How many prejudices would yield to the action of hospitality exercised towards good and illustrious men; even though it took its origin from that doubtful spirit which, perhaps, moved Simon the Pharisee to invite our Lord to dinner: who, as the Père de Ligny suggests, may have been actuated by that kind of vanity, which makes rich men desire to have at their tables extraordinary persons.* Homer gives an instance of the effect produced upon a host by the innocent conversation of a guest ; where Eumæus tells Penelope that the stranger has been during three nights and three days under his roof, and that he has never heard an evil word from him ̓Αλλ ̓ οὔπω κακότητα διήνυσεν ἣν ἀγορεύων, but that he has listened to him as to a minstrel, who holds every one motionless while he sings; even so has this stranger affected him sitting in his house.+ Catholicity, not content with negative merit, has better examples. The ancient books are full of examples of guidance by chance guests; such as the history of that youth sent to the schools of Paris, in the 13th century, who, from having often seen Cistercian monks as guests in his father's house, used to pray that he might die a brother of their order. But let us hear what Hungarius the Minor relates in his exposition of the Credo, entitled Gemma fidei. "There was a bad reckless man," he says, "who had a devout wife, at whose suggestion he often received monks; and one day, as some brothers sat at table with him in his house, she prayed them to speak some words of salvation, of which they stood much in need; requesting her husband's permission, who replied, addressing them, Say on, only be brief, for preaching when prolix is wearisome to me. Then one of the brothers assured him that a short word sufficed, and cited the charge of our Lord-Quodcunque vultis ut faciant vobis homines, et vos facite illis; which the host desired him to repeat and explain. The monk's comment referring to our neglect of what we owe to God, made a deep impression on him. He promised to keep the precept. The next day he gave public notice that he would pay all his debts, and restore whatever he had in pledge. To keep up his spirits after such a sacrifice, he went to hunt; and being overtaken by a violent storm and rain, which caused the mill-wheel of a poor man to be swept away, he remembered the precept, hastened to his help, and assisted him in fixing up the beams, and restoring the wheel to its place. Further on, meeting a poor stranger, his mind being still fixed on what he would himself desire, if *Hist. de J. C. in the condition of others, he invited him to his house, and introduced him to his wife, and entertained him. In short, as she remarked, he was changed into a different man ever since the day when he heard the monk's discourse at the dinnertable. So that, after concluding his history, the author exclaims —O divina lex, quam brevis, et quam utilis! tu sola rectificas animas, et eas ducis ad gloriosam vitam æternam.” * Men could be even guided to the Church by only hearing the names of guests who had once been received under the roof which sheltered them. In the hall of the Archbishop of Valencia's palace, which yet remains, there were once assembled together in the time of its lord, St. Thomas of Villanova, no fewer than seven persons who were all afterwards canonized by the Church. What an impressive lesson would be received by the mere contemplation of such a hall! The memory of guests used to be preserved in the house even by inscriptions. Thus in the house of the Counts of St. Boniface, at Padua, Count Hercules placed a memorial of having received three cardinals to hospitality; and in the palace of the Contarena family on the Brenta, on the road between that city and Venice, there was a similar tablet, in which Frederic Contarena commemorated the humility of a royal guest. In the countryhouse of James Gianfiliazzi, near Marignolle, where Leo X. was received to hospitality on his journey to Florence, the memory of the visit was perpetuated by these lines, inscribed on the bed-room of his holiness "Dulcis et alta quies decimo pergrata Leoni Hic fuit; hinc sacrum jam reor esse locum." As in ancient times, the Catholic spirit requires that the memory, too, of a father's guest should be cherished. Alas! in these days some may feel shame on hearing Diomede greet Glaucus with "Certes, you are to me a paternal host; for Eneus once entertained the noble Bellerophon in his house during twenty days, and at parting they gave each other presents as a token, which I left at home when I came here." But along with the Catholic discipline, all things dear to nature and sacred by antiquity, depart also. “A guest or host, which is most holy, quod sanctissimus est," says Cicero. What is he now? We should err, however, greatly, if we supposed that the exercise of hospitality, according to the spirit of the Church, was to be confined to those who could be a source of edification to the host. That all were to be received, we have already * Joan. Major. Magnum Speculum, xiii. seen; and the rule in this regard is thus explained by St. Isidore, citing an ancient author-Cum his conversare, qui te meliorem facturi sunt. Illos tecum admitte quos tu poteris meliores facere.* At the table of the guests, conversions have been made of men as furious in their nature as that Hercules, who, coming to dine with Eneus, when the servant lad Eunomus poured on his hands the warm water which was intended for his feet, was so angry at the mistake that he killed him on the spot. In this respect the monks showed the example which laymen in the world often followed. In these houses were not unfrequently received strangers, of whom the lay-brother who observed them might say in the words of the servant of Admetus, after serving dinner to Hercules, "I have seen many guests from all nations coming to this house, and I have waited on them, but I never served one so barbarous as this, who seems to me to be some cunning thief or highwayman."