SIX SUNNY MONTHS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.
CHAPTER IX.
A BRIGHT EVENING.
Everybody knows the great sights of Rome by repute, if not by sight, and it may safely be said that no one cares to hear more of them in the way of description. Indeed, seeing them first, we almost regret having heard so much, and find it difficult to free the real object from the débris of our preconceptions. There is, however, an endless number of less notable objects, little bits here and there—a stair, a street, a door-way, or garden, half rough, or almost altogether rough, but with some beautiful point, like a gem that has had one facet only cut. These, besides their own beauty, have the charm of freshness. The stale, useful guide-book, and the weary tribe of tourists, know them not.
One of these unspoilt places is to be found almost next door to casa Ottant’Otto. It is a chapel attached to an Augustinian convent in which the changed times have left only one frate with his attendant lay brother. The chapel has a rough brick floor, and large piers of stone and mortar supporting, most unnecessarily, the white-washed roof, and the walls at either side are painted with a few large frescos of saints. There are two chapels only, one at each side of the principal altar, adorned with such poor little bravery as the frati and the frequenters of their church—nearly all beggars, or very poor—could afford. The chapel has, however,
one beauty—a Madonna and Child over the high altar. The Mother, of an angelic and flower-like beauty, holds the Infant forward toward the spectator, and the Infant, radiant with a sacred sweetness, extends his right hand, the two fingers open in benediction.
Mass is said here early in the morning, and a Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament given every Tuesday evening an hour before Ave Maria, the bells ringing always three times for each service.
The Signora had spoken at home of this little church of Sant’Antonino, and had laughingly called the attention of the family to the slipshod ringing of the Angelus, where the different divisions of strokes, the bell being swung from below, “spilled over,” as she expressed it, in a number of fainter strokes before and after the regular ones. “But it is a dear little place to go to,” she said. “There one finds the Lord as one might have found him when on earth visibly—in the midst of the poor, with but few followers, and no splendor of circumstance to take one’s eyes away from him. And sometimes, if one’s disposition be fortunate, his presence overflows the place.”
Coming homeward alone, one evening, just as the bell rang, Mr. Vane stepped into the chapel, and, after hesitating a moment inside the door, went up the side aisle and seated himself in a corner. He
had been there more than once early in the morning, but this was his first evening visit, and he did not care, for several reasons, to encounter any of his family, should they come.
The congregation was, as the Signora had said, poor enough. There were a few old women, with kerchiefs on their heads; a sober, decent man, who hid himself in a retired corner, and knelt with his hands covering his face during the whole service; a lame old man, with a worn and sorrowful face; and a young mother, with an infant in her arms and two little ones clinging to her skirts.
Not one of these paid the slightest attention to the others, or showed any consciousness of being, or expecting to be, observed. All looked toward the altar, on which the Host was now exposed, and all prayed with a fervor which could not but communicate itself to the spectator; for it was the quiet fervor of faith and habit, and was not excited by beautiful sights, or music, or the presence of a crowd. They beheld the mysterious token of the Holy Presence, and the Madonna—the Lady of Health, they called her—and worshipped, as untroubled by vanity as by doubt.
The two little ones whispered and played behind their mother’s back, but no one was disturbed by them. No one ever hushes the play of children in a Roman church. The infant crowed and prattled at first, and pulled the kerchief from its mother’s head; but espying presently the candles, and hearing the organ and voices, it fell into a trance, divided between staring and listening, which held it motionless till the service was over. Rather late came a young woman dressed in an absurd travesty of the
prevailing fashion, with a cheap soiled skirt trailing behind her, a hideous tunic pulled in about her and tied behind in that style that gives a woman the appearance of one trying to walk in a sack, and a bonnet made up of odds and ends of ribbon and flowers and feathers pitiable to see. But the poor thing had donned this miserable finery with no worse intention than that any lady has when assuming Worth’s last costume, and, hearing the voice of prayer as she passed, had done what the lady of fashion would not, perhaps, have done—obeyed its summons, and entered modestly and humbly the presence of God. Perhaps it was the one pleasure in a hard life, that occasional promenade in what she conceived to be a fine dress; perhaps she had been pleased, and was thankful for it, as we sometimes are for pleasures no more harmless; it may be she was disappointed and had come to find comfort. Who knows?
Mr. Vane looked intently at this girl a few minutes in a way he had, something penetrating in his scrutiny, yet nothing offensive; for it was as far removed from impertinent curiosity as from a too familiar sympathy. Then the Litany recalled him. As he listened to it, he thought that he had never heard music at once so good and so bad. The organ was like a sweet, courageous soul in an infirm body. All the wheezing and creaking of the bellows could not prevent the tones from being melodious. How many there were in the choir he could not tell. The absurd little organ-loft over the door, reached by a ladder in full view at the side, had so high a screen that the singers were quite hidden. They sounded like a host, however, for their voices
echoed and reverberated from arch to arch and from end to end of the chapel, so that, without the aid of sight, it was hard to know where the sound had its origin; and when, at every fourth verse, the priest and congregation took up the song, the air literally trembled with the force of it. Mr. Vane fancied he felt his hair stir.
His heart stirred, most certainly; for the power and earnestness of the singing, which made a mere cultivated vocalism trivial and tame, and perhaps the sustained high pitch of it—all contained within four notes—touched the chord of the sublime. They sang the titles of the Virgin-Mother, calling on her, by every tender and every glorious privilege of hers, to pray for them; and their prayer was no more the part of an oft-repeated ceremony, but the cry of souls that might each or all, in an instant, be struggling in the waves of death. Life itself grew suddenly awful while he listened, and he remembered that salvation is to be “worked out in fear and trembling.”
He lifted his eyes to the picture over the altar, and it was no longer a picture. The figures floated before him in the misty golden light of many candles, as if there were blood in their veins and meaning in their faces. The Mother extended her Child, and the Child blessed them, and both listened. She was the Mystical Rose, the Morning Star; she was the Help of the weak, the Mother of divine Grace. They sang her glories, and this listener from a far land forgot the narrow walls that hemmed him in, and saw only those faces, and felt, as it were, the universe rock with acclamations. She was a queen, and under her feet, and about her, bearing her up, were
angels, prophets, martyrs, confessors, and patriarchs. Their wings, wide-spread and waving; their garments of light, as varied in hue as the rainbow; their radiant faces were like the crowding clouds of sunset; and over them all, buoyant, glowing with celestial sweetness and joy, floated the woman crowned with stars, the only human being whom sin had never dared to touch. The stars swam about her head like golden bees about a flower; and as a flower curls its petals down, half hiding, half revealing, the shining heart which is its source and life, so the Mother bent above and clasped the Infant. In the centre of this vision was the Blessed Sacrament exposed, more marvellous than any vision, more real than any other tangible thing; so that Imagination was bound to Faith as wings to the shoulders of an angel.
There was a little stir in one corner of the chapel; for the strange gentleman had nearly fallen from his chair, and a lay brother, passing at the moment, supported him, and asked what he would have and what ailed him.
The gentleman replied that nothing ailed him, that he needed nothing but fresher air, and he immediately recovered so far as to go out without assistance. He had, indeed, been more self-forgetting and entranced than fainting, and even when he stood on the sidewalk, with familiar sights and sounds all about, could hardly remember where he was. He walked a little way up the hill opposite, and stood looking absently along a cross-street at the other end of which a new Gothic church was in progress.
A man who had been standing near approached him with an insinuating smile. “Our church is getting
along rapidly,” he said in English, appearing to know whom he addressed. “We shall soon have divine service in it, I hope.”
“Divine service!” repeated Mr. Vane rather absently, not having looked at the meeting-house, and scarcely knowing what was being said to him. “What divine service?”
“Oh! the Protestant, of course,” the stranger answered with great suavity. “I am a minister of the Gospel.”
