VOL. XXVI., No. 155.—FEBRUARY, 1878.
CEADMON THE COW-HERD, ENGLAND’S FIRST POET.
BY AUBREY DE VERE.
The Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation contains nothing more touching than its record of Ceadmon, the earliest English poet, whose gift came to him in a manner so extraordinary. It occurs in the 24th chapter: “By his verses the minds of many were often excited to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven. Others after him attempted in the English nation to compose religious poems, but none could ever compare with him; for he did not learn the art of poetry from man, but from God, for which reason he never would compose any vain or trivial poem.” ... “Being sometimes at entertainments, when it was agreed, for the sake of mirth, that all present should sing in their turns, when he saw the instrument come towards him he rose from the table and retired home. Having done so on a certain occasion, ... a Person appeared to him in his sleep, and, saluting him by his name, said, ‘Ceadmon, sing some song for me.’ He answered, ‘I cannot sing.’” Ceadmon’s song is next described: “How he, being the Eternal God, became the author of all miracles, Who first, as Almighty Preserver of the human race, created heaven for the sons of men, as the roof of the house, and next the earth.” ... “He sang the Creation of the world, the origin of man, and all the history of Genesis, ... the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection of our Lord, and His Ascension.”[[158]] Ceadmon’s poetry is referred to also in Sharon Turner’s History of the Anglo-Saxons; and Sir Francis Palgrave points out the singular resemblance of passages in Paradise Lost to corresponding passages in its surviving fragments. To the history of Ceadmon Montalembert has devoted some of the most eloquent paragraphs in his admirable work, Les Moines d’Occident—see chapter ii., vol. iv., page 68.
Sole stood upon the pleasant bank of Esk
Ceadmon the Cow-herd, while the sinking sun
Reddened the bay, and fired the river-bank
With pomp beside of golden Iris lit,
And flamed upon the ruddy herds that strayed
Along the marge, clear-imaged. None was nigh:—
For that cause spake the Cow-herd, “Praise to God!
He made the worlds; and now, by Hilda’s hand
He plants a fair crown upon Whitby’s height:
Daily her convent towers more high aspire;
Daily ascend her Vespers. Hark that strain!”
He stood and listened. Soon the flame-touched herds
Sent forth their lowings, and the cliffs replied,
And Ceadmon thus resumed: “The music note
Rings through their lowings dull, though heard by few!
Poor kine, ye do your best! Ye know not God,
Yet man, his likeness, unto you is God,
And him ye worship with obedience sage,
A grateful, sober, much-enduring race
That o’er the vernal clover sigh for joy,
With winter snows contend not. Patient kine,
What thought is yours, deep-musing? Haply this—
‘God’s help! how narrow are our thoughts, and few!
Not so the thoughts of that slight human child
Who daily drives us with her blossomed rod
From lowland valleys to the pails long-ranged!’
Take comfort, kine! God also made your race!
If praise from man surceased, from your broad chests
That God would perfect praise, and, when ye died,
Resound it from yon rocks that gird the bay:
God knoweth all things. Let that thought suffice!”
Thus spake the ruler of the deep-mouthed kine:
They were not his; the man and they alike
A neighbor’s wealth. He was contented thus:
Humble he was in station, meek of soul,
Unlettered, yet heart-wise. His face was pale;
Stately his frame, though slightly bent by age:
Slow were his eyes, and slow his speech, and slow
His musing step; and slow his hand to wrath,
A massive hand, but soft, that many a time
Had succored man and woman, child and beast;
Ay, yet could fiercely grasp the sword! At times
As mightily it clutched his ashen goad
When like an eagle on him swooped some thought:
Then stood he as in dream, his pallid front
Brightening like eastern sea-cliffs when a moon
Unrisen is near its rising.
Round the bay Meantime with deepening eve full many a fire Up-sprung, and horns were heard. Around the steep With bannered pomp and many a dancing plume Ere long a cavalcade made way. Whence came it? Oswy, Northumbria’s king, the foremost rode, Oswy triumphant o’er the Mercian host, To sue for blessing on his sceptre new; With him an Anglian prince, student long time In Bangor of the Irish, and a monk Of Gallic race far wandering from the Marne: They came to look on Hilda, hear her words Of far-famed wisdom on the Interior Life: For Hilda thus discoursed: “True life of man Is life within: inward immeasurably The being winds of all who walk the earth; But he whom sense hath blinded nothing knows Of that wide greatness: like a boy is he That clambers round some castle’s wall extern In search of nests—the outward wall of seven— Yet nothing knows of those great courts within, The hall where princes banquet, or the bower Where royal maidens touch the lyre and lute, Much less its central church, and sacred shrine Wherein God dwells alone.”[[159]] Thus Hilda spake; And they that gazed upon her widening eyes Low whispered, each to each, “She speaks of things Which she hath seen and known.”
On Whitby’s crest The royal feast was holden: far below, A noisier revel dinned the shore; therein The humbler guests partook. Full many a tent Glimmered upon the white sands, ripple-kissed; Full many a savory dish sent up its steam; The farmer from the field had driven his calf; The fisher brought the harvest of the sea; And Jock, the woodsman, from his oaken glades The tall stag, arrow-pierced. In gay attire Now green, now crimson, matron sat and maid: Each had her due: the elder, reverence most, The lovelier that and love. Beside the board The beggar lacked not place.
When hunger’s rage, Sharpened by fresh sea-air, was quelled, the jest Succeeded, and the tale of foreign lands; But, boast who might of distant chief renowned, His battle-axe, or fist that felled an ox, The Anglian’s answer was “our Hilda” still: “Is not her prayer puissant as sworded hosts? Her insight more than wisdom of the seers? What birth like hers illustrious? Edwin’s self, Dëira’s exile, next Northumbria’s king, Her kinsman was. Together bowed they not When he of holy hand, missioned from Rome, Paulinus, poured o’er both the absolving wave And knit to Christ? Kingliest was she, that maid Who spurned earth-crowns!” The night advanced, he rose That ruled the feast, the miller old, yet blithe, And cried, “A song!” So song succeeded song, For each man knew that time to chant his stave, But no man yet sang nobly. Last the harp Made way to Ceadmon, lowest at the board: He pushed it back, answering, “I cannot sing:” Around him many gathered clamoring, “Sing!” And one among them, voluble and small, Shot out a splenetic speech: “This lord of kine, Our herdsman, grows to ox! Behold, his eyes Move slow, like eyes of oxen!”
Sudden rose
Ceadmon, and spake: “I note full oft young men
Quick-eyed, but small-eyed, darting glances round
Now here, now there, like glance of some poor bird,
That light on all things and can rest on none:
As ready are they with their tongues as eyes;
But all their songs are chirpings backward blown
On winds that sing God’s song, by them unheard:
My oxen wait my service: I depart.”
Then strode he to his cow-house in the mead,
Displeased though meek, and muttered, “Slow of eye!
My kine are slow: if I were swift my hand
Might tend them worse.” Hearing his steps the kine
Turned round their hornèd foreheads: angry thoughts
Went from him as a vapor. Straw he brought,
And strewed their beds; and they, contented well,
Down laid ere long their great bulks, breathing deep
Amid the glimmering moonlight. He, with head
Propped on the white flank of a heifer mild,
Rested, his deer-skin o’er him drawn. Hard days
Bring slumber soon. His latest thought was this:
“Though witless things we are, my kine and I,
Yet God it was who made us.”
As he slept,
Beside him stood a Man Divine and spake;
“Ceadmon, arise, and sing.” Ceadmon replied,
“My Lord, I cannot sing, and for that cause
Forth from the revel came I. Once, in youth,
I willed to sing the bright face of a maid,
And failed, and once a gold-faced harvest-field,
And failed, and once the flame-eyed face of war,
And failed once more.” To him the Man Divine,
“Those themes were earthly. Sing!” And Ceadmon said,
“What shall I sing, my Lord?” Then answer came,
“Ceadmon, stand up, and sing thy song of God.”
At once obedient, Ceadmon rose, and sang,
And help was with him from great thoughts of old
Within his silent nature yearly stored,
That swelled, collecting like a flood that bursts
In spring its icy bar. The Lord of all
He sang; that God beneath whose hand eterne,
Then when he willed forth-stretched athwart the abyss,
Creation like a fiery chariot ran,
Inwoven wheels of ever-living stars.
Him first he sang. The builder, here below,
From fair foundations rears at last the roof,
But Song, a child of heaven, begins with heaven,
The archetype divine, and end of all,
More late descends to earth. He sang that hymn,
“Let there be light, and there was light”; and lo!
On the void deep came down the seal of God
And stamped immortal form. Clear laughed the skies,
While from crystalline seas the strong earth brake,
Both continent and isle; and downward rolled
The sea-surge summoned to his home remote.
Then came a second vision to the man
There standing ‘mid his oxen. Darkness sweet,
He sang, of pleasant frondage clothed the vales,
Ambrosial bowers rich-fruited which the sun,
A glory new-created in his place,
All day made golden, and the moon by night
Silvered with virgin beam, while sang the bird
Her first of love-songs on the branch first-flower’d—
Not yet the lion stalked. And Ceadmon sang
O’er-awed, the Father of all humankind
Standing in garden planted by God’s hand,
And girt by murmurs of the rivers four,
Between the trees of Knowledge and of Life,
With eastward face. In worship mute of God,
Eden’s Contemplative he stood that hour,
Not her Ascetic, since, where sin is none,
No need for spirit severe.
And Ceadmon sang
God’s Daughter, Adam’s Sister, Child, and Bride,
Our Mother Eve. Lit by the matin star,
That nearer drew to earth, and brighter flashed
To meet her gaze, that snowy Innocence
Stood up with queenly port. She turned: she saw
Earth’s King, mankind’s great Father. Taught by God,
Immaculate, unastonished, undismayed,
In love and reverence to her Lord she drew,
And, kneeling, kissed his hand: and Adam laid
That hand, made holier, on that kneeler’s head,
And spake; “For this shall man his parents leave,
And to his wife cleave fast.”
When Ceadmon ceased
Thus spake the Man Divine: “At break of day
Seek thou some prudent man, and say that God
Hath loosed thy tongue; nor hide henceforth thy gift.”
Then Ceadmon turned, and slept among his kine
Dreamless. Ere dawn he stood upon the shore
In doubt: but when at last o’er eastern seas
The sun, long wished for, like a god upsprang,
Once more he found God’s song upon his mouth
Murmuring high joy; and sought a prudent man,
And told him all the vision. At the word
He to the Abbess with the tidings fled,
And she made answer, “Bring me Ceadmon here.”
Then clomb the pair that sea-beat mount of God
Fanned by sea-gale, nor trod, as others used,
The curving way, but faced the abrupt ascent,
And halted not, so worked in both her will,
Till now between the unfinished towers they stood
Panting and spent. The portals open stood:
Ceadmon passed in alone. Nor ivory decked,
Nor gold, the walls. That convent was a keep
Strong ’gainst invading storm or demon hosts,
And naked as the rock whereon it stood,
Yet, as a church, august. Dark, high-arched roofs
Slowly let go the distant hymn. Each cell
Cinctured its statued saint, the peace of God
On every stony face. Like caverned grot
Far off the western window frowned: beyond,
Close by, there shook an autumn-blazoned tree:
No need for gems beside of storied glass.
He entered last that hall where Hilda sat
Begirt with a great company, the chiefs
Down either side far ranged. Three stalls, cross-crowned,
Stood side by side, the midmost hers. The years
Had laid upon her brows a hand serene,
And left alone their blessing. Levelled eyes
Sable, and keen, with meditative strength
Conjoined the instinct and the claim to rule;
Firm were her lips and rigid. At her right
Sat Finan, Aidan’s successor, with head
Snow-white, and beard that rolled adown a breast
Never by mortal passion heaved in storm,
A cloister of majestic thoughts that walked,
Humbly with God. High in the left-hand stall
Oswy was throned, a man in prime, with brow
Less youthful than his years. Exile long past,
Or deepening thought of one disastrous deed,
Had left a shadow in his eyes. The strength
Of passion held in check looked lordly forth
From head and hand: tawny his beard; his hair
Thick-curled and dense. Alert the monarch sat
Half turned, like one on horseback set that hears,
And he alone, the advancing trump of war.
Down the long gallery strangers thronged in mass,
Dane or Norwegian, huge of arm through weight
Of billows oar-subdued, with stormy looks
Wild as their waves and crags; Southerns keen-browed;
Pure Saxon youths, fair-fronted, with mild eyes
(These less than others strove for nobler place),
And Pilgrim travel-worn. Behind the rest,
And higher-ranged in marble-arched arcade,
Sat Hilda’s sisterhood. Clustering they shone,
White-veiled, and pale of face, and still and meek,
An inly-bending curve, like some young moon
Whose crescent glitters o’er a dusky strait.
In front were monks dark-stoled: for Hilda ruled,
Though feminine, two houses, one of men:
Upon two chasm-divided rocks they stood,
To various service vowed, though single. Faith;
Nor ever, save at rarest festival,
Their holy inmates met.
“Is this the man
Favored, though late, with gift of song?” Thus spake
Hilda with placid smile. Severer then
She added: “Son, the commonest gifts of God
He counts his best, and oft temptation blends
With powers more rare. Yet sing! That God who lifts
The violet from the grass as well could draw
Music from stones hard by. That song thou sang’st,
Sing it once more.”
Then Ceadmon from his knees
Arose and stood. With princely instinct first
The strong man to the abbess bowed, and next
To that great twain, the bishop and the king,
Last to that stately concourse ranged each side
Down the long hall; and, dubious, answered thus:
“Great Mother, if that God who sent the song
Vouchsafe me to recall it, I will sing;
But I misdoubt it lost.” Slowly his face
Down-drooped, and all his body forward bent
As brooding memory, step by step, retracked
Its backward way. Vainly long time it sought
The starting-point. Then Ceadmon’s large, soft hands
Opening and closing worked; for wont were they,
In musings when he stood, to clasp his goad,
And plant its point far from him, thereupon
Propping his stalwart weight. Customed support
Now finding not, unwittingly those hands
Reached forth, and on Saint Finan’s crosier-staff
Settling, withdrew it from the old bishop’s grasp;
And Ceadmon leant thereon, while passed a smile
Down the long hall to see earth’s meekest man
The spiritual sceptre claim of Lindisfarne.