+ To him, however, the Catholic host would learn to reply in the spirit of that hermit who, on the stranger leaving him, and expressing shame at having hindered him from keeping his rule, calmly answered, My rule is to receive you with hospitality and to dismiss in peace."+ 66 you The Catholic religion, by keeping men familiar with the idea of their own true condition as strangers upon earth, and yet received to mercy by the Highest King, disposed them to repeat in a high spiritual, and yet most affectionate practical sense, the noble words of Theseus to Edipus, replying that he will never refuse hospitality to a stranger, adding ὡς οἶδά γ ̓ αὐτός, ὡς ἐπαιδεύθην ξένος, .§ But how were guests entertained? Will there be any thing found in searching for an answer to this question, which points to Catholicity? The ancients do not leave us in ignorance of their customs. Water was always first brought; to which allude the words of Martial-Calidæ gelidæque minister. Guests also received garments for the banquet; || a fact which throws consoling light on a divine parable: and even magnificence was subservient to instructions. Sometimes they sat at a round table, on which were represented the signs of the zodiac; over each being placed a meat analogous to the sign, as over Taurus beef, over Leo an African fig. The symbol of the Apostles was so called from the Symbolum, which was a feast to which each guest brought his own food to make up a * Ap. S. Isidor. de Sum. Bon. De Vita SS. Patrum, c. 13. Hor. Serm. lib. ii. Sat. vi. † Alcestis. § Ed. Col. 563. Tomasinus de Tess. hosp. 135. common banquet. Vitruvius says, " to the right and left little houses are built, having their respective doors, dining-rooms, and bed-rooms, that guests on arriving may be received not in the porches, but within the house itself."* These were the apartments of the guests to which was led the stranger, as in the play, ἄγ ̓ αὐτὸν εἰς ἀνδρῶνας εὐξένους δόμων.† In Christian times, in the palaces of kings and princes, and rich men, the finest rooms were reserved for guests, and by the Italians called Foresterie. "The guest," says King Alphonso, in the Constant Prince of Calderon, "has always the first place at the hearth." The germ of ascetic piety entered thus into social manners. According to the monastic rule, which was often followed in this respect in secular houses, the manner of receiving guests was expressly designed to minister to the edification or instruction of all, so as to fulfil in a high sense the words of Plautus: "In bono hospite atque amico quæstus est quod sumitur." That the Gentiles, with all their boasted regard for hospitality, fell far short of the standard which the Catholic Church proposes to men in its regard, appears from their own avowals. Plautus says, "Hospes nullus tam in amici hospitium divorti potest, Quin, ubi triduum continuum fuerit, jam odiosus fiet ;"+ and Euripides complains that a host will receive friends in exile only for one day : ὡς τὰ ξένων πρόσωπα φεύγουσιν φίλοι, ἕν τ ̓ ἦμαρ ἡδὺ βλέμμ ̓ ἔχειν φασὶν μόνον. § Cicero, however, found that even that term would be refused to the unfortunate; whereas under the influence of the Catholic Church, in time of persecution and calamity, there are not wanting instances, frequent in our own domestic annals, of guests remaining many years under the roof which first gave them shelter from men more cruel than the sad Busiris, who would have immolated them to the cold remorseless divinity with which heresy had supplied them. Of delicate attention to the entertainment of guests, the ancients have left us many representations. Admetus cherishes the hospitable spirit to such an excess, that he conceals the death of his wife from Hercules, lest the knowledge of it should prevent him from * Lib. vi. c. 10. + Choeph. 710. § Hercul. furens, 305. In Milit. accepting his entertainment. Hercules perceiving that some calamity had befallen him, proposes to depart, ξένων πρὸς ἄλλην ἑστίαν πορεύσομαι, "that cannot be permitted," replies his host; "add not a new affliction; the dead are dead; enter; the guest's chamber is separated from the rest of the house; you will hear no lamentations. It would be a fresh calamity if my house were to be called inhospitable. δόμους καλεῖσθαι τοὺς ἐμοὺς ἐχθροξένους. My house," he adds, " knows not to reject the stranger. τἀμὰ δ ̓ οὐκ ἐπίσταται μελάθρ ̓ ἀπωθεῖν οὐδ ̓ ἀτιμάζειν ξένους. It would be grief upon grief if you were to seek hospitality in the house of another."* Cicero, however, under such circumstances, is content with saying that he will not offend his guest : "sed non faciam, ut illum offendam, Ne imploret fidem Jovis Hospitalis.”† The true religion would never demand an exaggerated development of the hospitable spirit; but the action of Catholicity may certainly be remarked in that delicate courtesy, and that humble attention which belonged to the manners of guests and hosts in the old European society. To the same source can be traced all those minute directions, amusing from their simplicity, which used to be given to youth, of which the vestiges are now only beginning to wear out, as when we read, "Child, I admonish thee not to fall asleep at table." "Et aussi que tu ne conseilles En l'oreille d'autre personne."+ "Si on met lettres en ta main, Mès les tantost dedens ton sein!" § and on leaving the house, 66 À ton hoste dois mercy rendre ; A Dieu vous commans, je m'en vois." || In Spain, many traces of the primitive spirit, in regard to hospitality, remain in the conventional expressions and manners of both rich and poor. Thus, on leaving a Spaniard's * Alcestis, 565. Stans puer ad mensam -Contenance de table. † Epist. lib. i. § Id. Il Id. |