“What Gospel?” inquired Mr. Vane, looking at the speaker with the air of one who listens patiently to nonsense.
The man stared. “The Gospel of Christ. There is no other.” He knew who Mr. Vane was, and had expected to be himself recognized. “It is time the Gospel should be preached in this wicked and idolatrous city.”
“Is it worse than other cities?” Mr. Vane asked calmly. “Most cities are wicked, but few cities have saints in them, as this has. We are told that the wheat and the tares shall grow together till the final harvest. As for your religion”—he stretched his hand to a load of straw that was passing, and drew a handful out—“it has no more Gospel in it than there is wheat in that straw.”
The rattling bells of Sant’Antonino were ringing for the Tantum Ergo. He turned, without another word, and went back, kneeling just within the door till the Benediction was over.
When he went into the house the Signora was singing the “He was despised and rejected of men,” from the Messiah. Before her on the piano stood a picture that had just been sent her—her favorite devotional picture, which she had
long been trying to get. Outside a door, overgrown with vines and weeds, and fastened by a bolt, stood the Lord, waiting sorrowfully and patiently, listening if his knock would be answered. Solitude and the damp shades of night were all about him, the stars looked cold and far away, and the lantern he held at his side, faintly lighting his face, showed through what rough, dark ways he had come to that inhospitable heart. Underneath was written: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.”
The Signora was singing, “And we hid, as it were, our faces from him: he was despised, and we esteemed him not,” tears rolling down her face, her eyes fixed on the picture. Finishing, scarcely uttering, indeed, the last word, she started up and kissed the picture in a passion, then, hurrying across the room, flung the door wide.
“Open every door in the house!” she cried out.
Bianca, surprised but sympathizing, simply obeyed, and pushed open the door near her; Isabel exclaimed, “Dear Signora!” and seemed half frightened. Mr. Vane stood silent and looked at the picture.
“Oh! I know it is figurative and means the heart!” the Signora went on, as if some one had reproved her. “But when we do something material, we know that we have done it. When we think we have done a spiritual good, how can we know that it is worth anything for us—that the motive was not selfish? If, for example, the Lord should come here now, poor and hungry, and knock at my door, I would serve him on my knees; but if I should say I love him, who knows if it would be true?”
“Signora mia!” It was a thin
and feeble voice, but she heard it through the passion of her talk, and, turning, saw on the threshold an old man, who stood trembling, hat in hand, and leaning against the side of the door for support. He had followed Mr. Vane home from the chapel to beg for alms, but had not been able to reach or make him hear or understand before the door was shut. He was going painfully away again, when it was flung open by the Signora.
She went to him with her hands outstretched. “Enter, in the name of the Lord,” she said joyfully, and led him to a chair. Kind as she was invariably to the poor, this one she looked on as almost a miraculous guest. He had come at the very moment when her heart was breaking to do some active good, as if her wish had called him, or as if the Lord she compassionated had taken his form to prove her.
Never was a beggar more welcomed, more tenderly questioned as to his needs. He was fed as, probably, he had never been fed before; for the Signora gave him of what had been prepared for her own table, and served him like an honored guest.
He was pleased, but did not seem to be either surprised or embarrassed. He ate and drank rather lightly, and, without being bidden, put in a leathern pocket he wore what was left of the food. There was no air of greediness in the act, but rather an intimation that no one would think of eating what he had left, and that what had been offered him must not be wasted. When Mr. Vane gave him some decent clothing in place of his faded rags, he was grateful, but by no means elated. How he looked was to him a matter of the smallest possible consequence. He could feel hunger,
thirst, and cold, but pride or vanity he knew not. His body, ugly, emaciated, and diseased, obtained from him no attention, except when it could obscure and torment his mind with its own torments. He never thought for it, but waited till it called. When the sisters gave him money, he looked at them earnestly, with his dim and watery eyes, and wished that the Madonna might ever accompany them. He did not predict for them riches or happiness, but only that gracious company. When the Signora bade him come to her every day for a loaf of bread and a glass of wine, he thanked her in the same way. Evidently he understood that what he was receiving was a heavenly charity, of which God was the motive and reward, and that he had, personally, nothing to do with it, except as he profited by it. But he had, indeed, more to do with it than he believed; for it was impossible that kind hearts should remain unmoved by the sight of such forlorn poverty and suffering.
They questioned him about his life and circumstances. He was quite alone. One son he had had, who went to some foreign country years before, and had never been heard of since. He supposed that he must have died on the passage or immediately on arriving; for Filippo had promised to write and send for him, or send him money, and nothing but death would have made him break his promise to his father. His wife had died more than ten years before; and he had no one left to care for him. Where was his home? they asked. Well, he slept in the lodgings provided by the city, because they did not allow people to sleep in the street. He used to sleep on one of the steps of the church of Ara Cœli and he
liked it better, for he could go off by himself. Still, the government gave them straw to sleep on, and that was something. It was rather cold on the steps, even in summer.
“But where do you go in the daytime?” they pursued, finding the idea of no house or home of any description a hard one to take in.
He went into churches sometimes; at others he sat on a house-step, and stood under the eaves if it rained. He was indeed able to say, “The birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes,” but he had not where to lay his head.
“I cannot listen to any more,” the Signora said. “Do you know, my friends, what seems my duty to do? Well, I will tell you. At this moment it seems to me that I should send you all to a hotel, or to any place you can find, and fill half my rooms with little beds for poor men, and the other half with beds for poor women, and spend all my time and money in taking care of them. Gloves, and a bonnet, and all sorts of luxuries look to me like sins, in the light of this man’s story; and as to having more than one room for myself, it is monstrous. Either pack your trunks at once, or send this fascinating wretch off to sleep on the municipal straw.”
“You can’t send us off; for you have promised to keep us as long as we stay in Rome,” Isabel said triumphantly. “If you should turn your house into a refuge, you would be doing evil that good may come, by breaking a promise.”
When their guest had gone and they were sitting at supper, the conversation still turned on the Roman poor and their manner of receiving charity, and Mr. Vane expressed his astonishment that so little of servility should be mingled with this constant begging.
“You must remember,” the Signora said, “that the mendicant religious orders have given a sort of dignity to poverty, and, though theirs is of a different kind, the people do not distinguish. Then among the many voluntary poor there are two who are particularly cherished in Rome—Santa Francesca Romana and Blessed Labré. The women sitting at the church-door could tell you, if you should try to shame them, that Santa Francesca once sat at a church-door and begged from early morning till Ave Maria; and the poor who ask you for a centessimo in the street know that Labré went about begging, and in clothes as filthy and ragged as any of theirs. Of course they do not distinguish the motives, and have, many of them, made a Christian virtue an excuse for a miserable vice; but, come si fa? as they would say. We cannot spend our time in arguing with them; and, if we should, it would be time thrown away. They have no comprehension of what we call independence; and they think that the blessings they bestow, and the merit we acquire in giving to them, are worth far more than the paltry copper coin they receive from us, and that we are, in reality, their debtors.”
They hurried their supper a little; for they were going out, and it was already nine o’clock. Before they had risen from the table Marion came in to accompany them, and the carriages were at the door.