They smiled; he triumphed: soon the Cow-herd found
That first fair corner-stone of all his song;
Then rose the fabric heavenward. Lifting hands,
Once more his lordly music he rehearsed,
The void abyss at God’s command forth-flinging
Creation like a Thought:—where night had reigned,
The universe of God.
The singing stars
Which with the Angels sang when earth was made
Sang in his song. From highest shrill of lark
To ocean’s deepest under cliffs low-browed,
And pine-woods’ vastest on the topmost hills,
No tone was wanting; while to them that heard
Strange images looked forth of worlds new-born,
Fair, phantom mountains, and, with forests plumed,
The marvelling headlands, for the first time glassed
In waters ever calm. O’er sapphire seas
Green islands laughed. Fairer, the wide earth’s flower,
Eden, on airs unshaken yet by sighs
From bosom still inviolate forth poured
Immortal sweets. With sense to spirit turned
Who heard the song inhaled those sweets. Their eyes
Flashing, their passionate hands and heaving breasts,
Tumult self-stilled, and mute, expectant trance,
’Twas these that gave their bard his twofold might,
That might denied to poets later born
Who, singing to soft brains and hearts ice-hard,
Applauded or contemned, alike roll round
A vainly-seeking eye, and, famished, drop
A hand clay-cold upon the unechoing shell,
Missing their inspiration’s human half.
Thus Ceadmon sang, and ceased. Silent awhile
The concourse stood (for all had risen), as though
Waiting from heaven its echo. Each on each
Gazed hard and caught his hands. Fiercely ere long
Their gratulating shout aloft had leaped
But Hilda laid her finger on her lip,
Or provident lest praise might stain the pure,
Or deeming song a gift too high for praise.
She spake: “Through help of God thy song is sound:
Now hear His Holy Word, and shape therefrom
A second hymn, and worthier than the first.”
Then Finan stood, and bent his hoary head
Above the Scripture tome in reverence stayed
Upon his kneeling deacon’s hands and brow,
And sweetly sang five verses, thus beginning,
“Cum esset desponsata,” and was still;
And next rehearsed them in the Anglian tongue:
Then Ceadmon took God’s Word into his heart,
And ruminating stood, as when the kine,
Their flowery pasture ended, ruminate;
And was a man in thought. At last the light
Shone from his dubious countenance, and he spake:
“Great Mother, lo! I saw a second Song!
T’wards me it came; but with averted face,
And borne on shifting winds. A man am I
Sluggish and slow, that needs must muse and brood;
Therefore that Scripture till the sun goes down
Will I revolve. If song from God be mine
Expect me here at morn.”
The morrow morn
In that high presence Ceadmon stood and sang
A second song, and manlier than his first;
And Hilda said, “From God it came, not man;
Thou therefore live a monk among my monks,
And sing to God.” Doubtful he stood—“From youth
My place hath been with kine; their ways I know,
And how to cure their griefs.” Smiling she answered,
“Our convent hath its meads, and kine; with these
Consort each morning: night and day be ours.”
Then Ceadmon knelt, and bowed, and said, “So be it”:
And aged Finan, and Northumbria’s king
Oswy, approved; and all that host had joy.
Thus in that convent Ceadmon lived, a monk,
Humblest of all the monks, save him that slept
In the next cell, who once had been a prince.
Seven times a day he sang God’s praises, first
When earliest dawn drew back night’s sable veil
With trembling hand, revisiting the earth
Like some pale maid that through the curtain peers
Round her sick mother’s bed, misdoubting half
If sleep lie there, or death; latest when eve
Through nave and chancel stole from arch to arch,
And laid upon the snowy altar-step
At last a brow of gold. From time to time,
By ancient yearnings driven, through wood and vale
He tracked Dëirean or Bernician glades
To holy Ripon, or late-sceptred York,
Not yet great Wilfred’s seat, or Beverley:—
The children gathered round him, crying, “Sing!”
They gave him inspiration with their eyes,
And with his conquering music he returned it.
Oftener he roamed that strenuous eastern coast
To Yarrow and to Wearmouth, sacred sites,
The well-beloved of Bede, or northward more,
To Bamborough, Oswald’s keep. At Coldingham
His feet had rest—there where St. Ebba’s Cape
That ends the lonely range of Lammermoor,
Sustained for centuries o’er the wild sea-surge
In region of dim mist and flying bird,
Fronting the Forth, those convent piles far-kenned,
The worn-out sailor’s hope.
Fair English shores,
Despite the buffeting storms of north and east,
Despite rough ages blind with stormier strife,
Or froz’n by doubt, or sad with sensual care,
A fragrance as of Carmel haunts you still
Bequeathed by feet of that forgotten saint
Who trod you once, sowing the seed divine!
Fierce tribes that kenned him distant round him flocked;
On sobbing sands the fisher left his net,
His lamb the shepherd on the hills of March,
Suing for song. With wrinkled face all smiles,
Like that blind Scian upon Grecian shores,
If God the song accorded, Ceadmon sang;
If God denied it, after musings deep
He answered, “I am of the kine and dumb”;—
The man revered his art, and fraudful song
Esteemed as fraudful coin.
Music denied,
He solaced them with tales wherein, so seemed it,
Nature and Grace, inwoven, like children played,
Or like two sisters o’er one sampler bent,
One pattern worked. Ever the sorrowful chance
Ending in joy, the human craving still,
Like creeper circling up the Tree of Life,
Lifted by hand unseen, witnessed that He,
Man’s Maker, is the Healer too of man,
And life his school, expectant. Parables—
Thus Ceadmon named his legends. They who heard
Made answer, “Nay, not parables, but truths;”
Endured no change of phrase; to years remote
Transmitted them as facts.
Better than tale
They loved their minstrel’s harp. The songs he sang
Were songs to brighten gentle hearts, to fire
Strong hearts with holier courage, hope to breathe
Through spirits despondent, o’er the childless floor
Or widowed bed, flashing from highest heaven
A beam half faith, half vision. Many a tear,
His own, and tears of those that listened, fell
Oft as he sang that hand, lovely as light,
Forth stretched, and gathering from forbidden boughs
That fruit fatal to man. He sang the Flood,
Sin’s doom that quelled the impure, yet raised to height
Else inaccessible, the just. He sang
That patriarch facing at Divine command
The illimitable desert—harder proof,
Lifting his knife o’er him, the seed foretold:
He sang of Israel loosed, the twelve black seals
Down pressed on Egypt’s testament of woe,
Covenant of pride with penance; sang the face
Of Moses glittering from red Sinai’s rocks,
The Tables twain, and Mandements of God.
On Christian nights he sang that jubilant star
Which led the Magians to the Bethlehem crib
By Joseph watched, and Mary. Pale, in Lent,
Tremulous and pale, he told of Calvary,
Nor added word, but, as in trance, rehearsed
That Passion fourfold of the Evangelists,
Which, terrible and swift—not like a tale—
With speed of things which must be done, not said,
A river of bale, from guilty age to age,
Along the lamentable shore of things
Annual makes way, the history of the world,
Not of one race, one day. Up to its fount
That stream he tracked, that primal mystery sang
Which, chanted later by a thousand years,
Music celestial, though with note that jarred
(Some wandering orb troubling its starry chime),
Amazed the nations—“There was war in heaven:
Michael and they, his angels, warfare waged
With Satan and his angels.” Brief that war,
That ruin total. Brief was Ceadmon’s song:
Therein the Eternal Face was undivulged:
Therein the Apostate’s form no grandeur wore:
The grandeur was elsewhere. Who hate their God
Change not alone to vanquished but to vile.
On Easter morns he sang the Saviour Risen,
Eden regained. Since then on England’s shores
Though many sang, yet no man sang like him.
O holy House of Whitby! on thy steep
Rejoice, howe’er the tempest, night or day,
Afflict thee, or the craftier hand of Time,
Drag back thine airy arches in mid spring;
Rejoice, for Ceadmon in thy cloisters knelt,
And singing paced beside thy sounding sea!
Long years he lived; and with the whitening hair
More youthful grew in spirit, and more meek;
And they that saw him said he sang within
Then when the golden mouth but seldom breathed
Sonorous strain, and when—that fulgent eye
No longer bright—still on his forehead shone
Not flame but purer light, like that last beam
Which, when the sunset woods no longer burn,
Maintains its place on Alpine throne remote,
Or utmost beak of promontoried cloud,
And heavenward dies in smiles. Esteem of men
Daily he less esteemed, through single heart
More knit with God. To please a sickly child
He sang his latest song, and, ending, said,
“Song is but body, though ’tis body winged:
The soul of song is love: the body dead,
The soul should thrive the more.” That Patmian Sage
Whose head had lain upon the Saviour’s breast,
Who in high vision saw the First and Last,
Who heard the harpings of the Elders crowned,
Who o’er the ruins of the Imperial House
And ashes of the twelve great Cæsars dead
Witnessed the endless triumph of the just,
To earthly life restored, and, weak through age,
But seldom spake, and gave but one command,
The great “Mandatum Novum” of his Lord,
“My children, love each other!” Like to his
Was Ceadmon’s age. Weakness with happy stealth
Increased upon him: he was cheerful still:
He still could pace, though slowly, in the sun,
Still gladsomely converse with friends who wept,
Still lay a broad hand on his well-loved kine.
The legend of the last of Ceadmon’s days:—
That hospital wherein the old monks died
Stood but a stone’s throw from the monastery:
“Make there my couch to-night,” he said, and smiled:
They marvelled, yet obeyed. There, hour by hour,
The man, low-seated on his pallet-bed,
In silence watched the courses of the stars,
Or casual spake at times of common things,
And three times played with childhood’s days, and twice
His father named. At last, like one that, long
Begirt with good, is smit by sudden thought
Of greater good, thus spake he: “Have ye, sons,
Here in this house the Blessed Sacrament?”
They answered, wrathful, “Father, thou art strong;
Shake not thy children! Thou hast many days!”
“Yet bring me here the Blessed Sacrament,”
Once more he said. The brethren issued forth
Save four that silent sat waiting the close.
Ere long in grave procession they returned,
Two deacons first, gold-vested; after these
That priest who bare the Blessed Sacrament,
And acolytes behind him, lifting lights.
Then from his pallet Ceadmon slowly rose
And worshipped Christ, his God, and reaching forth
His right hand, cradled in his left, behold!
Therein was laid God’s Mystery. He spake:
“Stand ye in flawless charity of God
T’wards me, my sons, or lives there in your hearts
Memory the least of wrong or wrath?” They answered:
“Father, within us lives nor wrong, nor wrath,
But love, and love alone.” And he: “Not less
Am I in charity with you, my sons,
And all my sins of pride, and other sins,
Humbly I mourn.” Then, bending the old head
Above the old hand, Ceadmon received his Lord
To be his soul’s viaticum, in might
Leading from life that seems to life that is,
And long, unpropped by any, kneeling hung
And made thanksgiving prayer. Thanksgiving made,
He sat upon his bed, and spake: “How long
Ere yet the monks begin their matin psalms?”
“That hour is nigh,” they answered; he replied,
“Then let us wait that hour,” and laid him down
With those kine-tending and harp-mastering hands
Crossed on his breast, and slept.
Meanwhile the monks
(The lights removed in reverence of his sleep)
Sat mute nor stirred such time as in the Mass
Between “Orate Fratres” glides away,
And “Hoc est Corpus Meum.” Northward far
The great deep, seldom heard so distant, roared
Round those wild rocks half way to Bamborough Head;
For now the mightiest spring-tide of the year,
Following the magic of a maiden moon,
Had reached its height. More near, that sea which sobbed
In many a cave by Whitby’s winding coast,
Or died in peace on many a sandy bar
From river-mouth to river-mouth outspread,
They heard, and mused upon eternity
That circles human life. Gradual there rose
A softer strain and sweeter, making way
O’er that sea-murmur hoarse; and they were ware
That in the black far-shadowing church whose bulk
Up-towered between them and the moon, the monks
Their matins had begun. A little sigh
That moment reached them from the central gloom
Guarding the sleeper’s bed; a second sigh
Succeeded: neither seemed the sigh of pain:
And some one said, “He wakens.” Large and bright
Over the church-roof sudden rushed the moon,
And smote the cross above that sleeper’s couch,
And smote that sleeper’s face. The smile thereon
Was calmer than the smile of life. Thus died
Ceadmon, the earliest bard of English song.
Copyright: Rev. I. T. Hecker. 1878.
CONFESSION IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.[[160]]
The subject of confession has of late been brought prominently before the British public. We need hardly say that a storm of indignation has been raised. Parliament has been called upon to put a stop to a practice which is generally believed to be quite at variance with the spirit of the Church of England, and many of the bishops have publicly condemned it. It may, however, be doubted whether any effect has really been produced; for as long as clergy are found who claim the power of forgiving sin, and as long as people feel the need of absolution, it is certain that confession will be practised.
A Catholic must necessarily look on confession, as existing in the Anglican communion, with feelings of a very mixed nature. On the one hand it is impossible not to appreciate the sincerity and humility evinced by those who voluntarily seek what they believe to be a means of grace. It is hard to doubt that the habit of self-examination and of watchfulness naturally resulting from confession must have its value; above all, it seems as if we might fairly hope that the spirit of obedience and the faithfulness in acting on conviction will be rewarded by fuller light and knowledge.
On the other hand, it is equally impossible to shut our eyes to the great dangers which beset confession among Anglicans. In the first place, there is the absence of all sacramental grace; secondly, of training, and even of theological knowledge, in the clergy; and, thirdly, those who use confession are in an exceptional position, which of itself is fraught with peril to the soul.
Of course no Catholic supposes Anglican clergymen to have true orders. Confession in the English communion is simply a conversation between two lay people on some of the most important subjects that can occupy the thoughts of human beings. There may be on either side sincerity, piety, and earnestness, but sacramental grace there is not. Relations so close between two souls are certainly not without peril; we do not speak of the danger to morals which the Protestant party constantly insists upon, and whose existence we cannot altogether deny, but of the tyranny on the part of the minister, and of the unreasonable obedience yielded by the penitent to a self-appointed guide.
