. Yet 
 there is no race on the earth more given to luxuries than 
 the Hebrew. We find this in the invectives of the 
 prophets against the feasts of men and the dresses of 
 women. In the time of Jesus, indeed, there was an 
 ascetic sect, and his forerunner came crying in the desert 
 in a camel's-hair cloak and a leathern girdle, and feeding 
 on mean food. But for all that, asceticism was not in the 
 temper of Israel, and the Essenes wer^ eccentric, with but 
 small influence on the national character. The modern 
 Jew is certainly not ascetic. He loves show% he fills his 
 house with fine furniture, and follows close, where he does 
 not lead, the most extravagant fashion. Not only are the 
 daughters of Israel profuse in their jewelry, but the men, 
 too, wear rings upon their fingers, and diamonds in their 
 bosoms. A Jew prefers to spend his money for trinkets 
 and trappings rather than for books and implements ; he 
 may do without the necessaries of life, but he cannot spare 
 its luxuries. He must be very poor not to have some 
 special indulgence, something to feast his eyes. Specta- 
 cles of all kinds, balls, operas, concerts, find their best 
 patrons in the children of Jacob. No conscientious 
 scruples restrain them ; and they are willing by their attire 
 and their prominence to bear a full part in the show. In 
 the davs of David and Hezekiah, music and dancing 
 entered into the Jewish worship, and no religious prohibi- 
 tion hinders this passion, or puts it under ban. The 
 luxury of the Jews is not less real that it is so often con- 
 cealed from the vulgar gaze. The outside of the Jewish 
 houses in Damascus is blank and forbidding; the walls are 
 sodden and gray, and weeds grow in the crevices. But 
 when the doorway is passed and the court-yard is reached, 
 there are bright mosaics, and plashing fountains, and 
 mirrors in the walls, and damsels in rich attire of colors 
 and gold. Solomon, the magnificent, presents the Hebrew 
 idea of wisdom ; to have such possessions and displays 
 that the world shall look on with envy and wonder. The 
 Jew banker, with his four-in-hand equipage on the avenue 
 in Newport, represents fairly the luxury of his race. 
 
 To dwell on the economy of the Jews, which balances 
 
430 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEWS. 
 
 their luxury, would simply repeat the universal prejudice. 
 " As rich as a Jew," is a proverb ; but the common idea is 
 that the Jew gets rich more by parsimony than by enter- 
 prise ; that he /ays up his money while he uses it. The 
 traditional Jew of history and romance is the miser, clutch- 
 ing his gold, hiding his gains, rejoicing in his hoards, wast- 
 ing nothing. His congenial trades are those in which there 
 is no loss of substance, such as money-changing ; or in 
 which refuse is gathered and used, in cloth or in metal. 
 Doubtless this Jewish habit is greatly exaggerated. Japhet 
 has its misers as much as the race of Shem. The Scot is 
 as canny in turning a penny as an Israelite of pure blood ; 
 and the sons of Abraham find their match in savino^ amonsr 
 the sons of the Puritans. The Jew is sometimes cheated 
 by the Yankee. Nevertheless, the Jews are a saving folk, 
 and seldom spend more than they have or more than they 
 earn. The luxury is within the limit of their fortune. The 
 prodigal son is an exception in their families, and the 
 young Hebrew goes to the far country more to trade and ac- 
 cumulate than to waste his substance in riotous livinor. Yox 
 this race the Gentile rule of fortunes squandered in the 
 second or third generation is not valid ; the thrift is trans- 
 mitted, and the hoards are increased in the new genera- 
 tions. Left to themselves, and not hampered by disabilities 
 or vexed by persecutions, the Jews are sure to grow rich ; 
 and they will grow rich, even when they are vexed and op- 
 pressed. All their reading of the cynical sentences of the 
 Preacher about the vanity of riches, of the prayer of Agur 
 for the just mean of property, cannot weaken their desire to 
 lay up store of earthly treasure. They are hard-money men, 
 and they believe in coin as the one thing substantial, if 
 not the one thing needful. Their aristocracy is also a plu- 
 tocracy, like the English, and the neglect to use the occa- 
 sion of adding to their fortune is a foolish blunder, if not 
 an unpardonable sin. 
 
 8. One more contrast in the Jewish character must be 
 mentioned, — of dogmatism and tolerance. On one side the 
 Jews are intensely dogmatic. They insist that their own 
 religion is the best, the saving religion ; that it is revealed 
 and divine ; that it came from God, and has a sanction 
 which no other can have. They know that they are right. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEWS. 431 
 
 Their doctrine is positive. Tliey have no questions, no 
 exceptions, no hesitation in their assertion, no quahfica- 
 tions. Their only apology for their faith is in the works of 
 Philo. Neither for the foundation nor for the substance of 
 his belief does the Jew seek outside arguments, ''reasons 
 for believing." The reason and the argument are in the 
 faith itself. It is almost as self-evident to him as a mathe- 
 matical axiom. In every Jewish treatise or history this 
 sturdy dogmatism appears, not weakened by any doubt, 
 but strict and outspoken. The controversy is not timid, 
 but aggressive. Outnumbered twenty-fold as the Jew is 
 in his dispute with united Christendom, he is as brave and 
 confident before this vast force, in this unequal strife, as 
 David was before Goliath. He is a zealot, as ardent as any 
 of the ancient sect, though he is more prudent than the zeal- 
 ots who destroyed the kingdom in their zeal for the Law 
 and Prophets. 
 