This matter of the carriages, and the division of her party in them, simple as it seemed, had given the Signora some thought. She was afraid that some new complication might arise between Marion and Bianca, and wished earnestly that they should come to an understanding
immediately. Nothing appeared to be easier, yet every day was a succession of little obstacles to their speaking together in that accidental privacy which they would naturally prefer. Still, she could not well put them in a carriage together. It would look too pointed. There seemed no other way, then, than to take him in the cab with her, and give the calèche to Mr. Vane and his daughter. That any one should suppose that an attraction was growing up between her and this new friend had never occurred to her mind; yet both Mr. Vane and Bianca saw in every word and act of hers a new proof of it. Any one with eyes could see that Marion and Bianca liked each other particularly, the Signora believed. One had but to watch a few minutes, and it became evident that in company each was always so placed as to see and, if possible, to hear the other; and though one might not detect them looking directly, yet sometimes a glance, passing from one part of the room to another, swooped like a bird, and caught the one object it wished to seize within its ken. Yet Bianca provoked her somewhat. The girl was too serious and gentle, too discouragingly friendly. Why, thought the Signora, with that admirable good sense which we sometimes have when we think for others—why, when two persons are admirably fitted for each other, and everybody is willing, and neither of them can quite set about anything till the matter is decided; and when the gentleman, not to be too abrupt in his proposal, or expose himself to an unnecessary mortification, gives the lady that gentle, questioning glance which says so plainly, “May I speak?”—why, in the name of common sense, should she not drop her
pretty head in token of assent, and allow at least a hint of a smile to encourage him? Echo answered, Why?
The upper air was silver with a late moonrise when they went out, while below the lamps burned goldenly through a velvety darkness. Their own street was quiet; but there was a crowd on Monte Cavallo. The glimpse they caught of the piazza of the Trevi fountain in passing showed it full and bright, and the Corso, when they reached it, was swarming with people and brilliant with lighted shops.
“What contrasts there are in Roman life, even in its most quiet times!” Marion said. “I wonder if any one ever was bored here? I doubt it. How well I remember one day of my last visit, three years ago now! It was a bright February afternoon, and I went out for a walk in the Campagna, and saw the ground covered with flowers, and myriads of birds flying about and singing. Coming back to town out of that verdant quiet, I went to the Corso. It was roaring with the height of the last day of Carnival. It looked as if all the world had gone mad with reckless mirth, and, by a common consent, were pressing to that one spot. It was with difficulty I got across the street, shaking a monkey from one arm, and escaping from the lasso of a huge devil on the other side. A few minutes brought me to the Gesù. There what a scene! The church all in darkness, except the tribune, where the Blessed Sacrament was exposed in the midst of a blaze of candles that shone on a crowd of faces all silent and turned toward the altar. Now and then the organ played softly; now and then a quiet figure stole in and found room to kneel where it seemed there
was no room for more. It was so still that every time the heavy curtain lifted there could be heard through the whole church the rattling of the tin boxes of the beggars outside. Half an hour later I reached the Corso again, just in time to see the horses rush by like meteors between two solid walls of men and women. And, lastly, just as the stars were coming out, burst the fairy spectacle of the moccoletti, when the narrow street became like a strip cut out of the live sky, thick with dancing stars, and palpitating with the soft pulses of the Northern Lights, blue, green, rosy, and white. I could have said it was not ten minutes before it was all over and I was walking home through a silent, star-lit night. The next morning at six I went to a church and received the Lenten ashes on my forehead. I do not wonder that Romans are lazy, for their imaginations are so kept on the qui vive that muscular action must necessarily be distasteful. They cannot help regarding life as a festa.”
They reached their destination, a palace close to St. Peter’s. Two servants stood bowing in the portone, and a little girl, the daughter of one, presented each of the ladies with a bunch of orange-blossoms. They passed into the court, where a fountain tossed its sparkling arch of water, sprinkling the greensward, which here replaced the usual pavement, and went up the grand stairs. The groined arches over their heads were glowing with color, trees, flowers, vines, birds, and butterflies—not an inch of wall was unpainted. Pots of flowering plants stood at the ends of the stairs and at the landings, and statues showed whitely through their fragrant screens. Here and there a lamp dropped from a gilt chain, and softly illumined
this superb entrance. At the end of the first entry two servants held back the crimson velvet curtains of an open door, receiving the visitors into a chamber furnished in crimson, the walls of crimson and gold, the ceiling painted with sunset clouds, and a crescent of candles burning in front of crystal lustres. Reaching the next door, they looked down a vista composed of twelve or fourteen rooms, all softly lighted except the last, which was brilliant. The light struck along on door after door, all gilded, and set with mirrors at one side and paintings at the other, the curtains of silk or velvet drawn back on gilt spears or arrows. The floors were mostly uncovered, some of them of rare marbles or mosaics; a few were partially covered with thick Persian mats or carpets. One room was furnished in gold-colored satin, and profusely ornamented with the most delicate porcelain; a second was of a rich sea-green, sparkling all through with crystal ornaments, the chandelier of Venetian glass, the cornice made of large shells, and the ceiling painted in coral branches, tangled full of long grasses. Another chamber, of deep blue, was rich in old porcelain; another, hung with tapestry, bristled with old armor, and every sort of sword and knife arranged in figures, daisies of radiating daggers, and swords and shields made into mimic suns. Everywhere that gold could be it was lavished—on doors and windows and cornices; and one room had the whole panelling breast-high, and the large fireplace, heavily gilded.
In the last room they found the people they had come to see—a young couple as bright and pretty as a pair of canaries in their gilded cage.
There was no other company except
a white-haired old canonico, who had an apartment in the palace, and who was in some way related to the family. To this clergyman Bianca, at first a little shy among strangers, took immediately, and, seated by his side, became at once on the most friendly terms with him. His sweet and dignified manner, and the pleasure he showed in her evident confidence, were very pleasant to see. She told him all her story that could be told to any one, what she had seen and what she wished to see, and answered his questions with a childlike frankness; and, in return, he showed his interest in her by the number of his questions, and promised her all sorts of favors.
There was something peculiarly attractive and beautiful in this man, in whom were united the sacredness of a holy vocation, the venerableness of age and of a pure and unstained character, and the graciousness of an accomplished gentleman.
“I think you will all like to hear of something which I saw at the Vatican this morning,” he said when the conversation became more general. “I was presenting two French ladies. The audience was small, and among the persons present were the superior of the nuns of the Trinità dei Monti, and a younger nun of her community who had come with her as companion. This young nun had for several years been afflicted with a stiffening of the right hand and arm which drew them close to the breast, rendering them of course perfectly useless as well as painful. Before starting, the superior had told her to put a black glove on this right hand, so that it should not show so much, as her black habit and veil would render it less prominent than if it were bare; but when they
had gone a part of the way the nun begged permission to take the glove off. The superior objected, saying that it might be unpleasant to the Holy Father to see her hand in that position, the fingers stiffened as they were. The nun said nothing for a while, but, when they had nearly reached the Vatican, begged again, still more earnestly, to be permitted to remove the glove. This time the superior consented. Well, they went in, and the audience was about over, when, in giving his benediction, the Pope observed that the young nun blessed herself with her left hand.
“‘Filuola mia, why do you not bless yourself with your right hand?’ he asked.
“‘Beato padre,’ she replied, ‘I cannot move my right hand; but if you would do me the grace—’ She said no more, but looked at him with imploring eyes.
“He was silent a moment, then he said, ‘Pray!’ and covered his face with his hands, as if praying or recollecting himself. Looking at her again then, he told her to bless herself with her right hand.
“‘But, santo padre, I cannot move my right hand,’ she said.
“He persisted: ‘Nevertheless, do as I bid you.’
“The superior took the nun’s right hand, and, lifting it for her, made a sort of cross with it.
“‘Pray again,’ said the Holy Father, and hid his face a second time, and seemed to pray.
“‘Now bless yourself with your right hand, and do it without help,’ he said.
“She immediately lifted her hand and made the sign of the cross on her forehead and breast as freely as if nothing had ever ailed her. She was cured.”
The prelate told his story with
simplicity and in a soft and slightly tremulous voice, affected by the sacred and tender scene he had so lately witnessed, and his audience exclaimed with delight. None of them, except the two American gentlemen and Isabel, were at all surprised. Too many such tales are known in Rome of Pius IX. to excite astonishment.
