ページの画像
PDF
ePub

these possessions to be worth nothing, and that we ourselves were as nothing, and in this manner did he spend his whole life, always indulging in irony, and playing as it were with the thoughts of men.* But with our simple ancestors, possessing that spiritualized mind, which was able to put almost every thing around them in harmony with truth, there was the dispossession without the necessity for concealing it under a form of disdain. The very circumstances of affluence, of men with whom

life and time

Ring all their joys in one dull chime

Of luxury and ease,

could excite no envy where there existed the faculty of appreciating the beauty of spiritual good, for it is in proportion as men are imbued with matter that riches become so powerfully attractive. Amyot says in his Breviarie, "that one can know by the countenance of a man whether he loves money or not." This is, in fact, the love which makes so many countenances hideous and almost fearful to behold. In the ages of faith, to be known to love money, or even to possess it in any extraordinary degree, would have been no recommendation to love and friendship, and to all that made young and generous hearts beat high.

In truth, in a Catholic country, where the sons of the rich behold the generous and amiable manners of the rustic chivalry among whom they spend their youth; where the noble has learned to weep over the sad tale of many a poor companion, and to sing to himself those plaintive songs which are so sweet and wild, that the traveller oft stops on his road, by the meadow's side, to hearken to them, and to wonder at the melodies of the poor-the simpler and lower ranks of society are so estimable, that noble natures will often seek to be confounded with them, and to conceal even from others those very distinctions of wealth, which are brought forward with such haughtiness under all other circumstances of human society. The Catholic form of life tends necessarily to keep the hearts of men susceptible of all the innumerable, gracious, and beautiful harmonies of social relation. To Nature's unclouded eye, the manners of the rich and dissipated seem so full of affectation and selfishness, that they are wondered at as a spectacle, not admired as a model of imitation. And even by the influence of this general impression, the rich are at length delivered from the delusion of vanity, so that they would now as anxiously court community with others, as formerly they would have shunned it. Such beauty is there in the simplicity and modesty of nature. For human life, when restored and spiritualized by the Catholic religion, is full of grace and loveliness. There are a thousand of expressions of goodness, which are only destroyed by the absurd vanities of the rich and haughty. There are forms of moving, even tones of voice, which breathe joyous simplicity and angelic innocence, and which young hearts would not exchange for the wealth of worlds. Hence, in

*Plato Symposium, 33.

relation to the fine arts, it is the poor who almost always have the feeling and the sentiment of beauty, which is the source of genuine taste, though in them it may often remain rude and imperfectly developed; whereas the rich, by luxury and pride, have often lost that feeling and sentiment, though they may vainly attempt to supply their place by assuming the conceit, the tone, and the phraseology, of the insolent connoisseur. The simple, virtuous poor are men of first thoughts: the sophists and people of the world, who deem themselves so knowing and enlightened, are men of second thoughts. The profound sages and learned holy Christians, are men of third thoughts, which only bring them back to the first, convinced of the vanity and emptiness of the intermediate stage in their intellectual progress. It is the poor who have the most lively sense of the beauty and solemn grandeur of the holy ritual of the Church. It is they who are sure to catch the tender mystery. Jacob, indeed, was the son of a rich man, but as St. Jerome observes, it was when he was going into Mesopotamia alone and naked, with staff in hand and when, being wearied on the road, he lay down; and he who had been educated with such delicacy by his mother Rebecca, and now a stone for a pillow to his head; it was then that he beheld the ladder of angels ;* and as an old writer says of Jacob sleeping thus on the ground," who would not have had his hard lodging, therewithal to have his heavenly dream ?" And observe too, that where such sentiments prevail, the real wants of nature are sure to be supplied. "Ubi caritas est, etiam exigua sufficiunt," says Ardo, in his Life of St. Benedict, Abbot of Ania. Love knows no distress of poverty; and let it be remarked also, as a general rule, that almost always, whatever costs the least is the most conducive to health, and even to beauty. Riches cannot procure the blessings which belong to love and innocent simplicity, in a Catholic land, where a sweet look is of more avail than a long purse. The rich are amazed on entering it, to find how indifferent men seem to their stern orders. It is not there that they would be able to quote their favorite maxim, which they seem to have learned from Bacchus, who cries out in the shades, when he hears that Charon will ferry him across for two oboli,—