 And yet, with all this dogmatism, the Jewish race is tol- 
 erant, and practices toleration more frankly than any Chris- 
 tian sect. It never molests other religions ; has no spirit 
 of propagandism ; uses no arts of sectarian increase. It lets 
 other races get salvation in their own way. It may be 
 said that such charity is easy and politic for a race which 
 has no power to persecute, which is hopelessly inferior in 
 force ; and that no one knows what the Jews would do iu 
 a changed situation, and with a majority on their side. 
 But they never were a proselyting people, even in the day 
 of their strong empire ; and the assertion of Keim that 
 they were, is not justified by their authentic annals. Solo- 
 mon did not compel his subjects or his captives to worship 
 Jehovah; on the contrary, he left the natives around him 
 to their own gods, and even gave these gods room and wel- 
 come upon the hills of Judea. There is no evidence that 
 he converted the Queen of Sheba to the faith of Israel, or 
 sent her home to give to her people the sacrifices of Mo- 
 riah, or the laws of Sinai. The Jews receive only volun- 
 tary converts, and use no pleading or threatening to gain 
 them. They leave other sects to stand or fall, each by its 
 own light, and to its own master. The bigotry which is 
 the sin of so many of our Christian journals is not con- 
 spicuous in what the Jewish journals say of the Christian 
 
432 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEWS. 
 
 sects. They allow to others the freedom which they claim 
 for themselves. If they do not answer cursing with bless- 
 ing, they have no actual anathemas. They let their foes 
 alone. The Jew has his own Sabbath, but he does not 
 grudge to the Moslem or to the Christian their sacred days, 
 the Friday or the Sunday, the first or the sixth da}' of the 
 week. He does not wish them to intrude in his house, 
 but in their own houses they may act their pleasure. 
 
 These evident contrasts in the character of the Jewish 
 race seem to prove to its loyal children, such as Rabbi Jel- 
 linek, that it holds the future of human destiny; that it is 
 the reconciling race which shall fulfill the prophecy of 
 joining the lion and the lamb, and shall make the synthesis 
 of the opposites in custom and faith. More interesting to 
 the Jews even than their former story, so full of providence 
 and deliverance, and triumph, comfort in captivity, restora- 
 tion after sorrows, is the question of their future destiny. 
 In the heart of the people there is a lasting confidence 
 that a new Jerusalem better than the old shall come ; and 
 that the glory of the former record shall be pale in the 
 brightness of the coming kingdom. But where and how 
 shall this kingdom come ? Shall it be literal restoration 
 to the ancient land so long desolate, a new throne on the 
 hill of the Palace and the Temple, a gathering of the 
 people from all the lands of the Gentiles to the narrow 
 region which was so "goodly" to the eyes of their fathers? 
 This crude Messianic hope still clings in the longings of 
 the ignorant ; and in the synagogue-prayer that the 
 Redeemer may soon come to Zion, they seem to see the 
 thronging and jubilant pilgrimage back to the deserted 
 seats. But intelligent Jews have ceased to expect or wish 
 for any such literal return. They look for a spiritual 
 kingdom as broad as the world, and not fixed in any land 
 or on any hill. The new temple will not be on Gerizim or 
 in Jerusalem, but in the hearts of men. The triumph of 
 their race is not to be in its concentration apart, but 
 in its influence in moulding the characters and purifying 
 the faith of other races. The joy of the Jews now is 
 in the thou2:ht that thev are as leaven in the civilization 
 of men, and that the best human things, the highest 
 moral and religious ideas, come through them and their 
 
CUARACTEIUSTICS OF THE JEWS. 433 
 
 ancient Law. They see the Messiah's advent in the 
 recognition which they are gaining, in tlie respect for 
 their position, in the influence of their industry, their 
 genius, and their hope. Their kingdom comes as they 
 sustain the cheer and hinder the despair of the world 
 around them. While they would hold their purity of 
 blood and of race, they have no wish to draw back from 
 that contact with the Gentiles, which has so enlarged the 
 dominion of their ideas, and given them the heathen for 
 inheritance. The Jewish wise men now teach that the 
 mission of their race is to do for the whole earth what it 
 did for Canaan after its years of wandering, — to subdue 
 opposing forces, to civilize and to bless. Everywhere they 
 are dropping what is only narrow and technical, and insist- 
 ing more upon the broad and universal part of the creed. 
 Unlike the Roman church, which stands immovable in the 
 progress of the ages, learning nothing from the world's 
 wisdom, and only iterating the old formulas, the Jewish 
 wisdom moves with the age, and adapts itself to the world's 
 spirit. This race belongs to the nineteenth century as 
 much as young Germany, or young France, or young 
 America. It springs to the new work of opening the 
 resources of continents, and quickening the social forces. 
 It is all alive with interest in the things which are present, 
 and has small care for mere recollection of former days. 
 A few Jews go off to Jerusalem with the pious purpose of 
 finding a grave with their fathers. But no Jew, who has 
 the sense of a living soul within him, or of a work in his 
 own age, wishes a ^ome in that land of graves. He finds 
 his home close to his place of labor, and he builds his 
 temple there, solid and visible, to stand as long as any 
 religious house. The avenues of flourishing cities are to 
 him more charming than the lanes of Zion, where the 
 holy stones have long been trodden under the feet of men. 
 There is more of Jerusalem where he can see the evident 
 strength of his race, than where he can only read its dim 
 and fading legend. Now that the Jew has become a man 
 among men, a citizen of the world, and not its outcast, he 
 does not seek the city where his outcast state is inevitably 
 brought to his remembrance. When Israel was hated and 
 spurned, it might wish to find a home in its former land oi 
 28 
 
434 CUARACTEEISTICS OF THE JEWS, 
 
 rest. But now that the burden is lifted off, now that it is 
 free from its task-master, it is better satisfied with the new 
 privilege which the Lord has given, and finds in its disper- 
 sion that it inherits the earth in a wider sense than was 
 meant by the seers when they spoke its destiny and its 
 future glory. 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 435 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 
 
 Acts iv. 12. — "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is 
 none other name given among men whereby we must be saved." 
 