“I have seen the good nun this afternoon,” he continued, “and she is perfectly happy. She can play on the piano again, and do everything just as before.”
Finishing, he nodded toward the door, where a servant was standing, and presently rose to take leave. His evening visits never exceeded an hour, and, since he did not like to disturb the pleasure of social intercourse with the thought of going, a servant was always instructed to intimate to him when the hour was past.
“The only parting which I wish to foresee and prepare for is the final one,” he said smilingly.
“What a terrible sound that expression ‘final parting’ has!” Bianca exclaimed, seeming to be already pained at the thought of losing this new friend.
“That is because you interpret it wrongly,” he replied, with a kind glance at her. “You know it does not mean everlasting separation, but that there are to be no more partings, because after the next meeting we need never part again. It is simply the end of a long pain.”
He gave her his hand, which she kissed as naturally as an Italian would have done, though it was the first time she had rendered that homage to any one.
When he had gone, the company went up to the loggia, which was one of the attractions of the house.
“You see we have a private stairway,”
the Contessa M—— said, opening a narrow door hidden in the panelling of the room they had been sitting in. “But it is so very narrow, enclosed in the thickness of the wall, that I will not ask you to go by it.”
“I do wish she would let us go this way, though,” Isabel whispered to the Signora. “How romantic it is! Who knows who may have slipped up or down that stair in the wall, who may have stood listening behind the panel while people were talking in the sala, and what may have been revealed or hidden there? It is like a chapter out of a tragical story—one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s, for example. Do you think we might not go up?”
Their hostess had, however, already led the way to a more commodious stair, and they could but follow. Besides, it is only in very romantic stories that ladies in beautiful silk and gauze dresses can go through secret and narrow stairways, cobwebbed attics, and dusty, haunted chambers, without detriment to their toilets, and the young contessa wore that evening a lace flounce which she might not care to injure even for the sake of hospitality.
They passed through room after room, each worthy of a palace, mounted stair after stair, one servant preceding them with a lamp, and another following, walked over the roof of a part of the palace, climbed another stair, and came out on the loggia, or highest house-top.
The scene was enchanting; for the whole city was visible, and, by one of those kaleidoscopic changes constantly seen in a town built on hills, the city looked from here lo be situated in a round basin rising evenly on all sides to the tree-fringed
horizon. The grand front of St. Peter’s was scarcely a stone’s throw from them, apparently, and the two fountains of the moonlighted piazza stood wavering and white. It was not difficult to imagine them two angels standing there with garments softly waving in the night air.
Mr. Vane paused a moment at the Signora’s side. “I perceive more clearly every day why you may well be unwilling to leave Rome,” he said. “I wonder I could ever have expected it.”
“And yet it never appeared to me easier,” she replied very gently. “I have had all the happiness that can be had here, and ‘enough is as good as a feast,’ you know.”
She meant to please him, yet she fancied that he frowned slightly. He said no more, however, but stood looking about, and, after a moment, joined Isabel, with whom the young couple were having a lively conversation.
The Signora felt hurt. It seemed that Mr. Vane was losing confidence in her and becoming every day more distant. For a week or more she had felt that he was withdrawing his friendship from her, and changing in many ways. When had she heard a jest from him, or seen in him that quiet and deep contentment which he had shown at first? She had half a mind to ask him what the matter was. Perhaps she would some time, if opportunity favored. Meantime, it would be wiser not to distress herself. And just as she came to this conclusion an interpretation of his remark suggested itself to her that made the blood rush to her face painfully. Had he remembered with annoyance that half-proposal of his, and, either to remove any lingering pity she might feel for him or to save
his own pride, wished her to understand that it had been the impulse of the moment, and that he no longer entertained the wish to be more than a friend to her? In such a case her reply, with its hint of a possible change in her, had been most unfortunate.
There was one moment of cruel doubt and mortification, then she put the subject resolutely away. “I have been neither unkind nor bold nor dishonorable, and I have therefore nothing to be ashamed of,” she said to herself.
Meantime, Marion had stopped near Bianca, who stood looking at her father and the Signora. “How beautiful the Signora is!” he said. “Do you see that the golden tinge in her hair is visible even in the moonlight? And her eyes are the color of the Borghese violets she loves so much. I sometimes think that a rather tall and noble-looking woman like her should always be blonde, and that dark eyes belong to the slight and graceful ones.”
“We have always thought her beautiful,” she replied. “But we are so fond of her that we should admire her if no one else did. You must remember how we always praised her to you.”
He had been wondering how she would like having the Signora for a step-mother, and if she saw the likelihood of it. Perceiving a slight reserve in her speech, he did not pursue the subject, but stood looking at her a moment. Since he was silent, she glanced up in his face to see what it meant—if he were dissatisfied, perhaps, with her reply, or if he had taken any notice of it. He was certainly taking notice of her, and so close a notice that her eyes dropped again under it.
A quick glance showed him that he should have another minute uninterrupted
with her, and he spoke: “Dear Bianca, I came to Europe to seek you. When I found in Rome that you had gone into the country for a visit, I could not wait, but followed you. I went to your lodgings in Frascati, and learned that you had all gone up to Tusculum. I meant to watch, and meet you as you came down, and know by your first glance at me if I was as welcome as I could wish to be. I had with me the spy-glass that I always take into the country, and, as I swept the country with it, I espied a little party standing under the wall of the Cappucini villa on the Tusculan hill. One of their number had climbed the steps of the shrine there to decorate it, and, just as I recognized her, she turned and stepped down toward me. The glass was so clear and strong that she seemed stepping within my reach, and to me. I accepted it as a good omen, and returned to Rome content. I think you know me well enough to be sure that this is no trifling fancy, and that, if you can put your hand in mine, with the help of God, I will never allow you to regret it. Was my omen false?”
She listened with her lovely face lifted and lighted, and, when he ended, uttered a soft little exclamation, “O Marion!” and gave him her hand.
“How beautiful St. Peter’s is by this light!” Mr. Vane said, glancing round at them from the other side of the loggia, whither he had gone.
His glance became a gaze as he saw them coming toward him; for Marion held openly the hand that Bianca had given him, and led her to her father. “Are you willing, sir?” he asked in a low voice.
The others were about joining them, and Mr. Vane could only press their two hands together.
He glanced sharply at the Signora as she approached, and saw her face flash out in a swift smile when she caught sight of their position.
“I have been a fool,” he muttered.
“Everything is beautiful by this light,” Marion said, with a smile that gave a double meaning to his rather tardy answer.
When they started for home, they found that, by some happy mistake, the cab had been sent away, and there was no other in sight, so that the simplest way was for them all to return in the calèche, crowding a little. The crowding was effected by Bianca sitting on the front seat between her father and lover. Leaning back there, she gave herself up to a delicious silence, only half-listening, except when Marion spoke, then drinking in every word. What a wonderful thing it was that here, by her side, sat her future husband, the man to whom she was to be united for ever and ever! Her life, as she thought, swung round into a harmony unknown to it for a long time, never known in its perfection till now. Looking forward, she had no fear. Nothing but death could separate them, and death must come to all. Let it come sooner or later, when God should appoint; she could bear it for him or for herself. She was full of courage and thankfulness, and ready now to live a full life, and begin to do some good in the world.
