Birth-Days.
“Who are just born, being dead.”
Who weeps when love, a cradled babe, is born?
Rather we bring frankincense, myrrh, and gold,
While softest welcomes from our lips are rolled
To meet the dawning fragrance of a morn
Of checkered being. Even while the thorn
Keeps pace with rosy graces that unfold,
Do we with rapture cry, “Behold, behold,
A heaven-dropped flower our garden to adorn!”
And yet when from our darling fall the years
As from the rose the shrivelled petals rain,
And into newer life the soul again
Springs thornless to the air of purer spheres,
So blinded are we by our bitter pain
We greet the sweeter birth with selfish tears.
The Future Of The Russian Church.
By The Rev. Cæsarius Tondini, Barnabite.
II.—Continued.
Let it only be borne in mind what are those things which are required of her members by the faith and discipline of the Orthodox Church, and it will be granted us, at least face to face with unbelief, that her priests need something more than the ordinary respectability of a worthy man, an obedient subject of his sovereign, a good father of a family, faithful to his wife and devoted to his children.[161]
This something more is possessed by the Catholic Church. The Russian Church has lost it. Whatever may be thought of the ecclesiastical law on the celibacy of the priesthood, we think it cannot be denied that a priest, living as an angel upon earth, exercises an influence which is always lacking to a married priest. This “magnetism of purity,” as it has been called, has inspired one of the noblest odes of the great English poet, Tennyson;[162] and they who in good faith argue against sacerdotal celibacy do so because, in their opinion, the purity required by the Catholic Church is a virtue too celestial to be met with here below; thus reasoning as did that Jew who, after reading a treatise on the Holy Eucharist by the Abbé Martinet,[163] said to us, “This cannot be true, because it would be too beautiful!” Those who reason as did this Jew conclude too easily from difficulty—what virtue is not difficult?—to impossibility? We do not undertake to convince those who have not faith, and who refuse to allow the efficacy of supernatural means; for the task would be a hopeless one. But if they have faith, we will submit to them the following consideration, which will not be without some weight.
And this is that the Catholic Church earnestly invites all her priests to celebrate daily the holy Mass, and makes it their strict duty to recite every day, with attention and piety, the divine Office. In undertaking the defence of the Russian clergy M. Schédo-Ferroti says: “Hypocrisy is a vice unknown among them, their piety being of a genuine stamp, and only giving outward expression to the sentiment which is really felt—namely, a belief in the sanctifying virtues of the ceremonies which they are called to perform.”[164] Let it, then, be permitted to us also to express here our firm belief in the sanctifying virtue of the Mass and the divine Office. The Holy Eucharist is called in Scripture frumentum electorum et vinum [pg 704]germinans virgins—“the wheat of the elect and the wine which makes virgins spring forth” (Zach. ix. 17). With regard to the divine Office, it is the prayer par excellence of the church. As the Lord's Prayer, taught and recommended by Jesus Christ himself, has a power which is special to it, and a particular efficacy, so also is a sanctifying virtue attached to a prayer chosen and placed daily on our lips by the church. The Mass and the divine Office, in a manner, force the priest to have always about him some thoughts of heaven. If vanity or worldly seductions acquire over him a momentary ascendency, the Mass and the divine Office recall him to those salutary truths which never change.
We will not dwell longer on this point; the reader will be well able to make its practical application. We will only now add that, if to have been capable of an act of great generosity is a title to indulgence for many defects; if the remembrance of an heroic action in favor of one's country or of humanity surrounds with an aureola of glory the whole existence of him who has performed it; and if, in short, people hesitate to pronounce sentence against him, even when he has deserved blame, let it also be remembered that every Catholic priest, whoever he may be, has accomplished, at least once in his life, an act of the greatest generosity. He has sworn, on being admitted into Holy Orders, to renounce every affection which, by dividing his heart, could hinder him from devoting himself solely and without reserve for the good of souls; and solely with that intent has he voluntarily chosen the path of self-denial and of conflicts which are the consequences of his generosity. This being considered, there is nothing surprising in the fact that a certain influence is invariably exercised by the Catholic priest who is faithful to his duties, even if his learning and education be defective.