 Peter, in this answer to the rulers and elders, speaks 
 not so much of spiritual as of physical salvation. The 
 cripple at the gate was made whole, he says, by the power 
 of the risen Christ ; and all cures of that kind can be 
 wrought by that power and that name, and not by any 
 lower skill or incantation. The healing of diseases is in 
 the influence of him who by the spirit of God had been 
 made superior to physical accidents and master of phys- 
 ical laws. Peter does not mean to say that only Christ 
 can give light to men, or make them wise and happy, but 
 that he only can realize the prophetic promise of the 
 Messiah's kingdom, in which things which seem impossi- 
 ble shall be proved real, and ills of the flesh shall yield to 
 the force of the spirit. Nor does he in this saying include 
 any large surv'ey of the world beyond the Sacred Land. 
 He does not say that the heathen of Africa or Asia, of 
 whom he knew nothing, can have no other salvation, spir- 
 itual or physical, than that which comes through Jesus of 
 Nazareth. The motive of the modern missionary move- 
 ment cannot be drawn from the literal intent of the Apos- 
 tle's word. It may be true, and we may be glad to be- 
 lieve, that the name of Jesus is the saving name for every 
 kindred, tongue and nation, but the Apostle does not say- 
 so in this answer to the rulers in Jerusalem. He simply 
 tells them that no one of the great names which they 
 know; no name of rabbi, or scribe, or prophet, or priest; 
 no name which is respectable among them, or has ever 
 been used in their assemblies, has such power as the 
 name of him whom they have crucified ; that the Jesus 
 
436 CHRISTIANITY THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION, 
 
 whom they have rejected, have mocked, have outraged, 
 have slain, lives still, in spite of them, and lives with a 
 force and a grace stronger than all their arts, and evident 
 to their eyes, with a force which they cannot deny or gain- 
 say, and of which they need the aid and blessing. 
 
 But what Peter claimed for the physical power of Jesus 
 there in Judea, the followers of Jesus claim now for his 
 spiritual power everywhere. They say that he is Saviour 
 of the world from its ills and sins, in the actual scope 
 and character of his Gospel, if not in its first design. 
 They insist that this name is the only universal name, 
 eminent above all others, which ought to stand for a uni- 
 versal religion, and which will at some time or other stand 
 for a universal religion. They affirm that Christianity, 
 the religion of Jesus, ought to be the religion of the whole 
 world, and that the world would anywhere be better for 
 having this religion ; that the best religions of the heathen 
 are inferior to this ; that no religion is so well adapted to 
 the needs of men ; that no other religion can be univer- 
 sal. Allowing, as every intelligent man must allow, that 
 there is good in all religions, and that the rudest and 
 harshest faiths have some saving influence, the followers 
 of Jesus still maintain that there is more good in the 
 Christian religion, and that this contains all the grace of 
 the heathen religions and more which they do not contain. 
 It is not at all necessary for those who hold that the Gos- 
 pel of Christ is a universal religion, to insist that those 
 who have it not, who do not know, or even who reject, the 
 name of the Redeemer, are alien from God and the victims 
 of his wrath ; that the world of torment is peopled by 
 swarming millions who have died without confession of 
 this name. That there are local religions, national re- 
 ligions, very ancient, very strong in their hold, very salu- 
 tary in their quickening of reverence and their restraint 
 upon wickedness, is willingly admitted by intelligent men, 
 even while they say that Christianity is better and ought 
 to have sway above these local and national religions. 
 Not bigotry alone holds the grand idea of the universal 
 reign of Christ. One may exult in the broad harmonies 
 of the great German master of symphony, without deny- 
 ing the sweetness of lesser melodies or the merit of infe- 
 rior masters. 
 
CHIilSTIANITV THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 437 
 
 That Christianity, in any of its existing schemes or 
 dogmatic statements, is likely to become the religion of 
 the whole world, no wise man can believe. The Roman 
 Catholic Church makes converts still among the heathen, 
 as it has made them for more than a thousand years. 
 Its rites resemble the heathen rites, and no very great 
 change is required of those who bow down to wood and 
 stone when Rome brings in her lighted altars and her 
 images of the saints. Yet it is preposterous to suppose 
 that the creed of St. Augustine or the creed of Pope 
 Pius will ever be the rule of faith for the whole human 
 race. The Calvinist missionaries of Ensfland and Amer- 
 ica continue to preach in India and China, and in the 
 Isles of the Sea, but they find only few adherents among 
 the blinded worshippers who live and die in those popu- 
 lous lands. No sensible man can believe that the whole 
 world will ever belong to the Congregational or the Presby- 
 terian Church. The Church of En^fland makes laro:e 
 claim, and gains a place in some lands that own no alle- 
 giance to the English Queen ; yet w^ho is enthusiastic 
 enough to imagine the whole race of man reading from 
 the English prayer-book, or confessing the thirty-nine arti- 
 cles ? No existing creed of Christianity, no existing sect, 
 no form in which faith is stated, can be taken for the 
 Gospel of final supreme dominion." The simplest and most 
 rational statements are too technical for a universal relisf- 
 ion. Christ may be the prevailing name, but not the 
 Christ which any human systems have moulded or imag- 
 ined, whether on earth or in heaven. The spirit of Chris- 
 tianity, and not its form, makes it universal. 
 