Those who have looked a little into their own hearts, and who have reflected on the subtle influences which have told on their characters, must feel that dealing with another soul is no light matter; that the chances of doing harm are many and great; and that special graces are needed by those who are called to so sacred an office. The need of training, too, is obvious; he who is to be the physician of the soul ought to be as well acquainted with moral theology as a physician should be with medical science. Among the clergy of the Church of England there is an absolute want of theological knowledge. It would be hard to mention an Anglican book on any subject connected with moral theology. Anglican clergymen, even where they have learnt to believe many of the dogmas of the Catholic faith, are, generally speaking, ignorant of the difference between mortal and venial sin. Hence results a spirit of severity on the part of the confessor which tends to produce scrupulosity and depression in the penitent. Converts have declared that the first time they heard Catholic teaching as to the nature of sin it seemed to them the most consoling doctrine possible.
It is true that of late years some Catholic manuals have been translated and “adapted” to the Anglican use. In the recent controversies regarding the Priest in Absolution some of the leading High-Church clergy have proclaimed their ignorance of the book, and have asserted that experience had taught them all that they could learn from its pages; but while they were gaining their experience what became of the poor souls who were the subjects of their study? In the Catholic Church a person cannot be said in any way to distinguish himself by going to confession; he does what has to be done if he would save his soul. Among Anglicans, although the practice is now pretty widely spread, the case is very different; the man or woman who goes to confession occupies a somewhat exceptional position, and is more or less considered as a support of the church, as one of those through whose influence that church is gradually to be reformed and restored.
It is hard to get at statistics as to the actual strength of the extreme High-Church party, and even among those who call themselves High Church there are many shades and differences of opinion; the amount of notice which it has attracted is due rather to the adoption of practices unknown in the Church of England, and to the earnestness and activity of its clergy, than to the great number of its adherents. If we were to count one-tenth part of the members of the Church of England as High Church we should probably be overshooting the mark; and of these it is by no means to be assumed that the greater number go to confession. Personal inquiry in at least one so-called centre of ritualism has led us to believe that it is the practice of a mere minority.
We believe that the practice of confession may be said to be pretty nearly universal in the case of the Anglican religious communities (which are about thirty in number). Many people living in the world are accustomed to go to confession weekly or fortnightly, and in some few London churches the practice is probably followed by the majority of the congregation; children are trained to it from their earliest years, and it is boldly proclaimed to be the “remedy for post-baptismal sin.”
As far as we can gather from the testimony of those who have confessed and heard confessions as Anglicans, we should say that confession is often an actual torture to the soul; that penances are often imposed altogether without proportion to their cause; that a kind of obedience unknown among Catholics is claimed and is rendered. This, after all, is the great danger. It will never be known till the last day how many souls have been kept out of God’s church by the authority of their Protestant “directors.” A director finds that one of his penitents begins to think that the Catholic Church has claims worthy, at least, of being examined. At once active works of charity are proposed as a remedy; all reading of Catholic books, or intercourse with Catholic friends or relations, is forbidden; the director is not afraid to say that leaving the Church of England is a sin against the Holy Ghost, and furthermore will promise to answer at the last day for the soul that, in reliance on his dictum, suspends all search after truth and blindly obeys. The moment of grace is too often lost; the soul holds back and will not respond to God’s call. Too often those things which it had are taken from it, and the sad result is an utter loss of faith.
A Catholic’s interest in the working of the Anglican Church is solely in reference to the work of conversion. Those who in one sense are said to come nearest to the Catholic Church are often in reality the furthest off; for they believe Catholic doctrines not because they are proposed by a divine authority, but because they consider them reasonable, or find that they are in accordance with the testimony of antiquity. Their religion is as much a matter of private judgment as that of the Bible Christian; the difference lies in the fact that the ritualist exercises his private judgment over a more extended field than the other.
An Anglican who goes to confession must be an object of great anxiety to a Catholic friend. In such a case, at least where the practice has been voluntarily and earnestly adopted, we feel that God is calling that soul to his church; that he has awakened in it a sense of need, a craving for the grace and aid which, generally speaking, are only to be found in the sacraments. We can hardly doubt that, if that soul is true to grace, it will ere long be in the one true fold; but the position is one of peculiar difficulty, and the temptations which beset it are of no common kind. Minds of a weak order naturally yield to anything that bears the semblance of lawful authority; the conscientious fear to go against those whom they believe to be wiser and better than themselves; a peace of mind often follows the confession of an Anglican. Perhaps it is the natural result of having made an effort and got over what is supposed to be a painful duty; perhaps it is a grace given by God in consideration of an act of contrition. How is the poor soul to discern this peace from the effect of sacramental grace? So the very goodness of God is turned into a reason for delay and for resting satisfied.
Hitherto we have looked on the subject of confession in the Anglican communion chiefly from the side of the penitent; the case of the clergy who hear confessions is widely different and is beset with many difficulties. Generally speaking, the only question arising in the mind of the penitent would be: Can I get my sins forgiven by going to confession? Of course the reality of the absolution turns primarily on the validity of orders; strange to say, a vast number of the laity of the Church of England are contented to take the validity of the orders of their ministers as an unquestioned fact. The clergy naturally are most positive in the assertion that their orders are valid; as the nature and the necessity of jurisdiction are alike unknown to the ordinary Anglican mind, the matter seems pretty clear. The laity in the Anglican body are not in any very definite manner bound by the Prayer-book or by any of the authorized documents of that body; there is nothing anomalous in the idea of Anglican lay people, especially women, going to confession without even asking themselves whether the practice is in accordance with the mind of the communion to which they belong. Moreover, High-Church Anglicans are avowedly bent on improving their church; their church is not their guide or their mother, but rather an institution which has so far fulfilled its purpose but imperfectly, and which, by a judicious process of reformation, they hope to assimilate to an ideal existing in their own minds. Many conscientious Anglicans would therefore deem any objection founded on the evident want of encouragement of their views by their church as quite irrelevant. The Church of England does not forbid such and such a practice, they would say; we are convinced that it is in accordance with the teaching of antiquity, that it is useful, and therefore we encourage it.
The clergy, however, are bound not only to follow the voice of individual conscience, but to keep certain solemn promises by which they have voluntarily bound themselves. Even if a clergyman be fully convinced that he possesses the tremendous power of the keys, it does not necessarily follow that he should feel at liberty to exercise it at all times or in all places. We do not go at all into the question of Anglican orders, except to remark in passing that it seems strange that the majority of the clergy should give themselves so little trouble on the subject; they know that, to say the least, grave doubts as to their position are entertained by Christendom in general, and yet it is very seldom that any one of them takes the same trouble to investigate his orders that a reasonable man would take in regard to his title-deeds, if a doubt were thrown on them. We believe that the feeling which we once heard expressed by a clergyman said to be High Church is not very uncommon; being told by a friend that there were serious reasons for doubting Anglican orders, and consequently Anglican sacraments, he made no attempt to defend them, but simply remarked: “I don’t suppose that God would let us suffer for such a trifle.” To make the position of the Anglican clergy clear to our readers, we must begin by citing from “The Form and Manner of making Priests” the solemn words which a Protestant bishop, “laying his hands upon the head of every one that receiveth the order of priesthood,” pronounces over him:
“Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God, and of his holy sacraments: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
By the thirty-sixth canon of the Church of England, published and confirmed in 1865, it is required that the following Declaration and subscription should be made by such as are to be ordained ministers:
“I, A. B., do solemnly make the following declaration: I assent to the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, and to the Book of Common Prayer, and of Ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; I believe the doctrine of the United Church of England and Ireland, as therein set forth, to be agreeable to the word of God; and in public prayer and administration of the sacraments, I will use the form in the said book prescribed, and none other, except so far as shall be ordered by lawful authority.”
An Anglican clergyman, again, pledges himself at his ordination to minister the doctrine and sacraments and the discipline of Christ as our Lord hath commanded, and as this church and realm hath received the same. The subject of confession is mentioned three times in the Book of Common Prayer, which, as our readers may perhaps be aware, is the only authorized formulary of devotion possessed by the Church of England. There is no separate ritual for the clergy; the Common Prayer is the one comprehensive whole and is in the hands of everybody.
In the exhortation which is appointed to be read on the Sunday immediately preceding the celebration of the Holy Communion, and which, by the way, a great many regular church-goers seldom or never have heard read, the concluding paragraph runs as follows:
“And because it is requisite that no man should come to the holy communion, but with a full trust in God’s mercy, and with a quiet conscience; therefore if there be any of you, who by this means, (i.e., by self-examination and private repentance,) cannot quiet his own conscience herein but requireth further comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned minister of God’s word, and open his grief; that by the ministry of God’s holy word he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of his conscience and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness.”
The next occasion on which we find confession in the pages of the Prayer-book is the Visitation of the Sick. A rubric lays down the “priest’s” duty in these words:
“Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort: Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to his church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences; and, by his authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
Lastly, in the twenty-fifth of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, which are subscribed by all the clergy, we read:
“There are two sacraments, ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel—that is to say, baptism and the Supper of the Lord. Those five commonly called sacraments—that is to say, confirmation, penance, orders, matrimony, and extreme unction—are not to be counted for sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures; but yet have not like nature of sacraments with baptism and the Lord’s Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.”
As the Church of England has but one authorized book of devotion, she has but one book of instruction; her Homilies are declared, in the thirty-fifth of the Thirty-nine Articles, “to contain a godly and wholesome doctrine and necessary for these times,” and it is directed that they should “be read in churches by the minister diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people.”
The Homilies are not read in churches; in fact we believe it would be safe to assert that they are hardly ever read anywhere, and we might almost suppose them to be obsolete, were it not that every candidate for orders signs the statement that they are “necessary for these times.” The second part of the Homily on Repentance says:
“And where they (the Roman teachers) do allege this saying of our Saviour Jesus Christ unto the leper, to prove auricular confession to stand on God’s word, ‘Go thy way, and show thyself unto the priest,’ do they not see that the leper was cleansed from his leprosy, before he was by Christ sent unto the priest for to show himself unto him? By the same reason we must be cleansed from our spiritual leprosy—I mean our sins must be forgiven us—before that we come to confession. What need we, then, to tell forth our sins into the ear of the priest, sith that they may be already taken away? Therefore holy Ambrose, in his second sermon upon the 119th Psalm, doth say full well: Go show thyself unto the priest. Who is the true priest, but he which is the priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech? Whereby this holy Father doth understand that, both the priesthood and the law being changed, we ought to acknowledge none other priest for deliverance from our sins but our Saviour Jesus Christ, who, being our sovereign bishop, doth with the sacrifice of his body and blood, offered once for ever upon the altar of the cross, most effectually cleanse the spiritual leprosy and wash away the sins of all those that with true confession of the same do flee unto him. It is most evident and plain, that this auricular confession hath not the warrant of God’s word, else it had not been lawful for Nectarius, Bishop of Constantinople, upon a just occasion to have put it down.
“Let us with fear and trembling, and with a true contrite heart, use that kind of confession which God doth command in his Word, and then doubtless, as he is faithful and righteous, he will forgive us our sins and make us clean from all wickedness. I do not say but that, if any do find themselves troubled in conscience, they may repair to their learned curate or pastor, or to some other godly learned man, and show the trouble and doubt of their conscience to them, that they may receive at their hand the comfortable salve of God’s word; but it is against the true Christian liberty, that any man should be bound to the numbering of his sins, as it hath been used heretofore in the time of blindness and ignorance.”
Such are the scanty devotional and dogmatical utterances of the Church of England on the subject of confession. The only other instruction given to her clergy in regard to their duties as confessors is to be found in the one hundred and thirteenth canon, which treats of the presentment of notorious offenders to the ordinaries. Parsons and vicars, or in their absence their curates, may themselves present to their ordinaries
“All such crimes as they have in charge or otherwise, as by them (being the persons that should have the chief care for the suppressing of sin and impiety in their parishes) shall be thought to require due reformation. Provided always, that if any man confess his secret and hidden sins to the minister, for the unburdening of his conscience, and to receive spiritual consolation and ease of mind from him; we do not any way bind the said minister by this our Constitution, but do straitly charge and admonish him, that he do not at any time reveal and make known to any person whatsoever any crime or offence so committed to his trust and secrecy (except they be such crimes as, by the laws of this realm, his own life may be called into question for concealing the same), under pain of irregularity.”
As far as we can gather, the belief of the Church of England on the subject of confession may be summed up in the following propositions:
1. Penance is not a sacrament, but
2. Her ministers have the power of forgiving sins.
3. This power is exercised after confession made by the penitent.
4. But such confession is not to be made, save in case of serious illness or of great disquiet of mind.
5. The absolution of the priest is not the ordinary means by which sins are forgiven.
6. The penitent is to be the judge in his own case. If he feels very much in want of confession, he may have it; if not, he is to do without it. His own feeling is the only rule in the matter.
We think our readers will admit that the above statements are in no way an unfair summary of the teaching of the Church of England as represented by her formularies. Certainly they give no warrant for the assertion now made by the High-Church party that confession is the ordinary remedy for post-baptismal sin, or to the practice of frequent and regular confession which is now so widely advocated and followed. Confession is evidently, according to the teaching of Anglicanism, what it has been well called by an Anglican, a “luxury.” How, it may be asked, can men who are pledged to teach and maintain the doctrines of the Church of England act in direct opposition to the instructions which she has given them? We do not maintain that those instructions have the appearance of being all the expression of the same convictions. There is an apparent discrepancy existing amongst them; they are not consistent with each other. But the one broad fact is plain as daylight: they do not countenance the present action of extreme Anglicans. Lookers-on constantly ask, Are these men sincere? Why do they not “go over to Rome”? Are they not traitors in the Anglican camp? To these questions we can only reply: We judge not; each individual must stand or fall to his own master; but we cannot hesitate in saying that ritualism as a system is dishonest, and that the position occupied by its adherents is the most untenable that any man can undertake to defend.
