captain greater than that of a private soldier? Mariana is not preaching a sermon, but writing a history; and indeed I do not believe that even this writer, who accuses him, and who is generally so estimable, would maintain that the great historian of Spain required to be taught humanity by the modern philanthropists. In all similar instances, to the page of the monkish chronicles, a closer attention would enable us to discover the writer's goodness and purity of intentions, though a hasty glance at the passage might furnish ground to a modern reader for accusation against him. What Dante sings of higher matters is applicable here:

Things oft appear

That minister false matter to our doubts

When their true causes are removed from sight.*

But the fact is that these writers never contemplated the possibility of men so mistaking their meaning, or that these inaccuracies of style would become of consequence. "He founded a monastery, for he was most pious," says a chronicle. So then, will the Robertsons and their followers observe, this was the grand proof of piety! Attend a little, you hasty judge. "For he was most pious, a lover of the poor, and of all that appertained to God." Here the meaning is clear; but frequently the sentence would not have been completed, and thus a ground would have been left open to these suspicious, uncharitable, and overknowing readers to condemn the holy men of these simple ages. Where they do err it is not the fault of their intention, their language clearly shows this. Thus the monk Richerius, in his Chronicle of Sens, says, "Because I have found little or nothing recorded of the acts of the successors of the blessed Gundelbert, expecting only their names, I have not presumed to add any thing of my own, lest I should be accounted a new author of rumors." And again he says of the Abbot Magneramnus, "quia nihil plus invenio, nihil scribere possum."‡ Facts that seem contrary to this view should be interpreted, bearing in mind that these books were written for a confined and almost domestic circle of readers, to whom the object and intentions of the writer might be known or transmitted. That love of sacred antiquity which inspired Mabillon went hand in hand, as he declares, with the love of truth.§ Not that in this respect he differed from those who went before him, but that as soon as men could foresee the danger, we find that they took care to provide against it. For others who never contemplated such a result, as Mabillon says of Trithemius and Arnoldus Wion, who first attempted to put in order the history of the great and holy men who followed the rule of St. Benedict, they are to be excused if amidst such difficulties and obscurity they erred sometimes. Yet, continues the great Mabillon, “ Imprudent and precipitous admirers," (like those who claim saints that do not belong to their order,)" may be as opposed to truth as unjust calumniators. Unde * Purg. XXII. + Chronic, Senoniensis, Lib. III. Id. Lib. IV. 20. Præfat. in 1. Sæcul. Benedictinum.

mihi semper maximæ curæ fuit hunc scopulum vitare, et quamvis eruditione et scientia inferior, nulli tamen sinceritate verique studio cedere umquam sustinebo."*

But there remains to be considered a class of writers who form a distinctive feature of the middle ages, whose lives and labors were especially directed by the view of that beatitude which is promised to the poor in spirit. Louis de Blois, of the ancient house of Blois and of Châtillon, was from childhood a model of piety and virtue; educated at the Court of Prince Charles, afterwards Charles V., the world was always a strange country for him; he had a distaste for pleasure, riches, and grandeur. At the age of fourteen years he renounced the world, and entered into a monastery of Benedictines. At the age of twenty-four he was named to preside over the Abbey of Liesse, which he continued to edify till his death, which happened in 1566, for no persuasions had prevailed upon him to accept the archiepiscopal see of Cambray. The admirable translator of his spiritual guide, in the Preface which he has prefixed, speaks in general of the ascetical writers of the middle age, and says "It is allowable to suppose that these men, or rather these angels on the earth, enlightened within by eternal splendor, refreshed and vivified by that dew of light, of which the Prophet speaks,† have let fall some of its drops in their writings, and that it is less their words which we hear than the very words of God himself. Their thoughts, their language, all bespeak a celestial origin. It is not thus that men speak. Man has not along with so much grandeur, such simplicity; nor with so much love, such peaceful calm. This Divine mixture of innocence and sublimity, of ardor and quiet, is a distinctive character of these ascetical authors; they alone know how to touch and to move the soul profoundly, without causing it to lose its peace. The eloquence of man, all passionate, because addressed to the passions, "inflames, exalts, and overwhelms; its strength is in its violence; it is a torrent which, in its course, breaks and carries away hearts; but hear a poor monk speaking of the Saviour Jesus, his countenance is calm and serene-his words are simple and sweet; and yet hardly has he spoken two words when you feel yourself affected, and you let fall some delicious tears. With means so weak in appearance, how are such wonderful effects produced? To explain this spiritual miracle, it would be necessary to unveil the very foundations of the pious and fervent soul, to enter into the secret of grace, and show by what concealed ways, by what mysterious channels, it communicates itself, and passes from one heart into another, things almost ineffable, or which but very few men are enabled to know and to reveal; for us, who are but infants in Jesus Christ, we shall confine ourselves to acknowledging here the finger of God, and to adoring in silence his incomprehensible power and his ravishing goodness."