 A reason why some thinkers of our time strangely deny 
 the value of the Christian Gospel, and make the fantastic 
 and impossible effort to stand outside of it in a Christian 
 land, is that they persist in confounding the religion itself 
 with the forms in wdiich it has been fastened, and think 
 that it must always be encased in these forms and can 
 never live separate from them. Christianity, they tell us, 
 means the old ecclesiastical confession of Jesus as very 
 God, and if you cannot take that, you must let Christian- 
 ity go. Salvation by Christ can only be in this church 
 method ; and as the church method can never be the world 
 
43^ CHRISTIANITY THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 
 
 method, Christianity must, with all its diffusion, and with 
 all the zeal of its preachers, be a partial and temporary 
 religion, which men, even in so-called Christian lands, may 
 outgrow. You may see men educated in our churches and 
 religious schools, who frankly tell you that the Christian 
 religion has done for them all that it can do ; that they 
 have got beyond it ; that it seems to them limited and nar- 
 row, and that they will no longer stay in its bondage. 
 And they argue that a religion cannot be universal which 
 has not even power to hold its own children. That the 
 Gospel of Chris' is rejected by those to whom it has been 
 carefully taught, is reason for denying that it will be 
 accepted outside of its own circle. They say that more 
 become heathen at home in their unbelief than all the 
 heathen who are converted abroad. The Christian religion 
 is only one of the religions of the world, good in some 
 things, but not perfect, with its weak points as well as its 
 strong points, suited to one class of men and one kind of 
 civilization, only one phenomenon of a varied and hetero- 
 geneous religious life. They cannot tell what the universal 
 religion is or will be, but they are confident that it will be 
 nothing so special as Christianity, and nothing that has 
 the name of any man, whether the human name or the 
 official name. The mistake of their position is in fasten- 
 ing the religion itself to its historic form, in making the 
 Church to be the visible house, instead of the company of 
 invisible souls, in allowing the claim of the religious sys- 
 tem to represent and conclude all of the religious life. If 
 Christianity is all in any form in which it is now, or ever 
 has been embodied, it certainly cannot cover the earth as 
 the waters cover the sea. Its spread will only be in de- 
 tached masses, with wide chasms, and its triumph will be 
 in fortresses set at intervals, which, strong as they may be, 
 will always exclude more than they take in. Christianity 
 will not be a universal religion merely as one or many of 
 the Churches establisli missionary stations in all lands, 
 because at some time or other one mav be able to hear 
 the Catholic mass, or the Scotch psalm-singing, or the 
 English Litany, or the Methodist prayer, on all shores 
 and in all tongues, because there will be no part of the 
 world, north or south, ancient or modern, savage or civil- 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 439 
 
 ized, in which the name of Christ will not be repeated, and 
 his rehirion make some show : but because it will enter 
 into the spirit of all religions and transform them into its 
 own likeness. That any form of Christianity that has been 
 known since the tragedy of Calvary will become the sjib- 
 stitiite for all the forms and faiths of all the nations is only 
 an idle dream, fit to amuse credulous and enthusiastic 
 souls. But that the soul of the Christ of God will inform 
 and illumine the life of all the nations is the most reason- 
 able of all religious hopes. 
 
 I, Let us notice some of the reasons of this hope, some 
 of the reasons why Christianity fulfils the idea, and meets 
 the demand of a universal religion. The first of these is 
 that it addresses itself to all classes, conditions, ranks and 
 ages in society, and finds its saints everywhere ; that it is 
 in no sense national, peculiar or exclusive. It is a religion 
 lor the old and the young, for the wise and the simple, for 
 the rich and the poor, for the master and the servant, — 
 independent of all circumstance or spiritual state. There 
 may be national conditions to which it is not adapted, but 
 for individual men and women and children, it is always 
 Sfood. Its essential ideas are welcome evervwhere. That 
 can be said of no other religion and no philosophical sys- 
 tem. The sacred books of India and Persia and China, 
 the wise boo'ks of Greece and Rome, never can find such 
 wide favor as the Sermon on the Mount or the records of 
 the Evangelists. Exceptional men may prefer other teach- 
 ing to the teaching of these simple records, but this pref- 
 erence is not ordered by any rule of race or class. The 
 testimony to the surpassing value and beauty of the Chris- 
 tian religion comes not alone from the devotion of those 
 who blindly assent to it, but from the deliberate judgment 
 of the wisest men, and even from the judgment of enemies. 
 Rousseau wrote its eulogy while he would set up another 
 oracle of truth. That it is beyond the mark of actual 
 human life almost everywhere does not prove that it is not 
 adapted to the condition of men. Every one would like 
 to live up to it. No one pretends to live beyond it. Even 
 those who reject the Gospel do not pretend that they are 
 better or happier than they would be if they lived up to its 
 precepts. Christianity had its cradle in Judea, and his- 
 
440 CHRISTIANITY THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 
 
 torically was born of a very close and national religion ; 
 yet it is in no sense a Jewish religion, and the Jews claim 
 no property in it. It suits the blood of the artistic Greek, 
 of the arbitrary Roman, of the ardent African, as much 
 as of the Jew, Lineage and climate make no law of its 
 diffusion. The calendar of the Church represents very 
 well this wide adaptation of the religion. Its saints and 
 heroes, not selected by design to illustrate this idea, but 
 chosen from age to age by their personal merit, are seen 
 to come from every race and station. Some have been 
 humble men, of mean descent and small fortune, while 
 others have borne dignities and have filled the seats of the 
 teachers. Some have been anchorites, dwelling alone in 
 prayer and fasting, while others have been busy in the 
 streets of cities, in works of charity and mercy. Some 
 have the brow of youth, all radiant with health and life, 
 while others show the lines of haggard age, rapt only in 
 the vision of the near heaven so long expected. Ambrose 
 and Antony, Catherine and Theresa, Louis the King, 
 girded with armor, Bernard the Abbot, with the Pastor's 
 staff, and the mendicant Francis, barefoot and a beggar, — 
 these and how many more, show us by their union in the 
 line that Christianity belongs to no class, and has a word 
 and a call for all. Judaism could never become a religion 
 for the world, because it has a priestly caste, a set of men 
 who own as exclusive right its honors and mysteries, and 
 whom the rest must obey. No religion that has a priestly 
 caste can ever be universal, whatever its precepts. The 
 universal religion must reach the highest and the lowest 
 alike, and be as good for one as for all. This Christianity 
 is, by the confession alike of friends and foes. This is the 
 objection to it made by many : that it is too democratic ; 
 that it levels distinctions ; that it confuses social order by 
 giving one rule for all. This is its plea, even with its 
 creed banner held up in the van of its march, — one salva- 
 tion for all, the same law for saint and sinner, one door 
 by which all enter in. 
 
