The devil was well, the devil a monk was he.’”
George Fox, the father of the Quakers, remarks in his Journal, of the Puritans and their fasts:—“Both in the time of the Long Parliament, and of the Protector, so called, and of the Committee of Safety, when they proclaimed fasts, they were commonly like Jezebels, and there was some mischief to be done.” Taylor, the Water-poet, compares their fasts to hidden feasts. “They were like the holy maid,” he says, “that enjoined herself to abstain four days from any meat whatsoever; and being locked close up in a room, she had nothing but her two books to feed upon; but the two books were two painted boxes, made in the form of great Bibles, with clasps and bosses, the inside not having one word of God in them; but the one was filled with sweetmeats, the other with wine; upon which this devout votary did fast with zealous meditation, eating up the contents of one book, and drinking as contentedly the other.” Dr. South, in his Sermons, is equally severe. He observes that “their fasts usually lasted from seven in the morning till seven at night; the pulpit was always the emptiest thing in the church; and there never was such a fast kept by them, but their hearers had cause to begin a thanksgiving as soon as they had done.” Butler, in his Hudibras, hints that the work of fasting was to be accounted to the faster, righteousness:—
“For ’tis not now who’s stout and bold,
But who bears hunger best, and cold.
And he’s approved the most deserving,
Who longest can hold out at starving.”
The fasting of the civilians, however, was made to turn to the benefit of the military gentlemen; and, in March, 1644, an ordinance was passed for the contribution of one meal a week towards the charge of the army. There was by far a more considerable liberality of spirit among some of the clergy of the time of Louis XIV. than in the Puritan authorities, inasmuch as they permitted others to follow clerical example rather than precept. The celebrated preacher, Father Feuillot, for instance, stood by while “Monsieur” was enjoying an uncanonical collation in the middle of Lent. His Highness held up a macaron, and remarked, “This is not breaking fast, is it?” “Nay,” said Feuillot, “you may eat a calf, if you will only act like a Christian.” I am afraid that we had not improved at home, in the last century. On one of the fasts of that period, Walpole comments after his usual gay fashion. “Between the French and the earthquakes,” he says, in 1756, “you have no notion how good we are grown; nobody makes a suit of clothes now but of sackcloth, turned up with ashes. The fast was kept so devoutly, that Dick Edgecumbe, finding a very lean hazard at White’s, said with a sigh, ‘Lord! how the times are degenerated! Formerly, a fast would have brought everybody hither; now it keeps everybody away!’ A few nights before, two men were walking up the Strand, one said to t’other, ‘Look how red the sky is! Well, thank God, there is to be no masquerade!’”
An ex-Capuchin has revealed some of the mysteries of the house of which he was lately a member, and by this it would appear that the Friars of the nineteenth century are as little for slender diet as the fine gentlemen of the eighteenth. “These Capuchins,” he says, “of squalid appearance, clothed in serge, with shaven heads and bare feet, presenting the very type of humility and self-renunciation, enjoy the luxuries of life with a prodigality unknown to you. The poor friars have, with one exception, no enjoyment of the things of this world, their only worldly comfort is good cheer. The friars have three carnivals in the year, of two or three weeks’ duration each. These are the only periods at which they can recruit their wasted strength, to enable them to resist the mortifications of the rest of the year. During these few weeks they have seven courses served at dinner, all substantial and choice dishes, the most dainty morsels that can be provided. At supper they have five courses. By that hour, in spite of their plentiful dinner, they have regained their appetites; and their digestion is again most active. These courses are as substantial as those of the dinner, and are despatched with equal facility by these men of iron frame and tranquil conscience.... Lent is arrived! Well, you must fast, you must mortify the flesh, but you must not die of inanition. A good table is necessary, or you will suffer too much from contrast with the past few weeks. You need double the supply that the secular orders do when they fast, for your digestion is twice as active as theirs. Supper is now a sadly scanty meal; it consists simply of fish, bread, wine, and fruit. A miserable dish! not miserable as to quantity or quality, but because it is the solitary dish during the forty days of Lent, always excepting bread and wine ad libitum. Fortunately, the friars are wise and provident; the slender supper is foreseen and provided against at dinner, which consists of four dishes. The bottle of good wine is valuable now, or they would be overcome with weakness.” Such is the testimony of a living witness, who pledges his reputation for the truth of his depositions.
I do not know that there is much that is exaggerated in this, for from M. Saurin we hear that, in France, well-to-do priests mortify the flesh on maigre days by very pretty eating. The bill of fare of these saintly men has been known to include soup au coulis d’écrevisse, salmon trout, an omelette au Thon, that would have called a dead gastronome to life; a salad, the very smell of which seemed to give eternal youth; Semonal cheese, fruit, confectionary, a light wine, and a cup of coffee. By such self-denial is heaven gained by modern saints, in orders; having fair fortunes, and looks with the same characteristic.
The Dominicans of Italy are in no degree behind their brethren in France. The “late prior and visitor of the order,” who recently published his dealings with the Inquisition, thus describes his ancient brethren. “They do nothing,” he says, “which they are bound to do by their rules, if these are opposed to their inclinations. They profess never to eat meat in the refectory, or room for their common meals; but there is another room near it, which they call by another name, where they eat meat constantly. On Good Friday, they are commanded by their rules to eat bread and drink water. At the dinner hour they all go together into the refectory, to eat bread and drink water, but having done so for the sake of appearance, they go one after another into another room, where a good dinner is prepared for them all. I do not blame them for enjoying it; but I blame them for feigning an abstinence which none of them intend to keep.” These Dominicans, honest fellows! are more hungry than the gods of the old régime of whom it is said,—