If we seek for the reason why men whom we are ready to believe upright and honorable act in a manner which is apparently absolutely incompatible with their solemn engagements, it may perhaps be discovered by a consideration of one of the chief characteristics of the Church of England.
St. Paul speaks of the church of Christ as “the pillar and ground of the truth.” The Church of England is essentially a compromise. Some of her dignitaries even look on this as her glory: the High-Churchman can find his belief in the Real Presence supported by her catechism, but the Low-Churchman has the black rubric, which is equally strong in favor of his opinion; her prayers are for the most part preserved from the days of Catholic piety, and her Articles bear the impress of foreign heresy; she prays against “false doctrine, heresy, and schism,” and devotes one of her Articles to the assertion that all churches have erred. Her clergy are required to accept anomalies and inconsistencies; and we cannot but do them the justice to say that they accept them with great equanimity. Every one has something to get over: the High-Churchman could wish some things altered, and the Low-Churchman would be glad to see others omitted; the result seems to be that every one subscribes with a kind of laxity which, if it does not imply a want of honesty, at least betrays an absence of accuracy and of definite conviction. Subscription to articles and formularies seems to sit very lightly on the Anglican conscience; it is a mere means to an end.
But the Anglican clergyman not only pledges himself to the doctrines of the Prayer-book and Articles; he also promises obedience to his bishop. Here is something apparently definite. In the voice of a living bishop there can hardly be the same scope for diversity as the pages of the Prayer-book afford. Generally speaking, the Anglican bishops condemn the practice of confession; if they were really rulers in their communion there can be no doubt that the High-Church party would long since have been extinct. As a fact, the Anglican does not obey his bishop; at this very moment one of the leading High-Church clergy of London has definitely and deliberately refused to obey his bishop by removing from his church a crucifix and a picture of Our Lady, which he believes tend to promote devotion among his flock.
For the reasons which lead conscientious men to disobey the ordinary whose godly admonitions they have engaged with a glad mind and will to follow, and to whose godly judgments they have promised with God’s help to submit, we must again look to the peculiar theories of the Church of England. It is hardly necessary to say that the Church of England does not in any way or under any circumstances claim infallibility; nay, more, she goes out of her way to deny its very existence. One of her Articles asserts that the churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome have erred in matters of faith, and another follows up this assertion by the kindred statement that general councils may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining to God. She indeed daily professes her belief in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, but she does not inform her children where and how the voice of that church is to be heard. She constantly asserts the authority of Holy Scripture, but she recognizes no authority competent to interpret Scripture in a decisive manner. Under the influence of such teaching it is not surprising that there should exist in the Church of England two theories regarding authority in matters of faith. One is that there is no authority save Holy Scripture. Everything must be proved by Scripture; and as there is no one necessarily better entitled than another to explain Scripture, this virtually amounts to a recognition of the right and duty of private judgment to its fullest extent. The other theory is based on belief in the One Catholic Church. It admits that our Lord appointed his church to teach men all truth; it believes that the voice of the church in primitive times was the voice of God; it doubts not that at a former period the church was guided by the Spirit of God, but it holds that supernatural guidance to be in abeyance; it recognizes no living voice of the church; it looks forward with a vague hope to the reunion of Catholics, Greeks, and Anglicans, and the possibility in such a case of a general council being held, whose decisions would bind all Christendom. In the meantime the church is dumb, if not dead, and all that can be done is to turn with a reverent mind to the study of antiquity, to an examination of what has been handed down from the days of pure and undoubted faith. This last is the theory of the High-Church party in general. To their mind a bishop is a necessity; he is required for the conferring of orders and for giving confirmation; he is not the centre of sacrificial power in his diocese, nor the source of jurisdiction; he is not a teacher in any other sense beyond that in which they are themselves teachers; their obedience to him is not an obedience to one whom our Lord has set over his flock with a special charge to feed his sheep as well as his lambs; it is an obedience rendered to one who is officially a superior—an obedience which has no direct reference to God, and which is constantly evaded (it may be in perfect good faith) on the principle that “we ought to obey God rather than man.”
Another cause which has probably much to do with the apparent inconsistencies of the High-Church Anglican clergy is the fact that they are in a great many cases absorbed and overwhelmed by an amount of active work which leaves little leisure for the serious examination of their position. It is admitted on all sides that the last century was a period of spiritual apathy and deadness as far as the Church of England was concerned. The movement of the past forty years has not been merely in the direction of Catholic doctrine, but it has also led to a renewal of zeal, to energy and self-sacrifice, which we cannot but appreciate. The poor, the young, the ignorant, and the fallen are cared for with a charity whose root is, we trust, to be found in the increased knowledge of the life and of the love of our Lord. But even works of mercy have their snares; a man who is toiling night and day among the outcast and the poor of great cities, who sees the results of his labor in the reformed life of many a wanderer, and who also sees pressing on him needs which he can never fully satisfy, must be sorely tempted to turn a deaf ear to all such questionings as would stay his course. He hears people’s confessions, and he sees them turn to God and lead better lives; naturally he concludes that all is right, and he resents any interference with a practice which is apparently so salutary.
We have now given a short and, we hope, a fair idea of confession as it exists at present in the Anglican communion. We must add, for the information of those who have not had the opportunity of watching the progress of events in England, that the practice of confession was unknown, or almost unknown, in the Anglican communion until about five-and-thirty years ago. It was one of the first fruits of that turning back to the old Catholic paths which by God’s blessing has led so many souls into the Church. The movement still goes on; it has passed through different phases, and year by year it brings one after another to the very threshold of their true home; they enter in and are at rest, and find the reality of all that they had hitherto sought and longed for.
MICHAEL THE SOMBRE.[[161]]
AN EPISODE IN THE POLISH INSURRECTION, 1863–1864.
It is a trite remark that every age has produced its heroes, its saints, and its martyrs; but there are few amongst us who have sufficient discernment to recognize them when they cross our path in life. “Should we know a saint if we met him?” asks Father Faber. And so if we were to meet the heroine of this tale, quietly working in her own village or busy with the ouvroir for young girls she has just established in her province in France, we should be far indeed from guessing that we saw with our own eyes a woman who had equalled, if not surpassed, Joan of Arc in heroism, devotion, and courage, and who had done deeds which would be incredible, if not attested by a multitude of living witnesses.
She was born in one of the departments of France unhappily annexed during the war of 1870–71. Having lost her mother in infancy, she was brought up by her father, an old officer under Louis XVIII. and Charles X., who educated her entirely as a boy. At twelve years of age she was a complete mistress
of the art of fencing, riding, shooting, and other manly accomplishments. Then, fearing lest she should be altogether unfitted for the society of those of her own sex, her father suddenly determined to send her to a convent, where her extraordinary cleverness soon enabled her to conquer all difficulties, and she made the most rapid progress in every branch of study. A vein of earnest Catholic piety ran through her whole character, coupled with an equally earnest devotion to her country and her king.
We do not know what family circumstances induced her father to part for a time from a child on whose education he had lavished such thought and care. But at eighteen we find her established in Poland as an inmate of one of its noblest families. After two years thus spent, during which she acquired a thorough knowledge of the Polish and German languages, she returned to France and had the melancholy consolation of nursing and assisting her father in his last moments; after which she was entreated to return to the Countess L—— in Poland, and become the adopted child of the house, to which she consented. So that, when the insurrection in that country broke out in 1863, “Mika,” as she was affectionately called by the whole family, rejoiced in the opportunity it afforded her of repaying the debt of gratitude she owed to those who had been as her second parents, by a devotion which was ready to sacrifice life itself in their service.
It is an episode in this war which we are about to give to our readers, and which we think will be doubly interesting at the present moment, when all eyes are fixed on the terrible struggle going on in the East. The story is told in the heroine’s own words.
It was on the 22d January, 1863, that the Poles, in little bands of ten or twenty men, met by a cross raised in honor of Kosciusko in the palatinate of Radom, and made a vow to deliver Poland from the Muscovite yoke or perish in the attempt. Let those who blame them remember the intolerable persecution which they had patiently endured for years—a persecution which deprived them of their faith, their language, their rights as citizens, and all that men hold most dear.
On the 24th they marched on Miechow, having no other arms than scythes and sticks and old-fashioned fowling-pieces. Led by inexperienced chiefs, who, in their ardor, fondly imagined that patriotism and a holy cause would carry the day against military tactics, they were foolish enough to attack, in broad daylight, a strong body of Russians, well armed and superior to them in numbers, who occupied an almost impregnable position on the heights above the town. The result may be easily imagined. The Poles were repulsed with heavy loss, and the Russians, who delight in celebrating their triumphs by a bonfire, burnt down the town and massacred all the Poles who came within their reach.
Ten of the Polish wounded were secretly brought to the castle, where we had established a subterranean ambulance. It was my business to dress the wounds of these poor fellows, assisted by a holy nun, the Mother Alexandra, who played too important a part in my future history not to be mentioned here. The Count L—— did not approve of the insurrection and considered it hopeless from the first; but he would not abandon his brave peasants. Towards the 30th of this month our couriers gave us warning that the Russians were aware of the wounded men being under our care, and that they were marching on the castle for the purpose of burning it down. The count refused to fly, saying that his place was amongst his own people at Syez, of whom he had always been both the father and protector. But he called me into his counsels, and implored me to carry off his wife and children and his sister-in-law (who lived with us) to Mislowitz, a little manufacturing town on the frontier of Silesia and Poland. After all it was a false alarm; and after a fortnight’s exile, which anxiety and fear had doubled, a letter from the count recalled us. We had nearly reached the end of our journey when we were attacked by a mob of Russian fanatics, who endeavored to seize the carriage. I was on horseback at the head of the little cavalcade, and I managed by means of my revolver to keep these miscreants at bay. The coachman profited by this moment’s respite to lash his horses into a gallop, by which means we escaped the ambush and reached the castle in safety.
But our tranquillity was not destined to be of long duration. About a fortnight later eight insurgents of the legion called of “Despair” sought refuge in our house. We concealed them as well as we could; but in the middle of the night notice was sent us that the Russians were on their track and had discovered their hiding-place. We hastened to send them off to a part of the forest where a cavern had been prepared to receive any such fugitives. They reached it in safety, but unhappily were betrayed by a peasant to whom the secret had been confided. The exasperated Russians again threatened the castle; and again the count insisted on our flight. On our way an alarm was given of some sort which so terrified the coachman that he threw down his whip and fled for his life, leaving us and the carriage at the mercy of the four horses, which were strong beasts and very fresh. Luckily, they stood still for a moment, and, as I was used to driving, I reassured the countess and jumped on the box. Hardly, however, had I taken the reins than the wheels of the carriage became wedged in the sand. I jumped off the box, and, seizing one of the leaders by the bridle, urged him forward with all my might. The animal made so violent an effort that he threw me down and dragged me some twenty paces; but as I held on for dear life, he ended by stopping, and, the carriage being thus released, we went on as fast as we could, continually in dread of pursuit, till we reached the house of Countess N——, who received us with the warmest kindness and hospitality. Our stay here, however, was not of long duration, for my poor friend, the Countess L——, was in an agony to return to her husband, who had been left alone in the castle; and so, at the risk of being again captured, we returned to Syez. Fortunately, this time we had no alarms on the road, and the joy of the family at their safe reunion was as great as their thankfulness.
But our happiness was short-lived. Although the count did not take any part in the insurrection, it was well known that his sympathies were with his people, and this was sufficient to make him a marked man with the Russian authorities. At last we heard from undeniable authority that his arrest had been determined upon, and that he had been already condemned to Siberia. Then followed a heartrending scene—his wife and children (whose whole future would have been wrecked had his deportation been carried into effect) imploring him to take refuge in Germany, where he had a small property, and to remain there till the storm was past; while he clung tenaciously to his old home and to his duties as a proprietor during the struggle. Finally, he yielded to our tears and entreaties; but before leaving he sent for me and solemnly commended his wife and children to my care. I swore to defend them or to die in the attempt. It was agreed that we were to watch our opportunity, and, if possible, obtain an escort so as to cross the frontier and rejoin the count as soon as we could. Three days only after his departure we received intelligence that the Russians were close to our gates and were going to insist on a domiciliary visit. I flew to the count’s private room and commenced making an auto-da-fé of every compromising letter or paper I could find and of all suspected newspapers. Whilst I was fanning the flames the count’s sister came in, and, seeing what I was about, exclaimed with horror:
“O Mika! for God’s sake stop. You don’t know what you are doing. All Arthur’s gunpowder is hidden and stowed away in that chimney!”
I was almost paralyzed with fear, but I said:
“Fly for your life and get the countess and the children out of the house.” And then, with a fervent ejaculatory prayer to God, I tore the burning papers out of the grate before the flames had had time to ignite the gunpowder, which, luckily for me, had been carefully done up in packets and placed in a metal box. I managed to drag the papers into another fireplace, and had time to see that they were all burnt, and to conceal the tinder, before the Cossacks surrounded the house and summoned us to open the doors. Their officers made the most minute examination of everything, but found nothing that they could lay their hands on, and went away disgusted, while I escaped with a few trifling burns on my hands and arms.
A few days after this scene Mme. de I—— and I were sitting talking in the room where we generally met and waited before dinner, when the countess came in with an open letter in her hand and looking more sad and pale than usual. “What has happened?” we both exclaimed; and I added, smiling: “Are we condemned to the knout? Or do the Russians reserve us the honor of a hempen collar?” But my dismal pleasantry produced no response, and the poor lady silently came and sat down by me, taking my hand. After a pause she said:
“Mika, I have been unwittingly guilty of a great indiscretion. You know how miserably anxious I am for news of Arthur’s safety. A servant whom I had sent to the post, in hopes of finding a letter from him, brought me back this one; and, full of my cruel anxiety, I tore it open without looking at the address, being fully convinced it came from him.”
“Well?” I inquired, as she hesitated to go on.
“Well, this letter was a terrible disappointment. It wasn’t from Arthur at all, or for me, but for you, and from your own family, who, dreading the consequences of this sad insurrection, insist on your immediate return to France.”
“Is that all?” I asked, smiling.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I only read enough to find out my mistake, and I was so absorbed by my own anxiety that I hardly took in the meaning of the words at first.”
