which he says was united with a most insulting contempt for others. They knew of no such humility, though their invincible patience may have seemed insulting to the pride of irritable spirits. Hear the gentle strains of their soul"Humble yourself, and with sincerity regard yourself below all men. 'And how can I do so,' you reply, when the majority of men, rejecting all fear and shame, live in such disorder, from which I turn in horror? What! can I regard myself below these wretches?' Yes, yes, I repeat it for if you only consider that the men who are the most perverse to-day may to-morrow be more near perfection than you; that if they had received from heaven the same assistance as you have had, they would have led a much more holy life than you have done, and that you would have sunk into much deeper crime than theirs, if you had not been preserved by a more abundant grace; if, I say, you pay attention to these things, you will easily acknowledge, that there is no sinner whom you ought not in justice to prefer to yourself. Oh, if you knew the secrets of God, how willingly would you yield to others the first rank! With what sincerity of heart would you take the lowest place! With what pleasure would you prostrate yourself at the feet of your brethren! With what zeal would you serve the lowest of them! with what joy would you honor them! with what affection would you obey them!" These are the words of Louis de Blois.* "We owe it to the grace of God," says Father Lewis of Grenada, "that we have not committed all the sins for which we see others punished; for there is no sin that one man commits of which another may not be also guilty."+-The same remark had been made by St. Augustin. Moreover, all ecclesiastical customs, manners, and institutions which gave a tone to the whole form of society, were framed with a view to eradicate pride from the souls of men. It is only by keeping this in mind, that we can learn to understand the character of those ages, in which all things that we behold are of humble seeming. Thus the rules of Crodegange, Bishop of Metz, made by the Fathers of the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle, in the year 816, are introduced by the sacred texts which prove pride to be the origin of all sins. "Ut omnes homines ad amorem humilitatis provocemus, et detestabilem, inimicamque Dei superbiam ab eis retrahamus." Hence, the want of humility was regarded as a sure sign of not having had a regular education. It is true that men were shown great honor in these ages; but, as Father Diego de Stella says, writing on the contempt of the world," The honor which the saints of God had, both here on the earth and also in heaven, was not gotten by the seeking of it, but by the flying away from it."§ For their own sentiments were always those expressed by St. Ambrose "I in royal grandeur, and the cross of Christ in the dust! I in princely courts, and the triumph of Christ amidst ruins! How shall I consider myself redeemed if redemption itself is not beheld!" The humility of the learned in these ages was truly * Spiritual Guide, Chap. VI. Apud Dacherii Spicileg. Tom. I. In Festo B. Mariæ Magd. Concio II. § Part I. 122. admirable. Hugues, of St. Victor, says, "Wise men learn willingly, though it were a child which showed them the way: they regard not the person who speaks, but the doctrine which he delivers: if it be good, they retain it; if evil, they abandon it." St. Gregory says, " Ab omnibus corripi, ab omnibus emendari paratus sum :" and that great doctor, St. Augustin, says, "Ego et senex et Episcopus, paratus sum a puero doceri." The men whose genius and immense learning seemed so sublime and astonishing to their contemporaries, were approached with the utmost familiarity and affection by the youngest and most simple student. In fact, the titles bestowed on them were all founded rather on their spiritual graces than on their wondrous acquirements in human science; for these are the men who were known only as the Angel of the School, the Seraphic Doctor, the Master of Humility. If we open their writings, their style is always marked with the utmost meekness, presenting so great a contrast to that of the proud men who now condescend to publish the result of their studies. Whenever they venture to express an opinion of their own, it is in the spirit of that sentence of Ives of Chartres—“Dicent forsitan fortiores, fortiora, meliores meliora; at ego, pro mediocritate, sic sentio."* Even when they had it not in their power to doubt the justice of their own views, they were still far from wishing to propagate them at the risk of that peace, which should be sacrificed to nothing but the truths which bring salvation. Theirs was not the fierce contention of lofty-crested words; ὑψιλόφων τε λόγων κορυθαίολα νείκη; † so that their mere opinions were in this respect Divine, and opposed in their nature to all those of human wisdom, which latter, as Bonald observes, “like the Minerva of the heathens, come out ready armed for battle, from the brain of their founders." "Be not obstinate," says Louis de Blois, "in your own opinions and private judgment. Avoid contradiction, if truth and justice do not oblige you to use it. Yield easily to others. Suffer all the world to correct you and to instruct you, and do you acknowledge your faults with candor."§ How many authors offend against this counsel of the middle ages! How impatient are they of censure, while they cruelly insult others in a strain of affected politeness; saying hard things softly, like artful Creon to Œdipus, σkλnpȧ μаλOakãs Aéyov; || how tenacious of applause; how full of themselves; how quick to reprove those who are not filled with admiration at their works! they remind one of Pindar's line, There were, indeed, some traces to them of a gentle character in the writings of the ancient sages, from whom they loved to extract the gold of natural or traditional wisdom. Thus the Athenian, with Plato, in reasoning with the youth who had been so perverted as to affect a disbelief in the Divinity, proceeds to teach him better things, ev paέor yoλois. "We must approach him mildly," he says, kai λέγωμεν πράως, σβέσαντες τὸν θυμόν.