Mr. Vane spoke of the young woman he had seen that afternoon in the little church of Sant’Antonino. “She made an impression on me,” he said. “She set me thinking; or, rather, the sight of her condensed some floating impressions in my mind into thoughts. She was a figure that almost any well-dressed lady or gentleman
would smile at involuntarily, if they did not pity her. But looking into her face, when she was serious and thought herself unobserved, I found it an uncommon one. I fancied there was something enthusiastic and aspiring in her, and that her ridiculous dress was an abortive expression of a fine impulse. She wanted to do or be something more and better than she had yet done or been; and having, perhaps, no sympathy from any one, and no education to assist her, knew not how to act, and thought more of getting out of the position she was in than of choosing properly what change she should make. Fancy how easily a girl of uneducated mind and tastes, and of an enthusiastic disposition, might make such an absurd attempt. She is, perhaps, disgusted with the sordidness and vulgarity of her life, and believes that the ideal life is that which appears beautiful to the eyes. She has heard, maybe has read, a little of great deeds and heroic adventures, and she associates them always with the well-dressed and the high-living. She thinks, very likely, that the noble have always noble thoughts, and that beautiful sentiments go with beautiful dresses. And so the poor thing cuts her dowdy petticoat into a train, and puts a cheap feather in her hat, and fancies that she is nearer the sublime. I don’t believe she really sees the trumpery things when she puts them on. She is looking at them through a thousand visions, and sees the velvet train of some heroine, and the jewelled cap and feather she wore. Poor thing! These visions of hers cannot, however, hide the sneering laugh from her, nor make her deaf to the scornful word; and I have an impression that to-night she took off her stage-robes with a bitter
heart—unless, indeed, the Benediction consoled her.”
Isabel looked at her father with a steady and serious gaze while he was speaking, and, the moment he ended, said to him with an air of conviction: “Papa, you have the best heart in the world.”
He laughed a little, but seemed to be touched by this tribute. “I am glad you think so, my daughter,” he said. “Indeed, I am particularly glad just now, for a reason I will tell you, if you come here a moment.”
She leaned forward instantly on to his knees, and put her cheek close to his face.
“Because,” he whispered, “my other daughter thinks that there’s a certain heart worth more than mine.”
“Whose?” she demanded in an indignant whisper.
“Marion’s.”
“You don’t mean—” she exclaimed, and glanced round at her sister.
“You’re the only one of the family who didn’t know it, and I don’t want you slighted,” he replied. “It’s a settled affair.”
Isabel threw her arms around her sister’s neck and kissed her. “I never dreamed of such a thing,” she said; “but I am delighted all the same. You’re a million times welcome into the family, Marion. But I want you to understand that you are not better than papa.”
By this they had reached home, just as the soft bells of their basilica were striking midnight.
When they had said good-night to Marion and gone up-stairs, all turned with smiling faces to Bianca, and gathered about her, waiting one moment to see who should speak first, or if the congratulation was to be silent. By some slight
motion or look she imposed silence, at the same time that her face expressed the sweetest happiness and gratitude.
“That dear canonico has given me an invitation for us all to go next week and hear his Mass in the crypt of St. Peter’s,” she said. “Our number is just right; for only five can go at a time. We are to be there at eight o’clock.”
“Am I included?” Mr. Vane asked.
“O papa!” Bianca turned to him, and, putting her hand in his arm, leaned against his shoulder. No plan of hers could be perfect that did not include him; yet the cruel thought flashed through her mind, in spite of her love for him, that in the crypt of St. Peter, next to Calvary the most regally sacred spot on earth, a Protestant was singularly out of place, and that no one should enter there who did not bow to St. Peter as the Prince of the Apostles and the holder of the awful keys.
The question produced a momentary painful embarrassment in the others, too, by reminding them strongly of that difference of faith which they sometimes were able to quite forget.
“My little girl must not have a cloud on her sky to-night,” the father said tenderly. “What is wanting to your happiness, Bianca?”
“That you should be a Catholic,” she replied, trembling; for, with all their affection and confidence, she had never presumed to speak to him on the subject.
“You have your wish,” he answered.
She looked at him doubtfully, but did not dare to say a word.
“I am in earnest, children,” he said, feeling a hand clinging to his other arm. “I was baptized this morning at the American College.”
Not a word was said, but on either side his daughters surrounded him with their arms, and pressed their faces to his breast.
When at length they remembered to look for the Signora, she had disappeared.
TO BE CONTINUED.
DR. KNOX ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.[153]
The disjointed state of Christendom, resulting from the divisions existing among those who profess the Christian religion, whether we regard it in the light of reason or of faith, is both grievous and deplorable. Much labor has been expended on the removal of the causes which have produced these divisions, at different periods in the history of the Christian Church. In recent times—not to speak of the long past, for the evil is of remote date—several efforts have been made to bring about the return of those who, three centuries ago, went out from the sacred fold of the Catholic Church. Men of genius, learning, and virtue took a leading part in some of these movements; nevertheless, they did not meet with any notable success. The best known of these, perhaps, was the one made in the latter part of the seventeenth century, in which the celebrated Leibnitz and the great Bossuet were the principal actors engaged. If this effort was not otherwise fruitful, it at least was the occasion of their contributing two of the most valuable works on the subject—The System of Theology, by the German philosopher, and The Exposition of the Catholic Faith, by the Bishop of Meaux. In the Established Church of England, in our own day, a number of its members, especially among the clergy, profess to seek and to labor for what they call “a corporate
union” with the Catholic Church. So far as one can see up to this moment, though no one can tell what may happen, there has been in this direction no promise of great results. In this country the efforts for unity have taken a more limited sphere for their activity, and ever and anon there is a stir made in public about a union among Protestants, confined, however, to those who are called “evangelicals.”
The unperverted religious sentiment naturally yearns after an all-embracing and real unity. Man’s heart has sympathies which cannot be confined to himself, or to a family, or to a nation, or to a race. Only when man is so devoted to purposes which embrace the whole human race as to raise him above all lower instincts of his nature, does he become conscious of his true dignity and of the greatness of his destiny. Humanity is a word that has a real meaning, conveying a great truth, and it is fraught with mysterious power. These aspirations of the soul are the workmanship of God, and Christianity, as a universal religion, must aim at directing them to their proper objects. For Christianity is the universal religion, or it is nothing.
The symptoms of unrest which manifest themselves among those Christians who are divided up into hostile sects are a sign of a noble life stirring within their souls—a life which cannot contemplate with joy the wranglings of hostile creeds. These aspirations after that unity which will bind all men, without distinction of race, nationality, or
color, into one common brotherhood of love—these cravings of the heart to act for universal ends, for the realization of God’s kingdom upon earth—are the evidences of a Christian spirit which seeks for a clearer vision and a closer communion with the true church of Christ.
With these views and in this spirit, which are in harmony with his own, we purpose to consider the interesting and important article of Dr. Knox on “The Organic Unity of the Church.”
WHAT IS THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH, ACCORDING TO DR. KNOX?
Here is his answer to this question in his own words:
“First, as to the nature of the expected church unity and the elements that compose it. We assert, in the general, that it is the highest possible unity. Christ prayed that his disciples might be made perfect in one. The adjective τέλειος is defined by Robinson as something ‘complete, full, perfect, deficient in nothing.’ The word used by the Saviour is τελειωμένοι, and had an adverbial sense, so that Robinson would have us read: ‘That they may be perfected so as to be one—i.e., that they may be perfectly united in one.’ Tholuck says the idea of unity is expressed in a stronger way here than elsewhere—‘it is a perfect unity.’ Other authorities might be cited as showing that the unity in the divine thought, and which ought to be in our own, is a complete unity, in distinction from one that is partial, unsymmetrical, ineffective.”
That the unity which makes the church of Christ one “is the highest possible unity” there can be no manner of doubt, since its animating principle is that unity which springs from the relation subsisting between Christ and his Father. This relation which unites Christ to the Father, and the church to Christ,
and the members of the church to the Father through Christ in most perfect unity, is a unity than which a higher and more perfect cannot be conceived, for it springs immediately from the divine Essence. The language of Christ’s prayer for unity makes this evident beyond all dispute. “That they,” he says, “all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee.” Again: “That they may be one, as we also are one.” Once more: “I in them, and thou in me: that they may be made perfect in one.” Finally: “That the love wherewith thou hast loved me, may be in them, and I in them.”[154] Once would have been doubtless sufficient to have rendered this petition of Christ effective, yet he repeats the same in almost every sentence in this memorable and most solemn prayer. What else could have been Christ’s purpose, in the reiteration of his petition for unity, than to explain clearly his meaning, to make manifest the earnestness of his desire for it, and to impress upon his disciples its transcendent importance?