 You may plead, indeed, that times arise in the life of 
 almost every one, when Christ's teaching is found inade- 
 quate to show duty ; that there are difficult cases of con- 
 science that the religion is unable to meet ; that it is not 
 
CHEISTIANITT THE UNIVERSAL BELIGION. 44 1 
 
 in harmony with many natural, permanent, and therefore 
 innocent instincts, and that it does not help on that mate- 
 rial gain and comfort which is the first need and end of 
 man upon the earth. Are there not many who fail to find 
 in this religion the solution of the problem of their phys- 
 ical life ? It tells them to take no thought for the morrow, 
 while they have to take thought for the morrow, else they 
 cannot live. It tells them to lay up treasure in heaven, — 
 while here they are upon earth, and have this to care for. 
 It tells them to trust their brethren, while their brethren 
 are actually false and treacherous. It tells them to ren- 
 der to Caesar his due, when Caesar is a hard task-master 
 and would despoil them of their right. It tells them not 
 to fear death, when the fear of death is the best security 
 for life. Can a religion be universal which has in it so 
 much which is impracticable, so much which is unsuited 
 to every actual social state, so much which must be varied 
 and modified and explained away ? How much of the 
 religion would be left, if all must take only what every one 
 can use ? There are Christian ideas which are adapted to 
 the Chinese and Hindoos, but are there not ideas which 
 must be left out of the preaching if these races are to 
 accept it? If Christianity must be clipped and twisted 
 and beaten out to suit the state of men in Christian lands, 
 must be warped to the prejudices of rank and wealth and 
 dogmatism, or to the exigencies of trade and war, how 
 shall it be brought to the more exacting needs of heathen 
 lands ? 
 
 This objection has a plausible sound, but is sophistical 
 withal. It may best be met by considering what Chris- 
 tianity is in its origin and its essence. But we may say in 
 passing that an elastic reach and range is not an objection 
 to any system. The air is elastic, and may be compressed 
 or expanded, modified by vapors or odors, but it is not 
 any the less the all-embracing and the all-penetrating 
 source of life. The air on the mountain is lighter than 
 the air in the valley ; the air on the plain is purer than the 
 air in the mine or in the tenement-houses of the city ; but 
 it is still air, and better than any compound of the chem- 
 ists' art. Water is elastic, and is beaten into wave and 
 foam by the freaks of the wind, and yields before the cut- 
 
442 CHRISTIANITY THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 
 
 ting keel ; yet it holds no less its majestic flow, and runs 
 where the ri2:id line of lava cannot run. It is a merit of 
 Christianity that it will bear so much stretching and twist- 
 ing, and yet keep its integrity ; that it has such power of 
 self-restoration ; that now, after all these pleas of priests 
 and rulers and worldly sophists, after all this false hand- 
 ling in the saloon and the market-place, and on the battle- 
 field, it still continues to speak of peace and justice, and 
 love and forgiveness. 
 
 The wonderful power of the Catholic Church is shown 
 in its skill to take advantage of passing issues, to meet all 
 emergencies, yet keep its unity throughout all. And it is 
 evidence of the universal value of the Christian religion, 
 that it will bear so much manipulation, so much expansion 
 and contraction, without losing any of its essential ideas, 
 and that we can know what it is and was, after all these 
 transformations. 
 
 2. But we find another reason for believing that Chris- 
 tianity is a universal religion in the hiunanity of its origin. 
 It begins with tangible historical fact — with a human 
 biography. Jesus is not, like the gods of the Pagan relig- 
 ions, a mythical character, half human, half monstrous, but 
 he is a man, born of woman, with a human name, lineage 
 and work. The wonderful works which he is recorded to 
 have done are not fabulous prodigies, works in the clouds, 
 but human offices, the works which come from the wisdom 
 of the human mind and the sympathies of the human heart. 
 The story of Jesus is everywhere intelligible, and appeals 
 to all who have human feeling. If the original record were 
 lost, and we had only left the deified Christ of the creeds, 
 Jesus might become as vague and legendary as the deified 
 heroes of the Pagan mythology. But the records survive, 
 and they have been multiplied in such abundance that all 
 tribes find access to them. The story of Jesus is the only 
 story of a founder of the religion which is ever likely to 
 become widely known or widely attractive ; the only story 
 of a religious founder which makes its appeal directly to 
 the hearts of men. Jesus is the one Saviour of men who 
 can be brought into tender personal relations with the 
 human soul, and with every human soul ; whom saint and 
 sinner, too, can accept as a brother and think of as a 
 
cnnisrr.\Nirr the universal iieligion. 443 
 
 brother in the flesh. The Hindoo can have no snch rela- 
 tion with the mystical Brahma or the ascetic Buddha, 
 avoiding human companionship. The Chinese can have 
 no such tender feeling for the great Confucius, exalted by 
 his wisdom. Hercules, and Prometheus, and Odin, and 
 all the divine men of Pagan lore, are of another kind than 
 this Divine Man, whose best divinity was in his perfect 
 human work. The acts and spirit of Jesus are the inter- 
 pretation of human experience and life. He is all the 
 more fit to be the Redeemer of the world that his life on 
 the earth was in such a small theatre, in such a narrow 
 land. If, instead of living a few years in that close region 
 of Galilee and Judea, he had for a century gone roaming 
 through the countries abroad — a wandering Jew up and 
 down the earth — his story could not have the meaning for 
 men that it now has ; its very volume would oppress the 
 imagination and destroy its simplicity. But now how full 
 it is, and yet how easily read and how easily understood ; 
 — a man in Palestine, living and dying, teaching and heal- 
 ing, and entering into the joys and sorrows of life in that 
 narrow land, between the river and the sea, and yet such 
 a man as every nation would be glad to own, and would 
 make its own model of the righteous life. We may not 
 say that no religion has had so dignified a beginning as 
 this, but we may say that no religion starts in such clear 
 daylight, with such positive credentials of its fitness for 
 men. Its centre, and its indestructible part, is not a song 
 of angels, not a cosmogonic tale, not an allegory or an 
 epic, not any writing of the Invisible God on tables of 
 stone even, but a life, as human in its deeds and its loves 
 as any life of man ever will be, of one who ate and wept 
 and prayed, who was a physician and preacher, a censor 
 of morals and a friend in distress, and a servant of the 
 men who called him their master. The religion that has 
 this central figure has an advantage over all other relig- 
 ions which are gathered around some shadow of a name, 
 or around some incomprehensible legend. And the story 
 of the martyrdom of Jesus has an appeal of its own, as it 
 shows the voluntary surrender of life to higher spiritual 
 ends. Other religions have their martyrs — deaths en- 
 dured rather than relinquish faith. But these martyrs 
 
