CHAPTER X. Other features of the Catholic morality-Its precise and certain law-Its practical and poetic character-Its provisions against all extravagance—Its strictness respecting common duties-Payment of creditors-Justice of municipal laws-Provisions against usury-It included all virtues in one--Its influence even upon art-Effects seen in the edifices of the middle age-General ideas of justice derived from the example of Christ-From the models which he proposed, and from the observation of the visible world CHAPTER XI. p. 657 The subject resumed-Doctrines were the foundation of duties, and the divine authority their principle of force and efficacy-Motives furnished by the knowledge of a future judgment-The Catholic morality was spiritual and living-The charge against it of superstition refuted-Its efficacy in the determination of the will-Free agency of man and power of the will, maintained, and the practical consequences in the middle ages—The fatalism of the moderns, and the custom of life resulting from it-Genuine and exalted merit of the Catholic morality acknowledged by a late philosopher CHAPTER XII. p. 674 Objection to the Catholic morality on the supposed ground of its incompatability with the Christian doctrine of justification, refuted by the testimony of the holy fathers-Of the scho、 lastic and mystic authors-Of the church herself in her liturgy-Of the laity, philosophers, and poets, and of the tombs and other material monuments of the middle ages-Con. clusion. p. 688 MORES CATHOLICI; OR, AGES OF FAITH. THE FIFTH BOOK. A CHAPTER I. ; nor T the fourth counsel of the mystic song a sudden lustre, like the golden beams which brighten up the horizon at the evening hour, illuminated my heart. Methought a countless multitude of men, of every age, and order, and degree, passed before me. Emperors and princes were there, and mitred fathers, and whole hosts wrapped up in sable weeds were wanting the ideal comrades of our youth, steel-clad knights, and gentle poets of the bower and hall; grave magistrates too followed amidst a throng of citizens and peasants, in which were some who toiled in trades laborious which seem base to the pride of mortals, and others who craved alms for sweet charity, and around each did shine an unimaginable light, encircling him as a luminary of eternal vision, which clearer than with any voice proclaimed his everlasting princedom. These were all they whose wishes tended to justice; for they shouted forth "Blessed," and ended with "I thirst." O how after each pause the harmony sounds more and more strange to ears of flesh and blood. We know, indeed, that all spirits on this earth hunger and thirst, as all mourn. Who has not observed, while wandering on the shore of brief life with wretched men, the careful provision made to satisfy the thirst for riches, the thirst for singularity, the thirst for novelty, the thirst for change, the thirst for honors, the thirst for the first seats, and for hearing Rabbi, the thirst for knowledge, perhaps, so praised by that Choronean sage, who says, "that letters and philosophy should imprint in our soul a passion similar to thirst and hunger, which would evince its power if we were deprived of them;" but unless when enjoying such visions from reverting to the traditions and monuments of ages of faith, where, O where is there any indication discernible among Adam's children of attention to the thirst for justice? |