The century of Columbus

by James J. Walsh

Three of the books that have lived from this time and will, so far as human judgment can foresee, always continue to live, are Thomas à Kempis' "De Imitatione Christi" Sir Thomas More's "Utopia" and St. Ignatius of Loyola's "Exercitia Spiritualia" All three of them were written in Latin because that was the language in which they would appeal to most readers at the time. All three of the authors probably thought nothing at all about the language that they were using except for its convenience for others, inasmuch as it could be read by the men of all nations whom they most wished to reach. All of them are direct, simple, even forcible in their modes of expression, but there was surely little filing done and probably very little rewriting. Thomas à Kempis' book, almost without a doubt, flowed from his pen just in the way that his words flowed out of his full heart in the spiritual conferences that he gave to his brethren. There was probably never a thought given to verbal nicety except to secure as simple an expression of his overflowing ideas as possible. The "Utopia" is written in correct, but not classical Latin, and it is very likely that Erasmus would have found many faults of usage in it, while the Ciceronians of that time would surely have been horrified at the very thought of having to read such Latin and would scarcely be able to understand how anyone could write [{430}] such unCiceronian phrases. As was said of Michelangelo, St Ignatius wrote things rather than words, and the "Spiritual Exercises" are a mine of thought, but not a model of style in any sense.

There has been question as to whether the "Imitation of Christ" was really written by Thomas à Kempis, but that question has now, I think, been definitely settled. Everything points to the authorship by the brother of the Common Life, who was born in the little town of Kempen and lived some seventy years in the Monastery of St. Agnes, acting as spiritual adviser to his brethren, giving them consolation and advice in times of trial, directing their thoughts always to the higher life. There are many Flemicisms, that is, Latin usages which were common in the Netherlands of this time, in most of the manuscripts. It has been argued that since these do not exist in all the manuscripts, the argument founded on them is not absolute. The preponderance of evidence, however, is for the Flemish copies as being nearer the original, and the absence of these special modes of expression in other manuscripts only indicates that a great many copyists of the time, particularly in Italy and France, were quite aware of these imperfections of language and endeavored to correct them out of their better knowledge of Latin. This only serves to show how little the style of the book had to do with its popularity and that it was the thought that appealed to the world of the time and has continued ever since to give the work wide popularity.

À Kempis himself was born in the fourteenth century, but as he lived to be past ninety, dying in 1471, more than twenty years of his life, during which he was active and in possession of his faculties, were passed in our period. The "Imitation of Christ" was probably written some twenty years before Columbus' Century began, but did not take the definitive form in which we know it until about the beginning of our period. It has a right to a place, therefore, among the great works of the time. I have sometimes suggested that three men, whose names begin with k sounds, accomplished magnificent broadenings of human knowledge at this time. Columbus discovered a new continent, Copernicus revealed a new universe and à Kempis unveiled a wonderful new world in man's own soul. [{431}] He did as much for the microcosm man as Copernicus for the cosmos or Columbus for our earth. Hitherto unexplored regions were laid bare and the beginning of the mapping out of them was made. More than either of his great contemporaries, however, à Kempis finished his work. Very little has been added to what he was able to accomplish for man's self-revelation in his little book.

CIMA DA CONEGLIANO, CHRIST (DRESDEN)

The work did not spring into popularity at once, though it gradually began to be known and used by chosen spirits in many places, and some of the greatest of the men of the time learned to appreciate it. It is a charming testimony to the fact that a Kempis himself first did and then taught that he cared so little for the reputation attached to his work, that his name was not directly associated with it, and in the course of time there came to be some doubt about its authorship. "If thou wilt profitably know and learn," he had said, "desire to be unknown." It is one of the most difficult of tasks, but the humble brother of the Common Life who had written a sublimely beautiful book had learned it. He had written other books, indeed there are probably at least a dozen attributed to him on reasonably good evidence, yet had said, "In general we all need to be silent more than to speak, indeed there are few who are too slow to speak." None of his other books are quite equal to the "Imitation," yet many of them, as "The Little Garden of Roses" and "The Valley of Lilies," are well worth reading and exhibit many of the traits of charming simplicity, marvellous insight and psychological power that have given his greatest work its reputation.

All down the centuries since men have admired and praised the "Imitation." It has not been a classic in the sense of a book that everyone praises and very few read, but on the contrary it has been the familiar reading of a great many of the chosen spirits among mankind ever since. To have been the favorite book of Sir Thomas More, Bossuet and Massillon, of Loyola and Bellarmine, of John Wesley, Samuel Johnson, Lamartine, La Harpe, Michelet, Leibnitz and Villemain is indeed a distinction. Nor has it appealed only to Christians, for men like Renan and Comte almost in our own time have praised it very highly. Far from its reading being confined [{432}] to scholars by profession or those much occupied with the things of the spirit, we find that it was the favorite reading of General Chinese Gordon, General Wolseley, the late Emperor Frederick and Stanley the explorer. George Eliot shows her deep appreciation of it in "The Mill on the Floss," where she says that "It works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness." Sir James Stephen speaks of it as a work "which could not fail to attract notice and which commended itself to all souls driven to despair." The late Lord Russell of Killowen always carried a copy of it with him and used to read a chapter in it every day quite as Ignatius of Loyola had done three centuries and a half before. The frequent surprise is the contrast of the men devoted to it. Pobiedonostseff, the head of the Holy Russian Synod, the power behind the Czar for so long, used to read in it every day.

St. Francis de Sales said of "The Imitation," "Its author is the Holy Spirit." Pascal said of it, "One expects only a book and finds a man." De Quincey declared: "Next to the Bible in European publicity and currency this book came forward as an answer to the sighing of Christian Europe for light from heaven." Dr. Samuel Johnson declared that "Thomas à Kempis must be a good book, as the world has opened its arms to receive it." The sentence in it which he repeated most frequently and which evidently had come home to him is "Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be." Matthew Arnold, whose religious views might possibly be thought to bias his judgment with regard to it and whose feeling for style might be supposed to be deterred by its lack of finish in language, called the "Imitation" "The most exquisite document after those of the New Testament of all that the Christian spirit has ever inspired." What may be more surprising to some, he even did not hesitate to add that "Its moral precepts are equal to the best ever furnished by the great masters of morals--Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius."

Some of the expressions used with regard to the "Imitation" are among the most laudatory that have ever been used of any book. They come from men of all kinds, in all generations, [{433}] in all nations since, and many of them among the most respected of their time. Fontenelle declared the "Imitation" "the finest book ever issued from the hand of man." Caro, the French philosopher, compares it with other books famous in the same ethical line, only to put it on a pinnacle by itself. "Open the 'Imitation,'" he says, "after having read the 'De Officiis' of Cicero or the 'Enchiridion' of Epictetus, and you will feel yourself transported into another world as in a moment." Lamennais declared that the "Imitation" "has made more saints than all the books of controversy. The more one reads, the more one marvels. There is something celestial in the simplicity of this wonderful book." Henri Martin, the French historian, declared, "This book has not grown old and never will grow old, because it is the expression of the eternal tenderness of the soul. It has been the consolation of thousands--one might say of millions--of souls."

Lamartine in his "Jocelyn" (and it must not be forgotten that Lamartine was an historian and a critic as well as a poet) wrote: