ページの画像
PDF
ePub

MORES CATHOLICI;

OR,

AGES OF FAITH.

THE FIRST BOOK.

CHAPTER I.

N the third stage of this mortal course, if midway be the sixth, and on the joyful day which hears of the great crowd that no man could number, I found me in the cloister of an abbey, whither I had come to seek the grace of that high festival. The hour was day's decline; and already had "Placebo Domino," been sung in solemn tones, to usher in the hours of special charity for those who are of the suffering church. A harsh sound from the simultaneous closing of as many books, cased in oak and iron, as there were voices in that full choir, like a sudden thunder-crash, announced the end of that ghostly vesper. The saintly men one by one slowly walked forth, each proceeding to his special exercise. Door then shutting after door gave long echoes, till all was mute stillness, and I was left alone under cloistered arches, to meditate on the felicity of blessed spirits, and on the desire which presses both the living and the inmates of that region in which the soul is purged from sinful stain, to join their happy company. Still methought I heard them sing of the bright and puissant angel ascending from the rising of the sun, and of the twelve times twelve thousand that were signed; and of the redeemed from every nation and people and language; and of the angels who stood around the throne in Heaven. It seemed now as if I heard a voice like that which said to Dante, "What thou heardest was sung, that freely thou mightest open thy heart to the waters of peace, that flow diffused from their eternal fountain." What man is there so brutish and

senseless to things divine, as not to have sometimes experienced an interval like

that which is described by him who sung of Paradise, to whom the world appeared as if stretched far below his feet, and who saw this globe,

So pitiful of semblance, that perforce

It mov'd his smiles; and him in truth did hold

For wisest, who esteems it least; whose thoughts

Elsewhere are fix'd, him worthiest call'd and best ?*

But soon the strained sense will sink back to it; for the human spirit must perforce accomplish in the first place its exercise in that school which is to prepare it for the home that it anticipates above. Yet I felt not disconsolate, nor forgetful, of the bright vision. My thoughts were carried backwards to ages which the muse of history had taught me long to love; for it was in the obscure and lowly middle-time of saintly annals that multitudes of these bright spirits took their flight from a dark world to the Heavens. The middle ages, then I said, were ages of highest grace to men; ages of faith; ages when all Europe was Catholic; when vast temples were seen to rise in every place of human concourse to give glory to God, and to exalt men's souls to sanctity; when houses of holy peace and order were found amidst woods and desolate mountains, on the banks of placid lakes as well as on the solitary rocks in the ocean: ages of sanctity which witnessed a Bede, an Alcuin, a Bernard, a Francis, and crowds who followed them as they did Christ: ages of vast and beneficent intelligence, in which it pleased the Holy Spirit to display the power of the seven gifts, in the lives of an Anselm, a Thomas of Aquinum, and the saintly flock whose steps a cloister guarded: ages of the highest civil virtue; which gave birth to the laws and institutions of an Edward, a Lewis, a Suger: ages of the noblest art, which beheld a Giotto, a Michael Angelo, a Raffaelo, a Dominichino: ages of poetry, which heard an Avitus, a Cædmon, a Dante, a Shakespeare, a Calderon : ages of more than mortal heroism, which produced a Tancred, and a Godfrey: ages of majesty, which knew a Charlemagne, an Alfred, and the sainted youth who bore the lily: ages too of England's glory, when she appears not even excluding a comparison with the eastern empire, as the most truly civilized country on the globe; when the Sovereign of the greater portion of the western world applied to her schools for instructors; when she sends forth her saints to evangelize the nations of the north, and to diffuse spiritual treasure over the whole world; when heroes flocked to her courts to behold the models of reproachless chivalry, and Emperors leave their thrones to adore God at the tombs of her martyrs! as Dante says,

No tongue

So vast a theme could equal, speech and thought

Both impotent alike.

In a little work which embodied the reflections, the hopes, and even the joys, of

*Cary's Dante.

youthful prime, I once attempted to survey the middle ages in relation to chivalry; and though in this we had occasion to visit the cloister, and to hear as a stranger who tarries but a night the counsels of the wise and holy, we never were able to regard the house of peace as our home; we were soon called away from it to return to the world and to the courts of its Princes. Now I propose to commence a course which is more peaceful and unpretending, for it only supposes that one has left the world, and withdrawn from these vain phantoms of honor, and of glory, which distract so often the morning of man's day. Thus we read that in youth many have left the cloister, dazzled by the pomp and circumstances of a wild, delusive chivalry, who after a little while have hastened back to it, moved by a sense of earthly vanity, there

[blocks in formation]

Yes, all is vanity but to love and serve God! Men have found by long experience that nothing but divine love can satisfy that restless craving which ever holds the soul," finding no food on earth:" that every beauty, every treasure, every joy, must, by the law which rules contingency, vanish like a dream! and that there will remain for every man sooner or later, the gloom of a dark and chaotic night, if he is not provided with a lamp of faith. Those men, who, reasoning, went to depth profoundest, came to the same conclusion; they found that the labors of the learned and the visions of the poet were not of their own nature different in this respect. from the pleasures of sense:

'Tis darkness all; or shadow of the flesh,

Or else it's poison.

