New Publications.
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Alexander the Great, [859].
Amelia; or, The Triumph of Piety, [858].
Archdall's Monasticon Hibernicum, [719].
Baltimore Gun Club, The, [575].
Bégin's La Sainte Ecriture et La Regle de Foi, [719].
Bellasius' Cherubini, [719].
Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque, [855].
Buckley's Sermons, Lectures, etc., [286].
Castaniza's The Spiritual Conflict, [856].
Catholic Church, The, in its Relations to Human Progress, [575].
Catherine Hamilton, [432].
Catherine of Genoa, [573].
Cherubini: Memorial Illustrative of his Life, [719].
Children of Mary, [576].
Christian Cemetery in the XIXth Century, The, [573].
Church and the Empires, The, [859].
Commonitory, The, of S. Vincent of Lerins, [719].
Complete Pronouncing Gazetteer, A, [720].
Conferences on the Spiritual Life, [143].
Consoling Thoughts of S. Francis of Sales, [286].
Conway's The Sacred Anthology, [574].
Count de Montalembert's Letters to a School-fellow, [281].
Coxe's Catholics and Roman Catholics, [575].
Curtius' History of Greece, [431].
Deharbe's A Full Catechism, [718].
De Vere's Alexander the Great, [859].
Dialogues of S. Gregory, [575].
Dictionary of the English Language, A, [720].
Dr. Coxe's Claims to Apostolicity Reviewed, [281].
Dubois' Madame Agnes, [430].
Ecclesiastical Antiquities of London, [143].
Essay Contributing to a Philosophy of Literature, An, [858].
Fairplay's Notes of the Wandering Jew, [144].
Farm of Muiceron, The, [430].
Favre, B. Peter, The Life of, [142].
Francis of Sales, S., Consoling Thoughts of, [286].
Franco's Tigranes, [575].
French Prisoner in Russia, The, [431].
Full Catechism of the Catholic Religion, A, [718].
Fullerton's Rosemary, [860].
Fullerton's Short Stories, [860].
Garside's B. Margaret Mary Alacoque, [855].
Garside's The Helpers of Holy Souls, [860].
Gaume's The Christian Cemetery, [573].
Glory and Sorrow, [432].
Grapes and Thorns, [856].
Gregory, S., Dialogues of, [575].
Hedley's Who is Jesus Christ? [431].
Helpers of Holy Souls, The, [860].
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Hodge's What is Darwinism? [429].
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Moriarty's The Catholic Church, etc., [575].
Morris' The Letter-Books of Sir Amias Poulet, [576].
Neptune Outward Bound, The, [860].
New Manual of the Sacred Heart, The, [431].
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Olmstead's De l'Autorité; ou, La Philosophie du Personnalisme. Lettre au Rev. Père J. F. Hecker, etc., [717].
On Some Popular Errors, etc., [573].
Paradise of God, [288].
Personal Reminiscences, [576].
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Pope, The, and the Emperor, [431].
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The Catholic World. Vol. XIX., No. 109.—April, 1874.
The Principles Of Real Being. IV. Intrinsic Principles of Substance and Suppositum.
We have briefly shown in the preceding article that a complete being, to be a substance and a suppositum, requires no positive addition to its three intrinsic principles, but needs only to be left to itself. This is, in our opinion, an obvious truth. But as there are philosophers of high repute who do not fully share the same opinion, and, on the other hand, the notions of substance and of suppositum are both intimately connected with some theological truths which cannot be well explained without a distinct knowledge of what these two notions really imply, we deem it expedient to enter into a closer examination of the subject, that we may better understand by the light of reason, and confirm by the weight of authority, the traditional doctrine on substance and suppositum, their essential constitution, formal distinction, and supernatural separability.
Substance is very commonly described as “that which is in itself and by itself”—quod in se et per se subsistit. This definition exhibits the “predicamental” substance—that is, a substance ultimately complete, which is at the same time a suppositum also, according to Aristotle's comprehensive conception of substance. And it is for this reason that such a definition is made up of two members; of which the first—viz., “that which exists in itself”—strictly applies to substance as such; whilst the second—viz., “that which subsists by itself”—strictly refers to the suppositum as such, and exhibits substance as possessing its own natural subsistence or suppositality.
Philosophers, when speaking of things as existing in their natural state and condition, are wont to say indiscriminately that substance is a being which “exists in itself,” or a being which “subsists by itself.” [pg 002] This they can do without any danger of error so long as they keep within the bounds of pure nature; since, in the natural order, anything that exists in itself subsists by itself, and vice versa. But natural things can, by supernatural interference, be raised to a mode of existence transcending their natural condition, as we know by divine revelation; and in such a case, the mode of substance and the mode of the suppositum must be, and accordingly are, most carefully distinguished from one another. Thus we know by faith that in Christ our Lord there is the true substance of a human body and of a human soul; and nevertheless we know that his human nature does not subsist by itself, but by the Divine Person of the Word. The obvious inference is that a nature which exists in itself does not necessarily subsist by itself; in other terms, the formality of substance and the formality of the suppositum are entirely distinct from one another, and the one can remain without the other. “What makes substance to be essentially a substance,” as Suarez remarks, “is not its subsisting actually by itself, but its having an essence to which subsistence is naturally due—viz., an essence which is of itself a sufficient principle of subsistence.”[1] From this we learn that the words per se esse, or “to subsist by itself,” are inserted in the definition of substance, not to show what substance as such is, but only to point out what is naturally due to substance—viz., what accompanies it in its natural mode of existing. Substance as such would therefore be sufficiently characterized by the words, “that which is in itself.”
Let us now inquire what is the legitimate meaning of these last words. A thing is said to exist in itself which not only has in itself what is needed for its own sustentation, but is moreover actually unsustained by anything lying under it, while it is itself the first subject of all its appurtenances. Such is the legitimate and traditional meaning of the words, “to exist in itself.” Hence substance may be legitimately defined as “a being which by its intrinsic constitution has no need of being supported by a subject, and which is not actually supported.”
A living author, however, in a valuable work to which I have no access at this moment, and from which, therefore, I do not make any quotation verbatim, asserts that substance “up to the present day” has always been understood to mean “a thing which by its intrinsic constitution has no need of being supported by a subject,” without taking into consideration its actual mode of existing. We shall presently show that this assertion is not true, and that this pretended definition is essentially incomplete. Meanwhile, let us observe that the precise difference between our definition and this new one consists in this only: that whilst the first presents substance as having no actual support, the second presents it as having no need of actual support, whether it be supported, at least supernaturally, or not. This difference, of course, would amount to nothing, and might be entirely overlooked, if things could not exist but in their natural condition; for anything which is in no need of support will naturally exist unsupported. [pg 003] But as philosophy is the handmaid of theology, we must remember that natural things can be raised to a supernatural state, and thus change their mode of existing; and in such a case the difference between the two said definitions may amount to much; because, if a thing which is naturally in no need of support be actually supported, then, according to the first definition, that thing thus actually supported would cease to exist as a substance, whilst, according to the second definition, it would still continue to exist as a substance, as it would still have no need of support. Hence the importance of ascertaining which of the two definitions we are authorized to hold according to the traditional doctrine of philosophers and theologians.
And first, Aristotle, at the head of the peripatetic school which held its sway for centuries, defines substance to be ultimum subjectum—“the last subject”—that is, the undermost subject; by which he unquestionably means that substance is something which not only lies underneath (subjacet), but is moreover the “last” thing which lies underneath. In other terms, substance, according to Aristotle, must have nothing lying under it, and, while supporting all its appurtenances, is itself actually unsupported. Hence it is, that quantity, for instance, though lying under some figure and supporting it, is no substance at all; for, though it is a subject, it is not the undermost.
This definition of the Greek philosopher has been universally accepted and made use of by Christian as well as pagan philosophers of all times, though many of them called the first subject what Aristotle had called the last—a change which does not affect the meaning of the definition, since what is last in the analytic is first in the synthetic process. It is clear, therefore, that both Aristotle and his followers do not define substance simply as that which has no need of support, but as that which is actually unsupported.
S. John Damascene, in the fourth chapter of his Dialectics, defines substance to be “that which is in itself in such a manner as not to exist in anything else”;[2] and after a few lines, “Substance,” he says, “is that which has its existence in itself, and not in anything else”;[3] and again in another chapter of the same work, “Substance,” he says, “is anything which subsists by itself and has its own being, not in any other thing, but in itself.”[4]
According to these definitions, which are identical, substance is a thing which not only is able to support itself, but actually supports itself to the exclusion of any other distinct supporter. This is quite manifest; for, if substance, in the opinion of this great doctor and philosopher, had been only a thing having no need of support, how could he require so pointedly and explicitly the actual mode of existing in itself and not in anything else?
S. Ambrose admits a notion of substance quite identical with that of Aristotle and of all the ancients, and employs it even in speaking of God himself. “God,” says he, “inasmuch as he remains in himself, and does not subsist by extrinsic support, is called a substance.”[5] [pg 004] God, of course, does not fall under the predicament of substance, as philosophers know; and yet the substantiality even of his nature, according to this holy doctor, implies the actual absence of extrinsic sustentation.[6]
S. Thomas, as we might expect, teaches the very same doctrine. “Substance,” says he, “is a thing whose quiddity requires to exist unsupported by anything else”—cui convenit esse non in alio;[7] and he adds that this formality (esse non in alio) is a mere negation; which is evident. And in another place, “Substance,” says he, “does not differ from being by any difference which would imply a new nature superadded to the being itself; but the name of substance is given to a thing in order to express its special mode of existing.”[8] Two things, then, or two constituents, are needed, according to S. Thomas, that we may have a substance: a physical being and a special mode of existing. The physical being is a positive reality, a nature perfectly constituted, both materially and formally, whilst the special mode is a mere negation; but, though a mere negation, is that which causes the thing to be a substance, as the name of substance is given to the thing in order to express its special mode of existing. Therefore the thing itself apart from such a special mode cannot be a substance, any more than a six-pence apart from its rotundity can be a circle.
Toletus includes in his definition of substance both the thing and the special mode of existing. He says: “The first substance is a sensible nature which is not predicated of any subject nor exists in any subject.”[9]
Suarez says even more explicitly, “It is not necessary for the essence of substance that it should have its own subsistence, but that it should have the mode of substance.”[10] We cannot, then, overlook, and much less discard, this special mode without destroying the essential notion of substance as such. Now, he who defines substance to be simply a thing which has no need of support overlooks and discards this special mode; hence he destroys the essential notion of substance as such.
Balmes, in his Fundamental Philosophy, says: “In the notion of substance, two other notions are implied—to wit, that of permanence and that of non-inherence. Non-inherence is the true formal constituent of substance, and is a negation; it is grounded, however, on something positive—that is, on the aptitude of the thing to exist in itself without the need of being supported by another.”[11] This passage establishes very clearly the common doctrine that the aptitude of a thing to exist without being supported is not the formal constituent of substance, but only the ground on which the proper formal [pg 005] constituent of substance (non-inherence) is conceived to be possible.
Ferraris, a modern Italian Thomist, in his course of philosophy, says explicitly that substance is destroyed if its “perseity”—per se esse—be taken away.[12] The word “perseity” stands here for the “special mode” of S. Thomas, the “mode of substance” of Suarez, the “non-inherence” of Balmes, etc.