Now, this influence, doubly necessary in Russia, on account of the social inferiority of the orthodox clergy, is entirely wanting to all that portion of the clergy which is in contact with the people;[165] and the fatal consequences of this want will make themselves especially felt in that day when nothing shall be unimportant that can help to keep alive faith in the Russian people.
And this is not all. In the poem alluded to above Tennyson puts these words into the mouth of his hero, the virgin-knight:
“My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.”[166]
He who thus reveals to us the intimate relation existing between purity and strength is not a Catholic. If we had expressed the same thought as originating from ourselves, we might have been charged with mysticism; this is why we have quoted the great poet. He would not fear being called upon to justify his thought; let him therefore be the one attacked.
But whatever may be the weight which experience gives to this thought of Tennyson's, there is no need to wait for the time when the Russian clergy shall be waging war against unbelief, to judge of the strength they are likely to have for the combat. In a chapter devoted to revelations of the state of the “orthodox” clergy, M. Schédo-Ferroti takes praiseworthy pains to exhibit their good qualities. “I have found,” he writes, “with some regrettable exceptions, that the Russian priest possessed two valuable and truly Christian qualities, the frequency of which constitutes in some sort a characteristic feature of the class. The Russian priest is pious without any ostentation, and he is gifted with a wonderful faculty for supporting misfortune, under whatever form it may overtake him.”[167] We have already made some observations on the first of these two qualities, and will now do the same for the second.
To be endowed with a marvellous power of supporting misfortune—what better preparation, apparently, could there be for supporting the struggle of the future? It is to patience that our Lord Jesus Christ promises the possession of our souls for a happy eternity when he says: In patientia vestra possidebitis animas vestras—“In your patience you shall possess your souls” (S. Luke xxi. 19). These divine words, alas! cannot in any way find their application in the patience of the Russian clergy. The patience whereof our Lord speaks is that which fills and sustains the soul, and which places in our mouths words whose wisdom puts our adversaries to silence.
This explanation is not our own; it is that of Jesus Christ himself. “They will lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for my name's sake: and it shall happen to you for a testimony. Lay it up, therefore, in your hearts, not to meditate before, how you shall answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and gainsay. And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends: and some of you they will put to death. And you shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but a hair of your head shall not perish. In your patience you shall possess your souls” (S. Luke xxi. 12-19). The patience here described corresponds exactly with the patience of which the Catholic bishops and priests of Switzerland, Germany, and elsewhere are offering us at this very time so edifying and admirable an example.
The patience taught by our Lord, then, is not wanting to the Catholic clergy; can we hope to find it in the Russian clergy in the day when orthodoxy shall be threatened? Let us well consider the words of our Lord which we have just quoted, bearing in mind the energetic spirit which they suppose, and let us then compare them with the following words of the most devoted advocate of the orthodox clergy in Russia: “This readiness to bear, without murmuring, the sudden reverses of fortune,” says Schédo-Ferroti, “this spontaneous submission to the decrees of Providence, is too Christian a virtue to allow us to refuse it the admiration which it deserves; but it seems to us that the combination of circumstances which has contributed to develop in the Russian clergy this mute resignation has also exercised a depressing influence upon their moral strength, in paralyzing [pg 706] the powers of their will by rendering its free exercise utterly and invariably impossible. It is the natural consequence of excessive suffering, whether physical or moral, to end in the enervation of the patient, by depriving him of the faculty of action, by destroying all his energy, and leaving him destitute even of any belief in his own strength; allowing him to remain in possession of but one single conviction, that of his powerlessness to struggle against fate—a conviction that finds its expression in this mute and absolute resignation which we find in the lower Russian clergy.”[168]
Poor Russian clergy! They are all that they can be expected to be, considering what the czars have made them. The sufferings of the Russian priest are not forgotten by God, neither does he forget his resignation. Far from desiring to cast a stone at him, we gladly point out all that we can find in his favor. Reduced to such a degree of indigence that he is compelled to maintain himself by laboriously toiling in the fields, the pressing needs of life bow down not only his brow, but his soul also, towards the earth. What right have we to expect that he can devote to the interests of souls the time and thought imperiously demanded by the daily necessities of his own existence? And even could he forget himself, and in self-devotion taste the sublime joy of sacrifice, he is not alone; and will his wife and children also become so many victims of his zeal for souls?