“But that is not what I ask,” I rejoined. “I want to know what there was in that letter which makes you look so sad.”
The countess’ eyes filled with tears. “I own, Mika, that the thought of losing you breaks my heart. You know, at the first moment of alarm, Miss B—— and Fräulein F—— left the children and returned to their homes. I fancied you would follow their example; but seeing you so brave and so ready to share in all our dangers, I had been completely reassured, until God allowed this letter to fall into my hands.”
“And what have you concluded from that letter?” I asked rather coldly.
“I have made up my mind, Mika, that it would be the height of selfishness on my part to strive to induce you to stay on with us in a country where desolation and terror reign supreme; where we are not safe from one moment to the other; where neither human nor divine laws are respected, and where even ladies are not spared the lash or the stake. Yesterday, as you well know, Countess P——, for having worn mourning for her brother, who had been massacred by the Russians, was flogged publicly in the market-place and hanged afterwards. Fly, then, my dearest Mika, while there is yet time. Already you have done far more than your duty. You have risked your life over and over again for us. I cannot, I must not, exact any further sacrifice. Leave us, Mika, leave us to our sad fate, and may God be with you!”
Here the poor wife and mother hid her face in her hands, and I saw great tears coursing down her cheeks through her clasped fingers. Mme. de I—— and the children, who had come in during the interval and had heard their mother’s words, clustered round me and cried too. When I could command my own voice I turned towards the countess and said: “Dearest madam! seven years have now elapsed since I first became an inmate of your home. When I arrived here, Poland, if not happy, was at least at peace, and I reckoned you among the limited number of the truly happy ones on this earth. You received me (I, whom a deep sorrow had driven from my native land) as a friend, as a child, as a sister; and this affection and consideration for me have never failed for a single moment. When the insurrection broke out your English governess left you; and I think she was right. A sacred duty was laid upon her—that of supporting her old mother, who lived entirely on her earnings. As to Fräulein F——, that is quite another matter. I expected she would go away on the very first alarm. With Prussians devotedness does not exist. I believe they have tomatoes in place of hearts! As for me, I have only one brother in the world, and he is good enough to think of me only when his purse is empty. I have, therefore, not the same excuse as Miss B——, still less that of Fräulein F——; for if I chose to live independently, the little fortune left me by my father would be enough for my wants. If I returned to Poland after his death it was to find the same disinterested love and affection I had left there. I have found more than a duty to fulfil: I have a debt of gratitude to pay; and I thank God for the portion he has assigned to me.”
“But your family?” again urged the countess, whose face began to brighten.
“Since my father and sister died,” I replied, “I do not consider I have any family claims. Now, listen to me, contessina,” I continued, clasping her two hands in mine. “God has put into my heart an inexhaustible treasure of devotedness and tenderness. He has given me likewise unusual courage and strength; and now I thank him that he has also given me the occasion to employ these, his gifts, in your service. Your husband is in exile; you are threatened in your home, in your children, in your property, and by everything around you; and you could imagine for a moment that, under such circumstances, I should go and abandon you! Thank God! that there never has been a stain yet on our family name, and my father, an old soldier, impressed upon me, from a child, the strongest feelings of duty and honor. I swear, therefore, in the sight of God, that as long as this war lasts your country shall be my country, your children shall also be mine, and as long as my heart beats not a hair of your dear head shall be touched! When happier days arise for Poland, and peace shall be restored, then, but not till then, I shall remember that France is my country, and that I have left well-beloved tombs on her soil.”
The countess threw her arms round me in a close embrace and cried on my shoulder. Mme. de I—— looked at me with the sweetest smile. “Thanks, Mika,” she murmured in a broken voice. “I never believed for a moment that you would leave us. You!”
The children seized hold of my hands and covered them with kisses. It was a moment of the purest happiness I had known on earth.
In proportion to the progress and extent of the insurrection the cruelty of the Russians increased. Every day brought new vexations or fresh tortures. We lived in constant fear, and our position became really insupportable. Almost every noble family in the neighborhood had fled and left the country, and we should long before have followed their example had it not been for the great distance we were from the railroad. The count had arrived safely at Dresden, whence he wrote imploring his wife to join him. But we were at least forty versts from the nearest station, and to go there without an escort would have exposed us inevitably to fall into the hands of the Russians, who had lately ranked emigration in the category of crimes of high treason. And how was it possible to form an escort? The peasants, in the pay of the Raskolnicks (or old believers), would refuse to march, and the servants would, in all probability, have betrayed us. In vain I racked my brains to find some way out of this difficulty, and every day the danger became more imminent. Providence at last had pity upon us, and disposed events in a way which became eventually the salvation of those so dear to me.
Every evening, when the rest of the family were gone to bed, I went alone into the library to answer letters, verify the steward’s registers, and look after the accounts. In the absence of the count there was no one to see after these necessary duties but myself, and I looked upon them as my right. One night, when this work had kept me up later than usual, I heard some one knocking at the door. It was past midnight. I rose to open it, very much surprised at any one coming to me at that hour, and all the more as no servant would venture into that part of the house at night, as it was reported to be haunted. What was my astonishment at finding the countess herself outside the door in a pitiable state of agitation.
“O Mika!” she exclaimed, almost falling into my arms as I led her to a seat, “I am in the most horrible perplexity and anxiety. I have just received an entreaty to send a despatch instantly to General B——, my husband’s oldest and dearest friend. He is encamped with his squadron at Gory, on the property of Count Dembinski; and he does not know that eight hundred Russians are in the immediate neighborhood and have laid an ambush to surprise him. This despatch is to warn him of it; for he has only three hundred men with him, who will all be cut to pieces, if he should not be warned in time. Who knows? perhaps already it may be too late. But you, Mika, who are always so clear-headed—can you suggest anything? Can you advise me what to do?”
“But the man who brought this despatch,” I exclaimed—“where is he? Why cannot he go on instantly to Gory?”
“Alas! it is impossible,” replied the countess. “He has just galloped seven leagues without stopping to take breath, and his horse dropped down dead at the entrance of the village. The poor fellow himself is half dead with fatigue and exhaustion.”
I thought for a minute or two, and then said:
“Leave the despatch with me. I will go and rouse the steward, and between us we will find some one who will undertake this perilous mission.”
“Do you really think so, Mika?”
“Yes, I am sure of it,” I replied.
“Oh! what a weight you have lifted off my heart,” said the countess joyfully. “Go at once, dearest child. I will wait for you, and not go to bed till I have heard the result of your consultation.”
When the countess had gone back to her own room a terrible struggle arose in my heart. I had studied the peasants and servants well enough to know that in such a moment of extreme danger not one of them was to be trusted. The steward himself did not inspire me with much confidence; and, besides, he was the father of a family. On the other hand, the lives of three hundred men hung upon the delivery of this message. I knelt down and prayed with my whole heart for guidance. When I rose my resolution was taken. The hour was come for me to pay my debt of gratitude towards this Poland which had become so dear to me, and perhaps in this way alone could I save the family to whom I had devoted my life. I wrote a few lines to the countess, and then went and woke my own maid.
“Marynia,” I said, “in half an hour, but not before, you must take this note to the countess, who is sitting up for me. And if to-morrow, when you get up, I am not come back, you must take another letter to her, which you will find on my chest of drawers.”
“But, Holy Virgin of Czenstochowa!” exclaimed the poor girl, “you are not going out at this time of night?”
“Yes; I am starting this very instant.”
“But then I will wake the whole house. I won’t have you go alone at this hour.”
“No, you will stay quiet,” I said to her in a tone which admitted of no reply, “and in half an hour you will do what I have told you.”
So saying, I left Marynia to her lamentations and went out. The first thing I had to do was to put on a man’s dress—I had received permission to do this from Rome in case of an emergency like the present—and then, taking my pistols, which were always ready, I went to the stable and picked out the best horse I could find, which I saddled myself, blessing again the education my father had given me, that made me independent of any assistance.
The road which I took passed in front of the castle. There was a light in the countess’ room where she was waiting for me. Good, gentle, loving woman with a child’s heart! Twice I saw her shadow pass and repass across the curtain, and twice my heart failed me. This feeling only lasted a minute; but this minute might have been a century for the agony concentrated in it. There to the left was the old castle which held those two young women so dear to me, and those children whose birth I had witnessed and who loved me so tenderly. To the right stretched the road that was to lead me—to Siberia, perhaps, or to a sudden and violent death. If at this thought my heart failed me, and if for a moment I hesitated, God will, I hope, have forgiven it. At twenty-four years of age one does not fling away life without one look back. I stopped my horse instinctively, fully realizing the almost foolhardiness of my attempt. But then my thoughts reverted to those three hundred brave fellows whose lives I held, as it were, in my hand, and, with a sigh which was more like a sob, I dug my spurs into my beautiful “Kirdjcali,” who bounded into the air with surprise and pain, and commenced galloping at a furious pace along the road—a pace I did not even try to check, for it seemed to relieve my bursting heart. Now and then I had to lie down on his mane to take breath. But by degrees the cold and calm silence of the night, and the satisfaction of feeling that I was accomplishing a great and sacred duty, restored my peace of mind. I checked the pace of my horse, and after about three-quarters of an hour came to a thick fir-wood, through which I was quietly ambling when Kirdjcali stopped suddenly, and I instantly perceived the cause. On the edge of the wood, about five hundred paces off, a great fire was crackling, round which were grouped a number of men and horses. It was either a Russian or a Polish patrol; but in either case my situation was a critical one. I had no “safe-conduct” papers, and no password save for General B——. I should be taken for a spy and hanged without form or ceremony. What was to be done? Go back? That would be the height of weakness. Take another road? There was no other. Yet to go on was undoubtedly to run the risk of falling directly into their hands. Again I lifted up my whole heart in prayer; after all I had God and the right on my side, and so I decided to venture it, feeling besides that my good Kirdjcali had the legs of a race-horse and could beat almost any other animal, if it came to a chase. The moon, which till then had guided my path, was suddenly hidden behind a thick cloud that concealed me from the enemy. I made my horse walk, and, lying flat on his neck, I went on to within fifty paces of the Cossacks (for they were Russian Cossacks) without their dreaming of my vicinity; for the soft sand deadened the sound of my horse’s feet. All of a sudden Kirdjcali threw up his head and sniffed the wind with ever-widening nostrils. And then what I most dreaded came to pass. He recognized some companion of the steppes and gave a loud neigh, which was answered instantly by a hurrah from the children of the Don, who were on foot in a moment. Making the sign of the cross, I dug my spurs once more into my poor Kirdjcali’s flanks, and passed like a flash of lightning before the astonished Cossacks. “Stoj!” (stop) they cried with one voice. My only answer to this summons was to urge on my steed to still greater speed. Then they had recourse to a more active means of arresting my course. Two flashes lit up the darkness of the night, and one ball whistled past my ear, grazed my head, and cut off a lock of my hair close to the temple; the other passed through a branch of a tree some paces before me. But Kirdjcali flew like the wind, and I was soon out of the reach of pursuit. As soon as I dared I stopped him to let him breathe; five minutes more of this furious pace, and the poor beast would have dropped down dead.
By the time I had reached General B——’s column it was three o’clock in the morning.
“Who goes there?” cried the sentinel.
“Military orders,” I replied.
“The password?”
“Polska è Volnoszez” (Poland and liberty). He let me pass, and I was received by M. D——, one of the general’s aides-de-camp. I gave him the despatch, which he hastened to take to his chief. Hardly had he left me, and before I had time to rejoice at having accomplished my mission, when a discharge of musketry, accompanied by the savage Russian war-cry, was heard to the left. In spite of the fearful speed of my ride, I had arrived too late! The enemy had almost surrounded the little camp. A few minutes sufficed for the general to throw himself into the saddle and place himself at the head of his column.
“First squadron, forward!” he cried in a stentorian voice.
Not a man stirred.
“Second squadron, forward!” The same result. The poor fellows, worn out with fatigue, exhausted from hunger, and totally unprepared for this attack, remained, as it were, paralyzed. To me this first moment was terrible; and those who boast of never having been afraid the first time they take part in a battle either deceive themselves or they lie. It took me a few minutes to master my emotion; but Kirdjcali too made a diversion by furious bounds and neighing, which proved that for him also this was the first baptism of fire.
Seeing the demoralization of his soldiers, the brave general made a desperate charge in the very midst of the enemy’s ranks, followed by a handful of dragoons under the orders of Count K——. I followed his movements with my eye in a mechanical sort of way, when all of a sudden I saw the unhappy general staggering rather than falling from his horse, while an infernal hurrah of triumph burst from the Russians. Then all my fears vanished. I thought of my father, and all that was French in my blood was roused. I seized a sword that lay close by, and turning towards the troops, who were still hesitating and wavering, I cried out: “Cowards, if you have allowed your chief to be murdered, at least do not let his dead body bear witness of your shame by leaving it in the hands of your enemies. Come on and rescue it, and wash out in your blood the stain you have set on Polish honor!”
Saying those words, and recommending my soul to God in one fervent aspiration, I threw myself impetuously into the strife, followed by all the soldiers, whom my words had roused from their stupor. The whistling of balls, the smell of powder, the cries of the dying and the dead, and more than all the savage howlings of the Russians, threw me into a sort of mad rage and furious excitement which made me insensible to anything but a longing for vengeance. Every time I rose in my stirrups to wield my sword a man bit the dust. I felt a sort of superhuman strength at that moment, and never ceased to strike till I saw the Poles driving the defeated Russians completely out of the camp, from whence they fled in the utmost disorder. I woke then as from a horrible nightmare, and felt an inexpressible disgust and horror at the sight of the dead and dying bodies of horses and men all round me weltering in their blood. At that moment an orderly officer galloped up to me.
“Sir,” he exclaimed, “the general desires you to come to him immediately.”
“Your general!” I exclaimed joyfully. “Why, I saw him fall with my own eyes. He is not dead, then?”
“Not yet; but his wounds are mortal, and I fear there is no hope of saving him.”
I followed the officer hastily to a tent where the poor general was lying on a camp-bed. His face was literally hacked with sabrecuts; one ball had gone through his chest, and the surgeon, who was bending over him, was trying in vain to stanch the blood which was escaping in a black stream from this gaping wound. I took off my cap and bowed low before the dying hero.