Φεῦ ! ὡς μέγα συνασθον πανταχοῦ τῷ σὺ ὀβολο τ

Their two oboli will not go so far here as with their own unhappy people, whom they have debased, and as it were imbruted, in matter. It would be endless to produce instances of the ennobling influence of the Catholic religion upon the minds and manners of the poor. The historians of Italy, (though it is not in history that we should look for such records,) relate numerous cases of the highest generosity and heroism evinced by poor peasants, and laborers in cities, which prove how completely the humbler classes may be exalted to the highest intellectual and moral dignity. Assuredly, in a Catholic state, Virgil would have found

* Epist. XCII. † Aristoph. Ranæ, 141. See, for instance, Matt. Villani, Lib. X.

another term for his husband-man besides "greedy."* What pure and noble chivalry, even when extravagant, showing a root of goodness, appeared in the brave and pious peasants of the Bas-Maine, as related in the later histories of France! The brother of John Chouan dies, "because he will declare his real name to the enemy; he does not know how to lie, for he has never lied."

But if such was the condition of the poor in all these respects, which might seem earthly and temporal, how must it have been blessed in regard to purely heavenly interests, and to those that are spiritual and eternal! Beati pauperes. And here I will forget all the blessedness which we have hitherto ascribed to that condition in ages of faith, because so far it may seem allied even to the choicest goods of this present life. But let us view them even in the most extreme bereavement, as described by Dante, among the blind and poor, who

Near the confessionals, to crave an alms,
Stand, each his head upon his fellow's sunk,
So most to stir compassion ; not by sound

f words alone, but that which moves not less,
The sight of mis'ry.t

What a wretched state is here to the eye of flesh!

Yet prejudging men, the

world, is blind; that world from which you come; but enter the sanctuary, and perchance

Perchance you

-That sweet strain of psalmody will give ye
Light which may uncloud your minds.‡

will learn to see, that even this is blessedness,

For those who live that life, which is a race
To death..

So thought the holy Fathers, who drew their wisdom herein from experience. For what avails it to come to the churches like the men of whom St. Ambrose speaks, who are wholly of earth, and occupied with its interests; who come now, non quia ex fide Christiani sunt, sed ne Christiani ab hominibus non putentur? who have always an excuse for themselves on account of the season or circumstances of their life, not to obey the church. For when a fast is appointed in the summer months, they say, "The day is long; we cannot bear thirst;" and in the winter, "The cold is severe; we cannot endure hunger." Thus these rich men, whose soul is always bent upon dining, seek reasons for themselves why they should always dine, and to excuse themselves from fasting, accuse the seasons of the Creator. In like manner, when you ask them to give any thing to the poor, immediately they object to you that their necessities are infinite; they cannot pay

* Georgic, 1, 47. + Dante, Purgatory, XIII.

Dante, Purgatory, XXVIII.

the taxes; and they become so eloquent, that you seem to be almost a culprit for having wished to admonish them; so little do they understand that the greatest of all necessities is that of salvation.* With what a different mind do the poor frequent the divine courts! The poor! to behold whose sweet and saintly countenances, at moments of devotion, the artists, as at Rome, repair to the churches! For in the Churches, before the divine altars, or following those that walk and sing solemn litanies, in the delight and transport with which all their senses minister to the soul, is already partly fulfilled the promise from the mount, that theirs is the kingdom of heaven. To the Church they repair humbly at morning and at eve, enjoying that privilege which was felt to be so great by David, that he said, in allusion to it, "One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, and visit his temple." Here they were inebriated with the fatness of his house, and were given to drink of the torrent of his pleasure. † And where were the rich and lofty ones the while? What was their felicity? Restless and in want they were driven abroad to the theatre, to the proud assembly; they were at home in their palaces, satiated and weary with splendor and dissipation, saying, like Theseus in Shakespeare,

Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour ?‡

And remark too, with St. Chrysostom, that "it is the rich and prosperous who condemn Providence, in affected pity for the sufferings of innocence."