This was their experience. That labor of the mind, or that fond ideal ecstasy, did not necessarily secure the one thing needful, the love of Jesus. In a vast number of instances it led to no substantial good; its object was soon forgotten, or the mind recurred to the performance with a sense of its imperfections. Still the heart cried, Something more! What said they can be given to it? What will content it? Fresh labor? fresh objects? Ah, they had already begun to suspect how little all this would avail; for in hearkening to "the saintly soul, that shows the world's deceitfulness to all who hear him," they had learned to know that it might indeed be given to their weakness to feel the cruel discord, but not to set it right; to know that it was but a vain delusive motive which would excite them to exertion from a desire of pleasing men; for men pass rapidly with the changing scene of life, and the poor youth who, mistaking the true end of human labor, had fondly reckoned upon long interchange of respect and friendship, at

* Dante, Purg. XX.

the moment when his hopes are the brightest and his affections warmed into ecstasy, wakens, suddenly from his sweet protracted dream, and finds himself without honor, without love, without even a remembrance, and virtually in as great solitude as if he were already in his grave! Well might they shudder at the thought of this eternal chillness, this spiritual isolation, this bitter and unholy state! Truly it was fearful, and something too much for tears! Sweet Jesus, how different would have been their state if they had sought only to love and serve thee! for thy love alone can give rest and comfort to the heart, a sure and lasting joy :—

other good

There is, where man finds not his happiness;

It is not true fruition; not that blest

Essence of every good, the branch and root.

Changed then be the way and object of our research, and let the converse to that which formerly took place hold respecting our employment here; and if we shall again meet with knights and the world's chivalry, let it be only in the way of accident, and as it were from the visit of those who pass near our spot of shelter, and let our place of rest from henceforth be in the forest and the cell. Times there are when even the least wise can seize a constant truth, that the heart must be devoted either all to the world, or all to God. When they too will pray, and make supplications urged with weeping, that the latter may be their condition in the mortal hour, that they may secure the rest of the saints for eternity.

Returning to that cloisteral meditation, how many, thought I, throughout the whole world have heard this day the grounds and the consummation of the saint's felicity! how many have been summoned onward! and told that the steps were near, and that now the ascent might be without difficulty gained? and yet,

A scanty few are they, who, when they hear
Such tidings, hasten. O ye race of men!
Though born to soar, why suffer ye a wind
So slight to baffle ye ?*

But for those who seemed to feel how sweet was that solemn accent, eight times sung, which taught them who were blessed! would it not be well, when left alone, and without distraction, if they were to take up histories and survey the course which has been trod by saintly feet, and mark, as if from the soul-purifying mount, the ways and works of men on earth, keeping their eyes with fixed observance bent upon the symbol there conveyed, so as to mark how far the form and acts of that life, in ages past, of which there are still so many monuments around them, agreed, not with this or that modern standard of political and social happiness and grandeur, but with what by heaven's suffrance gives title to divine and

* DANTE, Parad, XII. Cary's translat.

everlasting beatitude? Such a view would present a varied and immense horizon, comprising the manners, institutions, and spirit of many generations of men long gone by we should see in what manner the whole type and form of life were Christian, although its detail may have been often broken and disordered; for instance, how the pursuits of the learned, the consolations of the poor, the riches of the Church, the exercises and dispositions of the young, and the common hope and consolation of all men, harmonized with the character of those that sought to be poor in spirit; how, again, the principle of obedience, the constitution of the Church, the division of ministration, and the rule of government, the manners and institutions of society, agreed with meekness and inherited its recompence; further, how the sufferings of just men, and the provisions for a penitential spirit were in accordance with the state of those that were to mourn and weep, then how the character of men in sacred order, the zeal of the laity, and the lives of all ranks, denoted the hunger and thirst after justice: again, how the institutions, the foundations, and the recognized principle of perfection proclaimed men merciful : moreover, how the philosophy which prevailed, and the spiritual monuments which were raised by piety and genius, evinced the clean of heart; still further, how the union of nations, and the bond of peace which existed even amidst savage discord, wars, and confusion; as also how the holy retreats for innocence which then everywhere abounded, marked the multitude of pacific men and, finally, how the advantage taken of dire events, and the acts of saintly and heroic fame. revealed the spirit which shunned not suffering for sake of justice.

But very lately a distinguished professor in the Academy of Paris, admitted, in the course of his lessons upon history, that it would be in vain to deny the present tendency of the public mind to recur with pleasure to the traditions, manners, and monuments of the middle age. He proceeded to point out the advantage of nourishing that taste for the poetical history of his country, which would result from mere historical impartiality. "Is it not something," he asked, "to have a new source of emotions and pleasure opened to the imaginations of men? All this long period, all this old history, where men used to see nothing but absurdity and barbarism, becomes rich for us in grand memorials, noble events, and sentiments which inspire the most lively interest. It is a domain restored to those who feel that need of emotion and sympathy which nothing can stifle in our nature. Imagination plays an immense part in the life of men and nations. To occupy it, to satisfy it, there must be either an actual and energetic passion, like that which animated the eighteenth century, and the revolution, or else a rich and varied spectacle of remembrance; the present alone, the present, passionless, calm and regular, cannot suffice to the human soul. Hence the importance and the charm of the past, of those national traditions, and of all that part of the life of nations, when the imagination can wander through a space far wider than the limits of real life. The school of the eighteenth century was guilty more than once, of this error, in not understanding the part which the imagination performs in the

[ocr errors]
« 前へ次へ »