THE SOCIAL MISSION OF THE CHURCH.
The social mission of the Christian Church is a subject to which none can be indifferent. For eighteen centuries and a half the career of the Church has remained unchanged; and amid the revolutions of nations and the migrations of tribes and peoples, her social mission has ever been to educate, to civilize, and to elevate humanity. The civilization of the east had languished into decay, the greatness of Greece was merged in the universal empire of Rome, and the east and the west groaned under the despotism of the Cæsars. When this new and strange power appeared upon the earth it was a power insignificant in appearance, and far beneath even the contempt of the haughty emperors; yet that little society, these few poor and despised Galileans were destined to crush the colossus of Paganism, and to erect upon its ruins an empire more extended than that of Rome, and a civilization more refined and more enlightened than that of Egypt or of Greece. These few ignorant men were to purify the philosophy of Greece, to humble the greatness of Rome, to arrest the wandering tribes of the desert and the savage hordes of the north, to civilize them and to lead them within the pale of the Christian Church; slavery was to retire before her influence; the dark clouds of ignorance and barbarism were to be dispelled by her light; and arts, learning, and civilization were to flourish under the shadow of her patronage. Her hands were full of gifts to men; to the slave she was the herald of freedom, to the ignorant she was the bearer of knowledge, and to all she was the teacher of a pure and elevated morality, unknown to the pagan world. Such was the social mission of the Christian Church; how nobly has she fulfilled it!
In three centuries, after persecutions the most dire, the Christian Church won her way from the gloom of the catacombs to the imperial throne of Rome. The hand of power sought to check her progress, but in vain; the sword of persecution raised against her fell from the hand of the tyrant; the insidious breath of heresy could not corrupt her purity, nor the splendid teachings of Athens or Alexandria draw her from her sublime mission of truth. She consoled the slave, she cheered and strengthened the martyr, she elevated and purified all; she struggled with Paganism—with its profane and captivating rites—with its proud philosophy and its millions of refined and luxurious votaries. She won disciples from every grade, and class, and nation, until Christianity became the national religion of the proud and persecuting empire of the Cæsars. But now, that very empire which the Church has won is tottering to ruin; new difficulties beset her, and a new mission awaits her. The Goth, the Hun, and the Vandal have seized on the richest provinces of Rome. Her cities lie in ruins, her temples are profaned, and Europe seems again fast sinking into hopeless barbarism; the clash of arms and the yell of triumph has silenced the voice of civilization, and the jargon of her rude conquerors startles the ear in the very streets of Rome; streams of human population pour in from the northern nations—they extinguish the Roman power, and carry into the heart of Europe new traditions, a new mythology, new habits of thought, and new principles of action. And whilst the north was thus violently convulsed by the crash of the western empire, the south was not less violently agitated by the rising greatness of the Saracen. From the Atlantic to the Pacific the sway of Omar extended; and many were the cities ruined, and many were the literary monuments destroyed by these untamed children of the desert. In such perils what is able to save—what spirit could brood over this social chaos and breathe into it order and beauty—what power could move in the track of the desolating host, could collect the half ruined fragments of classic art and construct them again into a still more beautiful temple of learning? What influence could wean that lawless race from the wild ways of rapine and the degrading vices of savage life, and make them rival and excel the polished Roman in all the arts and accomplishments of civilized life? The Church alone could arrest the onward march of barbarism, and restore social order; with prophetic glance she seemed conscious of the perils that beset her, and prepared to overcome them. Augustine, Jerome, Hilary, and Prosper, the last expiring lights of the past civilization, were the devoted children of the Church. In the sixth century, when the schools of the empire were closed, her monasteries were the sole sanctuaries of learning. In them she studied and taught, and opposed an organised resistance to the despotism of the sword, whilst her secular clergy acted, governed, and preserved external order. In this century St. Remus preached with a classic purity, and Avitus of Vienne, the Milton of the Church, sang of the creation and the fall in the thrilling accents of genius. In this period appeared Cesarius of Arles, Gregory of Tours, and Fortunatus of Poitiers, whose learning shed a light upon their age, and whose works marked the birth of a new literature purely ecclesiastical. The learning and sanctity of our own Church relieved the darkness of the seventh century. Columbanus awakened a new spirit in the French Church, he arrested the march of barbarism in southern Germany, and perpetuated the study of antiquity among his numerous disciples. The eighth century marked a new era in letters; Charlemagne and the Church vied with each other; Bede and Bennett adorned England; the Carlovingian schools were organized under the genius of Alcuin, and over the wide dominions of Charlemagne an impulse was given to learning which was felt for centuries. By her Popes, her councils, and her bishops, the Church ever laboured to diffuse knowledge amongst her people. With a willing obedience her monastic institutions responded to her call, and during the eleventh and twelfth centuries awakened a literary activity from the Tiber to the Atlantic. The wonders of the press were yet unknown, but the simple, learned, and laborious monk plied his daily task, and rivalled the press in the extent, variety, and beauty of his labours. These venerable institutions, so often the scorn of the ignorant, were rapidly multiplied over the whole continent of Europe; Clugny and Citeaux spring into life, and each becomes a school of knowledge, a centre of civilization, and a prolific nursery of saintly and learned men. Let the sceptic on this point read Mabillon's book on monastic studies, in reply to De Rancé, the venerable Abbot of La Trappe; let him examine the collection of manuscripts found in the eight hundred monasteries visited by Martini in his literary tours; let him look at the contents of the fourteen volumes folio, compiled by Martini and the illustrious band who accompanied him in his antiquarian researches through the monasteries of central Europe; let him glance at the Titan labours of Mabillon, Montfaucon, and the Benedictines of St. Maur; and