This feebleness, this helplessness, these bonds—these are the very things which many would desire to see also in the militant ranks of the Catholic Church. “But wherefore, then, is it,” asks the church, in pointing out the armies of this world, “that the secular governments will that the soldiers called to defend their country should be alone and free?”[169]
But if to be single and free is an element of strength lacking to the Russian priest, already by long habituation to suffering and slavery reduced to the state of which so striking a picture is drawn by Schédo-Ferroti, another support is also wanting to him, the power of which is evident in the Catholic clergy. In our day, and under our very eyes, every circumstance concurs to encourage apostasy among the latter. Priests who fail in their duty gain the favor of governments, a considerable portion of the press, the secure perspective of honors and offices; they are proclaimed the only honest, the only true ministers of Jesus Christ, who alone comprehend his interests or succeed in causing him to be loved by souls. In all this there is something seductive, not only for the ambitious and such as would free themselves from the severe discipline of the church, but for those also who, in presence of the ravages which unbelief is making, persuade themselves—not with much humility—that if the church would act according to their ideas, the interests of God would be better secured. In spite of all these things, the number of apostates is a mere nothing when we take into consideration the number of Catholic priests. Did those who have undertaken to make war against Catholicity [pg 707] expect this check?—which, we remark in passing, witnesses plainly against the alleged prevalence of abuses. Have they well calculated the forces of the enemy which they flattered themselves they were about to annihilate? Unless we are mistaken, they think that its strength is the same in the present day as it was in the time of Luther, and that, if whole nations were then withdrawn from the church, there is no reason why they should not be so now. But the Protestantism of those days allowed a true faith in God, in Providence, in Jesus Christ, and retained a baptism in every respect valid. It is allowable to believe that if God has permitted that whole nations should be snatched from the immediate care of the church, his providence will keep them from ever falling back into the state in which they were before the redemption; though this is the logical result of modern Protestantism. Besides, the social and political situation of Europe, the habits of the various nations, and especially the difficulty of communication, then permitted sovereigns to raise, as it were, so many walls of China round the confines of their states. They could at that time isolate their subjects, and only allow them just so much intercommunication with the rest of the world as they might choose to consider suitable to the interests of the state. If thought itself could not be chained, its manifestations at least could be circumscribed or stifled. This is no longer possible in the present day; a pamphlet, a journal, a speech in parliament, even to a simple word of a bishop, can now, from the other end of the world, trouble the repose and disturb the plans of a powerful conqueror. For thought there are no longer any barriers possible, nor yet police; and thought makes revolutions.
Now, amongst the thoughts which escape the vigilance of all police, and which pass through every barrier, there is also that of the constancy which, in no matter what period of the existence of the Catholic Church, is shown by men living under different climates, ruled by various institutions, but brothers in the faith. If to bear the same name, to be born on the same soil, and to speak the same tongue, creates bonds so powerful and so devoted a defence of common interests, fraternity in the Catholic faith yields the palm in nothing to any other fraternity whatsoever for the powerfulness of its effects. The humble curé of a poor parish hidden among the gorges of the mountains learns that a priest in a distant land has been imprisoned for refusing to betray his conscience. He is moved by the tidings, and takes a lively interest in the fate of the priest, following anxiously in his journal the narrative of the struggles of this confessor of the faith. During this time, without his being aware of it, a salutary work has been going on in his mind. Soon afterwards he finds himself in the same case—namely, of being called upon to suffer for the performance of those duties which his quality of priest imposes upon him. His adversaries, judging him by the gentleness of his language and his life, expect to intimidate him by a word; but, to their amazement, they find in him the firmness of an apostle. From whence did he gain this courage? They know not, neither does he; that which impressed his soul and prepared it for the conflict was nothing else than the story of the sufferings of his brother in the faith and in the priesthood, in a distant and foreign land.