But this relation subsisting between Christ and his Father, and which is the type of the essence of the church, is an essential, indivisible, and indestructible relation. The relation, therefore, existing between Christ and his church and her members, from which her unity springs, is also essential. That is, aside from this unity, the church cannot be a subject even of thought—is unthinkable. Were it possible that it should be lost for a moment, the church, at the instant her unity was lost, would no longer exist. For the unity of the church is not derived from her organism, but, on the contrary, the organism of the
church is derived from her unity, which has its rise in that essential, indwelling, and abiding presence of the invisible relation which exists between Christ and his Father: “I in them, and thou in me: that they may be made perfect in one.” Just as the life of the soul springs from the presence of the divine Essence, and this life pervades and sustains the whole body and its members, so, in like manner, the unity of the church, which springs from the presence of this divine relation, pervades and sustains the whole church and her members. The unity of the church is also indivisible. Multitudes may leave the church, but their absence does not break her unity. Many may lose the unity of the church, but it never can be lost from the church. Thousands may deny the unity of the church, but it will continue to exist in spite of their denial. In the nature of perfect unity, one and indivisible are correlative; for each of its parts contains and acts with the force of the whole. As God is everywhere present in the world, and the soul everywhere present in the body, so the unity of the church is everywhere present and pervades the whole body of the church. It is also an indestructible unity. For whatsoever may be the action of the lapse of time or the deeds of men, they can neither disorganize, reduce, nor overthrow it. Being divine in its nature, the hand of man may menace, but it is powerless to destroy the unity of the church. It will remain, after men have done their utmost and worst against it, as it was before.
This unity in which the Divinity dwells is the primal source of the life of the church, and, through her, of each and all of her members; is the type and exemplar of the
perfect organism in which each and all of her acts proceed from one formal principle and one central point of active force. The church, therefore, may be defined, in the sense of Christ’s prayer, as that visible, organized body, in which the members are made one with God and with each other in Christ, by a participation of the invisible communion existing between Christ and his Father in the unity of the divine Essence.
In all this we have added nothing to the above passage from our author explanatory of “the expected church unity.” What we have done was to render its meaning more explicit, and this will be readily acknowledged in reading his own explanation, as follows:
“The starting-point, of course, is unity of faith, especially faith in Christ. The union of believers to one another results from their union to a common Lord and Saviour: ‘I in them, and thou in me: that they may be made perfect in one.’ The second element of a true unity is love. We need not dwell here, for it is a point conceded. The third element is oneness of aim and effort. The conversations and prayer of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth of John show that faith and love in Christian hearts are with a view to definite results. In the fifteenth chapter it is said: ‘He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing.’ And in the seventeenth chapter this fruit and this doing are declared to be the glorifying of Christ, and, as contributing to that, the bringing the world to believe in him. All highest glory to God and good to man are contained in believing and loving the Lord Jesus. All the fruits of the Spirit enumerated by Paul in Galatians depend from the branch that abideth in Christ the vine. No man can be in Christ by faith without wishing all others to be—without praying the prayer of Jesus, and working the work of Jesus, that they may be. And this being the effect on all real disciples, it is clear that
a union of faith and love is also a union of aim and effort.
“We are prepared to say, in the fourth place, that the one thing remaining to render this union complete—a perfect unity, such as Christ prayed for—is oneness of organization. By organization is meant, as the word imports, everything pertaining to the outward structure and furniture of the church—its government, methods of operation, ordinances, worship, etc.”
DR. KNOX ON THE NECESSITY OF THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
“We can but observe,” he says, “in the first place, that most of the good we know in this world is connected with organization, and is nothing without it. It is the nature of all life to organize, and the most perfect of organisms is that which we have in the human form—Scriptural type, by the way, of the organization belonging to the spiritual life that is in Christ’s body, the church. No one thinks it necessary to depreciate the organic part of man in order to exalt that which is intellectual and moral.… It is not enough to say of human life in the general: ‘What we want is good-will, right understanding between man and man—no matter about society and government. That is merely exterior and organic; we wish to do with essentials.’ For all the ends of social welfare it has ever been found that organized society is one of the essentials, and without it the public weal cannot be promoted.”
“It is the nature of all life to organize.” Precisely so. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the nature of all life is organic; for life and organism are related to each other as cause and effect, and hence are inseparable. Christianity unorganized would be a pure nonentity. Christianity is a life—specific life; it is therefore by its very nature specific, visible, organic.
“For all the ends of social welfare it has ever been found that organized society is one of the essentials, and without it the public weal cannot be promoted.” Organized
society is essential to all life, and no less essential to its own defence and preservation; for what would have become of Christianity without organization when the colossal power of the Roman Empire was set to work to exterminate it? Christianity would have been strangled in its cradle. What would have become of Christianity unorganized when the barbarians from the North overthrew the Roman Empire? Christianity would have been swept from the face of the earth. What would have been the issue if Christianity had been left to individual effort when the Moslems attacked Europe and threatened to feed their horses from the altars of Christian churches? Why, Europe would be to-day Mohammedan, and, if any Christians were left, they would be at the mercy, as the Servians were, of the Grand Turk. Christianity unorganized, facing an organized, hostile, powerful force, would have been as chaff before the wind.
THE SECOND REASON FOR CHURCH UNITY.
“Especially,” says Dr. Knox, “ought we to note how this fact of exterior organization has been recognized in the provision for the general spiritual well-being. If you say the elements of that well-being are primarily interior and spiritual, such as love, faith, fellowship, yet as positively are they never dispersed from the exterior and physical—that is, from the organism through which they obtain their manifestation. The church is that organism. Hence whenever, under apostolic preaching, there was in any community the beginning of Christian knowledge, faith, obedience, there was the immediate beginning of a Christian church.… In all their epistles and prayers it was the visible as well as vital thing—the church at Rome, Ephesus, Corinth—which they have in their eye as an object of beauty and blessedness:
‘Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular, ye are all baptized into one body.’… Their virtual unity must become visible; their essential unity, organic unity.”
In this passage there is laid down a most important principle: “The interior and spiritual are never dispersed from the interior and physical.” That is, an invisible church is an absurdity, and a simple interior piety a dream. On this principle we would change the last sentence, and make it read thus: “Their virtual unity is always visible; their essential unity, organic unity.”
THE THIRD REASON FOR UNITY IS EXPRESSED AS FOLLOWS:
“Just in ratio that effort for a common end becomes earnest and efficient does it tend to a common organized method.” Grant it, we say, and it follows that just in ratio as the common end is important, so will the effort become earnest and efficient in producing a common organized method for its realization. But no greater or more important end than the one that Christ came upon earth to realize, which was the salvation of the world, can be imagined. Hence Christ established his church as a common organized method for the realization of his divine mission; and it follows that, so far as his power extends, he would be with it, watch over it, and protect it until it accomplished the purpose for which he had called it into existence. And those who would subvert the church established by Christ, judged by this principle, really attempt, whatever may be their profession, to overthrow Christianity.
DR. KNOX’S FOURTH REASON FOR THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
“Oneness of organization is indispensable to oneness of manifestation. The union for which Christ prayed is apparent as well as actual—‘perfect in one, that the world may know that thou hast sent me.’ Now, it is certain that the numerous church organizations are in apparent conflict with unity. They are regarded by multitudes as diverse, and even adverse, corporations. Allow that this, to a great extent, is only in appearance; yet just to that extent it is an evil. The impression is not the one Christ seeks of an impressive unity. And ecclesiastical history reveals how often the evil appearance has been identical with the actual evil. The setting up of separate church establishments tends inevitably to jealousy, strife, ambition, alienation, as the universal experiment proves.”
Every sentence almost of the above passage is a death-blow to the entire movement of Protestantism from its origin as a system of religion. As its very name signifies, it began in denial, and its fertility is not in the direction of unity and oneness of organization, but in that of breeding strifes, sowing discords, and exciting enmities. New sects are ever on the increase in its bosom, new church organizations are set up in the same sect against each other, and its main drift is plainly in the direction of mere individualism, ending in entire negation. “O Protestantism!” exclaims one of its adherents, “has it, then, at last come to this with thee, that thy disciples protest against all religion? Facts which are before the eyes of the whole world declare aloud that this signification of thy name is no idle play upon words, though I know that this confession will excite a flame of indignation against myself.”[155]
There is one point in the above extract on which we must differ from the learned doctor, and that is where he maintains that “the conflict with unity” among Protestants is “apparent” and not “adverse”; and here are some of our grounds:
This apparent unity among Protestants has its centre and source elsewhere. For every one of the revealed truths of Christianity which they maintain as fundamental, conceding for the moment that they are even agreed upon these, will be found in the last analysis to depend upon the authority of the Catholic Church. For example, the Bible is to Protestants the sole source of all revealed truth, and the only rule of faith. Now, that the Protestants received from the Catholic Church the Bible is a simple historical fact. Again, how do they know that the book called the Bible contains the whole of the inspired written word of God, and nothing else? Only from the unimpeachable witness and guardian of the Bible—the Catholic Church. Take from under the truths of Christianity, which Protestants still retain, the logical support of the Catholic Church, and Protestantism, as a system of religion, in ratio as men begin to feel the necessity of rendering to themselves a rational account of their religious convictions, will be abandoned and fall into utter ruin. And whatever fruits of Christian virtue or flowers of piety grow on the tree of Protestantism, they are parasitic; for the sap which gives life to the tree is derived from its roots, which are nourished in the soil of the garden, to their sight concealed, of the Catholic Church. In this virtual relation to the Catholic Church
lies the hope of the salvation of those Protestants who are really in good faith. The unity among Protestants, therefore, is only “apparent,” while its conflicts with unity are real and “adverse.”
For the moment you enter on an examination of those doctrines in detail, regarding which, to use the language of this author, “there is throughout evangelical Christendom a substantial unity,” that instant innumerable and irreconcilable differences and contradictions arise. There exists among what are called evangelical Protestants a vague and affective desire for unity, but it is only strong enough to bring them together occasionally to display before the public their complete lack of real unity. They may even be led by it to recite the Apostles’ Creed, as though they were of accord in their belief as to the meaning of its contents; but let no further strain be put upon their bond of unity, lest it should snap into a thousand pieces, revealing, in the words of our author, “different organic bodies with features facing all ways, hands striking one against another, feet moving off in independent directions, and lips uttering the whole alphabet of shibboleths.” Grapes are not gathered of thorns.
DR. KNOX’S FIFTH REASON FOR UNITY.
“Organic unity,” he says, “is a required element in the moral power the church is yet to wield. The Romish Church has borrowed untold strength from this source—one in name and form the world over.”
Dr. Knox’s evidently reluctant compliment to the Catholic Church ought not to be passed by without due recognition. It is a very high compliment: the highest possible
compliment, according to his own showing. For he has laid down the principle that “the interior and spiritual are never dispersed from the exterior and physical.” Now, as the Catholic Church is “the world over one in name and form”—that is, in “the exterior and physical”—it follows she must be one in “the interior and spiritual,” as the former are never “dispersed from” the latter. The Catholic Church, therefore, is truly the church of Christ, as she alone is “perfect in one.” She alone possesses the inward and outward notes of that unity which Dr. Knox and those who agree with him are expecting to come as the ideal Christian Church. They have only to work out their premise to its logical conclusion to be landed in the bosom of the Catholic Church, which is the realization upon earth, so far as human nature will allow, of the ideal Christian Church.
“If her [the Catholic Church’s] actual unity,” he proceeds to say, “had answered to her organic, Protestantism must needs have been still heavier armed to make head against her.” This is not a reasonable supposition. Prior to the sixteenth century the actual unity of the Catholic Church did answer to her organic, and she was in a fair way to Christianize and civilize the whole world. But the religious secession started by Luther and his followers stopped the church in her course, and set Christians against Christians, broke up the fraternity of Christian nations, and sowed everywhere the seeds of dispute, enmities, and wars in the bosom of Christendom. Millions of her children, backed up by political powers, turned against the church, and concentrated their attacks chiefly in the direction of the overthrow of
the Roman See, and the destruction of the centre and guardian of the unity of her organization, the Roman Pontiff. If her vital energies and vast resources were turned towards where the attacks were the fiercest, in order to meet and repel their effects, this was, in the nature of the situation, a necessity, and furnishes no ground for an accusation. But God in his providence turns the enemies of his church into instruments of her glory; for, as in repelling the errors of Arius and his adherents, the church was necessitated to define, and for ever establish beyond all dispute, her belief in the divinity of Christ, so in like manner, in her defence against the errors of Luther and his followers, she was compelled to settle beyond dispute all doubt of the authority, the rights, and prerogatives communicated by Christ to his Apostle Peter and to the successors of his see, the Roman Pontiffs. The bark of Peter has had to battle through a threatening storm which has lasted three centuries, but she has come out of the danger in perfect safety, with increased strength and renewed splendor. For her “organic unity,” thanks to the action of Protestantism, being greatly perfected, her “actual unity” now can display itself with a correspondingly-increased vigor and vitality. Her interior, spiritual beauty will be brought out more clearly to the sight of the world, attracting all souls; for whatever may be said of the power and majesty of her “name and form the world over,” the real beauty and glory of the church, like that of the king’s daughter, “is all within.” The glory of this new phase of the church, of which it seems Dr. Knox has had a glimpse, though he does not appear to recognize her features,
he expresses in the following manner: “But when the day dawns that shall give us a visible springing from an interior unity, that will be a spectacle like the sign of the Son of Man in the heavens.”
After the compliment which we have already noticed, it would be unusual if the holy Church did not receive some bitter words of abuse. Here they are in the concluding lines of the paragraph under notice:
“Though Satan, in the person of Rome and Rationalism, ‘dilated stood,’ as Milton describes him in his attitude towards Gabriel,
“he would know that sign, as when Gabriel showed him the golden scales aloft, and he
“‘Fled
Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.’”
This language belongs to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the sectaries of that period universally held that the pope was Antichrist, and the Catholic Church his kingdom. It might be heard from the mouth of a ranter in Exeter Hall, or, in days gone by, in the Broadway Tabernacle, or come from the pen of the vaticinating Dr. Cummings, and not excite surprise; but we submit that such language is unworthy of the cause which Dr. Knox so ably advocates, and is in discord with the whole tenor of his article, which, we gladly acknowledge, breathes throughout a more candid and a better spirit.
THE SIXTH REASON FOR UNITY.
“This is found,” he says, “in that element of efficiency that lies in economy.” This is an important element, but we have already encroached beyond our limits, and
must hasten to our close. The article proceeds to show that there is a “rapidly-increasing unity of faith, affection, and aim” among evangelical Christians, and details the grounds for the hope of a “prospective unity of organization,” explaining “the causes at work to produce it.”
ACCORDING TO DR. KNOX, THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH ONCE EXISTED.
“Furthermore,” he continues, “the church has once been in the perfect unity we are advocating. The members ‘continued steadfast in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in breaking of bread, and in prayers’ (Acts, ii. 42). The unity, according to this record, began in theological doctrine, but extended to outward organization (fellowship), to visible sacraments (breaking of bread), and forms of worship (prayers). This was what Christ had just before prayed for a making perfect in one; a unity, interior and exterior, spiritual and organic.”
In another passage he describes the discordant elements of Protestantism, and draws, without knowing it, the portrait of the actual Catholic Church, and contrasts her perfect unity with the divisions of the Protestant sects. Here it is:
“In the primitive church, when Christ would have the body constituted with diversity—not all head, or hands, or feet; not all hearing, seeing, or smelling, but a body with many members, and each member its own function—he yet did not think it necessary this diversity should be sectarian in order to be Christian. He did not give some to be Episcopalians—high, and low, and ritualistic; some to be Congregationalists—associated, and consociated, and independent; some to be Methodists—Protestant, Primitive, and Episcopal; some to be Baptists—open and close; some to be Presbyterians—old and new, Cumberland and Covenanter, Associate Reformed and Presbyterian Reformed, and others perhaps unreformed, to say nothing of Burgher and anti-Burgher, Secession, and Relief. Here was variety—a very
millennium of it, such as it was. It was a variety, however, that finds no place in the New Testament, and no mention in Christ’s catalogue of particulars. This was his list of bestowments that Paul enumerates, when he ‘gave some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.’ Having these, the body was thought to be well furnished without the modern inventions above specified. Here was variety and here was efficiency. ‘Many members, but one body.’ ‘Diversities of gifts, but one spirit.’ ‘Differences of administration, but the same Lord.’ ‘Diversities of operations, but the same God, which worketh all in all.’ Read the whole twelfth chapter of 1st Corinthians, and the fourth of Ephesians, and see how amply diversified is the church of God: all the more beautiful and useful for the reason Paul here declares, that God has so constructed it that there should be ‘no schism in the body.’ The variety and beauty lie in the varied members and their varied functions; not, as our sectarian conservatives would have it, in there being different organic bodies with features facing all ways, hands striking one against another, feet moving off in independent directions, and lips uttering the whole alphabet of shibboleths.”
This description is not very complimentary to that movement which started with the profession of renewing the religion of the Gospel and of primitive Christianity. Judged by Dr. Knox’s standard, it is clear that Protestantism, whatever it may be, is not primitive Christianity.
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH IS LOST.
The entire article under consideration is based on the supposition that the visible organic unity of the church that once existed, no longer exists, but is lost. “It is also,” says Dr. Knox, “universally admitted and expected that this lost unity will at some time be regained”
(p. 666). Now, that scandals would come, and tares would grow with the wheat, heresies, schisms, and sects would arise—all this we are told in the New Testament; but that the unity which Christ communicated to his church should be “lost,” and, therefore, his church fail—this we read nowhere in the pages of the inspired Word. On the contrary, we read in the Gospels that Christ promised to “build his church,” and that he predicted that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” And we also read: “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” How one who believes in the divinity of Christ, the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and that Christ built his church, and can admit, nay, assert, that she has “lost” her unity, the very essence of her being—that, consequently, the church of Christ has failed—we are at a loss to know, and look for further explanation and instruction on this subject from Dr. Knox.
But it must be remembered also, and taken into account, that when Christ offered up his prayer for unity, he not only petitioned that his disciples might be one, but he also said: “And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me.” This covers all time, and leaves no room for the supposition that the unity which was the object of his prayer should ever be “lost.”
How to meet this difficulty is the question of questions among those who, under one pretext or another, have separated themselves from the unity of the Catholic Church. Their ingenuity has been exercised not a little on this point, and the world has listened to the Greek patriarchal theory, and to the Anglican branch theory, and the invisible church
theory of some of the so-called reformers, but all these theories are like clouds without rain and broken cisterns that can hold no water. For once admit that the unity of the church for which Christ prayed has ever existed, and concede that it has been lost, no matter what theory or hypothesis you may devise, at that moment, the conclusion is inevitable, Christianity is a failure.
The unity of the church of Christ was divine, and the human cannot create or give birth to the divine. This truth has been recognized and acted upon even among Protestants. The Irvingites and Mormons teach on this point their fellow-Protestants a lesson in sound logic. “We start,” they say, “as all Protestants do, in admitting that the Catholic Church was in the beginning the church of Christ, and that at some period of time afterwards she became corrupt and failed. This is our common premise. Now, to establish the church, which is a divine institution, requires a special divine mission and authority; hence our claim to this special divine inspiration and authority for the reinauguration of the church of Christ upon earth.” This reasoning on the part of the Irvingites and Mormons, as against other Protestants, is unanswerable and leaves them nowhere.
If the Christian Church ever existed, it exists now in all its vitality and force; for the divine creative act which called it into existence was as real, continuous, and immutable as the creative act which called into existence the universe. The same Almighty who said, “Fiat Lux,” said, “Edificabo ecclesiam meam”; and, considering the place she holds in the hierarchy of creation, there is less reason to suppose that
the church should fail than that the whole universe should go to utter wreck and ruin.
The learned doctor has an inkling of this insurmountable difficulty, and hence he looks forward to one scarcely knows what kind of supernatural action which is to “compose” out of the existing different evangelical sects a visible organic unity. The idea of composing the unity of the church is a contradiction in terms. If lost, only a new divine creative act can restore it. To expect this after the Incarnation and the Day of Pentecost is a chimera. The only escape from this, and the only perfectly consistent one, is that this unity is still existing, clothed with “a divinely-appointed organism jure divino,” and open to all who really and sincerely believe in Christ. He does not deny that the church of Christ does still exist; he admits its possibility, and says:
“We do not base our argument for ultimate unity of organization on the assumption that there is a divinely appointed organism defined in the New Testament. We may believe the Scriptures contain nothing explicit on this point—no jure divino model of church polity. If, however, there is such an appointed form—which is here neither affirmed nor denied—we insist that it is the best form, and our point holds good—viz., in the coming development of an earnest faith and fellowship, that form will ultimately be apprehended and accepted. In that mental condition into which the church is soon to come, it will be recognized that the end is the main thing, and the agency of no account except as it is adapted to the end. And as in the arts of ordinary life, as in politics and public education, it is at length discovered what the best way to the desired result is; and as the earnest effort for the valued result lays hold at last of the best method, which thus becomes the common one, so must it be in the great earnest religious movement of these latter days, looking to the millennial age. Mark
well the process. The faith and love of the church, quickening into new life in these pre-millennial efforts, will emerge into a spiritual earnestness little short of a new experience; this earnestness will content itself with nothing short of the most effective method; the effective method will be accepted as the best, and the best method is the one method which shall complete the spiritual unity of God’s people in an organic unity.”
Agreeing with Dr. Knox in “the nature of the unity of the church,” and that the principle of “life is organic,” and also that the church with this unity and organic life has existed, the conclusion is evident: either he must yield up his premises, or enter into the fold of the Catholic Church as the only claimant to this unity and organization whose title is unimpeachable. May that day “of earnest faith and fellowship” of which he speaks be hastened, when will be apprehended and accepted “that church polity” “defined in the New Testament,”[156] and which “completes the spiritual unity of God’s people in an organic unity!” “May the generation now coming upon the stage … not pass away until these things are fulfilled!”
[153] “The Organic Unity of the Church. By Wm. E. Knox, D.D., Elmira, N. Y.” The Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review, Oct., 18;6.
[154] St. John xvii.
[155] Dr. Jenischuber, Gottesverehrung und Kirche, § 210.
[156] To those of our readers who are desirous of seeing the argument drawn from the New Testament on this point, and at the same time the whole question as between the Catholic Church and the Presbyterians or evangelicals fully treated and placed in a clear light and in a masterly manner on the basis of the Holy Scriptures, we recommend the volume entitled The King’s Highway, by the Rev. Augustine F. Hewit. The Catholic Publication House, New York.