Liberatore has the following: “Going back to the notion of substance, we may consider three things which are implied in it: the first, that it exists, not in any manner whatever, but in itself; the second, that it consists of a determinate reality or essence, from which its determinate active powers arise; the third, that it is in possession of itself—sui juris—with regard to its manner of existing. Of these three things, the first exhibits properly and precisely the notion of substance; the second presents the concept of nature; the third expresses the notion of suppositum.”[13]
The preceding quotations, to which others might be added, are more than sufficient, in our opinion, to refute the assertion that substance at all times was considered simply as a thing having no need of support; for we have seen that the most prominent philosophers and theologians of all times uniformly consider the actual negation of support as an essential principle of substance. Sanseverino, a very learned modern philosopher of the Thomistic school, treating in his Logic of the predicament of substance, establishes the fact that, according to the common teaching of the scholastics, “not the essence of the thing, but its mode of existing, formally constitutes the predicament of substance.” Although that special mode of existing is not implied in the essential concept of the thing, inasmuch as it is a thing, yet, according to the doctrine of the schoolmen, the same special mode is implied, as a formal constituent, in the essential concept of the same thing, inasmuch as it falls under the predicament of substance; so that, in the constitution of substance, the essence of the thing is to be ranked as its material, and the special mode of existing as its formal, principle. And the learned writer sums up all this doctrine in one general conclusion of Henry of Ghent, which runs thus: “Every predicament arises out of two constituents, of which one is the thing which is to be put under the predicament, the other is its mode of being which determines the predicament, and by these same constituents are the predicaments distinguished from one another”[14]—a doctrine explicitly taught by S. Thomas himself.[15] And here let us reflect that, if all the schoolmen, as Sanseverino with the authority of his philosophical erudition declares, affirm that the mode of substance, the non-inherence, the negation of support, is an essential constituent of substance as such, we are free to conclude that to affirm the contrary is to give a false notion of substance; [pg 006] while to say that philosophers have at all times, or at any time, taught the contrary, is to give a very false statement of facts.
This may suffice to convince the student that the essential formality of substance as such is the negation of actual support. And now let us inquire what is the formal constituent of suppositum. Suppositum and substance, though not identical, are similarly constituted. The positive entity of both is the same, and the difference between them arises entirely from the different character of their negative formality, as we are going to explain. For the essence or nature of every created being is naturally accompanied by two negations, of which neither is essential to it, while either of them, absolutely speaking, can be made to disappear. The first is the negation of anything underlying as a supporter and acting the part of a subject; and it is to this negation, as we have proved, that any complete nature formally owes its name and rank of substance. The second is the negation of anything overlying, so to say, and possessing itself of the created being in such a manner as to endue it with an additional complement and a new subsistence; and it is to this negation that a complete nature formally owes its name and rank of suppositum. The complete nature, or the thing in question, when considered apart from these two negations, does not, therefore, convey the idea either of substance or of suppositum, but exhibits a mere potency of being either or both; as it is evident that there cannot be a substance without the formal constituent of substance, nor a suppositum without the formal constituent of suppositum.
This doctrine, which is so simple and clear, and which fully explains the true meaning of those phrases, “it exists in itself,” and “it subsists by itself,” can be confirmed by what S. Thomas teaches on the subject. And since we have already said enough in regard to the mode of substance, we shall give only what he says concerning subsistence or suppositality. That the words per se—“by itself”—which strictly exhibit the formality of the suppositum, are the expression of a mere negation, is admitted by S. Thomas in a passage above mentioned. This would lead us immediately to conclude that the formal constituent of suppositum, in the judgment of the holy doctor, is a mere negation. But we may find a more perspicuous proof of this in those passages where he explains how the human nature in Christ subsists without the human personality. The absence of the human personality in Christ does not depend, says he, “on the absence of anything pertaining to the perfection of the human nature—but on the addition of something that ranks above the human nature, to wit, on the union of the human nature with a divine Person.”[16] And again: “The divine Person, by his union, prevented the human nature from having its own personality.”[17] It is manifest from these two passages that, according to S. Thomas, the absence of the human personality in Christ is to be accounted for by the addition of something above the human nature, and not by the suppression or subtraction [pg 007] of any positive entity belonging to the human nature. If, then, the absence of the human personality entails no absence of positive reality, it is obvious that the human personality is not a positive reality, but a real negation. Such is S. Thomas's doctrine, endorsed by Scotus and many others.
There are, however, some philosophers and theologians, Suarez among others, who consider personality as something positive; and we must briefly discuss the grounds of their opinion.
They say that, if the human personality is nothing positive, human person will be the same reality as human nature, and therefore the one will not be really distinct from the other; and if so, the one cannot be assumed without the other. How, then, can we say that the Eternal Word assumed the human nature without the human person?
We reply that all negation which belongs to a real being is a real negation, and constitutes a real mode of being. Accordingly, although the human personality is only a negation, the nature existing under that negation really differs from itself existing without that negation, no less than a body at rest really differs from itself in movement, although rest is only a negation of movement. And this suffices to show that the objection is wholly grounded on the false supposition that nothing is real which is not positive.
They affirm that subsistence or suppositality gives the last complement to the nature, as it terminates it and makes it subsistent. Hence subsistence, as they infer, must add something positive to the nature; which it cannot do unless it be a positive reality.
We deny the assumption altogether. Subsistence, in fact, gives no complement whatever to the nature, but, on the contrary, presupposes the complete nature, which, when simply left to itself, cannot but be subsistent by itself, and therefore is said to have its own subsistence. It is not subsistence that causes the thing to subsist; it is the thing which abides by itself that, in consequence of this same abiding by itself, has subsistence, and is called subsistent; just in the same manner as it is not rest that causes the body to be at rest, but the concrete resting; as rest is evidently the consequence of the resting. Hence this second objection, too, is based on a false assumption.
Another of their reasons is the following: In God, personality is a positive reality, therefore in creatures also; for the created person is a participation of divine person, which is a positive reality.
We do not see how this assertion can be true. In God there are three Persons, but neither of them is participated or communicated to creatures. Indeed, creatures bear in themselves a faint imitation of the three divine Persons, inasmuch as they involve three intrinsic principles in their constitution, as we have explained in the preceding article; but these three principles are not three persons. Yet, if divine personality were in any way communicable to creatures, creatures would subsist in three persons; for how could the personality of the Father be communicated in any degree without the personality of the Son and of the Holy Ghost being communicated in the same degree? Personality in God is a relative entity, and cannot be conceived without its correlative; and consequently, if the human personality [pg 008] were a participation of divine personality, it would be impossible for man to be a single person; whence it appears that human personality is not a communication of divine personality, and is not even analogous to it. What we call a human person is nothing but a human individual nature which is sui juris—that is, not possessed by a superior being, but left to itself and free to dispose of its acts. It therefore imitates, not the divine Persons, but the divine absolute Being, inasmuch as it is independent in disposing of everything according to his will. Now, independence, even in God, implies the negation or absence of any necessary connection or conjunction with anything distinct from the divine nature. It is but reasonable, then, to hold that the human nature also exists free and independent by the very absence or negation of personal union with a higher being. We remark, however, that such a negation in God is a negation of imperfection, while in creatures an analogous negation is a negation of a higher perfection, since it is the negation of their union with a more perfect nature.
It has been argued, also, that to be a person is better than not to be a person; whence it would follow that personality is a perfection. On the other hand, negations are not perfections; hence personality cannot be a negation.
To this we answer that the proposition, “to be a person is better than not to be a person,” can be understood in two different manners. It may mean that to have a nature which is capable of personality, and is naturally personal, is better than to have a nature incapable of personality; and in this sense the proposition is true, for it is certainly better to have the nature of man than the nature of an ox. This, however, would not show that personality is a positive formality. But the same proposition might be taken to mean that to have one's natural personality is better than to exist without it, in consequence of hypostatic union with a higher being; and in this sense, which is the sense of the objection, the proposition is evidently false. For the whole perfection of the human person is the perfection of its nature; so that human personality, instead of being a new perfection, is only an exponent of the perfection and dignity of human nature, which is such that the same nature can naturally guide itself and control its actions. We therefore concede that human personality is a formality of a perfect nature, but we cannot admit that it is a perfection of itself. If human personality were a perfection of human nature, we would be compelled to say that human nature is less perfect in Christ than in all other men; for, though the Eternal Word assumed the whole human nature, he did not assume that pretended perfection, human personality. But S. Paul assures us that Christ's human nature “is like ours in all things, except sin.” We cannot therefore suppose that the human nature is less perfect in him than in other men; and this leads us to the conclusion that human personality is not a positive perfection.
Some have pretended that the mystery of the Incarnation would become quite inexplicable if the human person were nothing more than the human nature left to itself. Their reason is that by the Incarnation the human nature is separated from the human person; which they deem to be impossible if the [pg 009] person is nothing else than the nature alone.
This is, however, a manifest paralogism. If, in fact, the human person is the human nature left to itself, the nature assumed by the Word will certainly not be a human person, since it is clear that the nature thus assumed is not left to itself. This suffices to show the inconsistency of the objection. Let us add that it is not entirely correct to say that by the Incarnation the human nature is separated from the human person; it would be more correct to say that the human nature is prevented from having that natural subsistence which would make it a human person.
Lastly, it has been said that, if the human nature which has been assumed by the Eternal Word was entirely complete, the union of the Word with it could not be intimate and substantial. Hence, according to this reasoning, there must have been something wanting in the human nature assumed, which something has been supplied by the hypostatic union.
We cannot but repeat, with S. Thomas, that the human nature assumed by the Word is absolutely perfect, and therefore exempt from any deficiency which could have been supplied by the hypostatic union. And as for the reason alleged, we say that it is grounded on a false supposition. The union of the Word with the human nature is not a conspiration of the divine and the human into oneness of substance, for the thing would be impossible; and therefore it is not wholly correct to say that the union is substantial. The proper term is hypostatic—that is, personal; for, in fact, the human nature conspires with the divine Word into oneness of person, the two natures or substances remaining entirely distinct. Now, the oneness of person is not obtained by supplying any deficiency in the human nature, but by adding, as S. Thomas teaches, to the perfect human nature that which is above it—that is, by the Word taking possession of it in his own person.
Such are the principal reasons advanced by those who consider human personality, and suppositality in general, as a positive mode. We think we have answered them sufficiently.
We cannot better conclude this controversy than by inviting the same philosophers to take cognizance of the following argument. The mode of suppositum, as well as the mode of substance, is not an accidental but a substantial mode, as all agree, and every one must admit. Now, no substantial mode can be positive; and therefore neither the mode of suppositum nor the mode of substance can be positive. The minor of this syllogism can be proved thus: Positive modes are nothing but positive actualities or affections of being; and unless they are mere relative denominations (which is not the case with substantial modes), they must result from the positive reception of some act in a real subject. This is an obvious truth, for nothing is actual but by some act; and all acts which are not essential to the first constitution of the being are received in the being already constituted as in a real subject. And since all acts thus received are accidental, hence all the positive modes intrinsic to the being must be accidental modes; and no substantial mode can be positive. Therefore whatever is positive in the suppositum and in the substance belongs to the nature of the being [pg 010] which has the mode of suppositum or of substance, whilst the modes themselves are mere negations.
This truth, however, should not be misunderstood. When we say that “to be in itself” or “to be by itself” is a mere negation, we do not refer to the verb “to be”; we only refer to the appendage “in itself” or “by itself.” To be is positive, but belongs to the nature as such, as it is the essential complement of all being, whether substance and suppositum or not. The negation consists, in the one case, in not being sustained by an underlying supporter, and, in the other, in not being taken possession of by an overlying superior being. Indeed, when we unite the verb to be with either of the two negations, we unite the positive with the negative. But the positive comes in as determinable, while the negative comes in as determinant. Hence the resultant determination or formality is only the actuality of a negation. Now, the actuality of a negation, though it is real inasmuch as it is the affection of a positive being, yet it is negative; for all actuality is denominated by its formal principle, and such a principle, in our case, is a negation.