Well, then, this sustaining thought which supports the Catholic priest by making him feel himself a member of that family which is as vast as [pg 708] the world and a brother in the faith with martyrs—this support will be wanting to the Russian clergy when upon it alone will depend the fate of orthodoxy. The Russian priest, who, not being alone, will have need of a courage so much the greater as there are beings dear to him whose existence is bound up with his own, will seek examples to encourage him; but will he find them? The same causes which have produced the mute resignation spoken of by Schédo-Ferroti authorize us to think that the Russian clergy will not have its martyrs, or, if there should be some, that their number will be too small to counterbalance the example of the general feebleness. And yet here again we will undertake the defence of the Russian clergy; for who, in fact, could require an act of heroism of a man “enervated by excess of moral and physical sufferings, deprived of the faculty of action, and not only possessing no longer any energy, but having also lost all belief in his own powers”? Now, this is, word for word, the condition of the Russian priest, as depicted by his most zealous defender.
“But,” it may be said, “the Orthodox Church is not confined to Russia; the orthodox priest will find brethren in Austria, in Roumania, in Turkey, and in Greece.” This is true; but it is not enough to find brothers only. The Russian priest will need brother-martyrs; and where will he find them?
Besides, strange to say, the various branches of the Orthodox Church live almost strangers to each other, unless some political interest awaken the sentiment of fraternity in their common faith. Without entering into details on this point, we will only make one remark. It is easy to find several histories of the different branches, taken separately; but is it so easy to find an universal history of the Orthodox Church?[170] In Catholic countries the reverse of this is always the case; it is, comparatively, difficult to meet with particular histories of the Catholic Church in France, in Italy, in Germany, etc.; but everywhere is found and taught the universal history of the Catholic Church—a history in which that of a nation, however great or powerful, figures, if not as an episode, certainly as but a simple portion, a contingent part, of a necessary whole.
We one day read in an English journal that has a wide circulation the following remark: “A church which counts among its members men like Archbishop Manning and Dr. Newman is a church which is not to be despised.” English common sense thus did justice to the “coal-heavers' faith,” as people are pleased to call the adhesion of Catholics to the doctrines proposed to them by their church. In fact—to speak only of the last named of these two personages—the author of the Grammar of Assent does not yield in intellectual power to any of his Anglican adversaries; from whence we may infer, by a series of logical deductions, that neither does he yield in this to any of the adversaries of the Catholic Church. To speak plainly, we have never perceived that these adversaries have shown any alarming degree of intelligence, at least with regard to the [pg 709] application of the rules of logic. In any case, as, since Porphyry and Celsus, men have never been wanting who have represented the faith propounded by the Catholic Church as an abdication of reason, so also, since Justin and the first Christian philosophers, the church has never lacked doctors who, in defending her, have at the same time been the defenders of reason. The apostolate of learning is not less fruitful, perhaps, than that of virtue and of martyrdom. Without pronouncing upon the relative necessity and advantages of these three apostolates, nor examining whether it is possible to exercise a true apostolate by learning unaided by self-denial and virtue, nor even doing more than call to mind how God in the Old Law, and the church in the New, have always made learning a part of the duty of a priest, we will confine ourselves to remarking that many souls are led to embrace the faith, and others, tempted to doubt, are quieted and confirmed, by a simple reflection analogous to that of the English journal just quoted. “A faith,” they say, “professed by minds so much above the ordinary class as such and such a writer ought not to be lightly rejected.” It is a preliminary argument of which the effects are salutary, and grace does the rest.
If we now take into account all that eighteen centuries and innumerable writers of all lands have accumulated in the way of proofs and testimonies in favor of the Catholic faith; and if we at the same time consider the immense variety and the infinitely-multiplied forms of error, each in its turn combated by the church, we shall comprehend that it is scarcely possible to imagine any error of which the refutation has not already somewhere appeared. In the same way the struggle still goes on in all parts of the globe, and among peoples who have advanced, some more, some less, in learning and civilization; in all parts of the globe the defence also continues, and by men brought up among the same surroundings as their adversaries. In short, Catholic productions are not the exclusive appanage of any single diocese, any single country, any single nation; they are the family treasures, belonging to the whole Catholic Church. Facility of communication brings us, together with their names, the works of those who are waging war against various errors in various lands. To take time, to enquire, to make some researches—this is the worst that could happen to a Catholic priest who might find himself, for the moment, unable to solve an objection. But the objection is already solved, even if it be drawn from some scientific discovery of yesterday, if indeed (as it often happens) it cannot be solved at once by the simple use of common sense, and especially of logic, the most necessary of sciences, and the least studied of all.