“Sir,” he said in so weak a voice that I had to bend down my ear close to him to be able to hear, “I do not know you, and I do not remember ever to have seen you before; but whoever you may be, may God bless you for what you have done this day! You have saved my troops from dishonor, and me from having my last moments embittered by the cruelest sorrow I could ever have experienced.”
At this moment a rush of blood from his mouth threatened to stifle the dying man. When he had a little recovered he spoke again:
“Whence do you come, and what is your name?”
“I am French, and my name is Michael,” I replied, blushing deeply. Here the general drew off a ring from his finger. It was a signet-ring used throughout the war as a password of command.
“Take this,” he said, “and swear to me not to leave my troops till the Central Committee have sent another officer to take my place. This is the last request of a dying man, and I feel sure that you will not refuse it to me.”
I hesitated an instant. How reveal my secret and explain my anomalous position at such a moment? The general, striving to raise his voice, reiterated his dying entreaty:
“Swear not to leave them!”
I felt I could not resist any longer.
“I swear it, general, but on one condition: that your soldiers consent to serve as escort to Countess L—— from her château to the frontier, as she wishes to escape with her children and rejoin her husband, who is in exile.”
“What! Countess L——, Arthur’s wife?”
“The same, general,” I replied; “and it was to implore your protection for her in her hour of need, as well as to convey to you the information she had received of the Russian ambuscade, that determined me to accept this dangerous mission.”
“Thanks, my child—thanks for her and thanks for me. Gentlemen,” he added, turning to his officers, who, silent and sad, were standing at the other end of the tent, “you will obey this young officer until my successor be appointed from headquarters. This is my last order, my last prayer. And as long as he, though a stranger, fights at the head of your column, you will not again forget, I hope, that the cause for which you are fighting is a sacred one, the most holy of all causes, for it is the cause of God and your country.”
The officers hung their heads at this tacit reproach—the only one addressed to them by the hero whom they had allowed to be slain in so cowardly a manner. After another fainting fit the general made me a sign to draw close to him. I knelt down by his side. “If death spares you,” he said, “go and tell my poor mother how I died. Console her, and try and replace me to her; for I am the only thing she has left in the world.”
Here tears filled his eyes, which he turned away to hide his emotion from his officers. The surgeon had just finished dressing his wounds, but he shook his head sadly as he rose. The general perceived the movement and said:
“My poor friend! you have given yourself a great deal of trouble, and all for nothing; but I am just as grateful to you.”
The surgeon wrung his hand, too much moved to speak. Then I took courage and said:
“General, when the doctor of the body can do no more, and science is exhausted, a Christian has recourse to another Physician.”
“You are quite right, my child,” replied the good general gravely; “and I have no time to lose, for I feel my life is ebbing away every moment.”
He made a sign to one of his aides-de-camp, and whispered his instructions to him, which the latter hastened to obey. He returned in a few minutes with a young Capuchin, who was the chaplain of the corps. The officers left the tent, and I was about to do the same when a sudden thought struck me.
“One word more, general. I want three days to make my arrangements and get my kit ready.”
“Take them, my son; but do not be away longer, for when you return I shall be no more here.”
“Not here, perhaps, but in a better world,” I exclaimed. “God bless you, general! I cannot replace you, but I may perhaps be able to show your troops how those should fight and die who have had General B—— for their leader!”
“Thanks, my child, and may God bless you! Adieu!”
I pressed the hand which the dying man held out to me with respectful tenderness; and then, hurrying from the tent to hide my emotion, I obtained a “safe-conduct” passport, and, remounting my horse, stopped at the best inn I could find in the next village, and wrote a few lines to Countess L——, not to tell her of the extraordinary position in which I had been placed or the fearful events of the past night, but to reassure her, and bid her to hold herself in readiness for a speedy departure, as an escort had been promised for her. Thence I rode as fast as I could to the convent of the Bernardines at Kielce, and asked to see Father Benvenuto immediately—that eloquent preacher and holy confessor who had lingered for twenty years in a Siberian dungeon. He was my confessor, and at this moment of all others in my life I needed his advice and guidance. Fortunately for me, he was at home, and I instantly told him all that had happened, and of the almost compulsory promise which had been extorted from me by the brave and dying general. The good old father listened in silence, and then said:
“My child, what you have done is heroic and great; but if you were to return to the camp, and had to bear alone this terrible secret, it would crush you with its weight.”
“But, good God! what can I do?” I exclaimed. “Must I give it up and forfeit my word?”
“No; because God, in permitting these extraordinary events, had evidently his divine purpose for you. You must return and fulfil your vow, but you must not go alone. More than a month ago I asked permission of my superiors to be allowed to carry the consolations of religion to our brave troops in the field. This permission I received yesterday; and so I can at once precede you to the camp, and when you arrive will be your safeguard and protector.”
An enormous weight was taken off my mind by this proposal. I thanked him with my whole heart, and he then insisted on my going to sleep for some hours; for all that I had gone through had nearly exhausted my strength. After a good night’s rest I woke, refreshed in body and relieved in mind, to ride to Breslau, where I completed my military equipment and then returned to the camp.
[TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.]
A FINAL PHILOSOPHY.[[162]]
The war waged by modern thought against supernatural revelation in the name of the so-called “advanced” science is looked upon in a different light by Catholic and by Protestant thinkers. Catholic philosophers and divines look upon it as a noisy but futile effort of modern anti-Christianism to shake and overthrow the mighty rock on which the incarnate God has been pleased to build his indefectible church. They know, of course, that they must be ready to fight, for the church to which they belong is still militant; but, far from apprehending a coming defeat, they feel certain of the victory. God is with them, and, on God’s infallible promise, the church whose cause they serve is sure of her final triumph. Protestant divines, on the contrary, hold no tokens of future victories, and look upon infidel science not as an enemy whom they have to fight, but as an old acquaintance, and a rather capricious one, whom they must try to keep within bounds of decency, and from whom they may borrow occasionally a few newly-forged weapons against the Catholic Church. Some sincere Protestants, considering the tendency of scientific thought to destroy all supernatural faith, saw, indeed, the necessity of resisting its baneful incursions; but their resistance did not, and could not, prove successful. Protestantism is the notorious offspring of rebellion; it is not built on the rock; it has no claims to special divine assistance; it cannot reckon but on human weakness for its support; it is supremely inconsistent; in short, it is no proof against the anti-Christian spirit of the age, and, what is still more discouraging, it is fully conscious of its progressive dissolution.
These considerations and others of a like nature kept continually coming to our mind as we were perusing the pages of the singular work whose title stands at the head of this article. The great object of Dr. Shields is to reconcile religion with science by means of what he calls final philosophy.
In the introduction to the work the author points out the limits and the topics of Christian science; the logical, historical, and practical relations of science and religion; the possibility of their reconciliation, and the importance of their harmony to science, to religion, to philosophy. The work is divided into two parts. The first part is a review of the conduct of philosophical parties as to the relations between science and religion; whilst the second part propounds and explains the philosophical theory of the harmony of science and religion, as conceived by the author. The first part opens with a chapter on the early conflicts and alliances between science and religion, where the author investigates the causes of the present disturbed relations between religion and science, and traces them from the dawn of the Greek philosophy to the Protestant Reformation; describes the conflicts of philosophy and mythology in the pre-Christian age; the wars of pagan philosophy against Christianity in the first centuries of the present era; the alliance of theology with philosophy in the patristic age; the predominance of theology and the subjugation of philosophy in the scholastic age; and, lastly, the revolt of philosophy against theology in the age of the Reformation.
In a second chapter he describes the modern antagonism between science and religion, the conflict in astronomy, in geology, in anthropology, in psychology, in sociology, in theology, in philosophy, and in civilization.
The third chapter, which fills more than two hundred pages, describes the modern indifferentism between science and religion, under the name of “schism” or “rupture” in all the branches of science already enumerated—viz., the schism in astronomy, in geology, in anthropology, etc., to which is added the schism in metaphysics.
In the fourth chapter the author examines the modern eclecticism between science and religion: eclecticism in astronomy, eclecticism in geology, and so on through the other branches of knowledge already mentioned.
The fifth and last chapter describes the modern scepticism between science and religion: scepticism in astronomy, in geology, in anthropology, and in all the aforesaid branches of human knowledge, with a conclusion about “effete religious culture.”
The second part of the work, though much shorter than the first, is divided also into five chapters, of which the first aims to show that philosophy is the natural umpire between religion and science, wherever they are in conflict; the second expounds and refutes the positive philosophy; the third examines and criticises the absolute philosophy; the fourth states that final philosophy, or a theory of perfectible science, may bring about the conciliation of positivism and absolutism; and the last offers a sketch of the ultimate philosophy, the science of sciences, derived scientifically from their own historical and logical development, and whose characteristic features the author thus glowingly describes in the closing sentence of his work:
“The summary want of the age is that last philosophy into which shall have been sifted all other philosophy, which shall be at once catholic and eclectic, which shall be the joint growth and fruit of reason and faith, and which shall shed forth, through every walk of research, the blended light of discovery and revelation; a philosophy which shall be no crude aggregate of decaying systems and doctrines, but their distilled issue and living effect, and which shall not have sprung full-born from any one mind or people, but mature as the common work and reward of all; a philosophy which, proceeding upon the unity of truth, shall establish the harmony of knowledge through the intelligent concurrence of the human with the divine intellect, and the rational subjection of the finite to the Infinite reason; a philosophy, too, which shall be as beneficent as it is sacred, which in the act of healing the schisms of truth shall also heal the sects of the school, of the church, and of the state, and, while regenerating human art, both material and moral, shall at length regenerate human society; a philosophy, in a word, which shall be the means of subjecting the earth to man and man to God, by grouping the sciences, with their fruits and trophies, at the feet of Omniscience, and there converging and displaying all laws and causes in God, the cause of causes and of laws, of whom are all things and in whom all things consist; to whom alone be glory” (pp. 587, 588).
These are noble words. It is certain that our age is in great need of a philosophy at once catholic and eclectic, as the author very wisely remarks. But it is our firm conviction that if Dr. Shields had studied our great Catholic authors, he would know that there is a philosophy and a theology which does already all that he wishes to do by his projected final philosophy, and much better too. We praise his excellent intention; but we do not think that his project has any chance of being carried out in a proper manner. We even doubt if a new system of philosophy can be found so comprehensive, coherent, impartial, and perfect in all its parts as to justify the high expectation entertained by the author.
This new system of philosophy cannot be the product of infidel thought, as is evident. Hence none of the advocates of advanced science can have a part in the projected work, except as opponents whom philosophy shall have to refute, or as claimants upon whose rights philosophy has to pronounce its judicial sentence.
Nor will the new system be the product of Catholic thought; for we Catholics are under the impression that the world has no need of new philosophical systems. As for us, we have a philosophy of admirable depth, great soundness, and incomparable precision, which has ever successfully refuted heresy, silenced infidelity, and harmonized the teachings of revelation and science to our full satisfaction. This philosophy can, indeed, be improved in some particulars, and we continually strive to improve it: but we are determined not to change its principles, which we know to be true, and not to depart from its method, which has no rival in the whole world of speculative science.
Who, then, would frame and develop the new and “final” philosophy? Free-thinkers? Freemasons? Free-religionists? These sectaries would doubtless be glad to dress philosophy in a white apron, with the square in one hand and the triangle in the other; for, if the thing were feasible, they would acquire at once that philosophical importance which they have not, and which they have always been anxious to secure, but in vain, by their united efforts. But then we are sure that they would only develop some humanitarian theory calculated to flatter the sceptical spirit of the age, and to merge all creeds in naturalism and free-religion; and this, of course, would not do, for the “final philosophy” should, according to Dr. Shields’ view, maintain the rights of supernatural revelation no less than of natural reason.
Should, then, the great work be abandoned to the hands, industry, and discernment of the Protestant sects? Men of talent and men of learning are to be found everywhere; but as to philosophers, we doubt whether any can be found among Protestants who will be honest enough to draw the legitimate consequences of their principles, when those consequences would imply a condemnation of their religious system. In other terms, if the work were to be entrusted to Protestant thinkers, one might, without need of preternatural illumination, boldly predict that the whole affair must end in nothing but failure. What can be expected of a Protestant thinker, or of any number of Protestant thinkers, whether divines or philosophers, but an inconsistent and preposterous tampering with truth? Protestantism lacks, and ever will lack, a uniform body of doctrines, whether philosophical or theological; it has no head, no centre, no positive principle, no recognized living authority, no bond of union; it has only a mutilated Bible which it discredits with contradictory interpretations; it is neither a church nor a school, but a Babel confusion of uncertain and discordant views; and it has no better foundation than the shifting sand of private judgment. On what ground, then, can a Protestant apologist force upon modern thought those shreds of revealed truth which he claims to hold on no better authority than his own fallible and changeable reason? And what else can he oppose to the invading spirit of unbelief? Alas! Protestantism is nothing but a house divided within itself, a ship where all hands are captains with no crew at their orders, an army whose generals have no authority to command and whose soldiers have no duty to obey. Such a House cannot but crumble into dust; such a ship must founder; and such an army cannot dream of Christian victories, as it is doomed to waste its strength in perpetual riots, unless it succeeds in putting an end to its intestine troubles by self-destruction. It is evident, then, that “final philosophy” cannot be the product of Protestant thought.
