The Word was made heaven and the earth;" or that other, "What have I to do," demands one of the modern guides, "with arks and passovers? what with heave-offerings and unleavened bread ? Good for Orientals, these are nothing to me. The more learning you bring to explain them, the more glaring the impertinence. My learning is such as God gave me in my birth and habit, in the delight and study of my eyes, and not of another man's. Let no foreigner seek to amuse me with pelican and stork instead of thrush and robin; palm-trees and shittimwood instead of sassafras and hickory." So the new barbarism completes the work of isolation begun by Protestantism. The Protestant theologians broke with the Christian mediæval traditions; the Rationalists renounce the Jewish and primæval traditions of wisdom; and henceforth men have no esteem for other intellectual riches but those of scientific knowledge, and the philosophy which yields them farthing candles in succession, as each fails to supply what they deem the deficiencies of the sun. But, having thus briefly noticed the signal furnished by the esteem of wisdom observable in the Catholic Church, and the decline of all love for it elsewhere, unless where it exists as a rare exception, let us proceed to mark the issues to the Church that are effected by wisdom itself, of which the first may be considered as the result of right reason guiding men who study moral truth. Catholicism, while holding all knowledge of religious truth to be derived from revelation and tradition, has exalted views respecting the natural capabilities of man. Nihil est superius mente humana," says St. Bonaventura, "nisi solus ille qui fecit eamt." "Some have inferred," remarks Leibnitz, "from the dictionary of Bayle, that our reason is more capable of refuting and destroying than of proving and establishing; insomuch that, if one were to follow it in a spirit of dispute as far as it will go, we should find ourselves embarrassed in philosophical and theological subjects, and that it combats truth with objections that cannot be solved. But," continues the philosopher-whose wisdom drew him every day more and more towards Catholicity-"I believe that what is said to blame reason is to its advantage: when it destroys any thesis, it establishes the contrary; and, when it seems to destroy two opposite theses, it is that it promises us something more profound, provided we follow it as far as it will go,-not in a spirit of dispute, but with an ardent desire to seek and to disengage truth." Catholicism no doubt supposes reason to be inefficient * Dublin Review, lxii. 552. Itinerar. Mentis in Deum, c. 3. Théodicée. without external revelation to guide it in the first instance ; but it seeks not to depreciate the excellence of the gift. It fully recognizes the advantage to be derived from its legitimate use. True, as we have observed, those who follow this great road will try to break off right and left from the true direction; but let them weary themselves. "All this," as the Count de Maistre says, 66 comes to us, but by a spiral, resulting from an attraction towards the centre, and from the continual action of pride, strong without being equal, which draws them as much as it can from the right line*." On the reasonableness of Catholicity, and the conformity of faith with reason, we can only cast a passing glance. St. Augustine, to whose work, De Utilitate Credendi," Leibnitz refers those who do not recognize the importance of yielding to authority in certain cases, remarks, that faith is mental healthFides est sanitas mentis. In this respect the forest may represent the aptitude of the soul for its development; for the woods are not like the fields, requiring perpetual labour and fresh expense after every harvest. "The woods," as Varenne-Fenille observes, "cost little, and have need of being replanted so rarely, that one may say nature does every thing for them; scarcely does art lend them any assistance, and even this art consists chiefly in preventing nature from being impeded †." Men who reject faith are intellectually impeded and diseased. Men who yield to the prejudices of early instruction falsely inspired, and to the force of habit, are sometimes heard regretting that they cannot be, as they say, happily mad enough as to taste the joys of Catholic devotions; or, if they do for a moment participate in them, they speak of it as the rapture of a dream, and of their relapse to obduracy as the return of health. "Oh! most sweet religion," exclaims the author of " Eothen," describing his visit to the sanctuary of Nazareth," that bid me fear God, and be pious, and yet not cease from loving religion and gracious custom, which commanded me that I fall down loyally and kiss the rock that blessed Mary pressed. With a half consciousness with the semblance of a thrilling hope that I was plunging deep into my first knowledge of some most holy mystery-I knelt, and bowed down my face till I met the smooth rock with my lips. One moment-one more-and then-the fever had left me. I rose from my knees. I felt hopelessly sane. The mere world re-appeared." What a pernicious philosophy, thus to mistake a momentary recovery of mental health, or at least a symptom of approaching recovery, for madness, and a recurrence of prejudice and intellectual weakness for a return * Letters, i. 75. + Mém. sur l'Administ. Forestière, i. 6. to a sane mind! Reason would have suggested that it is health which is delightful and hopeful; and that it is sickness which is without rapture and hope. A man of strong judgment is one who cannot be imposed upon by his feelings, whether painful or agreeable, to act contrary to reason. A man of weak judgment is a man whose judgment has not sufficient strength to dissipate the clouds of error which intercept the view of the centre, towards which his reason itself would direct him if he used it; but, "Sicut Facultas et Actus, Sic differunt intellectus Men who end by rejecting Catholicity are thought to have deliberated upon the evidence in its favour with perfect impartiality, and the indifference of the ass between two equal portions of hay; but, as a philosopher observes, there will be always many things in the ass and out of the ass, though they may not appear, which will determine it to proceed to one side rather than to the other; and man, notwithstanding his reason, is in the same condition. Besides, what is no less true, "men are liable to the misfortune," as Leibnitz says, "of becoming disgusted with reason itself, and weary of light; chimeras return and please better." But remove all early prejudice and all worldly interest from the paths which lead in a central direction-let the resistance of the passions cease-and what is the character of the mind that rejects Catholicism? Assuredly it is not a man to whom an oracle would adjudge the tripod. 