The Greeks had a saying that every man lived as he spoke; and Quinctilian

*Præfat. in 1 Sæcul. Benedictinum. + Isai. xxvi. 19.

tells us that it used to be said of Cæsar, that he always spoke with the same mind as that with which he conducted war.* The same may be said of these ascetical writers of the middle ages; they wrote as they spent their innocent lives, in the house of God. That ravishing calm, that inexpressible peace which we experience, in reading their writings with a docile faith, and a humble love, place us, as it were, within the very sanctuary of the secluded spot, amidst woods and mountains where monasteries stood. It is as if the noise of the world had died away around What are the pleasures of the world compared with these unutterable joys? These books, like the Cantica Canticorum of Solomon, "Seraphic all in fervency," seem to begin with a kiss of peace; they could not have been written by men who studied only the virtue which is known by means of lofty song. It must have been by men who drew all their science from benign goodness, like St. Dominick, who, when he was asked where he found all the admirable things which he preached to the people, replied, "in the little book of charity." cerned,

us.

How in their intellect already shines

The light eternal which to view alone
Ne'er fail to kindle love.§

Well is dis

St. Bernard comments thus upon the words of the Evangelist: "He was a burning and a shining light,"&c. and adds, "It is not said shining and burning; because the light of John was from his fervor, not his fervor from his light; for there are some who shine not because they burn, but rather they burn in order that they may shine; these men burn not with the spirit of charity, but with the ardor of vanity." Such men have need of the caution of Antony, of whom Cicero says, "that he never wrote his discourses, that in the event of his own words being opposed to him, he might have it in his power to deny them." It was the predominance of such characters among those of his sect, which made Fuller exclaim, "How easy is pen-and-paper piety for one to write religiously!" He would have deemed it writing religiously, to compose books like those we see entitled, "Piety without asceticism," that must be, in other words, how to love both God and the world, and how to avoid the cross, taking up a kind of natural and amiable temper, for which the highest expressions may be found in Plutarch or Seneca. All this, indeed, is easy; but to write like the holy authors of the ages of faith, there must be the solemn and irrevocable will to live like them, in poverty of spirit.

It is this renouncement of intellectual possessions which gives the distinctive character to their writings. Following him, " qui semetipsum exinanivit," through humility, they might have expressed the fervor of their desire to imitate him, in the line of the poet,

* Instit. Lib X. 1. † Pind. Pyth. III. Ludovic. Grenad. in Festo B. Dominici, Concio III. § Dante, Parad. V. | In S. Joan. Bapt. Nativ. Serm. Pro. Cluentio. 140.

εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ δὴ φροῦδός εἰμι πᾶς ἐγώ.*

"Take from me, O Lord," cries St. Anselm, "if it be thy will, my substance; take from me the members of my body, my hands, my feet, my eyes, only leave me a heart with which I may be able to love thee!" Their highest rapture is derived from beholding some saintly man, and it is only to make an instant offering of it to God, without the least thought of its being made serviceable to answer any proud purpose of their own hearts; unlike that poet, who sang his vision of the future world, and whose unerring style seems for once to fail him, when he says— There, on the green enamel of the plain,

Were shown me, the great spirits, by whose sight,

I am exalted in my own esteem.