Dr. Shields seems to have seen these difficulties; for he holds that such a philosophy must not spring full-born from any one mind or people, but mature “as the common work and reward of all.” Here, however, the question arises whether this mode of working is calculated to give satisfactory results. When a number of persons contribute to the execution of a great work, it must be taken for granted that, if their effort has to prove a success, they must work on the same plan and tend in the same direction, so that the action of the one may not interfere with the action of the other. If all men were animated by an intense love of truth, and of nothing but truth, if they all could agree to start from the same principles, if they were all modest in their inferences, if they were so humble as to recognize their error when pointed out to them, and if some other similar dispositions were known to exist in all or in most students of science and philosophy, Dr. Shields’ plan might indeed be carried out with universal satisfaction. But men, unfortunately, love other things besides truth and more than truth: they love themselves, their own ideas, and their own prejudices; they ignore or pervert principles; they defend their blunders, and even embellish them for the sake of notoriety, and they are obstinate in their errors. On the other hand, we see that an ignorant public is always ready to applaud any philosophic monstrosity which wears a fashionable dress; and this is one of the greatest obstacles to the triumph of truth, as error grows powerful wherever it is encouraged by popular credulity. Thus error and truth will continue to fight in the future as they did in the past. The history of philosophy is a history of endless discords. The wildest conceptions have ever found supporters, and charlatanism has ever been applauded. The only epoch in which error had lost its hold of philosophy, and was compelled to retire almost entirely from the field of speculation, was when theology and philosophy, bound together in a defensive and offensive alliance under the leadership of the great Thomas Aquinas, so overpowered the Moorish philosophers and confounded their rationalistic followers that it was no longer possible for error to wear a mask. Then it was that the principles of a truly “final” philosophy were laid down, faith and reason reconciled, and false theories discredited. And it is for this reason that the disciples of error, who after the time of the Lutheran revolt have never ceased to attack some religious truth, style that scholastic epoch a dark age. Dark, indeed, for error, which had lost much power of mischief, but bright for philosophy, which had triumphed, and glorious for Christianity, which reigned supreme. If any age must be called dark, it is the one we live in, owing to the numbers of ignorant scribblers, unprincipled men in responsible positions, and illogical scientists who disgrace it.
This state of things is the product of free thought, which has disturbed and nearly destroyed the harmony of all the sciences, and all but extinguished the light of philosophical principles. The idea of employing free thought as an auxiliary for the defence of philosophy is so preposterous on its very face that none but a sectary or a sceptic could have entertained it. It must be pretty evident to all that such a course is like introducing the enemy into the fortress. Introduce Draper and Büchner, Tyndall and Moleschott, Haeckel and Darwin, Huxley and Clifford into the parlor of philosophy, and you will see at once how utterly mistaken is Mr. Shields if he reckons on them for his great work; you will see with what self-reliance, arrogance, and intolerance they condemn everything contrary to their favorite views. Tell them that they must help you to make a “final philosophy” which shall reconcile Scripture and science, Christianity and human reason. What would they think of such a proposal? Would they condescend to answer otherwise than by a sneer? But let us admit that they will favor you with an honest answer. What will they say?
Draper would probably remark that philosophy cannot undertake any such task, as the conflict between religion and science has its origin and reason of being in the nature of things, which is unchangeable.
Büchner would laugh impertinently at the idea of a God, a Scripture, and a religion.
Tyndall would have nothing to do with the scheme; for modern science cannot shake hands with revelation without encouraging a belief in miracles and in the utility of prayer—both which things science has exploded for ever, as conflicting with inviolable laws.
Moleschott would object that revelation and science are irreconcilable, at least, as to psychology; for the study of physiology has made it clear that thought consists in a series of molecular movements, and he is not willing to renounce this new dogma of science or to modify in any manner his view of the question for the sake of a new philosophy.
Haeckel would indignantly protest against the scheme, for there is no philosophy but the Evolution of species and the Descent of man; and he would turn to the great Darwin, his respected friend, for an approving smile.
The great Darwin would then smile approvingly on his loving and faithful disciple, and remark that Logic, for instance, which is believed to be a part of philosophy, and his Descent of man are on such bad terms that it would be but a waste of time to attempt a reconciliation between them, so he would let them alone.
The talkative Huxley would gladly second Mr. Darwin’s resolution by the further remark that a logic or a philosophy which cannot be weighed in the balance of the chemist, or be verified by the microscope, or be illustrated by the series of animal remains preserved in palæontological museums, has no claims to engage the attention of the noble scientists present in the room.
Clifford would scout the idea of a philosophy enslaved by theological prejudices. For free thought cannot come to terms with theology; it must combat it in the name of progress and civilization with all available weapons, and with an ardor proportionate to the grandeur and importance of the cause.
This sketch, which is certainly not over-colored, might be enlarged almost indefinitely by the introduction of other living or dead materialists, pantheists, atheists, theists, idealists, free-religionists, etc., whose discordant views would have to be either accepted, reformed, or refuted, as the case may be. John Stuart Mill and Comte, Bain and Spencer, Kant and Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, Hume and Hobbes, and a host of other minor lights of heterodox thought, would have to be harmonized, if possible, or else condemned and forgotten. But let the dead rest in peace and suppose that none but living thinkers are to be consulted. A dilemma presents itself: either Dr. Shields and his co-operators get the best of fashionable errors, and reject them, or not. If not, then a final philosophy reconciling revelation with science will be out of the question. If yes, then the final philosophy will be denounced by the evicted party as a mass of unscientific and à priori reasoning, a counterfeit of mediæval metaphysics, a tardy and clumsy attempt at resuscitating the discredited notions of a slavish and intolerant past. Newspaper writers, pamphleteers, lecturers, and professors would sneer at your final philosophy, as they now sneer at the scholastic doctrine; and the ever-increasing mass of sciolists, who think with the brains of others, would take up the sneer and propagate it even to the ends of the world. Thus science and religion, so long as human pride and human obstinacy are not curbed by the keenest love of truth, will remain antagonistic, and the present war will continue in spite of the “final philosophy.”
Dr. Shields very explicitly declares that he believes in God, in Christ, and in the Bible. For this we cannot but praise him. Yet his book leads thoughtful readers to suspect that his faith is still undeveloped, uncertain, indefinite, and, as it were, in an embryonic condition. In fact, religion and science, as he conceives, are still at war, and revelation must yet be reconciled with reason by the aid of final philosophy; and this final philosophy is a thing of the future. What will he believe meanwhile? What will all other Protestants believe? Must they adopt a provisional scepticism? This is, indeed, what most of them do; nor can we see that any other course is open to them, if they are waiting for the final philosophy. But, since “without faith it is impossible to please God,” how will they be saved? The question deserves an answer.
There is a science which teaches that man’s soul is not immortal, not spiritual, not even a substance, but only a molecular function, which cannot survive the body. Must Dr. Shields’ disciples remain uncertain about this point of doctrine until the final philosophy is published? And there is a science which maintains with the greatest assurance that what we call “God” is nothing more, in reality, than nature, or the universe and its forces and laws. Must we suspend our judgment on this all-important subject on the plea that final philosophy has not yet shed its brilliant light on the question? And there is a science, too, which contends that the human will, though long believed to be free, is nevertheless determined by exterior and interior causes according to a law of strict physical necessity which admits of no exception. Ought we, then, to consider ourselves irresponsible for our deliberate actions, till the final philosophy shall teach us that we are not mere machines, and that the freedom of the human will has at last been reconciled with the general laws of causation? To our mind, a Christian divine cannot for a moment admit that such a provisional scepticism could be recommended as a healthy intellectual preparation for the attainment of truth. Nor could a Christian divine fancy for a moment that a provident God has hitherto left mankind without sufficient light to understand and solve such capital questions as we have mentioned, and many others whose solution was equally indispensable for the moral and the religious education of the human race. The truth is that mankind has been endowed from the beginning with the knowledge of the principles of moral science, the laws of reasoning, the precepts of religion, and the eternal destiny of the just and the unjust. This knowledge was transmitted from fathers to sons, but was soon obscured by the surging of turbulent passions and a proud desire of independence. The human family soon emancipated itself from the moral law, and learned to stifle the voice of conscience by false excuses and by worldly maxims. Nations fell into polytheism, idolatry, revolting superstitions, and barbarism. Indeed, a few pagan philosophers, still faintly illumined by the remnants of the primitive tradition, attempted the reconstruction of human science; but they were only partially successful, and their names became famous no less for the errors with which they are still associated than for vindicated truths. Even the Jews, who were in possession of an authentic record of the past, and could read the Law and the Prophets, often adopted pagan views, or at least mistook the spirit of their sacred books by a too material adherence to the killing letter. At last Jesus Christ, God and man, the light that enlightens the world, the new Adam, the divine Solomon, came, and brought us the remedy of which our ignorance and corruption had so much need. He gave us his Gospel of truth and life, and not only restored but increased and perfected the knowledge of divine and human things; he founded his church; and he appointed, in the person of his vicar on earth, a permanent and infallible judge of revealed doctrine. The two hundred and odd millions of Christians who recognize this infallible judge know distinctly what they ought to believe. They need not await the decisions of any “final philosophy” in order to be fixed on such questions as the origin of matter, the creation of man, the liberty of the soul, the existence of a personal God, and the worship acceptable to him. And as to the scientific questions, these millions very naturally argue that any theory which clashes with the doctrine defined by the church bears in itself its own condemnation, whilst all the other theories are a fit subject of free discussion by the rational methods. This is our intellectual position in regard to science; and we venture to say that even Dr. Shields could not find a better one either for himself or for his pupils and friends. But he, unfortunately, does not belong to the true and living church of Christ; he belongs to a spurious system of Christianity, which countenances intellectual rebellion, and which, after having imprudently fostered free thought, is now at a loss how to restrain its destructive influence. Hence he is anxious to be on good terms with all free-thinkers, in the hope, we assume, that, by yielding in a measure to the spirit of infidelity, some arrangement may be arrived at, equally acceptable to both sides, by which Protestantism, as an old but now useless and despised accomplice, may be left to die a natural death. Thus the “final philosophy” of Dr. Shields, so far as we can judge from the details of his work, will put in the same balance God and man, revelation and free thought, wisdom and folly, with the pitiful result that we have briefly pointed out.
Final philosophy, as conceived by our author, can be of no service to the Catholic, and of no great benefit to the Protestant, world. At any rate a truly “final” philosophy has scarcely a chance of seeing the light in the present century, especially through the exertions of Protestant divines. The century to which we belong, though famous for many useful discoveries, is even more conspicuous for its great ignorance of speculative philosophy. In the middle ages, which were not half so dark as modern thinkers assume, there was less superficial diffusion of knowledge, but a great deal more of philosophy. Giants, like St. Anselm, Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, had collected, sifted, and harmonized the philosophical lore of all the preceding ages, refuted the errors of a presumptuous pagan or heretical science, shown the agreement of revelation with reason, reconciled metaphysics with theology, and made such a body of philosophical and theological doctrines as would, and did, satisfy the highest aspirations of deeply-cultivated intellects. It is men of this type that could have written a “final” philosophy. But who are we men of the nineteenth century? Are we not mere pigmies when compared with these old masters? Where do we find profound metaphysicians and profound theologians? Some, of course, are to be found in the Catholic Church, which alone has preserved the traditions of the ancient intellectual world; but we do not think that any one of them would consider himself clever enough to write a “final” philosophy. And should such a competent man be found, who would care for his doctrine? Scientists would certainly not bend to his authority, as they only laugh at metaphysics, nor to his arguments, which they would scarcely understand; and unbelievers would probably not even listen to him, as they would be afraid of being awakened from their spiritual lethargy.
On the other hand, to expect that a Protestant divine, or a body of Protestant divines, will be able to compose such a final philosophy as Dr. Shields describes in the passage we have quoted is the merest delusion. Not that there are not able and learned men in the Protestant sects, but because the Protestant mind is trained to look at things in the light of expediency more than of principles, and, besides other disqualifications already referred to, it sadly lacks the jewel of philosophical consistency. Dr. Shields, who holds, as we gladly recognize, a prominent place among the learned men of his own denomination, is by no means exempt from the weaknesses of his Protestant compeers. For example, he is apt to confound things which should be distinguished, and to draw consequences which go farther than the premises; he frequently yields to partisan prejudices; he makes false assumptions; he seems ready to sacrifice some religious views to modern thought; and he misrepresents or misinterprets history. A few references to his book will suffice to substantiate this criticism.
Thus, in the very first chapter of his work he says that in the first age of Christianity there was on the side of the church “an apparent effort to supplant philosophy” (p. 31); and to prove this he alleges that “the apostles had scarcely left the church when there sprang up, in the unlettered class from which the first Christians had been largely recruited, a weak jealousy of human learning, which, it was claimed, had been superseded in them by miraculous gifts of wisdom and knowledge.” This statement is captious. From the fact that the first Christians, guided by the wisdom of the Gospel, had come to despise the absurd fables of pagan philosophy, it does not follow that they rejected human learning, but only that they had common sense enough to understand and to fulfil the duties of their religious position. On the other hand, to imagine that “the unlettered class” could have thought “of supplanting human learning” is as ridiculous as if we pretended that our carpenters and blacksmiths might conspire to supplant astronomy. The author adds that “Clement of Rome was held by his party to have enjoined abstinence from mental culture as one of the apostolic canons,” that “Barnabas and Polycarp were classed with St. Paul as authors of epistles which carry their own evidence of imposture,” and that “Hermas, as if in contempt of scholars, put his angelical rhapsodies in the mouth of a shepherd.” We scarcely believe that these three assertions will enhance the credit of Dr. Shields as a student of history. Clement was himself a theologian and a philosopher; “his party” is a clumsy invention; “apostolic canons” never condemned mental culture; St. Paul’s epistles bear no evidence whatever of imposture; and, as to Hermas, it is well known to the learned that he put his instructions in the mouth of a shepherd, not that he might show his “contempt of scholars”—for he himself was a scholar—but because his guardian angel, from whom he had received those instructions, had appeared before him in the garb of a shepherd.
The author says (p. 33) that in the age of the Greek Fathers “there was a false peace between theology and philosophy; and religion and science, in consequence, became more or less corrupted by admixture with each other.” This statement is another historical blunder.
“The doctrines of St. John were sublimated into the abstractions of Plato.” This, too, is quite incorrect.
“The Son of God was identified as the divine Logos of the schools.” By no means. The Logos of the schools was only a shadow as compared with the Son of God; the Logos of the schools was an abstraction, whereas the Logos of the Fathers was a divine Person.
“Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil, the two Gregories, Chrysostom, and the two Cyrils did scarcely more than consecrate the spirit of the Academy in the cloisters and councils of the church.” This statement has no need of refutation. The works of all the Fathers here mentioned are extant, and they eloquently protest against the slander. But Protestant authors are anxious to show that the Catholic Church was corrupted from its very first age; and to do this they do not scruple to gather lies and misrepresentations from all accessible sources, to transform history into a witness to facts that never had an existence.