* Let no one, he says again, speak any evil of another, but if arguing with any person in a discourse, let him teach and convince the person with whom he argues, and those that are present; but let him carefully refrain from calumny and opprobrious words; for from curses and spreading women's tales by the use of shameful epithets, the most heavy enmities take their rise. And it is an ungracious thing to let the soul again grow wild after it has been tamed and made gentle by education. Thus, too, Pindar describes the first address of Jason, who "instilling a placid speech with a gentle voice laid a foundation of wise words,” βάλλετο κρηπῖδα σοφῶν ἐπέων. Who need to be told that humility belonged also to the heroism of these grand ages? When the Turks raised the siege of Clisson, and fled in dismay upon hearing of the approach of the Christian army under Josselin, though this brave count was carried in a litter to command it, the humility of the Christian hero was nobly expressed in the prayer which he uttered upon hearing of the flight of the infidels. I will give it in the old French of Brother Nicole, because his great work, "Le Grant Voyage de Hierusalem," in which he relates it, which yet exists in Gothic letters, was both a history and a book of instruction for secular nobles, so that it furnished means of extending the spirit it so often describes. "He caused himself to be set down on the ground, and then with joined hands, he made this er to God. Tres doulx Saulveur et Redempteur Jesu Christ sans lequel n'est aucun bien fait, je vous rends graces et mercis humblement de tous les benefices et graces qu'il vous a pleu me donner et conferer tant en guerre que en autres lieux. Et mesmement que de present a moy qui ne suis que ung ver de terre prest a rendre l'esprit, avez fait telle grace de chasser de mon pays ung si puissant prince comme le Souldan de Turquie. Lequel au sceu de ma venue s'en est fuy devant ma face comme l'aigneau devant le loup et tout par une digne vertu, non pas par ma force ne de mes gens d'armes. Et au surplus souveraine Dieu je vous recommande mon ame vous priant devotement qu'il vous plaise la recevoir lassus en paradis.' And with these words he departed and humbly rendered up his spirit to our Lord."§ pray We must remember that poverty of spirit, in all the circumstances of its development, was not unknown even among the great in the worst ages of Christian antiquity. "How many persons, even in these deplorable times," says Lewis of Grenada, writing at the period of the great religious innovations, "how many persons of great quality, generously despising all the greatness and riches of the earth, * Plato, de Legibus, Lib. X. + Ibid. Lib. XI. + Pyth. IV. § F. cxxix. have chosen to live despised in the house of God, rather than enjoy the riches and advantages of the world!"* Humility was even embodied and shadowed forth in a multitude of customs, amidst the very pomp of secular courts, of which Dante might have said as well as of David dancing before the ark, -in that hap they seem'd Less, and yet more, than kingly.t These occasions might serve to explain the saying of St. Anselm, that "perfect humility and perfect pride have some works in common.”‡ The ages of faith differ in no respect more from modern times than in the total absence of that activity in matters of earthly and material interest which is now regarded as the criterion of excellence, whether in an age, a nation, or an individual, and of which the origin is pride. There was not that interminable contest for superiority in rank, riches, or fame, which now keeps every nerve of society in full stress, without intermission, till snapt by some overwhelming destruction. Men were poor in spirit, that is, they were content to obey and follow the will of Providence, and the footsteps of their Saviour. Dante, in representing the state of blessed spirits in Paradise, borrowed the sentiments which he ascribes to them from the doctrines of the school which had an influence then upon all the thoughts and ways of men, beyond any extent that would now be believed possible. Thus he adresses one of them: -Yet inform me, ye, who here Are happy; long ye for a higher place, She with those other spirits gently smiled; Then answer'd with such gladness, that she seem'd With love's first flame to glow: "Brother! our will Is, in composure, settled by the power Of charity, who makes us will alone What we possess, and naught beyond desire; If we should wish to be exalted more, Then must our wishes jar with the high will Of him who sets us here."S And besides, in ages of faith, when multitudes of souls on earth clothed in saintly flesh, were each a Paradise, men saw too much of heaven to feel any great anxiety or admiration for earth and its brief accidents. Jacob, after he had wrestled with the angel, remained lame of one of his legs, and was after called Israel, which is as much as to say, "the man that seeth God." "And so," observes father Diego de Stella, who wore the humble cord," he that seeth and knoweth God must be lame outwardly to the world. If, therefore, thou do see worldly men going carefully and diligently to get honor and worldly riches, do not thou mervele thereat, * Catechism, Part II. cap. xi. +Purg. X. § Parad. III. De Similitudinibus, cap. cxxxvii. if they go not lamely nor haltingly about that business, for they have but a small knowledge of God. The just men that do see God, as Jacob did, through the knowledge that they have of our Lord, are, as it were, lame in the knowledge of earthly things, and those doth the world think fools because they be wise before God." For the clear and full insight into this mystery we are indeed indebted to the light of the Christian doctrine; but yet this and nothing else is the meaning of those remarkable passages which so frequently occur in the writings of Plato, where on a comparison between the effects of injustice and justice, the advantage is ascribed to the former, and it is shown to be more powerful, more spirited, and more despotic. Dante, in the passage where he describes the imagery upon the ground in Purgatory, which exhibited various instances of pride recorded in history, does nothing but express the view which men in ages of faith generally entertained of the nature of national pomp and glory : -Troy I mark'd In ashes and in caverns. Oh! how fall'n, How abject, Ilion, was thy semblance there! And the same popular and scholastic judgment, respecting the sinfulness of pride in separate men, is expressed in that passage where he describes the proud loaded with the weight of vast stones that crushed them. Upon first seeing them bent down beneath the dreadful weight, he cried out in astonishment to his guide, -"Instructor!" I began, "What I see hither tending bears no trace Of human semblance, nor of aught beside That my foiled sight can guess." He answering thus. "So curb'd to carth, beneath their heavy terms Of torment stoop they, that mine eye at first That we are worms.‡ *On the contempt of the world. St. Omers, 1622. I. 160. † De Repub. Lib. I + Purg. X. |