444 CUEISTIANITY THE UNIVERSAL EELIGION. 
 
 have been victims of a power which they might not resist. 
 Jesus, on the other hand, appears as the willing martyr, 
 not using the privilege of his power to save his own hfe, 
 but going to death with an assurance that his dying might 
 bring greater gain and be a blessing to the world. " And I, 
 if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." This is not 
 a vain boast, when we think of the spirit in which the man 
 of Calvary met the death which they gave him. 
 
 3. A third reason for assuming the universality of the 
 Christian religion is found in its ethical character. Its 
 philosophy and its spirit are all moral. There is no meta- 
 physic speculation in it, no theological abstractions. It is 
 all concerned with men and the duties of men, with the 
 relations of human life. What is clearest in it is its prac- 
 tical moral teaching. It is a remarkable fact that no sys- 
 tem of abstract theology ever has been drawn, or ever can 
 be drawn, from the fragmentary record of the four gospels, 
 while it is entirely possible to make from these a system 
 of morals. The Epistles of Paul and the sentences of the 
 prophets have more place in what is called Christian the- 
 ology than the words of Jesus. The Gospel of John, in- 
 deed, has a tone of mysticism, and there are hints of 
 the higher spiritual wonders and the order of things exclu- 
 sively divine. But, abstracting what John himself says in 
 his Gospel, Jesus appears here as a moral teacher as much 
 as in the other three Gospels. Now a religion that is mys- 
 tical, abstract, or mainly theological, can never be the 
 religion of all nations, or of all sorts and conditions of 
 men. Duties are more easily understood than doctrines, 
 and a religion which tells what to do has a broader com- 
 pass than a religion that tells what to believe. And Chris- 
 tianity makes its morality the basis of its salvation. It 
 teaches that righteousness is the ground of hope, and that 
 by this men come into the kingdom of God. The Chris- 
 tian creeds, indeed, do not teach this ; and they hinder by 
 their doctrine of faith in dogmas the spread of the truth 
 which they would carry. The dogma of justification by 
 faith alone can never be a universal formula. But the 
 preaching of an upright life, of virtues such as those in the 
 Christian system, of service limited by these moral laws, 
 will make a religion everywhere in place. There are many 
 
CIIRISTIAXITr THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 445 
 
 places on tlie earth where the doctrines of Trinity and of 
 Angels, and of vicarious suffering, would neither be ac- 
 cepted nor understood, however ingeniously argued ; but 
 where is the place in which the morality of the Sermon on 
 the Mount, or of the Parables, would not be acknowledged 
 as noble ? In this prevailing moral spirit, the Christian 
 religion is shown to be a religion for all men. 
 
 4. And another reason may be found in the fact that 
 Christianity takes men as they are and provides for their 
 actual life. It speaks of heaven and of a world beyond 
 this ; yet its law is all for this world. It has no special 
 teachins: for anv other state than this of earth. Its moral- 
 ity is for the concerns of the social life of men, of their 
 dealinors and relations more than of their dreams and fan- 
 cies. The kingdom which Jesus brings is the kingdom of 
 heaven ; vet it is to be noted that in his w^ords there is no 
 law for any other life than that which men have here on 
 the earth together. The only ordered heaven of the Gos- 
 pel is the heaven of human homes and human help. Chris- 
 tianity in this way simplifies religion by concentrating its 
 force upon the actual work and life of men, and by assum- 
 ing that they are in their right place where they are, that 
 the wrons: is not in their condition, but in their wavs and 
 their lives, and that this can be, and ought to be, reme- 
 died. When a missionary of the cross goes to any hea- 
 then land, his first care is to learn the language and the 
 customs of that land, that he may make these the vehicle 
 of his word of reform. He does not tell them that they 
 are wretched in having been born Chinese or Hindoo, but 
 that he has something for them that will make them better 
 Chinese or Hindoos than they have ever been before ; that 
 will purify their lives, and make God's Providence more 
 real in their condition. He tells them that the sunlight of 
 their own land is as good as the sunlight of any land, and 
 that the heaven is as near to them there as it would be 
 anywhere. Christian civilization does not mean merely 
 the life of Europe or of America, but the morality w^hich 
 would make the husband kind to the wife, children obedi- 
 ent to parents, neighbors mutually helpful, laborers indus- 
 trious, tradesmen honest, rulers just, all men truthful, 
 sober, peaceable and humble. Bishop Colenso can preach 
 
446 CHRISTIANITY THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 
 
 this Gospel to the Zulus as well as to the lords of Eng- 
 land, and they understand it as well. 
 