A writer in a Catholic periodical has ventured to say that if the formality of substance (and the same would also apply to the suppositum) is negative, then substance “will consist merely in a negation.” It is surprising that a philosopher has not seen the absurdity of such a conclusion. Substance is not to be confounded with its formality. There are many positive things which involve a negation. In an empty pocket, emptiness is a negation; ignorance in the ignorant is a negation; and limit in all things finite is a negation. Yet no one will say that an empty pocket, an ignorant pupil, or a finite being “consist merely in a negation”; and therefore, although the formality of substance is a negation, it does not follow that substance is a mere negation.
It now remains for us to show that neither of the two aforesaid negations is essential to any created being, and that a created being can therefore, absolutely speaking, exist, at least supernaturally, without either of them. Our first proof is drawn from the fact that neither the one nor the other negation is reckoned among the essential constituents of created beings. All complete nature, by common admission, consists “of essence and existence”—ex essentia et esse—the existence being the formal complement of the essence, and the essence itself involving, as its principles, an act with its corresponding term, as the readers of our last article already know. Accordingly, there is nothing essential in a complete being besides its act, its term, and its complement; and therefore neither the mode of substance nor the mode of suppositum is essential to a complete created being.
Our second proof is drawn from the notion of existence. “To exist strictly and simply,” says Suarez, “means only to have a formal entity in the order of nature; and therefore things existing are equally susceptible of the mode of being which consists in leaning on a supporter, and of the opposite mode which excludes all support.”[18] This is a tangible truth; for although a complete being possesses in its [pg 011] own constitution what is required for its own existence, yet it has nothing in its constitution which implies the necessity of existing in itself and by itself. It can indeed, and will naturally, be in itself without anything underlying as a supporter, since it sufficiently supports itself on its own term; but it contains nothing that would make impossible the sub-introduction of a supernatural supporter. And, again, a complete being can subsist by itself without further completion, since it is sufficiently complete by its formal complement; but it contains nothing which would exclude the possibility of its acquiring a further completion and a supernatural subsistence.
A third proof might be drawn from the fact that our own bodies exist indeed in themselves, but do not subsist by themselves, as their material nature is taken possession of by a spiritual being—the soul—and subsists by its subsistence. From this fact, which is alluded to in S. Athanasius' Symbol as an image of the assumption of the human nature by the Word, we might show that suppositality can, even naturally, be supplanted by the union of a lower with a higher nature. But we will not develop this proof, as it requires too long an explanation and many new considerations, which cannot be embodied in the present article.
Last, but not least, it is evident that all negations which are not included in the essence of a thing can be supplanted by the position of their contrary. Hence the mode of substance and the mode of suppositum, which are negations, and are not included in the essence of created things, can be supplanted by the intervention of a supernatural power.
As we must here keep within the bounds of philosophy, we abstain from discussing other cognate questions which can be safely answered only by a direct appeal to dogmatic definitions and theological arguments. We may, however, state that the old scholastic theologians and the fathers of the church, both Greek and Latin, admitted that the mode of substance, as well as the mode of suppositum, can be made to disappear from the thing to which it naturally belongs in the manner above explained. For their common doctrine on the mysteries of the Incarnation and of the Holy Eucharist is, that the two mysteries are analogous to one another,[19] and admit of a parallel mode of reasoning for their explanation. The analogy more or less explicitly pointed out by them involves the admission of a principle which may be expressed in the following words: “As the whole human nature can exist in Christ without the mode of human person, which is excluded [pg 012] by the hypostatic union of the Word with it, so can the whole sensible nature (species) of bread exist in the Holy Eucharist without its mode of substance, which is excluded by the substantive presence of Christ's body under it.” This traditional doctrine has been almost ignored in these latter centuries by those who were anxious to explain everything according to a special system of natural philosophy, and who little by little formed a new theory of the sacramental species; but the physical system on which these theologians took their stand having given way, and their new theory having lost its plausibility, we are of opinion that instead of seeking for new explanations, as some do, it is more prudent to fall back on tradition, and take into consideration the authorized teachings of our old polemic writers, of those especially who so valiantly fought against Berengarius and other heretics in behalf of the Eucharistic dogma.
Before we conclude, we wish to make a few remarks on some ambiguous expressions which may be a source of error in speaking of substance and of suppositum. We have said that Aristotle includes in his first category the suppositum as well as the substance, and that for this reason the words, “by itself,” “to support,” “to subsist,” have been promiscuously applied to the substance as well as to the suppositum. This has been done not only in philosophy, but even in theology. Thus we read in good authors that the divine Person of the Word “supports” or “sustains” Christ's human nature. Yet these words, as also “sustentation,” when applied to subsistence, must have a meaning which they have not when applied to substance; and it is plain that to employ the same words in both cases may give rise to serious mistakes. Some authors, besides overlooking the distinction to be made between “existing in itself”—esse in se—and “subsisting by itself”—per se subsistere—confound also with one another their opposites—viz., “to exist in something else”—esse in alio—and “to subsist by something else”—per aliud subsistere. Suarez, for instance, though usually very accurate in his expressions, says that “the mode of existing by itself and without dependence on any supporter has for its opposite to exist in something else;”[20] which is not correct, for the divinity of Christ exists in his humanity, and nevertheless does not depend on it as a supporter. It would be more correct to say that the mode of subsisting by itself has for its opposite to subsist by something else. And it is evident that to subsist by something else is not the same as to exist in it.
To get rid of all such ambiguous phrases, we observe that the word “sustentation,” as compared with any created nature, can have three different meanings, according as we apply it to the act, the term, or the complement of the created being.
When sustentation is considered in connection with the act or the formal principle of a being, it means positive conservation; for all contingent being comes out of nothing by the positive production of an act, and needs to be kept out of nothing by the positive conservation of the same act, as we know from special metaphysics.
When sustentation is considered in connection with the intrinsic term of a being, it means underlying; and in this sense we say that substance sustains its accidents. This meaning of the word “sustentation” is most conformable to its etymology; and thus, if anything is lying under any reality in that manner in which substance lies under its accidents, we shall say very properly that it sustains that reality. In this sense, sustentation and support may be taken as synonymous.
When sustentation is considered in connection with the formal complement of a being, it means overlying in such a manner as to superinduce a new complement and a new subsistence. Such is the manner in which the Person of the Word sustains Christ's humanity. This kind of sustentation implies hypostatic union and super-completion.
We might, therefore, divide sustentation into conservative, substantive, and hypostatic. The first is usually called conservation; the second might keep the name of sustentation; whilst the third might perhaps be fitly styled personalization, as this word seems adequately to express the nature of personal sustentation.
As to the phrases, “to be in itself” and “to be by itself,” we have seen that their distinction is most important. It may be useful to add that, even in God, to be in himself and to be by himself are to be distinguished by a distinction of reason indeed, but which is grounded on a real foundation. God is essentially a se, in se, and per se—that is, of himself, in himself, and by himself. These three attributes are absolute, and belong to the divine nature as an absolute reality; but as in this absolute reality there are intrinsic relations of personalities, we may reflect that, in this relative order, to be of himself can be considered as owing especially to God the Father, who does not proceed from any other person, but is himself the first principle of their procession; to be in himself can be considered as having a special reference to God the Son, in whom the whole entity of the Father is found as in the substantial term of his eternal generation; and, lastly, to be by himself can be explained by reference to the Holy Ghost, who is the essential complement of the Blessed Trinity, as that is said to be by itself which is ultimately complete in its own entity.
Accordingly, God, as existing essentially of himself—a se—has no need or capability of conservation; as existing essentially in himself—in se—he has no need or capability of sustentation; and as existing essentially by himself—per se—he has no need or capability of super-completion. But with contingent beings the case is quite different. And first, contingent beings are not “of themselves,” as they are from God; and for this reason they have an essential need of conservation, as we have stated, so far as their essential act is concerned. Secondly, although they naturally exist “in themselves,” yet this their mode of existing is not the result of an essential necessity, but only of a natural ordination, which God can supersede. They exist in themselves when the term of their own essence is their undermost support; for then the whole essence supports itself in a natural manner, and is a natural substance. Thirdly, although created beings naturally “subsist by themselves,” yet this manner of existing is not the consequence [pg 014] of an essential necessity, but only of a natural ordination, which can be superseded by the Creator. They subsist by themselves when the formal complement of their essence is their ultimate complement; for then the whole being is left to itself as a natural suppositum.
These explanations will be of some assistance, we hope, to the philosophical student in forming a correct judgment as to the formal constituents of substance and suppositum, and as to the manner of speaking about them with proper discrimination. We wish we had handled the subject in a better style and a less monotonous phraseology; but it was our duty to aim at preciseness rather than ornament. If there is any part of philosophy in which precision is more necessary than in another, it is that which treats of the principles of things; and if we succeed in presenting such principles in their true light, we shall deem it a sufficient apology for the dryness of our philosophical style.
To Be Continued.
On Hearing The “O Salutaris Hostia.”[21]
Song of the soul, whose clearly ringing rhythm
Throbs through the sacred pile,
And lengthened echoes swell thy solemn anthem
Past chancel, vault, and aisle,
An occult influence through thy numbers stealing,
A strange, mysterious spell,
Wakes in the longing heart a wondrous feeling,
A joy no tongue can tell;
A dreamy peace, a sense of unseen glory,
Wells through thy thrilling praise,
And calls a fairy vision up before me,
A dream of brighter days.
I hear the seraphs' sweet-tongued voices pleading,
The cherubim's accord,
And see the sun-robed shadows softly thridding
The gardens of the Lord.
I linger on the sight, and growing weary
Of earthly dross and sin,
Sadly, yet hoping, like the wistful peri,
I long to enter in!
The rolling echoes peal
Whilst glorious above
The face of God smiles on the storied altar,
Well pleased, and rich with love.
And through the living air and slumbrous music,
And through the chancel broad,
The Heart of Jesus glows in mystic splendor,
And lights us unto God!
On The Wing: A Southern Flight.
What induced us to pick our way on foot from the railway carriage to the Hôtel du Parc et Bordeaux, near eleven o'clock at night, on our arrival at Lyons, I cannot possibly conceive.
It was the 3d of January that we performed this unnecessary penance; and the only explanation I can give is that we were all rather dazed by the long journey from Paris, and had forgotten that of course there was waiting at the station an omnibus to carry on the passengers. We had been silent and sleepy for some hours, when the bright lights twinkling up and down the heights of the city of Lyons, and across the bridges, and, corruscating at the station, had roused us all up, and made us exclaim at the fairy sight. I had seen it again and again; but I always look out eagerly for the first peep at that tossed-about town after night has closed in, and I know none more brilliant and picturesque. I thought we all looked rather rueful as we entered the hotel, and that it suddenly struck us we had come on foot, and might therefore look too economically inclined to suit the views of the buxom lady who advanced to meet us. I saw her cast rather a doubtful eye to the rear; but her face brightened when she found we had at least been able to afford a porter to carry such luggage as we might want for one night. We had no valid reason to give in reply to her anxious enquiries as to why we had not availed ourselves of the hotel omnibus; which very soon afterwards came rattling into the yard, quite empty, the guard and coachman viewing us indignantly. Madame, finding we had nothing to say for ourselves, compassionately furnished each with a candle, and allowed us to gather together our scattered wits in sleep.