They knew their wisdom not to be their own, and whatever store they had, freely they ascribed it to the grace of him who had heard their prayer. What a contrast was here to the judgment of all mortal men! if the ancient philosopher has truly described it; for he asks, “Did ever any one thank the gods for being a good man? but was it not only for being rich, for being honored, for being preserved; for this is the judgment of all mortal men, that fortune is to be sought for from God, but wisdom to be obtained from one's self."+

St. Anselm, in his sublime meditations, prays to God that he may be delivered from that curiosity which desires to know every thing. To such an extent did these men carry their detachment and humility, taught by the blessed spirits, who, though they see their Maker, yet know not the scope or essence of his mysteries, and "esteem such scantiness of knowledge their delight; for all their good is in that primal good concentrate, and God's will and theirs are one." In a lower respect, their humility was but the natural consequence of their choice, as reason herself can in some sort discern. Thus the ancient sage said, "If you wish to advance, be content to suffer, that you should appear to others senseless and stupid as to external things. Do not wish to seem to know any thing. You must either renounce your resolution or neglect external things." And Seneca complained, that as in every thing else, so also in study of letters, the men of his age were intemperate ;|| by which he meant that they were not endowed with real wisdom. "J'ay prens plaisir," says Montaigne, "de veoir en quelque lieu, des hommes par devotion, faire voeu d'ignorance, comme de chasteté de pauvreté, de penitence; c'est aussi chastier nos appetits desordonnez, d'esmousser cette cupidité qui nous espoinconne à l'estude des livres, et priver l'ame de cette complaisance vuluptueuse qui nous chatouille par l'opinion de science; et est richement. accomplir le voeu de pauvreté d'y joindre encore celle de l'esprit." This must sound very strange to the modern lover of learning, who seeks to fly as a conqueror upon the tongues of men,

* Eurip. Med. 720.

Epicteti Manuale, cap. xii.

+ Cicero de Nat. Deorum, Lib. III.

§ Epist. 106.

Medit. cap. i. § 2.

Essais, Lib. III. 12.

"Victorque virum volitare per ora.”*.

However, such a vow required great simplicity of intention; for with these ancient writers it was not learning, but the pride and spiritual riches consequent upon it, which offended them. Thus Louis of Blois, in giving rules for the direction of studies, says, "Seek not superfluous science and eloquent words, for the kingdom of God consists not in eloquence of language, but in holiness of life. Yet this elegance need not be disdained when it is found, for it is also a gift of God. Receive it then with thanksgiving, and all will be useful to salvation. It is not necessary that you should be able to remember the words, but that you should appropriate to yourself the substance of the doctrine." Nay, by choosing ignorance they show that men may be rich in spirit, so as to be examples of spiritual riches or spiritual pride, and of the inordinate false liberty consequent upon it. "With this," they say, "a man supposes that he has no need of learning from books or other instructors; not only he counts them for nothing, but he even derides all rites, institutions, laws, precepts, and sacraments of holy Church, as also all men who use them and attribute aught to them; he concludes that he knows more than all other men, and therefore he always loves to talk and dictate to others, and he will have his sayings alone esteemed, and all other men's words to be regarded as false, or rather to be scorned as ridiculous and absurd."‡

St. Jerome had expressly argued against the disparagers of learning, and had said, "venerationi mihi semper fuit, non verbosa rusticitas, sed sancta simplicitas."§ And, in fact, there are many passages in the ascetical and other writings of the middle age, than which as nothing can be wiser, so also it will be found that nothing can be more eloquent.

Guizot, who, in such a question, is an authority not to be suspected, says of the writers of the middle ages, who recorded the deeds and thoughts of holy men, “If we consider them in a purely literary point of view, we shall find their merit no less brilliant, and no less varied. Nature and simplicity are not wanting in them; they are devoid of affectation, and free from pedantry." A slight acquaintance with them will, with most minds, generate a distaste for those innumerable books of later times, which bear undoubted signs of having been written by men who were full of themselves, and who, in composing them, were really no otherwise occupied than in worshipping their own miserable image. "Et quia magis eligunt magni esse quam humiles, ideo evanescunt in cogitationibus suis." The very language, all neglected and unpretending as it may be, will please more than that apparelled eloquence, "or rather disguised in a courtezan-like painted affectation, made up of so far-fetched words, that they seem strangers and even monsters in the tongue," with which the writings so many of the moderns are recommended to the half

* Georgic. III. 8. & Epist. xxxiii.

+ Guide Spirituel, chap. iii.. Cours d'Hist. Mod. Tom. II. 180.

Theologia Germanica, cap. xxiii.