Thus we see what happens in the Catholic Church, and we see, therefore, why it is that in those countries where formerly the clergy may have been at times taken by surprise, and not well prepared to meet a sudden adversary, they now struggle bravely; and also we see why earnest Catholics have been able without difficulty to distinguish between true and false progress, and between true science and false.
Will it be the same in Russia?
We do not wish to exaggerate anything, and will even admit that the complaints which are so general of the ignorance of the Russian clergy may be much overstated. Nevertheless, in looking through the bibliography of that country, we find ourselves forced to acknowledge that [pg 710] whenever the day shall arrive for unbelief to have free course there, decorated with the seductive appellations of science, of progress, of the emancipation of reason, etc., the Russian clergy will either find themselves without arms wherewith to defend orthodoxy, or with such only as shall prove insufficient.
In fact, the reader is perhaps not aware that, from the year 1701, Peter the Great had been obliged (according to Voltaire) to forbid the use of pen and ink to monks. “It required,” says the apostle of science, “an express permission from the archimandrite, who was responsible for those to whom he granted it. Peter willed that this ordinance should continue.”[171] The successors of Peter likewise willed the same, although we do not venture to affirm that the ordinance is still observed. Let us, then, be just, and refrain from blaming the Russian monks. If, since the time of Peter the Great, they have not extraordinarily enriched the literature of their country, the fault is none of theirs.
Neither have we any right to blame the secular Russian clergy if few writers have appeared among them, nor yet any one of those whose name alone exercises an apostolate. All the Russians who have written on the ecclesiastical schools of their country are unwearied in their complaints against the badness of the method and the insufficiency of instruction which the young Russian levite takes with him on leaving the seminary.[172] We do not in any way accuse the commissions charged with the inspection and reformation of the ecclesiastical schools. We are convinced that these commissions have done their best; if the evil still continues as before, it is because they have not the power to touch its root. Besides, how can it be expected that a priest, poor, burdened with a family, and in very many cases necessitated to maintain himself and his family by the work of his hands, can either have the necessary freedom of mind or sufficient leisure to devote himself to study?
It remains for us to consider the bishops. These are taken from the monastic orders, and if, since Peter I., all of them have not been archimandrites, yet to all has, at any rate, been granted by the archimandrite, of their convent, at his own risk and peril, the use of pen and ink. Of the two hundred and eighty ecclesiastical writers who have appeared and died in Russia from the conversion of that country to Christianity down to the year 1827, and whose biographies may be found in the Dictionary of Mgr. Eugenius, Metropolitan of Kief,[173] one hundred and ten belonged to the episcopate; and ever since 1827 that episcopate has continued to reckon among its members men remarkable for their learning. Everything, however, is relative. These bishops have shone in Russia; and there has been a desire to make them shine as far as France by translating into French the Orthodox Theology of Mgr. Macarius, Bishop of Vinnitsa; a collection of Sermons, by the late Mgr. Philarete, Metropolitan of Moscow; and perhaps some other works. It is also to be supposed that some care must have been shown in selecting from amongst the productions of ecclesiastical [pg 711] literature in Russia, the best there were to be found of what she possessed. Without criticising, we think there is reason for saying that hitherto the Russian episcopate has not by its writings furnished orthodoxy with a support proportioned to the dangers with which it is threatened, and we doubt very much whether it will be equal to furnishing her with it very quickly. The Russian prelates renowned for their learning are but few in number; besides, so long as the faith and the church are protected by the Penal Code, and judicial prosecution would be the consequence of any attack, neither priests nor bishops have much chance of finding themselves face to face with any adversaries of importance. The latter, in fact, would be exceedingly careful to avoid the men who could denounce them; and the result of this is that, for want of exercise, neither the bishops nor priests can state what is either their strength or their weakness. To this we must add the thousand hindrances placed by Russian censorship to the manifestation of religious thought. There is nothing, even to the sermon preached by the pope in his parish, which must not be submitted to censure.[174] As for pastoral letters of bishops, we should be very glad if any could be quoted to us. The formalities and delays which accompany the revision and approbation of every work destined to appear in print are of a nature to discourage the most intrepid. The examination of all the ecclesiastical productions destined to appear in the immense empire of the czars is confided to the committees of the four ecclesiastical academies of Kief, Kasan, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. If no exceptions were allowed, at any rate in favor of periodical works, the complaint of Jeremias might be truly applied to Russia: Parvuli petierunt panem, et non erat, qui frangeret eis—“The little ones asked for bread, and there was none to break it for them” (Lament. Jer. iv. 4). Finally, we will not stop to consider the manner in which ecclesiastical censorship is exercised in Russia, nor yet its tendencies nor its object; but we say, to single out one point only, that it is impossible to find in all Russia a single work that is able to throw any light upon the reciprocal relations of the church and state. More than one reader will join us in acknowledging that in Russia a true, apologetic literature has yet to be created.
