the lofty rhyme, or called in the aid of music, married to immortal verse?" And, to draw a reflection still more immediately suggested by what is passing around us, which will lead us to the same result, by showing that which is opposed to the experience of such studies, what is it which renders the minds of many of the moderns, among whom assuredly is many a soul of mighty worth, so gloomy and apprehensive; why do they appear at times so lonely and disconsolate, amidst the wastes of their interminable speculations, afflicted like those spirits seen by Dante, who lived "desiring without hope," variable as if they felt utterly lost on the way, journeying on, and knowing not whither, as if they had no track of any that had gone before to guide their feet, no prospect of rejoining any, with whom the thought of meeting might cheer their present path; looking backwards to ages gone by with disdain, and forwards to the future with dismay, if it be not that the magnificent chain of Christian history and ecclesiastical tradition has been broken to them, and that notwithstanding the outward professions which may be made in reliance upon the resources of genius and learning, they inwardly feel the impossibility of forming, with the broken fragments thrown to them by mere poetic fancy or literary taste, that happy clue which might lead them through the labyrinth of life to a peaceful and joyous end In all ages of the world, religion has had regard to history. Dionysius says, that with the Romans there was no ancient historian or writer of legends, who did not compose his work from ancient narrations which were preserved on sacred tablets. * And Plutarch, in his treatise on the means of perceiving the progress made in virtue, makes allusions to the effects of its moral application, saying that there is no more effectual mode of advancing in virtue, than for a person to have always before his eyes those who are, or have been good men, and to say to himself, "What would Plato have done in this case? What would Lycurgus or Agesilaus have said?" "But with Christians," as Voigt observes, "there is no knowledge so holily connected with religion as history." They are of the number of those of whom it is written, that "their hearts live in all the generations of ages." It is a divine precept which the church sings at lauds of Saturday, "Memento dierum antiquorum: cogita generationes singulas." The facts which show the consequence of neglecting this counsel are most striking. Thus we behold men who seem to know the whole Bible by heart, without appearing to be conscious of the inconsistency of modern manners and modern ways of thinking with what is required of all that would follow Christ; for though they read what the duty is, it exists only in their mind as a grand abstraction, because they never see in what way men can actually reduce it to practice, under the real circumstances of life. Still less have they a desire to imitate that perfection which they regard as a thing beyond their reach, and without the wish to do so, as St. Chrysostom says, in his treatise on compunction, it would not * Dion. Halicar. Lib. I. cap. 73. Voigt. Hildebrand und sein Zeitalter vorrede. Psalm xxi. 27. have been possible even for the saints to have led the life of angels as they did. "The wish of these men," as John à Kempis, the brother of Thomas, used to say, "is that they may be humble but without being looked down upon, patient but without suffering, obedient but without restraint, poor but without wanting any thing, penitent, but without sorrow."* They are in fact, perfectly reconciled to themselves, by concluding that one command was only figurative, and another solely applicable to the times of the apostles, and that others could not be performed without incurring the charge of extravagance and fanaticism. Such persons are always found to turn in unutterable disgust from the lives of the saints, and the books which describe the holiness of antiquity; they affirm that they will never read these books, adding with unguarded sincerity, that it gives them painful emotions to look into them; and, in fact, they go away from them sorrowful, like the young man who left Christ, and not only from the same unwillingness to comply, but also being forced to see that there were others better than themselves: and this discovery is painful to that latent pride which desires to be singular even in goodness. Besides, they are taught to believe that faith was lost in the middle ages, and that they are the best judges of what should be the form and course of a Christian life. Whereas, other men, by merely turning to the old Christians, are filled with a desire to follow them. And their most righteous customs make them scorn Then they hear themselves addressed as if by the poet of Christians :— Why dost thou not turn Unto the beautiful garden blossoming Beneath the rays of Christ? Here is the rose, Father Mabillon says, in his Treatise on Monastic Studies, that one of the greatest geniuses of that age, who had been born in heresy, was converted to the Church by means of studying ecclesiastical history Needful to all, we may observe, that to those engaged in what Lord Bacon calls the narrow and confined walks of natural science, this study is especially important; for such persons, in tracing the history of natural philosophy, become accustomed to reflect upon the errors of men in successive ages, the absurd fancies which were discarded for opinions that following ages deemed equally fanciful and thus they gradually and unknowingly become incapable of believing in the constant transmission of the same religious truths through a long lapse of ages, + Hell xxiii. *Joan. Buschius de Vir. Illust. cap. 32. of which certain fact, an acquaintance with the learning and customs of Christian ages would have convinced them. On the use of historical study to theologians, in order to supply them with arguments, and examples, and means of avoiding error as to popular or vulgar reports, Melchior Canus discourses at large.