66 Catholicism demands from man nothing but his reasonable service; and the act of submission itself which is required is an act of highest reason. "Dic mihi," said the Divine voice to St. Bridget, quid invenisti in verbis meis quod conscientia tua non dictabat tibi faciendum? Aut nunquid aliquid præcepi tibi contra rationem†?" And again, another time, she heard, "Nunquid invenisti in verbis meis aliquid reprehensibile secundum cor tuum vel falsum ?" and she replied, No, truly ; " quia omnia sunt secundum rationem." Accordingly, we find philosophers like Leibnitz, without being formally of the Church, concluding their account of different religious and philosophic opinions by deciding in favour of the Catholic doctrines, though they may not name them as such, but only say with him, that, "generally speaking, it seems more reasonable, and more judicious, to hold to these views in opposition to those of men who contradict * Doct. Angel. Sum. Rhyth. Synopsis, i. Lib. i. c. 32. them*." "How pleasant is it," says the Count de Maistre, remarking the concordance between philosophy and the Catholic doctrines, "to see Plato, my philosopher, collaring Protestantism with such vigour +!" Then, alluding to Leibnitz, he says, "that we have witnessed a phenomenon still more remarkable than Plato giving evidence against Protestantism; for we have seen the greatest of Protestants coming forth from his tomb, and confessing in face of the universe, by an autograph testimony, that he died a Catholic. Is not this," he asks, "sufficient to make dissidents reflect ?" It has been remarked by others, that Franklin, in regard to the conduct of the mind, finds himself on the very road trodden by St. Ignatius of Loyola §. Follow the Church through all her doctrines one by one; and, when misrepresentations are exposed, the wise will find that those doctrines are the deepest, plainest, highest, clearest, the most natural, the most popular; and that her decree is, in point of fact, "The voice most echoed by consenting men." So that we may say with one who, perhaps, only wanted opportunity to embrace it, " Omnes philosophi omnium disciplinarum, nisi quos a recta ratione natura vitiosa detorsisset hoc eodem animo esse potuerunt ||." Reason might suggest what is authoritatively promulgated by Catholicity even in regard to discipline. Thus, in the old poem of Langland, in the fourteenth century, directed against the vices of the age, without including any doctrine in its blame, it is reason personified, which is represented preaching penance; though, indeed, we may remark that, when proceeding forth to preach through the realm, he has a cross carried before him, to intimate that, according to the Catholic doctrine, reason must be sanctified by holy manners. But, in regard to the pure intelligence, Catholicism only demands a clear stage as modern combatants say, a man who can truly affirm of himself,— "Quid verum atque decens curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum¶." Plato relates in Lysis, that Hipparchus erected a column in the midst of one of the squares of Athens, on which was this inscription: orixe, diraιoppóvwv-Go on, thinking justly. Surely it might be well if we had such a column in each of our cities, and that men would comply with its invitation: for only let a man obey this injunction, and the intellectual temptations to * Théodicée, Partie iii. Lettres, i. 73. Is Etudes sur les Idées, &c., ii. 188. leave the roads which lead to Catholicity will not be effectual to withdraw his steps. He may be betrayed by wizard passions to decline in practice for a moment from the way, but in mind and intellectually never. Let him go on thinking justly, and neither the pride of the eyes, nor the pride of life, will form an obstacle to stop him; since, when surrounded with all objects that minister to them, he will feel with Warner, that, “Lacked we all those toys and terms it were no grief but joy ;" or, as Pliny recommends, he will think with himself, when he hears the price of such things, and sees such surprising works, Quam sine his multorum fuerit beatior vita*! Let him go on thinking justly, and he will not approve and condemn the same things, merely for the reason that Protestantism or Catholicism presents them to him. If, like the pilgrim in a famous allegory, which forms one of the most popular books in England, he praises the pious picture on a wall, and the effects of beholding it-admires the cross upon the highway, and the representation of the holy sepulchre, acknowledging how profitable is the sight of both-if, like him, he approves of those who show such relics as that pilgrim was led to revere, things used by the servants of God of old-if he feels, like him, impressed by the ancient monuments which attest miraculous events in times past, and calls them "seasonable sights"-if he avails himself of such pillars as the pilgrim says were erected by former pilgrims to guide to heaven those who should come after them, and recognizes with him the value of reading what befell the holy and the good, then he will not deem contrary to wisdom the doctrine and practice of Catholics respecting holy pictures, and crosses, relics, and ex votos, commemorative inscriptions, and the lives of saints; for Catholicism only realizes what the Protestant imaginary pilgrim is acknowledged to have seen with spiritual advantage. Thinking justly as he walks, whatever road he may take through the wood of life, and whatever objects he may pass near, reason itself can thus guide him towards the centre et in viis suis splendebit lumen. And so the Count de Maistre, endeavouring to withdraw his friend from schism, assures him that his motive is affection, and the extreme desire which he feels to see him walking with head erect upon the road, hors de laquelle il n'y a point de raison ↑. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that it is not here as in Paradise, where * Nat. Hist. lib. xxxvi. 1. Lettres, ii. p. 271. |