 5. And the religion of Jesus has this advantage over 
 other religions, that it holds to the worth of man as man, 
 independently of his condition. There is no class that it 
 despises. There is no class that it fairly casts out. It 
 tells the poor everywhere that they are children of God 
 and are rich in his love. It tells the weak everywhere that 
 they are strong in the Lord, and may prevail by his 
 strenirth. It calls sinners into the kins^dom. It comes 
 not only to lost sheep of the house of Israel, but to sheep, 
 lost and wandering, of every land. It realizes that line of 
 the Roman dramatist, and is so human itself that nothing 
 human is foreign to it. No national prejudice can bar the 
 way to the Christian appeal and call. It is enough that 
 man is born of woman and has a part in the common lot 
 to make him a child of the Church. No matter what theo- 
 ries of native or total depravity any Christian teachers 
 .may hold, whether they accept the sternest doctrine of 
 hereditary guilt, or whether they believe that all children 
 are innocent at birth and angels of God ; in this they 
 agree, — that all are worth saving ; that all ought to be 
 redeemed by the Gospel. Christianity is the only religion 
 that has ever tried to teach idiots, not only to comfort, but 
 to enlighten and restore, the feeble-minded. Other relig- 
 ions have recognized a kind of inspiration in lunacy, and 
 have listened to the ravings of maniacs as if these were 
 the voices of God's prophets ; but Christianity alone has 
 essayed to cast out the devils, and to bring back human 
 reason in place of mad ravings. This religion alone has 
 the end of making perfect men out of all kinds of mate- 
 rial, and of building its houses of wood and hay, and stub- 
 ble even, as well as of brick and stone. In the very 
 beginning, Jesus, skilled in the lore of the Jewish teach- 
 ers, and able to confute Rabbins in discerning the Law, 
 addressed himself to the humblest class, and talked with 
 the multitude whom the scribes neglected, and healed the 
 lepers, who were shunned as unclean. And his followers 
 in all the ages have kept that custom. Wise, and great 
 and powerful as the Christian Church has become, ally of 
 the powers of the world, strong in learned disputes, it has 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 447 
 
 nev^er forgotten that its ministry was to bring men up from 
 their low estate, and give them their birthright. It has 
 told not only the noble and bright souls to become per- 
 fect, but the weak and penitent souls as well. We feel 
 that any teacher, however wise or pious, denies the large 
 word of the Gospel, who says that there is any man or 
 woman fated to perdition by innate worthlessness, any 
 man or woman whom God's grace may not reach, any man 
 or woman too low to be lifted, too foul to breathe celestial 
 airs. The very doctrine of death-bed repentance, which 
 only Christianity holds, unsafe as it is, misapplied as it is, 
 has this of merit, that it testifies to the worth of the human 
 soul. This cannot be let go, even in long transgression 
 and obstinate in its sin. The Christian religion will never 
 despair of any soul so long as life holds ; and by its doc- 
 trine of purgatory, it even follows the soul into the life 
 beyond, and cares for it there. The Catholic Church, in 
 this doctrine, teaches that the soul of the dead sinner is 
 worth saving, too, and may be caught in its fall by the 
 prayers of the faithful on earth, and held until its sin shall 
 be expiated and pardon shall be granted. The very 
 abuses of the Church testify to its love for souls, and to 
 its estimate of the worth of man. In this regard, Chris- 
 tianity is broader, not only than all the heathen religions, 
 but than any of the philosophies which would take its 
 place and set it aside. Stoicism, which sometimes coun- 
 terfeits the Gospel, and has in its training many of the 
 manlier Christian virtues, differs in this, that it despises 
 weak souls, timid, effeminate, impure. It takes as its 
 motto not the line of the Roman freedman, which we just 
 now quoted, but that other line of the. Roman sybarite, " I 
 hate the profane crowd, and I keep, them under.'' The 
 French atheists, in their mad rioting, crow-ned a harlot and 
 proclaimed her goddess of reason, in place of religion 
 crushed out. But Christianity is not afraid to take as a 
 saint the sinning woman, who loved so much, and washed 
 with her tears the feet of the messenger of God. 
 
 6. And one more proof we may find of the universal 
 worth of the Christian Gospel, in its doctrine of unity. 
 Other religions have taught the law of love, and the golden 
 rule is found in many tongues. But only the Christian 
 
44S CHRISTIANITY THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 
 
 religion has taught the substantial unity of the human race, 
 the virtual brotherhood of men. Paul, on Mars Hill, 
 quoted from a Greek poet to justify his doctrine that God 
 had made of one blood all the nations of men ; but the 
 Greek poet did not say all that Paul said, and did not 
 mean all that Paul made him to mean. The races of men 
 are made one in the Christian Gospel. The white man by 
 this is made to feel that he is brother of the red man and 
 the yellow man and the black man. Ethiopia for the 
 Christian missionary stretches out her hands as much as 
 Macedonia calls ; barbarian or Greek, Jew or Copt, all 
 are his brethren, and all are brethren one of another. This 
 is the Christian theory, however widely it may be departed 
 from in practice. In Christ all men are to become one. 
 His reconciliation is to be not only the reconciliation of 
 sinning souls to the great God, but the reconciliation of 
 divided souls to each other. Christianity makes of men 
 in all nations and climes a /ami/y, while it shows in God 
 their Father. 
 
 The uniting religion will be the universal religion. No 
 religion ever can be universal which in any way separates 
 the souls of men, encourages their divisions, encourages 
 their isolation, encourages their personal pride, which does 
 not give a common hope and a common love. This bind- 
 ing together of men is the complement of the binding of 
 the soul to God, and this we find in the Christian Gospel. 
 This is the only religious system which has ever seriously 
 proposed to make the whole race of man a brotherhood, 
 and which sees that brotherhood in its vision of the com- 
 ing kingdom. All schemes of consolidation, of co-opera- 
 tion, of partial unity among trades and professions, all the 
 communities and fraternities and phalanxes are only ex- 
 periments which the broad theory of Christianity has sug- 
 gested. These Shaker fanatics, these Icarian visionaries, 
 Fourier and Owen, and all their tribe, only have tried to 
 carry out on a small scale what Christianity would carry 
 out in the spirit all over the earth. Christianity denounces 
 everything that makes men enemies, and declares that 
 good-will everywhere among men is the highest state and 
 the crowning joy. 
 
 There are these reasons, then, for believing that the 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 449 
 
 Christian religion ought to be and will be the universal re- 
 ligion ; — that it addresses itself to all classes, and finds its 
 saints in all classes ; that it originates in a human life, 
 which all can see, love and understand ; that its spirit is 
 moral, and that it deals with human duties ; that it takes 
 men as they are and provides for their actual life ; that it 
 holds to the worth of man as man, without regard to his 
 condition ; and that it unites men in one brotherhood. 
 
 Other reasons might be added, but these are sufficient. 
 These are characteristic marks of Christianitv which dis- 
 tin<ruish it from other relisfions. Of no other existinof 
 religion can these things be said. No existing religion 
 has any such plan of action, any such hope of triumph. 
 No heathen religion expects that its church will ever cover 
 the whole world as the waters cover the sea, while the 
 Christian religion inspires that belief even in its smallest 
 sects and fragments of sects. The earnest men in all the 
 sects profess to believe that at some day or other all men 
 will adopt their profession, all men will agree to their 
 creed. That is the grand pretension of the Roman Church, 
 which has yet among its members hardly a sixth or a tenth 
 of the human race ; that is the presumption of the Church 
 of Swedenborg as well, that their new Jerusalem, so nar- 
 row now, will at last contain all the tribes of men. The 
 sound Anglican divine is confident that his articles will yet 
 become the universal saving faith ; and every Sunday that 
 confidence is matched in the sermons of the Mormon Tab- 
 ernacle. Methodists in their Conference insist that the 
 followers of Wesley are heirs of the kingdom of the earth 
 as of the kingdom of heaven ; and the followers of Ballou 
 and Murray preach in this, their centenary year, that in 
 God's time the whole world will become Universalist, that 
 this is the coming faith of the race of man. Now this con- 
 fidence of the several sects, large and small, in its own 
 future, each in its own triumph, in its own universal do- 
 minion, preposterous as it seems to a rational mind, only 
 shows what is the hope and inspiration of the wider relig- 
 ion of which these sects are only shoots and rays. The 
 Christianity which is finally to prevail is not the peculiar- 
 ity of any sect, but the part which they all have in com- 
 mon. This their zeal bears onward, and on this they have 
 29 
 
4.50 CHRISTIANITY THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 
 
 no controversv. This essential Christianity is rootins: it- 
 self in the world day by day, year by year, more firmly, in 
 spite of all attacks upon one or another of its branches. 
 It grows like that tree once so bright in the gardens, but 
 now despised by fastidious taste, — the Balm of Gilead, — 
 and though its boughs may be hacked and its trunk laid 
 low, its roots will still send up their shoots all around, and 
 all the more that the stronger growth is hindered. The 
 attempts to depreciate Christianity only aid it by compell- 
 ing its teachers to come back from its incidental and tem- 
 porary adjuncts to its central principles, to press what is 
 simple more than what is obscure, what is rational more 
 than what is fantastic. 
 
 The time is certainly not very near at hand when Chris- 
 tianity will become the relis^ion of all the race of man. 
 Geologists predict that in the end of ages the primitive 
 chaos will come back, that the elements which have 
 wrought this creation of the spinning planets and the fer- 
 tile earth out of the nebulous void are at work in its 
 destruction, and that the fire and the water will whelm all 
 these forms of physical life. Then, the cynics say, when 
 there are no more any men on the earth, when it is all an 
 ice-bound extinct volcano, waiting to be cast into frag- 
 ments, Christianity may as well be a universal religion. 
 But the time of the triumph of the Gospel will hardly be 
 sooner than the time of the death of the race. Of what 
 avail, they plead, are all these missionary efforts, all this 
 preaching to the heathen, all these Bibles sent, all these 
 churches gathered ? Are not the millions obstinate in 
 their blindness ? Twelve hundred years have passed since 
 the Arabian prophet proclaimed his divine mission, un- 
 furled his green banner, and sent out his conquering 
 armies. What country that he conquered has ever been 
 rescued by any missionaries of the Cross ? Nay, if we add 
 to the millions of the heathen and the millions of the Mos- 
 lem, the millions of those who in Christian lands have lost 
 faith in the religion of the former ages, shall we not see a 
 narrowing rather than a widening of the circle of influence ? 
 Is it not the idlest dream that this reli2:ion, or that any 
 religion, shall ever conquer the intellect or evefi the heart 
 of all the race of men ? The Churches may iterate their 
 
CURISTIAXITY THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 451 
 
 word that only by the name of Christ anywhere under the 
 heaven can men be saved, but what sensible man can 
 receive a theory which is denied by the life and death of 
 all these generations ? When this Gospel is so threatened 
 in its own citadel, and may be starved out or crushed out 
 there, is it wise to boast of its possible victories in a do- 
 minion where it has yet hardly found foothold ? 
 
 But there are theories so inspiring, there are fancies so 
 blessed, that no cvnic cavils can set them aside. Asain 
 and again, a hundred times or a thousand times, these 
 missionary efforts may fail, but they are renewed and they 
 will be. Never was the Church of Christ more hopeful of 
 its future than to-day. Never was the promise more cheer- 
 ing. Who speaks of giving up that really believes in this 
 Gospel ? For a thousand years, for ten thousand years, it 
 may be, the great consummation may be withheld, and the 
 nations of the world keep their separate idols. But the 
 seed sown so widely will have its sure harvest. We shall 
 continue to believe, and we shall continue to say, until 
 some grander revelation is given, that the religion of Christ 
 is the best boon of God to man, the power of God and the 
 wisdom of God unto salvation. And even if it should wait 
 for its glory to the end of created things, we shall be con- 
 tent, remembering that strong saying of Jesus, " Heaven 
 and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass 
 away." 
 

 
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 Brigham 
 
 Chai^les Henry Brighain, 
 
 BRITTLE DO NOT 
 PHOTOCOPY.