“Philosophy,” continues the author, “became not less corrupted through its forced alliance with the new theology.” Who ever heard of a new theology in the patristic age? or of a theology with which philosophy could not make an alliance, except by force, and without being corrupted?
“If philosophy gained somewhat on its metaphysical side by having its own notional entities traced up to revealed realities as the flower from the germ of reason, yet it lost quite as much on its physical side through a narrowing logic and exegesis which bound it within the letter of the Scripture, and turned it away from all empirical research; and, consequently, even such crude natural science as it had inherited from the early Greeks was soon forgotten and buried under a mass of patristic traditions” (p. 34). From this we learn that logic, according to Dr. Shields, “narrows the physical side of philosophy,” and exegesis opposes “empirical research”! Is it not surprising that such assertions could find a place in a work which purports to be serious and philosophical? And as to the “crude natural science” of the early Greeks, which was a confused mass of conflicting guesses, does the author believe that it had a right to the name of science? or that it commanded the respect of theologians? or does he think that the Scripture has not a literal sense, which contains more truth than all the crude natural science of the early Greeks?
“In geology the speculations of Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, tracing the growth of the world from water, air, or fire, were only exchanged for the fanciful allegories and homilies of Origen, Basil, and Ambrose on the Hexaëmeron, or six days’ work of creation.” Dr. Shields has just complained that the Fathers bound science “within the letter of the Scripture”; and he now complains of Origen abandoning the literal for the allegorical sense! Such is his need of quarrelling with the Fathers. We may grant that some of Origen’s allegorical interpretations were rather “fanciful”; but since such interpretations were generally rejected even in his own time, it is difficult to understand how they could supersede the speculations of philosophers. As to St. Basil and St. Ambrose, however, no one who has studied their works will dare to maintain that they have indulged in fanciful theories. Of course they were not professors of science but of Christianity; nor were they obliged to forsake Moses for Anaximenes or Heraclitus, whose theories were nothing but dreams. Geology, as a science, was yet unborn; and we are certain that, had the Fathers embraced the theories which they are denounced for ignoring, Dr. Shields or some of his friends would have considered the fact as equally worthy of censure. Such is the justice of certain critics.
“In astronomy the heliocentric views of Aristarchus and Pythagoras had already given place to the Ptolemaic theory of the heavens.” This does not prove that the Fathers have corrupted astronomy; it shows, on the contrary, that the false system of astronomy originated in what was then considered science. It is to false science, therefore, and not to false theology that we must trace the false explanation of astronomical phenomena.
“In geography, the corruption of natural knowledge with false Biblical views became even more remarkable, and the doctrine of the earth’s rotundity and antipodes which had been held by Plato and Aristotle, and all but proved by the Alexandrian geometers, was at length discarded as a fable not less monstrous than heretical.” We wonder how it could have been possible to prove “by geometry” the existence of men at the antipodes, and we still more wonder how could the doctrine of the earth’s rotundity, which is a Scriptural doctrine, be discarded as a monstrous and heretical fable by men familiar with the teachings of the Bible. But what is the fact? Did any of the Fathers suggest that the words orbis terræ, which are to be found in many Scriptural texts, could be understood to mean anything but the earth’s rotundity? Or did any of them maintain that the earth’s rotundity was a “false Biblical view”? The author replies by quoting the Topographia Christiana of Cosmas Indicopleustes, who teaches that the earth is flat. But we answer that Cosmas was not a father of the church, and that his work has never been considered “a standard of Biblical geography,” as the author assumes. The theory of this monk was not the result of “theological” learning, as Dr. Shields imagines, but the offspring of Nestorian ignorance and presumption. Nor does it matter that Cosmas cites “patriarchs, prophets, and apostles in its defence as doctrine concerning which it was not lawful for a Christian to doubt” (p. 35); for we know, on the one hand, that there is no monstrosity which heretics are not apt to defend obstinately with Scriptural texts, and on the other that the theory of the Indicopleustes made no fortune in the Christian world; which further shows that the theological mind was not “inwrought” with any such fancies as the author pretends to have swayed the doctors of the Catholic Church. We know, of course, that our old doctors did not admit that the antipodes were inhabited by men; but this scarcely deserves criticism, as it is plain that before the discovery of the new world no serious man could take the responsibility of affirming a fact of which there was not a spark of evidence.
The author adds: “At the same time all the issuing interests of this paganized Christianity could not but share in its hybrid character. Its piety became but a mixture of austerity and license.” He then says that the Christian ritual “was a mere medley of incongruous usages”; that “the sign of the cross became a common charm as well as a sacred rite”; that Pachomius organized monasteries and nunneries as sanctuaries of virtue “amid a social corruption too gross to be described”; that “Christian and pagan factions contended for supremacy in the Roman senate”; that “the Lord’s day was observed by imperial edict on a day devoted to the god of the sun,” etc., etc.; and he winds up his survey of the patristic age by the remark that “the patristic type of Christian science has been likened to a twilight dream of thought before the long night-watches of the middle ages” (p. 35, 36).
It would be useless to ask Dr. Shields how he has ascertained that Christianity was “paganized,” and that the sign of the cross had become a “charm”; he would tell us simply that these gems of erudition have been culled by him from Protestant or infidel books. As to the “mixture of austerity and license” nothing need be said, for the contradiction is glaring. That the social corruption was “too gross to be described” is not astonishing, as the world was still more than half pagan; but to connect social corruption with the monasteries and nunneries organized by St. Pachomius, in order to denounce them as a mixture of austerity and license, is a proof not only of bad taste, but of bad will and of want of judgment. The author forgets to tell us why the Christian ritual should be called “a mere medley of incongruous usages”; and yet, as our present ritual does not substantially differ from that of the patristic age, it would have been easy to point out a few of such usages, were it not that their incongruity is only a crotchet of Protestant bigotism. That the Lord’s day was observed “by imperial edict” may indeed seem scandalous to free-thinkers and free-religionists, but not to Protestant doctors; for they must know that in Protestant countries the Lord’s day is still observed by a law which has the same power as an imperial edict. But Protestants are perhaps scandalized at the Lord’s day being kept on the “day devoted to the god of the sun” instead of the Sabbath; and from this they argue that the Church of God has been utterly corrupted and paganized. If so, then they should either prove that the Lord’s day, the day of Christ’s resurrection, was the Sabbath, or denounce Jesus Christ himself for doing on the day “devoted to the god of the sun” what he ought to have done on the Sabbath. O the Pharisees! We cannot wonder if they despise the “patristic type of Christian science” as a dream when we see how shamelessly they strive to misrepresent the most glorious ages of Christianity, and to turn truth itself into poison.
The few quotations we have here made, and the remarks we have appended to them, are far from giving an adequate idea of the partisan spirit and unreliable statements with which Dr. Shields has filled the first part of his book. What we have given is only a small sample of the rest, and was extracted from three pages. Were we to extend our criticism to only ten pages more, we would find matter enough for a volume. Our author, as nearly all Protestant authors, characterizes the scholastic age as one of philosophic bondage. Theology subjugates philosophy: “The church is the only school; orthodoxy the one test of all truth; the traditions of the Fathers the sole pabulum of the intellect; and the system of Aristotle a mere frame-work to the creed of Augustine.” Peter Lombard “narrowed the circle of free thought by putting the authority of the church above that of Scripture”; Alexander of Hales “rendered the thraldom of the intellect complete by systematizing the patristic traditions or sentences with Aristotelian logic.” Alas! we know only too well that Protestantism detests logic as much as the patristic traditions. But, then, why should a Protestant D.D. undertake to harmonize philosophy and theology? Is there any philosophy without logic, or any theology without patristic traditions?
Thomas Aquinas “dazzled all Europe”; but Duns Scotus “proceeded to evaporate the distinction of Aquinas in a jargon which defies modern comprehension.” This does little credit to modern comprehension; for the jargon of Scotus is nothing but the Latin tongue adapted to philosophical use. “Philosophy,” at this time, “could only succumb to theology.” “In logic any deflection in mere form as well as matter was enough to draw down the anathemas of the church.” Roscellin “was arraigned as a tritheist,” William of Champeaux “was pursued as a pantheist,” Abelard “was forced to cast his own works into the fire, and condemned to obscurity and silence.” It is evident that these facts, and others of a similar nature, must fill with horror our liberal Protestants and all free-religionists, just as prison and capital punishment fill with horror a convicted criminal. But if Dr. Shields condescends to examine the doctrines of Roscellin, William of Champeaux, and Abelard in the light of Scripture, as they are faithfully portrayed in reliable works (such as St. Thomas’ life by Rev. Bede Vaughan, for example), he will see that all three were guilty of heresy, and that they richly deserved the treatment to which they were subjected. We cannot, of course, enter here into a discussion of such doctrines; we merely state that they have been fully examined and debated in the presence of the interested parties with all the calm, patience, and impartiality which characterize the proceedings of the Catholic Church.
As to the singular notion entertained by Dr. Shields, that philosophy “could only succumb to theology,” we wish to tell him that no man can be a theologian unless he be also a philosopher; whence it follows that philosophy and theology are naturally friendly to one another, and, if they ever happen to disagree, they do not fight like enemies, but they state their reasons like good sisters equally anxious to secure each other’s support. Philosophy is like a clear but naked eye; theology is the same eye, not naked, but armed with a powerful telescope. Will Dr. Shields maintain that the eye succumbs when it sees by the telescope what the naked eye cannot discover? Yet this is the idea latent in his notion of philosophy succumbing to theology. What succumbs to theology is not philosophy, but error masked in the garb of philosophy. The author himself tells us that “reason and revelation are complemental factors of knowledge, the former discovering what the latter has not revealed, and the latter revealing what the former cannot discover.” This is exactly what we were saying; for the science of reason is philosophy, and the science of revelation is theology.
We would never end, if we were to follow our author through the five hundred and eighty-eight pages of his book. We only add that the theological and philosophical erudition which he parades throughout the whole work has been derived from the same baneful sources from which Dr. Draper collected the materials of his History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, and deserves the same heavy censure. The late Dr. O. A. Brownson, when Dr. Draper’s work was published, said of it: “The only thing in Dr. Draper’s book that we are disposed to tolerate is his style, which is free, flowing, natural, simple, unaffected, and popular. Aside from its style, the book cannot be too severely censured. It is a tissue of lies from beginning to end. It is crude, superficial, and anything but what it professes to be. It professes to be a history of the conflict between religion and science. It is no such thing. It is a vulgar attack on Christianity and the Christian church, in which is condensed the substance of all that has been said by anti-Christian writers from the first century to the nineteenth.” We do not say that Dr. Shields’ intention has been to attack Christianity in general as Dr. Draper did; he, on the contrary, professes to labor for a reconciliation of Christianity and reason. But, good as the intention is, the book will do as much harm as that of Dr. Draper. Its style is as good, to say the least, as Dr. Draper’s, and its subject-matter is well distributed and orderly developed; but these and other good qualities, instead of redeeming its numerous misrepresentations of truth, make them more dangerous by adding to them a charm against which the average reader can ill defend himself. Besides, Dr. Draper’s work, owing to its shameless infidelity, disgusts the Christian reader and makes him unwilling to swallow the poison it contains; whereas Dr. Shields’ book has such an attractive title, professes such a reverence for Scripture, and displays such an earnestness and ingenuity in the holy task of reconciling religion with science, that the unsophisticated reader (the Protestant reader in particular) will follow him, not only with great pleasure, but also with great docility and deference, till he persuades himself that religion is now in such a state that it needs to be purified by philosophy, and that reason must be made the umpire between revealed and scientific dogmas. The consequence is that the author’s “final philosophy” will serve the interests of rationalism rather than of religion. The more so as the author shows himself well acquainted with the errors of modern thought, some of which he exposes and refutes in a truly philosophical spirit, and with a talent and ability of which we see few instances in modern thinkers. We have been particularly struck by his powerful handling of positivism and absolutism, not to mention many other topics which he has treated in a very fair and intelligent manner. Had he not taken his stand on the shifting ground of Protestant opinions, he might have achieved a very meritorious task. He speaks of catholic views, catholic philosophy, and catholic spirit as something indispensable to carry on the much-desired conciliation of natural with supernatural knowledge. But what can the word “catholic” mean on the lips of one who does not listen to the Catholic doctors, and who is a stranger to the Catholic Church? His “catholic” spirit cannot but be a spirit of compromise, and a kind of rationalistic eclecticism, ready to accept only so much of revelation as men will condescend to authorize on a verdict of their fallible reason, and no less ready to sacrifice and ignore as much of it as human reason cannot explain or harmonize with natural science. It is evident that such a spirit can lead to nothing but religious scepticism. And this should convince even Dr. Shields that his “final philosophy” will never achieve a success. The Catholic thinker, if he had to compose a final philosophy, would place himself on much higher and much securer ground; he would first range in a series all the truths which the Catholic Church has defined to be of faith; he would then range in another series all the demonstrated truths of the natural sciences, and all the principles, axioms, and propositions of philosophy which are generally received by the different schools; he would next inquire whether any proposition of this second series clashes with any of the truths contained in the first series; and, as he would be unable to find any truth of science or of philosophy conflicting with any revealed truth, he would conclude that the world is not just now in need of a final philosophy for settling a conflict which has no existence except in the imaginative brains of scientific charlatans. Dr. Shields may think that this course is not calculated to secure the alliance of religion and science; but let him read the magnificent article published by Dr. Brownson in his Quarterly Review (April, 1875), on Dr. Draper’s pretended history of the conflict between religion and science, and he will see his mistake.
The “final philosophy,” as we have already remarked, will be of no use to the Catholic world. Protestants may, perhaps, relish it all the more. But no class of men will, in our opinion, be more gratified with it than the sceptics, the free-thinkers, and the enemies of supernatural truth; for they will not fail to see that to set up philosophy as “umpire” between religion and science is to make men distrust the doctrines of religion, and to prepare, though with the best intentions, the triumph of religious scepticism.