The “we” consisted of brother Frank, sister Mary, and I; also of Ann, our maid. I suppose I must describe the party. I wish I could draw them instead. Frank is dressed all over in a gray tweed. I sometimes tell him he looks like a gray parrot; but that is absurd, because he is so extremely taciturn, which gray parrots are not. He makes a capital courier. He always knows what we poor women shall want, and how much we can do, which is a great comfort to me; because, as Mary is delicate, and we are travelling on her account, I should be so worried if Frank insisted on doing fourteen hours of railroad per diem. He is such a good fellow that he would never wish us to overtask ourselves. But then he is so strong that I know it must seem very extraordinary to him that we should be such poor creatures, and get tired out so soon. I sometimes wonder what has made Frank so tender and gentle, and so considerate. Perhaps it is the being so much with Mary. She makes everybody gentle who comes [pg 016] near her. Somehow she seems to stroke everybody's fur the right way, no matter how ruffled they were before. Poor Mary! she has for many years been a widow, after a brief and unhappy married life, and having lost both her children, a girl and a boy. She is the eldest of us three, but has a marvellous knack of looking the youngest and the brightest. She has been very beautiful, and is so still in many ways. Now I come! But how shall I describe myself? The more I think of it, the more impossible I find it. As I am the relater of our adventures, I suppose my readers will form for themselves some idea of what I am like. So I will only say that my name is Jane, and that I am an old maid, but that I do not feel old. As to my looks, I really do not know what to say. I am not always altogether dissatisfied with them; but then, on the other hand, when I am inclined to judge them leniently, the unlucky feeling comes over me that it is solely owing to my hat, or the way my hair is done, or some fortuitous circumstance upon which I cannot reckon as a permanency, and which may be gone before any one else has had the time to observe it. So that though I have my lucky moments, I have little or no capital to go on. Now, Mary, with her large, soft eyes, her exquisite mouth, and beautiful teeth, attracts strangers wherever she goes; although she is always insisting upon it she is quite an old woman. And now comes Ann. She is about my age, but does not at all consider herself an old maid, and therefore always contradicts me when I speak of myself in such disparaging terms. I generally say something in reply about the observation being six for me and half a dozen for herself. But this she does not like. Ann is a very good girl, and a capital maid. She has pretty, fuzzy black hair, and bright though small black eyes; she has a very white skin, and a neat figure. But she does not like travelling, and is especially disgusted when the scenery is very bold and magnificent. Mountains are her abhorrence, distant views her antipathy. This is far from being our first journey; and whenever we have found ourselves in the railway carriage from Dover to London Bridge, Ann invariably remarks how lovely the country is as we dash through the flat green fields and monotonous cherry gardens of simple Kent. And her admiration culminates when we pass any gentlemen's seats. The absence of striking features, the unbroken, unaccidental horizon, the universal green, and the level lines, give Ann a sensation of peace and repose; while I, who have something of an artist's soul, am feeling how very difficult it would be to get an effective subject or a “nice bit of color” out of the platitudes of dear England's quiet homesteads.
We were off the next day by daylight, I feeling like a swallow flying south; and very soon we perceived in the clear air a warmer glow than any to be had the other side of Lyons. Even the desert region of La Crau seemed full of charms to me. The dim, gray expanse of thick-lying stones that Hercules persuaded by his prayers the angry Jove to shower down on the Ligurians, broken only by thin tufts of mint and scant rosemary, themselves also of a gray green, and leading on over thousands of acres to the blue distant hills that were blushing into rosy hues when we crossed the desert, were not without delightful “points,” which I could [pg 017] have transferred to my sketch-book had time allowed me. “La Belle Provence” is a very journalière beauty, and requires a bright sun to clothe her in sparkling jewels, and to dye her dress in blue and violet and rose-madder, to be worthy of the name that centuries have agreed to give her. When there are no lights, there is apt to be an air of desolation and barrenness. Those hills, arrayed in many tints, give back the lights from rocky and unproductive cliffs; but down in the valleys, with the exception of La Crau, the culture is rich and varied. The first stunted olive-trees as we approached Marseilles were welcome less on their own account—for they are miserable specimens—than for the association of ideas connected with their pallid leaves, and because they gave promise of the large ones that would gladden our eyes further on.
The station of Hyères is a few miles from the town. We had ordered a carriage to meet us; and all the way Mary was looking out for the large umbrella pine that she remembered so well years ago, when there was no railway so far south. It had been the great landmark on the road from Hyères to Toulon. We measured our rides and walks in that direction by the great pine. There it stood, the same as ever, and brought back all Hyères and the two winters spent there, besides other shorter visits, to our memory with one rush. All else was changed. New houses had sprung up on all sides. Mme. Susanne's old tumble-down hotel, where Mary had stopped for a few days on her wedding-tour, is changed into a magnificent building with caryatides supporting the façade like a Genoese palace; and the palms on La Place des Palmiers, which I had known in their babyhood, have grown to a size that would not disgrace Arabia. The hotel we went to stands in what used to be Le Jardin Frassinet. It had been full of orange-trees when we first knew it, as had all the other gardens in the place. But one very severe winter having greatly injured the trees, the inhabitants have given up the cultivation of oranges, and have planted peach-trees instead, much to the detriment of the beauty of Hyères. I found Mary, the day after our arrival, gazing wistfully at a group of tall cypress and one palm-tree that had marked the boundary of the gardens belonging to the house where she lived with her children the second time she came here. We missed her soon afterwards, and refrained from following her, for we knew she wanted to visit alone the scenes of some joys and many sorrows long ago passed away—so far as anything is really past which is worthy the name of joy or sorrow. She came back with her hands full of the little, dark, mottled arum and its lance-head leaves that grow so profusely on the hills and by the roadside. They are of a dingy-purple hue, shaded off into white; and we exclaimed against them as she put them in a glass, alleging that they had an unpleasant odor. “I know they have,” she answered; “but their quaint, twisted shape, and blossoms like the head of a snake, are so full of memories that I rather like the smell than otherwise.” After that we let her enjoy her arums alone, for we knew how much that meant. Doubtless she had been wandering about, recalling visions of the past: the dead—the lost, but not dead, that worse separation!—and all the tangled maze of the years that are gone. Mary's [pg 018] bouquet of arums was redeemed by a handful of the sweet white alyssum; and these two flowers, with a few of the bold-faced, unflinching daisies of Provence, so unlike our modest northern flowers, were all the wild blossoms we could hope to find in January.
We could not leave Hyères without performing a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Consolation, the old church on a hill overlooking the coast. The ascent is marked by the Way of the Cross rudely painted in small niches of masonry by the side of the road. When we were last here, there was a daily Mass said by a hermit-priest. He had some years previously tried his vocation at the Carmelites', and had not succeeded. But the impulse to seek utter solitude was too strong to be resisted; and for a long time he had lived in the surrounding mountains, a veritable hermit, subsisting upon the poorest fare, which was brought to him at regular intervals by the peasants. Whether he had erected a hut for himself, or lived in a cave, I never learnt; but when the bishop of the diocese became aware of the fact, he thought it to be regretted that a priest should not celebrate Mass, and proposed to him that he should live in one of the small rooms of the deserted convent which is attached to the Church of Our Lady of Consolation, take care of the church, and say Mass. This offer he gladly accepted; and there he resided for some time. We used to go sometimes, on a bright spring morning, to attend his Mass. Our breakfast was packed in a basket, and hung to the pommel of my donkey's saddle, to be eaten afterwards on the top of the low, semi-circular wall which encloses a piece of ground in front of the church. I always looked with a special interest, not altogether unmingled with curiosity, at the slight, bent figure of the priest, who could not be more than forty years of age, as he emerged from the door of the sacristy, and, with eyes so cast down that they seemed closed, passed by us to the altar. Who shall say what had called up that deep thirst for utter solitude and silence which had driven him to so extreme a life? Was it some calamity, or some crime, or only—as is far more probable—that strange instinct which is implanted in the nature of some men to flee their kind, and be alone with themselves—an instinct which possibly many have felt stirring within them at odd moments, but which, when touched by divine grace, grows into a wonderful and exceptional vocation; once more common, in the early days of Christianity, when the whole world lay in pagan luxury and gilded vice, and which even our subduing, taming, commonplace civilization fails in some rare cases to smother in the soul?
What became of the hermit of Our Lady of Consolation I could never learn. Perhaps the solitude seemed incomplete when ladies could attend his Mass, and picnic afterwards on his premises. At any rate, he has been gone for many years; and Mass is only said on certain feasts, when the peasantry come in crowds, and bring flowers and offerings to the Madonna, as represented by a peculiarly ugly and dark-colored wooden statue, which has grown to be very precious to those who have obtained special favors in answer to their prayers offered here. Many years ago, Mary, in her Protestant days, had brought a lace veil, the gift of a Russian prince, who was leaving [pg 019] Hyères with a sick wife, and who wanted prayers for their safe journey; thereby producing a curious admixture of heretical, schismatical, and Catholic feeling which no doubt had each their separate value and acceptance before God, being all offered in simplicity and good faith; for it was with no unwilling hands that, mounted on one of the prie-dieux in the church, she had arranged the veil over the statue, and then knelt to say a prayer for the prince's intention.
The church is full of votive offerings. The walls are entirely covered from roof to floor. As many of them have been put up by sailors, they more or less have reference to the dangers of the deep. There is a model of a ship hanging up near the entrance, probably because its larger copy was saved from wreck. The pictures representing recovery from sickness or preservation from peril are often extremely grotesque, and might provoke a smile were it not that they carry one's thoughts direct to the faith and gratitude they represent.
I had often wandered through the deserted rooms and cells of the old convent. There is no glass left in some of the windows; but the weather is kept out by the external wooden shutters which are universal in the south. There is a lovely view from all sides. In front, the sea, with Les Isles d'Or (the Golden Islands) hemming it in as if it were a large lake, save to the left, where it opens out into the wide ocean. These islands form some of those originally called Les Larins, which name included the group before the coast of Cannes. And in most of them the first religious houses for men were established by S. Honorius, though only one island, that on which he and all his monks were martyred by the Saracens, bears his name. Les Isles d'Or, or Les Isles d'Hyères, as they are also called, are now but sparsely inhabited. Years ago, “when we were young,” we had landed on one of these islands, where stands a fort, and a few soldiers are stationed. There are also a half-dozen of cottages, inhabited by fishermen and shepherds. We were a joyous band, and had sailed from the mainland in the admiral's cutter, the French fleet riding at anchor off our coast. As we scrambled up the sandy beach, and pushed our way through the tangled undergrowth of myrtle, heath, cytisus, and leutisca, we found ourselves face to face with the solitary sentinel pacing in front of the blind walls of the low but solid-looking fort. His face broke into smiles, and, with a saucy gleam in his dark eyes, he said to the foremost gentlemen of our party, “Comment, Messieurs! vous nous en menez toutes ces belles dames? Mais vous allez révolutionner notre pauvre curé.”[22] We could find no remains of monastic houses on the islands; but there are traces of walls close to the sea, on the mainland, which are said to be the remains of a convent of nuns who met with a severe punishment for an ill-timed jest. Possibly they were not all that as nuns they might have been. At any rate, they seem to have found their life occasionally dull; and when the longing for a little excitement became irrepressible, the abbess would toll the great bell of the convent, which by rights was never used save to ring the Hours and the Angelus, or to summon the neighbors for aid when any of the frequent panics about the landing of [pg 020] the marauding Saracens threatened the safety of the Sisters. The jest had been played too often, and when at length the oft-expected Saracens really came, the poor nuns rang their bell in vain. No one appeared to the rescue, and the Saracens had it all their own way, and the convent was destroyed.