To complete the picture of that which will inevitably take place in Russia on the day when the Orthodox Church shall there lose the support of the Penal Code, and will have to struggle alone, and abandoned to her own strength against heresy and unbelief, we ought to observe that, since the general confiscation of the goods of the clergy which was effected under Catherine II. (1762), the Russian Church has no longer anything to supply its needs but that which is allowed it by the state. It is the state which provides for the keeping up of churches and monasteries; the state which furnishes the expenses of the orthodox worship, and which assigns to the ministers [pg 712] of that worship the piece of land from which they must find a maintenance for themselves and their families, or else which supplies them with a salary proportioned to the functions they are to exercise. It is not, after all, impossible that, in the day of which we speak, the state, while continuing to retain a budget for the orthodox worship, may nevertheless extraordinarily reduce it; and also it is not impossible that conditions which cannot be conscientiously accepted will be attached to the payment of the salary, already so moderate, of the ministers of this church. In either case, more even than to combat heresy and unbelief, it will be necessary for the Russian Church to consider how her priests and their families are to find bread and shelter. Now, the only classes which can then effectively help them—are they not the same which at this day show so great a contempt for their popes?
And this is not yet all. In the day of which we speak who will secure to the bishops the obedience of the secular clergy? This clergy trembles now before them, because it sees them armed by the law with a despotic power;[175] but no one can foresee what will happen in the day when popes and bishops shall be equal before the law. The bishops being all drawn from the monastic state, the result has been that hitherto the secular clergy have lived in subjection to the regular; and this fact, united to other causes, has created a powerful antagonism between these two orders of the clergy, which not unfrequently betrays itself by venomous writings. One portion of the press makes common cause with the secular clergy; and, if we may judge by certain tendencies, the admission of the secular clergy to the episcopate will probably be one of the consequences of the changes that will take place in the relations between the church and state. But it is not possible that this change can be peaceably effected; the disorders which, at times, arise in the application of the principle of universal suffrage, show, in some degree, how, in this case, various elections of bishops would be brought about. And then, in the confusion and wild disorder of conflict, where would be found the authority which could have power to settle these differences and claim for itself adhesion and respect? The bishops, moreover, who or a century and a half have all been equal before the czar, and only distinguished by the titles and decorations granted or refused according to the good pleasure of the monarch—will these submit themselves to an archbishop, to a metropolitan, to a patriarch—in a word, to one from amongst themselves? Will they, for the love of concord, invest him with a superior authority, and obey him? And were they to reach this point, would not St. Petersburg contest the primacy with Moscow? And would Kief forget her canonical jurisdiction of former times?
Yet more, would not Constantinople vindicate any right over Russia? And the other Oriental patriarchs—would they forget that their concurrence was formerly sought for the erection of the patriarchate of Moscow, and their approbation to sanction the establishment of the Synod?
We may thus, in its principal features, behold the state to which the czars have reduced the faith and the church of which they entitle themselves the guardians. The picture is a gloomy one; nevertheless, we do [pg 713] not believe that we have exaggerated anything. Before proceeding further we would even say a word of excuse for the czars.
If the Catholic Church were not built upon a rock, proof against all tempests, many a Catholic sovereign designated by appellations indicative of the highest degree of attachment to the church would long ago have reduced her to the same condition as the church of the czars.
To Be Continued.