Strange to observe, the French sophists of the last century confessed this of themselves. "It is from the midst of voluptuous prosperity," said Bernardin de Saint-Pierre," that these murmurs against Providence issue. It is from these libraries, so filled with light, that the clouds rise up which have obscured the hopes and the virtues of Europe."§ "It is not Lazarus," says St. Chrysostom, "that pronounces such blasphemy. He would have shuddered at the thought of it. Is it not revolting, then, that while those whom God has visited with all kinds of misery, bless him and give him thanks, you, who are only bare spectators of the combat of humanity with suffering, should thus blaspheme against Providence? For if the sufferer should for a moment give way to grief, and utter some guilty words, there would seem to be some excuse for him; but that another, who is a stranger to the sorrows of life, should lose his soul and outrage his Creator, condemning things which are regarded by those who endure them as benefits, and a subject of gratitude, this certainly is inconceivable, and undeserving of pardon." Nor let it seem rhetorical, to ascribe such sentiments to those who suffer the extreme of poverty. A great theologian discovered a master of theology in a

Midsummer Night's Dream, V. I.

*Serm. XXXIX.

+ Psalm xv. § Études de la Nature, Tom. I. 158.

| Hom. IV.

poor beggar who sat at the door of a Church. This poor afflicted man assured him, upon being interrogated, that he was always prosperous, that he was never unfortunate; that he never had an enemy; and that every thing happened to him exactly according to his wish. Omnia fiunt ut volo. The secret consisted in his being contented with his lot; in feeling assured, that whatever came from God was good for him; that no man could injure his soul; and that whatever event befell him, was conformable to the divine will. "Et hoc unum volo quod vult Deus," said he, "ita omnia fiunt ut volo." Therefore this theologian drew a general conclusion, saying, "Verè sub sordido palliolo sæpe magna latet sapientia."*

The father of Thomas à Kempis was a poor rustic laborer.† Jo'n Aumont, a poor simple peasant of the valley of Montmorenci, composed a treatise on prayer, which was approved of by the doctors of Paris: he died in the middle of the sixteenth century, in the odor of sanctity. The parish of Stains, near Paris, produced a peasant named John Bossart, of a very ancient family in that place, who died at an advanced age in Paris, in 1752; he was of such piety and goodness that the curate of the village wrote his life. Persons of the first quality used to visit him out of the respect to his virtue.§

The ingenious tenderness of divine Providence does not even exclude the poor from the full benefit of making offerings to God. The widow's mite was received and applauded. "O thrice happy woman, and covered with glory!" cries St. Cyprian, "to have deserved even before the day of judgment to be praised by the mouth of the Judge."|| "Who knows not that the offerings of the lowest persons are most grateful to God ?" said Gerson. The self-called reformers, those enemies of the poor, as the result quickly proved, were so absorbed in matter that they overlooked this. Fuller cannot consent to go the whole length of their profaneness, but says, "the Magdeburgenses, out of a spirit of opposition to the Papists, do in my mind, on the other side, too much decry St. Peter, causelessly caviling at his words to our Saviour, 'Ecce reliquimus omnia;' what say they had he left?" St. Jerome would have taught them, that though the Apostles, as we read, did only leave their ships and nets, yet did they leave all things to follow Christ, because they offered themselves, which was an offering beyond all the treasures of Darius and Croesus.T

"Abraham was rich in gold and silver, in flocks, possessions, and raiments ; he had such a household that on a sudden emergency he could produce young men to form an army which was able to rout the host of four kings; and yet in his exercise of hospitality he did not give orders to his servants and maidens to minister to the guests, but, as if he had found a treasure, he applied himself alone with Sara to wait upon them: he stood as a servant to serve supper to the strangers. Hence

*Drexelius de Conformitate Voluntatis Hum. cum Divina. Lib. II. cap. 1.

Vita ejus, cap. 5. Lebeuf, Hist. du Diocèse de Paris, Tom. III. p. 392. § Id. III. 320. De Bon. Op. et Eleemos. Epist. XCII.

« 前へ次へ »