The sea must have encroached since those days, for the waters wash over the scanty ruins, and I have picked my way along the foundations with little salt lakes lying between. Far to the left lie Les Salines, where they evaporize the sea-water in shallow square spaces, and thus obtain a coarse gray salt. They say that sometimes flamingoes may be shot among this marshy land; but I could never obtain one, though I know it abounds in wild fowl of every description. The deep orange-colored boughs of the large willow-trees give a peculiar charm to the distant landscape in the winter when the leaves are off; and close upon the edge of the shore is a fine wood of umbrella pines, whereof three giants, standing apart from the rest, had been great favorites of ours. We had looked out eagerly on our arrival for our three pines. Alas! one was missing. Years ago these three solitary, magnificent trees had had a strange fascination for me. I wanted to find my way to where they stood; but it was beyond the marshes, and near the salines. There was no direct road, and no one could tell me how to get there; not even the young French naval officers, who used to come often and spend the evening with us, and who must have landed not so very far from where they stood. The craving to see my three pines face to face grew, however, too strong to be resisted; and so one day I set off on donkey-back, taking Ann with me, and resolved that I would not return till I had accomplished my end. Great were our difficulties. We had to thread our way along narrow raised paths through the marshes, just wide enough for our donkeys to tread; and as, of course, we dared not leave these paths, which did not wind, but turned at right angles, we as often seemed to be going away from the pines as the reverse. At one moment we were pursued by a couple of savage dogs, who tore after us from the open yard of a farm-house, and who were so very angry at our intrusion that escape along our narrow way, and with our leisurely steeds, seemed questionable. At length I found myself at the base of a high sand-bank, on which the yellow sea-thistle, with its glaucous leaves, found a scanty subsistence and a doubtful root-hold. This I had to scramble up, while for every ten inches I made in advance I slid back six. At last I was at my long-desired goal, and my three giants were really magnificent to behold. It was on my fourth visit to Hyères, with intervals of years between, that I accomplished this feat, and I had always looked at my pines the first thing in the morning, when the strip of sea between the mainland and the isles was still lying gray in the early light. Then, again, I watched for the red glow of the setting sun on their smooth stems, painted, as it were, in burnt sienna. Again, on moonlit nights I had looked for their broad, deep black crests, falling like an ink-spot on the silver sea. And now at last, when they had almost become to me like some mystery, meaning more than met the eye, I could throw my arms [pg 021] about them, and lay my hot cheek on their noble trunks.
It was not till then I knew how tired I was. I could not delay long with my old friends. I do not remember anything about the getting home, save that the dogs who had so guarded my garden of the Hesperides, and stood between me and the fulfilment of my desire, now that I had accomplished the feat, let me return in silence. I was very weary; but I was thoroughly contented and satisfied. And now one of my old friends was laid low! How he came to his end I know not. But I felt that he had died, not that he had been cut down; and for a moment a strange, weird melancholy stole over me at finding I had outlived a noble tree. It seemed as if I must be very old to have done that, and that it was hardly natural. I remember I asked myself then, at the very time of my culte of the pine-trees, and I have repeated the question since, whether there was not in my feelings something of that dim instinct which binds man in an obscure affinity with all nature, down to its lower strata and its primeval developments. As man contains something of all in his own being, so must he have a sympathy with all; for, as has been wisely said, man is a universe in himself, with another universe to wait on him. Most people have a special attraction to some race of animals. Some have a love for, and a power over, the horse and the dog greater than others; and this not always nor only as the results of habit, but as a natural gift. Certain flowers have a peculiar attraction for many people, in preference to others equal in beauty and perfume. All these preferences may point to hidden laws of affinity, of which we know very little more than the bare fact that all in creation finds its portion in each man, and that in his own single self he is chemical, vegetable, animal, and spiritual. I am afraid to say any more, lest my readers should think I believe we are in general descended from the little open-mouthed sea-squirts called ascidians, but that I claim for myself in particular some higher origin in the shape of a conifer great-grandfather. I assure them it is nothing of the kind. With regard to my sympathy with animals, of course, being an old maid, I ought to prefer cats and gray parrots. On the contrary, I prefer dogs, and Frank is the only gray parrot I ever thought of loving.
Before leaving Hyères, I made a sketch from the top of the hill (which in my younger days, for want of knowing better, I used to call the mountain) on which stand the picturesque ruins of the old château which formerly belonged to the French branch of the huge family of Fox; who, varying their name, if not their nature, according to the sky under which they flourished, had taken root in England, France, and Germany in the old feudal times. They possessed certainly a magnificent abode at Hyères, and probably kept all the neighborhood in awe. It is a glorious situation. It overlooks a long stretch of the road to Toulon as that winds through the fertile, well-cultivated valley; and to the right rises the rocky summit of Le Coudon, the point of land that first strikes the sailor's eye as he leaves the coast of Africa, and which on exceptionally clear days is dimly visible even from the coast itself. Next to it comes Le Phare Pharon, a lower mountain crowned by a fort. I know few views which [pg 022] combine such an exquisite variety of form and color as this. The small cork-trees and the stunted oaks, equally beautiful, whether wearing their russet leaves through the brief winter, or almost matching the cork-trees in dark-green foliage; the olives, here of a very respectable size, with their gnarled trunks and fantastic shapes; and then the patches of vivid-green corn, winter peas, and the green artichokes; the undulation of the land, assuming every shade from deep violet to light red—make altogether one of the loveliest views I know anywhere. But then, I am bound to acknowledge that there are not many such in the neighborhood of our much-loved Hyères, and that, on the whole, the simple little place has far less beauty to recommend it than many of the towns along the Riviera. Its great merit for invalids arises from the air being a good deal softer than at most of the sea-coast resorts of the sick. Mary could sit out for hours in the open air at Hyères, when at Cannes, and even at San Remo, she could only have driven in a close carriage; for, in spite of the brilliant sunshine in those places, the air is apt to be too exciting both for irritable lungs and susceptible nerves. One reason—probably the principal reason—for this is that Hyères is three miles from the sea, and more in the mountains than are the towns of the Riviera generally.
We had a lovely afternoon journey from Hyères to Cannes; passing numerous little bays and creeks where the blue waters lay in deep repose, or fringed with tiny wavelets that but kissed the shingly shore, and died in a gleam of light. As you looked down on them from the railway-carriage, you felt you might have seen a mermaid combing her sea-green hair, or a cupid astride a dolphin, as quite an expected vision. The intense blue sky and deeper blue sea, the various-tinted rocks, and perhaps a solitary pine hanging over, and near by a group of the same, with their dense crowns of ever-murmuring boughs, through which the evening air sings like the hum of winged insects, were each so full of harmonious and yet gorgeous color that they leave on the mind the impression of a Greek idyl, full of serene beauty—mere beauty, it may be—but intense, placid, and eternal. There are scenes in nature that are like the forms in Greek art. They are one; and they are typical. No wide view, albeit glorious, can produce this effect, however much it may appeal to the imagination. But a rock-bound cove on the Mediterranean, with its sparse vegetation and its depth of color, is as suggestive of thoughts beyond itself as is the pure grace of a Greek statue. It belongs to another world than ours, and to a region of thought rarely lighted on in these times, and then by a few only. When I question myself of the “why,” I am at a loss to answer. Perhaps it lies in the fact that, to produce this abstract effect on the mind, the objects in nature must be few, simple, and perfectly beautiful of their kind. Then they recall Greek art, in which there is no multiplicity, no overlaying, but which represents as absolutely a pure idea as it is possible for art to do. It is without subtlety, as it is without crowding. It can be felt better than described, for the feeling is too deep for words. Nothing in English scenery, no accidental combination of beauty, has ever brought the Greek geist before my mind. Never for a second, amid [pg 023] the birchen groves and flower-fringed lanes of my own land, had I thought of old Greece and the old Greek feeling. Pantheism would not be the natural religion of our northern skies. Never had I so strongly felt the tie between nature and art, and, as a necessary sequence, between nature and Grecian thought, till I had wandered on the pale sands by the calm blue waters of the tideless sea. It is like a floating essence, too intangible for words. If I could express it, the expression would perforce be brief and veiled. I would sing my idyl to a three-stringed lute, or paint my white nymph against a whiter sky.
It was essential to Mary not to live close to the sea, therefore we engaged apartments at Cannes in one of the hotels situated among the hills, and full a mile and a half from the coast. It so happened that nearly all the people whom we met at the table-d'hôte were English like ourselves, or rather British, for some came from the Emerald Isle; and amongst these a family of three charming girls, full of the spirit and humor of the race. They had with them an elderly maid, who had been their nurse, and whose quaint sayings afforded us much amusement while we were there. She had joined them only just before we arrived, bringing out the third sister, who had shown symptoms of delicacy like the second, and both were under the supreme care of the elder sister. Mrs. O'Brien had managed her journey in foreign parts very cleverly, though making every inch of the way under protest at the heathenish customs and abominable practices of these “foreigners,” as she deigned to call the French in their own land.
It had been with the greatest difficulty that she had, on leaving Ireland, been prevented from taking with her a large boxful of household stores, which, as she expressed it, would be such a comfort to “those poor darlints, just starvin' in foreign parts, with nothing but kickshaws and gimcracks to keep the life in them.” In spite of all the remonstrances of her master, she had actually succeeded in so far cheating the custom-house that she had smuggled “jist a nice little hand of pork, salted down at home,” among the young ladies' linen. Norah flew into our room, amid fits of laughter, to show it to us, and to consult upon how we could possibly get it boiled. We could not insult the hotel by asking that it might appear at the table-d'hôte; and a hand of pork was rather a peculiar dish for three young ladies to keep up in their bedroom for private eating. On the other hand, Mrs. O'Brien would never recover it if her eleemosynary offering were discarded. It ended in my explaining the state of the case, under seal of secrecy, to the landlady; and then we actually held a supernumerary feast in our drawing-room, at a late hour, all to show Mrs. O'Brien that her kindness was appreciated. We did not sleep particularly well that night, and the rest was made into sandwiches and eaten on our next excursion up the mountains.
Mary and Mrs. O'Brien became great friends; for Mary's sympathetic nature and marvellous control of countenance at once drew the old lady out, and prevented her discovering how intensely amused her listener was. Amongst other topics, she was very eloquent upon the subject of the Prince of Wales' recovery from his serious illness, [pg 024] declaring how she, “as is a nurse myself, know well what a fine healthy man he must have been born ever to have got over the like of that. And now, sure, we must pray that nothing may happen to the blessed, darlint prince; for if he were to be taken, the country would be just ruined, and nothing left us but the constitution!”
She would talk by the hour of her “darlint” young ladies, sometimes blaming their conduct, sometimes extolling them to the skies. Occasionally, to tease her, they would pretend to walk lame, and tell her that was all the fashion, and was called the Alexandra limp. “Och! now, honeys, you, with straight limbs as God has made you, mocking at the darlint princess, as may be isn't lame at all. If I saw you mocking at me, as is no princess, but is blind, and me groping round the table, don't you think, honeys, as I should feel it?” Then turning to Mary: “Ah! your honor, they was always as wild as a litter o' pigs on a windy day, good luck to them. I've seen them all come into the world, bless their hearts, one after the other, pretty nigh as fast as nature would let them. And a nice handful I've had wid them, too, bringing the most of them up by hand like a weaned calf. Children's stomachs is just like sponges. But if you overdo the binding, may be you'll give them obdurate bowels.” Mary bore even this without a smile; but we all laughed together when the morning after her arrival she found the nice little boy Celestin, who brought in the lamp and the basket of wood, and helped in the house generally, and who could not have been above fifteen, innocently aiding Marie, the housemaid, in making the beds. She could not understand a word of French, and of course he knew no English; but she seized him by the collar, and ejected him violently from the room, exclaiming, “Get out o' that, you young varmint!” and protesting that he should never touch one of her “darlints' sheets in this heathenish land, where they made no difference between a man and a woman, but put the men to make the beds and the women to tend the cattle.” The end of it was that she took the bed-making into her own hands, though she never got reconciled to the mattresses stuffed with the outer sheaths of the Indian corn, or the pillows with wool. “That pillow is as hard as a dog's head, and won't do for my young lady; and the other's as limp as a dead cat,” she remarked aloud to herself one day that Elina was going to bed early with a bad headache.