* But that I may not seem presumptuously to offer information to those from whom it would become me rather to learn, I pass on to observe, in the last place, that the whole scope and matter of this book may be regarded as peculiarly interesting and useful to persons who inhabit countries separated from Catholic communion, and at a distance from the traditionary customs and manners of the Christian life. In such lands, the faithful may be said to live and converse principally with the spirits of former times, with their saintly and heroic ancestors, who lived in ages of faith. No men of cultivated minds and delicate susceptibility suffer such privations there as Catholics for the sense of the beautiful and the just is nourished continually in their minds, and refined and sublimated, while the matter on which it might be externally exercised is withdrawn. Excluded from the august temples, which stand as monuments of ancient faith, they have none of those local resources which the wisdom of religious ages had provided for souls like theirs; they cannot continually behold gracious and ennobling objects to be the defence of holy thoughts against the impressions of vanity. To summon them to holy rites, no solemn tower sends forth its mighty peal; the outward form of things ceases to be divine, for they behold no places of public state and grandeur, sanctified by the emblems of their religion; confined, and fettered, and thwarted in desire, theirs are but maimed rites. For them no night is now with hymn or carol blest. Even nature's beauties are cut off and appropriated, in a manner, from the holy purpose for which they know them to have been originally intended. Every pleasant site, every hill and gentle shore is claimed for uses of luxury or secular pro2t, (for the new sects seem conscious that there is no connection between them and the divine harmonies of the natural and material world ;) they who are of the eternal fold can possess only some new and frail edifice, in the meanest and obscurest recess of a distant suburb, for the sanctuary of the Lord of Glory. For them, therefore, books, and especially the annals of Christian ages, are a principle of life almost essential. It is to them that a Bede and an Alcuin are dear and precious, and that there can be no higher enjoyment than to stray along the sea-beaten shores of Lindisfarne and amidst Iona's piles, Where rest from mortal coil the Mighty of the Isles. Men say that this is the most distressing of all cases, when any one knows admirable things, but is obliged by necessity to keep at a distance from them. καλὰ γιγνώσκοντ' ἀνάγᾳ ἐκτὸς ἔχειν πόδα * De Locis Theologicis, Lib. XI. Pindar Pyth. Od. IV. And these lines of Pindar may well be applied to those few faithful Christians who are found in such lands, pursuing their way alone through regions which seem deserted of God, and light, and joy. lbant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram Perque domos Ditis vacuas, et inania regna Visions of grief and care meet them at every step. -Tristisque Senectus Et Metus, et malesuada Fames, et turpis Egestas They must seem insensible to all the impious deeds around them, or they will hear terrible menaces, in words like those of Charon, "This is the place of shades, of sleep, and night." It is not lawful to carry the living in the Stygian vessel. Corpora viva nefas Stygiâ vectare carinâ. Thus these nations used to cry, let there be no Catholics amongst us, it is not lawful that they should be seen here; which was as much as to say, it is not lawful to admit the living among the dead. Meanwhile, every thing serves to remind them of their saintly and mighty ancestors. Their magnificent domes and towers still remain, of which every arch has its scroll teaching Catholic wisdom, and every window represents some canonized saint. The spot that angels deigned to grace Is blessed, though robbers haunt the place. And though their graves are yearly violated, and the stone cases which contain their venerable ashes hewn and scattered on the public ways, still does their virtue live, by a kind of vague tradition, in the memory of the people : Even by the bad commended, while they leave its course untrod. Towns still bear no other name but that of the saint or martyr who first gave them renown,-a St. Alban, a St. Neot, a St. Ives, or a St. Edmund. Our lonely mountain sides still have crosses, whose rude form attests their Saxon origin, and still are there pious hands among the simple people of those wild hills, to guard them from profanation. The sweet countenances of saintly kings and holy abbots, carved in stone, are still remaining over the solemn gates of venerable piles; and by the side of the pompous inscription, in more than pagan vanity, the antique slab is often discernible, which humbly invokes the prayer for a soul's rest. There too still flow the same dark waters, o'er whose wave so often *Eneid. VI. 268. swept at midnight the peal of the convent bell, or was heard faintly chanting the man of blessed order, as he hastened on the errand of charity. Lo, yonder are the shattered arches of some abbey, on a river's bank, more lonesome than the roads that traverse desert wilds. It is Croyland, and at that calm and solemn hour When near the dawn, the swallow her sad lay, You approach and kneel upon the spot, and the long deserted walls of the ruined sanctuary wonder at the pious stranger, who seems to bear alone, through a benighted world, the torch of faith. Where is now that devout assembly for the early sacrifice: where that rich and varied order, the gorgeous vestments, and the bright gems, and all The beauteous garniture of altars on a festival time?t Our old historians dwell with delight upon the glory of this place. They describe at length the altars of gold, the richly painted windows, the solemn organs placed on high over the entrance, the candelabras of solid silver and the processional cross, the splendid presents of the Mercian kings, of the emperors of Germany, and princes of France, the beautiful buildings, the great hostel for the poor, and the hall for noble guests. They leave us to picture to ourselves the benign countenance of meditative age, the cheerful grace of angelic youth, the innocent joys of study, the delights of unity and peace, the psalmody, the sweet entonation of sublime prayer, the silence, the charity, the faith so oft attested at St. Guthlac's shrine, the lives of saints, and the death of the just! Alas! all are gone, and nothing remains but a desolation, the mere view of which chills the heart; some moldering arches, which each succeeding winter threatens to lay prostrate; a line of wretched cabins, which shelter some wild people, that seem ignorant of God and Christ, untaught and sensual, like those who know not whether there was such a thing as the Holy Ghost, prepared to assure the stranger that these walls were once a jail, or a place built by the Romans, while all around you lies a dark and dismal fen, where a gibbet is more likely to meet your eye than a cross, the image of death and not of redemption! The very earth seems to mourn,-"Terram tenebrosam, et opertam mortis caligine, terram miseriæ et tenebrarum, ubi umbra mortis, et nullus ordo, sed sempiternus horror inhabitat." Alas! what remained for the sad pilgrim, but to smite his breast and continue the accustomed chant,-"Quid faciam miser? ubi fugiam? Anima mea Vide Ingulphus Hist. p. 9. Hist. Croylandensis Rerum Anglic. Script. Tom. I. |