then let him dilate on the stupidity and ignorance of the monks of the "dark ages". Thus, by the zeal of the Church, and her monks and her missioners, the Christian faith was again spread over Europe, Saxon England was reconquered to the Church, Clovis and his people entered her fold, Germany was won over to her empire, and the fierce children of the north everywhere bowed to her yoke. Their minds, filled with the dim shadows of their native traditions and the bloody deeds of their ancestors, became awakened to all the beauties of Christianity; they yielded to the softening influence of the more genial climate of their conquered home, they cast off the bonds of their gloomy superstition, they entered the Church, and under her guidance they became the founders of the nations and the authors of the mediaeval and modern literature of Europe. The Church moulded with the same skilful hand the sternness and energy of the north, and the more soft and imaginative races of the south, and united the fierce worshippers of Thor with the followers of the giddy Genii of the east, in one grand struggle for the glory of their common creed. She summoned the spirit of chivalry, then in its youthful vigour; she excited a glow of religious enthusiasm that set Europe in a flame; she appealed to the spirit of warlike enterprise, and gathered round her standard that group, who, quitting home, country, and friends, arose at the call of Urban, and put on the badge of the crusader. Yes, the crusades are a great fact in the history of modern civilization; they stilled the voice of domestic strife, which had been productive of so much evil; they united, elevated, and consecrated the chivalry of Europe, and exhibited to the world the power and the glory of religion. These were days of great excitement and of rapid progress; this was the age of the growth and ascendancy of the scholastic philosophy. The Arabic empire of Spain was in its meridian glory. It was in this age Peter preached, and the Cross was raised at Clermont, and Godfrey and Boemond rushed to the liberation of the sacred city. It was in this age the glorious Hildebrand laboured so successfully to eject feudal influence from the sanctuary, to abolish the baneful right of lay investiture, and to give to the Church ministers worthy of their sublime duties. It was in these days the Italian cities were fostered by the protection of the Papal power, and the leagued towns of Germany under their bishops; and the municipal councils were breaking down feudal tyranny, and opening to the peasant mind the path to political and literary distinction, which they have since so nobly trod. In the ninth century Hamburg was the stronghold of tyranny; in the eleventh and twelfth centuries this same city was the nucleus of a great confederation which for centuries influenced the destinies of Europe. In the thirteenth century the spirit of Bernard and Hildebrand was again revived. The genius, the sanctity, the learning, and the courage of Innocent III. guided the destinies of the Church. Rodolph, with the Cross for his sceptre, ruled in Germany; St. Louis governed France; Spain gloried in Alphonso and Ferdinand, and in the victories of Seville and Tolosa; and England, under a Cardinal of the Roman Church, wrung from her king the charter of her rights. This was the age of St. Francis and St. Dominick; of Albertus and St. Thomas, of Bacon and Bonaventure. In these days Oxford boasted of her thirty thousand students; twenty-five thousand trod the halls of Paris; and ten thousand read law at Bologna. Never was there an age more glorious than this age of Christian faith; glorious in great deeds and historic names; glorious in learning and life of the universities with which the Church had studded Europe; glorious in a noble Christian art and architecture; and glorious too in the sublime genius of its poets. And all these great movements, intellectual and social, all pregnant with such grand results for the happiness and enlightenment of mankind, and for the future greatness and civilization of the nations of Europe, were originated and guided to success by the genius of the Catholic Church. The Church was that mysterious power that moulded the nations, and influenced the social condition of successive generations over the whole continent. In the lawless ages of rapine and violence she stood between the tyrant and his victim, and restrained the excesses of feudalism by the sword of her spiritual authority. She was ever the protector of the weak, and the defender of rational liberty. In the words of an eloquent Protestant writer, "The Church was the great bulwark of order, she perpetuated justice and light, and fought the battle of civilization and freedom. The feudal castle could not screen the oppressor of the poor from her vengeance, nor the kingly diadem save the tyrant of his people from her stern maledictions; the Church presided over mediaeval society; her Pontiff reigned with an universal sway, with which the grateful suffrage of Europe invested him; and never was human power exercised with more justice or with more glorious results for the welfare of humanity". And this is the Church which her enemies would shamelessly brand as hostile to the diffusion of knowledge; this the Church that would restrain the freedom of human thought, perpetuate ignorance, and dwarf the intellect of man; the Church of Nicholas, of Leo, and of Benedict; the Church that presided over the revival of Greek learning, and saved the decaying fragments of classic genius; the Church that before the sixteenth century founded fifty-eight universities in Europe, and from her poverty encouraged learning with a munificence which should shame the nations of our day! The Catholic Church cultivated the mind of Petrarch, she inspired the genius of Dante, and listened to the thrilling tones of Ariosto. Calderon was her child, and Tasso loved to linger in her capital. Yes, this is the Church that would dwarf the human intellect! Gothic architecture is her own creation, and the glories of Italian art were developed in the shadow of the Vatican. The palace of Nicholas and of Leo was the temple of learning, and the gifted of every nation flocked to the city of the pontiffs to live in the smile of his favour and on the munificence of his bounty. In his presence the poet felt a new inspiration, the sculptor breathed life into the marble, and the magic pencil of Italy imparted to its matchless productions a more than divine beauty. The same ear that was charmed with the strains of Ariosto could listen with approval to the researches of Flavio or the sublime theories of Copernicus. The Pope during the middle ages was the great high priest of literature, of science and of art, enthroned by the suffrage of Europe; the learned of the age paid to him the tribute of their grateful affection; and the office of his secretary was for centuries regarded as the prize of genius, which the first scholars of the age claimed as the reward of their intellectual greatness.