By degrees we became rather well acquainted with the other visitors at the hotel, which arose, no doubt, from the fact of our all being fellow-countrymen. For a long time Mary was the only married woman of the party; and with the exception of the three merry Irish girls, the ladies were all old maids like myself. Frank found Cannes rather slow, as he expressed it, and spent the greater part of the six weeks we were there in making excursions in the neighborhood, stopping away three or four days at a time. It was long before we got thoroughly comfortable with any of our fellow-sojourners in a strange land. In the first place, we were the only Catholics, and most of the others were very decided Protestants, and so rather shunned us at first. Some of them especially objected to Mary, and seemed to think that her good looks and her accurate French pronunciation were [pg 025] rather offensive than otherwise. It made no sort of difference to her, and I am sure she never even found it out. One day, as I was coming down-stairs, Miss Marygold was crossing the wide passage which went from the entrance to the dining-room door. As I passed her, she tossed her head, and said, “I have just met your sister, Miss Jane, going out for a walk, and looking about five-and-twenty. I must say I think it must be very inconvenient not to show one's age better than that.” “At any rate,” said I, “it is an inconvenience, Miss Marygold, that many would be happy to share with her.” And I swept along the wide passage lined with oleanders, myrtle, and cypress in large pots, sat down to the piano in the public salon, and dashed through the overture of “Robert le Diable” with much brilliancy of execution. I afterwards found out that both the Miss Marygolds strongly objected to a little red bow which Mary was apt to fasten in her hair when we went down to dinner. Their own coiffures resembled either a doll's apron stuck on the top of her head, or a small “dress-improver” of stiff lace. I suppose they thought there was some virtue in wearing what was at once ugly and ridiculous.
No one, on first arriving at Cannes, can form any idea of the exquisite beauty that will be within their easy reach as soon as they get beyond the long, straight street parallel with the flat coast. The town itself has no pretensions to beauty, except from the picturesque, fortified old church, standing high above the town, and whose mouldering walls assume so many different tints against the dark-violet background of the Estrelle; that beautiful line of mountains that runs far out into the sea, and forms the most prominent object of the scenery. The market is held down the one long street, where it opens on the small garden and esplanade by the shore. This is planted with magnificent plane-trees, and nothing can be more picturesque than the groups of peasant-women, with their bright-colored kerchiefs crossed over their shoulders, and their thick woollen skirts, sitting each at her little booth of cakes, or sweets, or household utensils, and especially the charming little crocks, pots, and pans of native manufacture. At a short distance from Cannes, at Valory, there is a very fine establishment of pottery works, well worthy of a visit. The native clay produces the most beautiful colors; and as the numerous visitors at Cannes have taken pains to supply the manufactory with very good models taken from the antique and from some of the best specimens of Minton and Staffordshire china, the result is most satisfactory. We found that they are in the habit of sending very large crates of garden-vases, besides smaller and more delicate articles, all over Europe. The road along the coast towards Antibes is bordered by beautiful villas with gardens running down towards the sea, and generally laid out in terraces. Even now, in the month of January, they were full of roses, geraniums, ageratum, and violets in bloom. Part of this picturesque spot is called California, on account of the bright yellow blossom of the mimosa, which, when fully out, is truly “a dropping well of gold.” The light, feathery flower covers the whole tree, and there is scarcely a leaf to be seen. The beautiful eucalyptus, or blue gum-tree, is [pg 026] much cultivated here. The peculiar variety of its foliage, the lower and older leaves being almost heart-shaped, and the upper ones often a foot in length, and hardly two inches wide, makes it very remarkable. The lower leaves are of a blue green, shading off into deep bronze, and the new shoots are almost yellow. It is quite recently that this beautiful tree has been transplanted from Australia to Europe; but as it makes twenty feet in a year, there are already magnificent specimens. It has a highly aromatic gum; and it is supposed that in time it will greatly supersede the use of quinine, having medicinal properties which resemble that invaluable remedy, while it will be less expensive. When Mary is suffering from one of her neuralgic headaches, nothing relieves her so much as steeping the long leaves of the eucalyptus in hot water, and holding her head over the perfumed steam. A branch hung near the bed is also, they say, conducive to sleep.
The beauties of the position of Cannes are far outdone by that of the little town of Cannet, distant about three miles, and built among the mountains, and where the air is softer. Nothing can exceed the loveliness of the view from the Place, shaded by splendid plane-trees, of the half-deserted little town, or the same view seen from the terrace of the one Pension, where we found every preparation for receiving guests, but which was locked up and entirely empty. You overlook numerous orange-gardens of the most vivid green, the starry blossoms and golden fruit gleaming amid the foliage. Then, far down the valley, and clothing an amphitheatre of hills and mountains, are groves of olives, with their soft velvet folds, mass overlapping mass of tender, dim green, shimmering all over with silver touches, as the air stirred the branches, and turned upwards the inner lining of the leaves—after which all other foliage is apt to look crude and hard. The blue sea lies beyond, and the sharp, purple outline of the Estrelle; while to the right the mountains fade off further and further, ending in snow-capt heights.
From amid the dense, soft shadows of the valley rise the old tower of the church and the picturesque cupolas of the strange Moorish villa where poor Rachel, the famous French tragedian, breathed her last, and which is fast falling to decay. It is no longer let to strangers; but we made our way through the tangled gardens and wilderness of orange-trees. Everything looked tumbling to pieces. The house itself is in ruin; and being painted in bright colors externally, and chiefly built of wood, at least in the ornamental parts, it looks like the cast-off decorations of a dismal theatre. Two white pigeons were picking up the scattered grain in the little, untidy court. A few mutilated plaster figures of gods and goddesses near the entrance added to the tawdry and unreal aspect of the whole. It was as if the poor actress had selected it to die in for its scenic effect, and so had closed her life on a mute and deserted stage. I fancied I could see her lithe form and her sinuous glide (for she never seemed to walk like a common mortal) along the veranda. I could recall the intense passion of her matchless voice as she thrilled you through with the words:
“Je ne me verrai point préférer de rivale.
Enfin, tous tes conseils ne sont plus de saison:
Sers ma fureur, Œnone, et non pas ma raison.”
And then she came here, alone, to die! As I turned away from the place, so beautiful even in its desolation, I wondered if the rumor might be true which was prevalent at the time—that her maid, a French Catholic, seeing her poor mistress in a state of coma just before her death, had dared to baptize her—and thus give us a large-hearted hope for the woman and the Jewess.
We drove through the narrow, sharp-angled streets of the little town of Cannet to the church in the valley. The streets were so narrow, and the turnings were so sharp, that it always seemed that our horses were in one street while we and the carriage were in another. Three little children, with bright, dark eyes and tangled hair, hung over a wall, each with a rose in its mouth. They looked as if they would drop the flowers, and themselves after, into our laps. The church was very clean and well cared for; full of tawdry decorations, but fresh and neat, as if all were often renewed by loving hearts, if not by cultivated taste. M. le Curé is very old, and has not sufficient help for the wants of so large a parish; and there are no Sisters to teach the children. They seem a simple people; and if only there were a habitable house, what pleasure might be found in living in this earthly paradise, and working amongst them!
It is said that the Englishman carries Bass' pale ale and Warren's blacking with him where-ever he goes, to say nothing of Harvey's sauce. At any rate, he has established his own special amusements at Cannes, with no apparent consciousness of their incongruity with the scene around them. Of course we took our share, though denouncing and protesting all the way at the horrors of pigeon-shooting. We drove over sandy lanes close to the shore, through groups of pine-trees on either side; a glorious panorama of mountains and snow-clad peaks beyond, the dark-blue sea, and the purple Estrelle. There was a vulgar booth and a shed, and some rickety benches like those at a country fair. We sat down, facing three boxes, in which the innocent birds were concealed until the moment—unknown, of course, to the sportsman himself—when, bursting open, the pigeons spread their wings at liberty, to be perchance instantly killed by a clever shot. I acknowledge that I tried not to look, and that my heart gave a spasmodic leap every time I heard the clap of the lid of the box and then the sharp shot. I looked at the pine-trees and the far-off mountains, with the many-tinted, undulating middle distances, and tried to forget the coarseness and cruelty of the scene I was supposed to have come to as an amusement. The nuts and the ginger-bread were wanting, and Aunt Sally was distinguished by her absence; but there was nevertheless a milder reflection of everything that might have graced this same kind of scene in England; and so the English gentleman of the XIXth century, brought by fortuitous circumstances into a new and exquisitely beautiful land, was doing his best to make himself “at home,” and to inspire the natives and foreigners with his own tastes. I am fond of sport, though I am but an old maid; but somehow this does not strike me as being sport in the true acceptation of the word. And I sat wondering how long it will be before [pg 028] my own brave countrymen, who are already addicted to battues, will build one-storied, round summer-houses in their woods, painted inside with arabesques, Cupids, Venus, and Diana, and having six or eight small windows all round it; then, seated in a large gilt fauteuil, with a bottle of choice Chambertin by his side, he will languidly pop his short gun at the thrushes or the finches as they flutter from bough to bough before him; and so, at the end of a couple of hours, saunter home with a bagful of “game,” wearied with the exertions of la chasse au tire, like the gentlemen in France in the times of La Régence.
The Duc de P. was there, and the Duc de C., and the Duke of H., and actually one of the men—what may they be called?—who preside over the pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham, and who had been got over to ensure everything being en règle. What more could any one want? I wondered to myself whether the extraordinary beauty and sublime majesty of the surrounding scene had anything to do with enhancing the pleasure of the pigeon-shooters; whether, in short, the successful slaughter of the poor birds was rendered more enjoyable by the fact of its taking place under a sky and in a spot fraught with exquisite beauty; noble and serene, vast and varied.
And if not, why did they not stop among the cockney flats of Hurlingham? When all was over and we returned home, I actually found myself semi-conscious of a sort of pride that the best shot, in this decidedly trying proof of skill, was an Englishman! So much for the inconsistency of human, especially of female, nature.
We are in the land of perfumes. Acres of roses, violets, and other scented flowers are cultivated solely for the perfume manufactories at Grasse, a few miles from Cannes. Of course, this is not the time of year to benefit by this exceptional form of farming; but in the spring it must be lovely.
We are preparing to leave Cannes, and, as I write these lines, Frank silently lays a sheet of paper by my side. And I see—a Sonnet.
The Olive-Tree.
That dusky tree grows in a noted place—
A garden on the rocky mountain's side,
O'erlooking (in the evening of its pride)
The doomèd city of the chosen race.
There, as the swathing evening mists efface
Temple and fane, in sunset glory dyed,
And round the city walls the shadows glide,
Beneath the dappled gloom our hearts may trace
The ling'ring footsteps of the Holy One.
Our Master walks alone; and who can know
All the deep myst'ry of his awful woe,
As on the earth sinks God's eternal Son?
But ever shall the gray-green olive-tree
Recall the image of his agony.
A National Or State Church.
Fifty-three peers protested against the disestablishment of the Protestant Church in Ireland, “because it is impossible to place a church disestablished and disendowed, and bound together only by the tie of a voluntary association, on a footing of equality with the perfect organization of the Church of Rome.” Mr. Disraeli had previously said the same thing in the House of Commons: “The discipline, order, and government of the Roman Catholic Church are not voluntary. They are the creation of the simple will of a sovereign pontiff” (if he means Jesus Christ, the phrase is Catholic), “and do not depend at all on the voluntary principle.... I maintain that as long as his Holiness the Pope possesses Rome, the Roman Catholic religion, in whatever country it is found, is an establishment.” In fact, there is a great deal of truth in these remarks. How, indeed, can undisciplined guerrillas contend against a well-trained army of veterans? How can a number of voluntary associations, like so many insurance or stock companies, liable at any moment to disband, with no cohesive power, compete with a grand organization whose charter is divine, whose officers are divinely appointed, and whose laws bind in conscience in spite of adverse imperial, royal, or republican legislation? The peers were right; Mr. Disraeli is partially right. No sect or combination of sects can for any length of time, in a fair field, compete with the Catholic Church. Hence the cry of the sects in this country for state aid. The Catholic Church never asked for it except as a matter of justice or restitution. Whenever it was bestowed on her institutions, it was because they deserved it. If much was given to her, it was because her hierarchy or her religious orders, inspired by divine zeal, had founded and organized charitable institutions while the sects were asleep, lacking even in sufficient philanthropy, not to say charity, to provide for the wants of their own suffering members. The Catholic Church built and organized her asylums, schools, and other institutions, tried to support them, and did bravely support them, as she still does in this country, by the voluntary contributions of generous Christians, before the state gave anything. The sects did very little. They were too indolent, too deficient in vitality, to do much. They begged from the state. They threw the burden on the state; so that, whereas in Catholic times there were no state poor-houses, state asylums, or state charities, now they swarm. Protestantism is too cold a system to warm the hearts of men into life-giving charity; so it depends, except in rare cases, on the state for the support of the poor and the orphans. The money is taken from the public treasury for the support of schools, asylums, and kindred institutions.[23] Such being [pg 030] the case, who can blame Catholics for receiving a portion of their own taxes to help their own institutions, mainly supported on the voluntary system? Are not the frequenters of Catholic schools and the inmates of Catholic institutions the children and citizens of the state as well as others? Will the state educate or support as cheaply as the church has done, or make as good citizens as she makes? If Catholic charitable institutions are abolished, if Catholic schools are broken up, how much will it annually cost the state for the building of new institutions and for their maintenance? Are the Sisters of Charity as safe custodians of the morality of orphans as the spinsters and political hirelings of the state institutions? Are teachers and matrons who work primarily from a religious motive as apt to discharge their duty faithfully as those who labor primarily for the “consideration” attached to their services? Well do the gentlemen who attack the Catholic Church know how futile it is for any sect to strive against her unless backed up by state aid; and hence, perhaps, the cry which has recently resounded throughout our country for a national or state church—a national Protestant church in opposition to the never-ceasing progress of Catholicity.
The late “Evangelical Alliance” publicly endorsed the cry of a national church. The Rev. W. H. Fremantle, M.A., of London, an ecclesiastical functionary of the national church of England, in “a manner,” as the report in the Tribune has it, “quick and energetic, and, as he warmed to his subject, eloquent to a degree which elicited great applause,” on October 9, 1873, at a meeting of the “Alliance,” urged on his hearers the advantages and necessity of having a national church, “the true ruling elders” of which should be “our statesmen, our judges, and our officers who bear the supreme mandate of the whole Christian community.” With laconic pith, he said: “The Christian nation is a church.” The applause elicited by his remarks was no doubt due to the fact that his auditors remembered how admirably the Christian “statesmen” in Congress and our late Vice-President, some of our “judges,” our “Evangelical” bankers and merchants, represented the interests of the Alliance in their respective avocations! The Rev. W. J. Menzies, of Edinburgh, emissary of the national church of Scotland, seconded and approved the doctrines of his Episcopalian brother. In vain did a sturdy American, the Hon. J. L. M. Curry, LL.D., of Richmond, try to defend the American system and the principles of our Constitution against these well-fed and well-paid gentlemen. The rubicund foreigners of the church establishments of Denmark, Sweden, and Germany came to the rescue of their English and Scottish brethren. They had preached to the “Alliance” in favor of the tithes, taxes, and intolerance of their own establishments, and were not willing to allow Mr. Curry to oppose them. The very president of the “Alliance,” himself an American, was obliged to coerce the honorable gentleman [pg 031] into silence. His voice was drowned in an “evangelical” chorus of national churchmen. We are no longer, then, astonished to read that the Rev. Dr. Stoughton, of England, was greeted in a Protestant Sunday-school in this city with the anthem of “God save the Queen.” It was not a religious hymn, mark it well, but an anthem in praise of the head of a church establishment, who is more than pope, for she is impeccable as well as infallible, according to the axiom of English law that “the king can do no wrong.” No longer are we surprised to learn that the head of another national church, the would-be pope-Emperor of Germany, gave the “Evangelical Council” his blessing; that several of our highest magistrates, unless they are belied, have been secretly leagued against the Catholic Church in favor of a state Protestantism. Newspapers of reputed rank have been continually striving to create a Protestant public spirit in the state, and thus, as it were, to prepare the way for an absolute union of church and state on a Protestant basis. Indeed, we have a national, or at least a state, church already; although it has so far been administered to us only in homœopathic doses. Have we not a state school system with a Protestant Bible on its rostrum? Have we not “Juvenile Asylums,” “Soldiers' and Sailors' Homes,” state charitable institutions all controlled on the Protestant system, conducted to a great extent by Protestant clergymen? Are not the Bibles used in them Protestant? Are not the school-books essentially sectarian in which such expressions as “gor-bellied monks,” the “glorious Reformation,” the “great and saintly Martin Luther,” are frequent? Have we not a Protestant Indian policy and a Protestant “Freedman's Bureau”?
It is true you cannot call the colorless Protestantism of these institutions peculiarly Methodist, or peculiarly Episcopalian, or peculiarly Baptist; but it is nevertheless Protestantism. We have a name for it. The late “Evangelical Alliance” gives it to us. The word “Evangelicalism” will express the Protestantism of our incipient national and state churches. We defy any impartial visitor to the so-called “non-sectarian” state institutions to deny that their chief male officers, superintendents, guardians, and teachers have been chosen on account of their “Evangelicalism.” Every one that knows the inner working of our state institutions for charitable purposes is aware that they are mere pastures in which Evangelical ministers are retired on salaries of thousands a year taken from the state pocket.
The desire for having a state or national church is growing stronger. German imperialism, or pagan Roman Cæsarism revived, has given an impetus to it in Europe, in order to create a foreign public opinion to sanction its own persecutions of the Catholic Church at home. Switzerland has been moved by the pull of the German wire. Perhaps the same influence is at work in our republic. Or is it that a certain class of the Protestant clergy, dreading starvation if left depending on the bounty of flocks that are losing their Christianity and its generous impulses, envious of the portly frames and plethoric purses of the foreigners of the European establishments who lately visited our shores and banqueted at our expense, long to draw nutriment from the bosom of an established mother, rather than risk death from marasmus [pg 032] at the breasts of a dry and barren voluntary system? If this be the cause of the growing “Evangelicalism” of the sects, of their effort to combine for the purpose of giving us a national church, let us devoutly pray that the next delegates from abroad will be as spare in person and purse as our own country parsons. For the sake of our republican institutions, may his divine and imperial majesty of Germany and her gracious ecclesiastical majesty of England send hither no more of their rotund and jocund functionaries, to make the hearts of our Evangelical clergymen yearn after the flesh-pots of Egypt!
Or can it be that the venerable heads of our “Evangelical” mayors, governors, and their compeers, returning in their senility, as is not uncommon with decaying brains, to their early loves, are striving to restore the state establishments of the old Puritan colonies? The recollection that all the original colonies except Catholic Maryland had a state church has not yet died out among these “Evangelical” ancients. They remember that so late even as 1793 an attempt was made even in New York to saddle an Episcopalian establishment on the back of our state, and this, too, at a time when the members of the Holland Reformed Churches were in the proportion of fifteen to one Church-of-Englander! Perhaps Governor Dix has an agreeable recollection of this beauteous trait in the character of his sect. Perhaps he remembers how well she had battened on the flesh and blood of the Irish people for centuries, though her votaries were not one-twentieth part of the Irish population. In 1643, the “orthodox” Episcopalian colony of Virginia expelled two New England Puritan ministers; while the New England Puritans, by way of “Evangelical” retaliation, sent back to Old England two professors of Anglicanism. The poor Quakers were driven out by all the colonies except Catholic Maryland. Indeed, even our modern “Evangelicals” had not the courtesy to invite them to their “Alliance.” In Virginia, the man who refused to have his child baptized was fined two thousand pounds of tobacco. In the colonies of Massachusetts and New Haven, for a time only church members could exercise the full powers of citizenship. The legislatures of the New England colonies convoked even the church synods. These were truly “Evangelical” times, and after these do the “Evangelicals” hanker. So late even as 1779 tithes were collected by law in some of the colonies. In fact, it was only in 1818 that the separation of church and state was effected in Connecticut. But in those days the Catholics were few, and nobody feared them. If they had been as numerous and formidable then as they are now, the disestablishment would never have been accomplished. These were the halcyon days when, in the words of Rev. Mr. Fremantle, already quoted, “the Christian nation was a church,” “the true ruling elders of which were statesmen, judges, and officers who bore the supreme mandate of the whole Christian community.” What a yearning there is for the return of those good times when none but “Evangelicals” may hold office to defraud the revenue, invest in Crédit Mobilier stock, or manage banking houses for the purpose of swindling credulous “Evangelical” depositors!
It is timely to warn all good citizens against the Protestant effort to restore the state-church system of the early colonies. The Rev. W. H. Campbell, D.D., of New Brunswick, at one session of the “Alliance” said: “Revolution has everywhere borrowed the force of its political ideas from the Protestants of the XVIth century.” Never was language more correct. Rebellion against lawful authority, the overthrow of legitimate governments, the subversion of civil society, the destruction of law and order in modern times, are all traceable to Protestant principles. Nor can you ever tell where they will stop. As there is no fixity or certainty or unalterable code of doctrine or morals in Protestantism, a statesman can never tell when its councils will be impelled by whim, fanaticism, or prejudice. There is no telling but that the Protestant assembly which to-day favors the state to-morrow will be in revolt against it. It has been on the side of unbridled license, of the extreme of liberty; and, again, it has been the creature, the slave, the blind instrument of despotism. A statesman always knows what to expect from the Catholic Church and her assemblies. Her principles are patent, her system plain, her doctrines unchanging, her secondary discipline modifiable according to law or necessity, but only by the spiritual power. She is always conservative, never revolutionary. She gives to Cæsar what belongs to him, but no more. She makes a reserve in her allegiance to the state: she reserves the rights of God, the rights of conscience. She must obey God rather than men when men try to alter or subvert God's revelation. If the state wishes to persecute her, it may begin at once. She has nothing to hide from the state; and she will alter nothing of her doctrines. If the state dislikes her, at any rate she is an open foe. But Protestantism is a fickle subject. Like the ancient pagans, she admits the supremacy of the state over her; admits that the church is only a voluntary corporation subordinate to the state; yet practically she is never to be depended on. Fickle by nature, the state can never tell when a fit of madness may seize on her; when her imagination may be possessed by some idea subversive alike of good order and even of morality. We all know the history of the Anabaptists and Antinomians in Germany; the deeds of violence of the Independents in England. Protestantism, like a wanton filly, carries the state as a rider, but always at the risk of its neck. Let our statesmen, then, beware of the attempt which is being made to give us, if not a national, at least a state church. The threat has been made that when slavery was abolished, the next thing to undertake would be the destruction of the Catholic Church by the establishment of a state church.
It is easy to show that a national church is essentially opposed to our American principles, and that consequently all attempts to establish one are anti-American. On this point many rationalists and infidels agree with Catholics, as they logically must when they argue from sound principles of pure reason or of pure politics. The Catholic religion recognizes the competency of reason in its own sphere, and admits its logical inerrancy. All the principles of the natural, political, metaphysical, or moral order known with certainty even by those who do not believe in revelation at all, are the common property of the [pg 034] Catholic Church; for although she insists on the subordination of reason to faith, she asserts emphatically the autonomy of reason, and condemns those who would abridge its powers. Hence true statesmen who judge our Federal or State constitutions from the viewing-point of reason alone agree with Catholics in opposition to the so-called “Evangelicals,” the chief of whom believe in “total depravity,” the loss of free will, and unmerited damnation. The ablest lawyers in the country teach that the fundamental idea of our civil government is that there shall be no interference of the state in church affairs. Absolute independence of the church; no interference of the state in religious matters—such is the American idea. It is expressly laid down in the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States that Congress shall have no power to legislate on religious questions. The ablest commentary perhaps ever written on the Constitution is the Federalist; some of the best articles in which were written by Alexander Hamilton, whose son has recently published them. The teaching of this great man is that the framers of the Constitution were especially anxious to eschew church establishments or state religions in the policy of our republic. Indeed, some of the leading authors of the Constitution were rationalists, and more afraid of Protestant sectarian interference in state affairs than they were of the Catholic Church, which in their days was not strong enough to be feared. “Our theory is,” writes Gerrit Smith, “that the people shall enjoy absolute freedom in politics and religion.” Of course this freedom could not exist if we had a state church. Mr. Smith, whose intelligence and Americanism no one can dispute, in his celebrated letter on the school question,[24] from which the above phrase is taken, adds: “A lawyer than whom there is no abler in the land, and who is as eminent for integrity as for ability, writes me: ‘I am against the government's being permitted to do anything which can be entrusted to individuals under the equal regulation of general laws.’ ” How few of the “Evangelicals” would be willing to act on this correct interpretation of our Constitution? How could they so easily give up the government pap that nourishes the Methodist preachers of the “Freedman's Bureau” and the “Indian Bureau,” not to speak of the other countless branches of our homœopathic national church?
The attempt to establish a state church is also opposed to most of our State constitutions, and notably to that of New York. The first constitution of this State was so essentially hostile to a church establishment that it contained an article incapacitating any minister of the Gospel from holding any office, civil or military. Tradition has it that some Episcopalian minister, playing the political marplot in the preliminary convention, had so annoyed Mr. Jay that he had the article inserted. In 1846, this article was expunged; and ever since our State legislature, our public offices, and even our judiciary, have been afflicted by ambitious, incompetent, sometimes even illiterate, and always bigoted, political preachers. They are always striving to inflict on us more and more of their bigotry, while their acts show that one of their chief [pg 035] aims is to gratify the “Evangelical” appetite for power. We must especially guard our State constitution from the treacherous assaults of the sects. Even now their express provisions are violated or evaded.[25] They are easily modified.[26] Some of them are not inconsistent with a church establishment, and may at any moment become the prey of “Evangelical” bigotry or fanaticism.
Catholics are by conviction opposed to a change in the character of our Federal and State—we speak of New York—constitutions. They do not conflict with the Catholic idea. There is nothing in or out of the Syllabus that is opposed to our system of government. This we shall now proceed to show. Pius IX., on December 17, 1860, in an allocution condemned a proposition which begins with these words: “National churches may be established.” It is number 37 in the Syllabus. We know that it will be objected to us that the Pope also condemns the attempt to separate church and state in countries in which they are by law united, and the abstract principle that they ought to be separate. It is true that where church and state have been united, not by force, but by the nature of things and the sanction of laws, it is condemnable to attack their union as iniquitous or improper; but it is also true that it is not always obligatory or expedient on the part of the state, as such, to establish a church, build its institutions, and salary its clergy out of a common fund. The Roman pontiffs, in the height of their temporal power, never compelled the Jews to build with their money Catholic churches and pay the salaries of Catholic priests. Let us historically examine the character of the union of church and state in the Catholic countries of Europe, and we shall find how just, fair, and honorable such an union becomes. What was the title to most of the Catholic church property in Europe? None better. The barbarian baron or king, grateful to the priest, the monk, or the bishop who had civilized him and taught him to save his soul, generously built a church or a monastery and endowed it. Legacies, donations, free gifts—these were the means by which the bishopric and monasteries grew rich. No title to property is better than this, which a thousand years had sanctioned. Of course every new donation increased the power of the church. The temporalities of the church had natural influence in the state. The abbots and bishops were peers of the realm. The church lived on her own resources—neither asked nor received anything from the state except protection and liberty. Before the Reformation, this was the character of the close union between the church and state. After the Reformation, when the church had lost her power chiefly through the corrupting influence of the kings and barons on the [pg 036] bishops and abbots, despite the protests and the efforts of the popes, the politicians confiscated the church property. This confiscation was simply robbery, for the church corporations, as well as individuals, had rights which the state was bound to respect. But it happened, as it often happens, that wicked kings or mercenary and unprincipled politicians used the political machinery of the state legally to rob the church. They abused the right of eminent domain. Gov. Dix himself, in his annual message for 1874, limits the exercise of this right. “The right,” says he, “of every individual to be secured in the undisturbed enjoyment of his property lies at the foundation of all responsible government. It is, indeed, one of the primary objects for which governments are instituted. To this fundamental rule there is but one proper exception. If private property is needed for public use, it may be taken by making just compensation to the owner; but the use must be one which is common to all, or which is indispensable to the accomplishment of some object of public necessity. This right of eminent domain, as it is denominated, is an incident of sovereignty, and it is one of the most arbitrary of all the powers of government.”[27] It is unquestionably the “most arbitrary of all the powers of government,” if we consider how many are the demagogues, political traders, and mercenary corruptionists who help to make the laws in parliaments, congresses, or State legislatures to regulate the property of respectable people; and how often the executive power in the state, be it imperial, regal, presidential, or gubernatorial, is wielded by despotic and corrupt hands. Imagine a parliament of Communists using the right of eminent domain of the state against the lands and tenements owned by the Trinity Church corporation of New York; or an assembly of “Evangelicals” legislating in regard to Catholic church property! The state in France, for instance, during the Revolution stripped the church of her lawful possessions; Napoleon endeavored to bring order back to the Republic by re-establishing the church. But it is plain that the salary allowed by his concordat in a.d. 1801 to the clergy, and the revenue allowed by the state for the maintenance of church edifices, was not a tithe of the interest accruing from the property stolen by the state from the church. The sum now allowed to support the Catholic clergy of France is, therefore, only a fraction of restitution money due to them by the state. So it is in other countries in which the state, after confiscating the church property, salaries the clergy. The church in those countries does not get her due. She asks no favor from them; she does not even get her rights. The propositions in the Syllabus referring to the union of church and state must be explained in the light of these facts. The Catholic Church does not go to China or to Turkey, and say to the governments of those countries: “You must establish me here; you must build my temples and schools and asylums.” No, she claims no right of eminent domain over the pockets of infidels; and even when she converts them, she only asks their voluntary aid. All she asks is liberty to work and protection [pg 037] in her legitimate duties. She and her converts will do the rest. This was all she asked of the Roman emperors; this she asked of the mediæval kings. If they gave her liberty and protection, she thanked them, blessed them, worked for them, and civilized them. If they refused, still she blessed them and worked in spite of them; for she must “obey God rather than men.” She might with justice ask more than this in Prussia or England or Sweden; for there she might ask back her stolen property. But in this country she only asks a fair field and no favor. Contrast her conduct with that of Protestantism. Protestantism goes to the state begging on her knees; admitting the state's supremacy over her; confessing that she is the humble servant of the king; and asks his gracious bounty. She will gladly sit on the foot of his throne as his slave, though a dangerous and treacherous one, if he will only smile on her, clothe and feed her. She will even stoop to become the receiver of stolen goods. Is it not so? Where is there a national Protestant church really established that is not living on property stolen by the state from the Catholic Church? Look to England and Scotland. Are not the Protestant establishments in those lands the possessors of ill-gotten goods—of lands and churches iniquitously stolen from the Catholic Church? Surely the orthodox Catholic laity of the middle ages who gave these demesnes to the monasteries and churches never intended that the king should turn them over to a heretical establishment. The Prussian establishment is a theft from beginning to end; for every one knows that the apostate head of the Catholic religious order which ruled the duchy of Brandenburg, and laid the foundation of the Prussian power, had no right to transfer the property of his order to a Protestant clergy. Who could defend such a proceeding? Would our “Evangelical” brethren approve the conduct of a Protestant board of trustees or vestrymen who, on being converted, or a majority of them being converted, to the Catholic faith, should by a trick transfer the property of their congregation, their church, or college to the Catholic authorities to be used for Catholic purposes? How, then, can they approve the conduct of the English, German, and Scandinavian clergy who have received the lands and buildings taken from the Catholics by violence and regal usurpation? There is truly a very great difference between the Protestant and Catholic church establishments of Europe—a difference in origin, as well as in the manner of their continuance—and this difference is by no means flattering to the honesty or manliness of the sects. Correctly, therefore, did we say that Catholic principles as well as true American principles are opposed to a state church establishment in this country, and that nothing in the Syllabus condemns our system of government.
It is time, therefore, for all true American citizens to unite under the Catholic standard of opposition to national or state church establishments. The rights of conscience, the rights of religion, are the rights of God. They are not national, but universal; that is, catholic. We are not willing to come back to the pagan régime of Roman Cæsarism, and admit the ruler of the state or the state itself as supreme master of religion as well as of politics. The “Evangelical” [pg 038] semi-paganized Protestants of Germany may bow the knee to the modern Cæsar, and admit him to be supreme pontiff; but they must keep their despotism at home. The Swiss “Evangelicals” may revive the ancient Spartan worship of the state, and assert its supremacy in spiritual matters; but they must keep their statolatry from our shores. The true American, like the true Catholic, will bow the knee to no idol, not even to the state, much as he may love it. He adores only his God. The state shall not interfere with his conscience, or dare to come between him and his God, no matter how much these foreign “Evangelical” emissaries may wish it. He is Catholic, even when he least suspects it. He hates despotisms, as the Catholic Church does; he suspects that German “Evangelicalism” is only a livery stolen to cover unbelief, as the Catholic Church knows it to be. He suspects the sincerity of those foreign “Evangelical” emissaries and their native hypocritical associates who preach in favor of state-church establishments; he suspects them as traitors to American liberty or as seekers for notoriety or a full purse. When his suspicions have been clearly proven correct, he will turn from the sects in disgust, to love the grand old church which can be controlled by no national or state limits, and which has been battling all her lifetime against emperors and kings for the very principles of liberty that constitute the glory and the greatness of our republic.