Now of these despised sentiments, which in all ages have distinguished the gentleman from the churl, the first is that reverence for womanhood which, even through all the cruelties of the Middle Ages, developed itself with increasing power until the thirteenth century, and became consummated in the imagination of the Madonna, which ruled over all the highest arts and purest thoughts of that age.
To the common Protestant mind the dignities ascribed to the Madonna have been always a violent offence; they are one of the parts of the Catholic faith which are openest to reasonable dispute, and least comprehensible by the average realistic and materialist temper of the Reformation. But after the most careful examination, neither as adversary nor as friend, of the influences of Catholicism for good and evil, I am persuaded that the worship of the Madonna has been one of its noblest and most vital graces, and has never been otherwise than productive of true holiness of life and purity of character. I do not enter into any question as to the truth or fallacy of the idea; I no more wish to defend the historical or theological position of the Madonna than that of St. Michael or St. Christopher; but I am certain that to the habit of reverent belief in, and contemplation of, the character ascribed to the heavenly hierarchies, we must ascribe the highest results yet achieved in human nature, [[105]]and that it is neither Madonna-worship nor saint-worship, but the evangelical self-worship and hell-worship—gloating, with an imagination as unfounded as it is foul, over the torments of the damned, instead of the glories of the blest,—which have in reality degraded the languid powers of Christianity to their present state of shame and reproach. There has probably not been an innocent cottage home throughout the length and breadth of Europe during the whole period of vital Christianity, in which the imagined presence of the Madonna has not given sanctity to the humblest duties, and comfort to the sorest trials of the lives of women; and every brightest and loftiest achievement of the arts and strength of manhood has been the fulfilment of the assured prophecy of the poor Israelite maiden, “He that is mighty hath magnified me, and Holy is His name.” What we are about to substitute for such magnifying in our modern wisdom, let the reader judge from two slight things that chanced to be noticed by me in my walk round Paris. I generally go first to Our Lady’s Church, for though the towers and most part of the walls are now merely the modern model of the original building, much of the portal sculpture is still genuine, and especially the greater part of the lower arcades of the north-west door, where the common entrance is. I always held these such valuable pieces of the thirteenth century work that I had them cast, in mass, some years ago, brought away casts, eight feet high by twelve wide, and gave them to the [[106]]Architectural Museum. So as I was examining these, and laboriously gleaning what was left of the old work among M. Violet le Duc’s fine fresh heads of animals and points of leaves, I saw a brass plate in the back of one of the niches, where the improperly magnified saints used to be. At first I thought it was over one of the usual almsboxes which have a right to be at church entrances (if anywhere); but catching sight of an English word or two on it, I stopped to read, and read to the following effect:—
“F. du Larin,
office
of the
Victoria Pleasure Trips
And Excursions to Versailles.
Excursions to the Battle-fields round Paris.“A four-horse coach with an English guide starts daily from Notre Dame Cathedral, at 10½ a.m. for Versailles, by the Bois de Boulogne, St. Cloud, Montretout, and Ville d’Avray. Back in Paris at 5½ p.m. Fares must be secured one day in advance at the entrance of Notre Dame.
The Manager, H. du Larin.”
“Magnificat anima mea Dominum, quia respexit humilitatem ancillæ Suæ.” Truly it seems to be time that God should again regard the lowliness of His handmaiden, now that she has become keeper of the coach [[107]]office for excursions to Versailles. The arrangement becomes still more perfect in the objects of this Christian joyful pilgrimage (from Canterbury, as it were, instead of to it), the “Battle-fields round Paris!”
From Notre Dame I walked back into the livelier parts of the city, though in no very lively mood; but recovered some tranquillity in the Marché aux fleurs, which is a pleasant spectacle in April, and then made some circuit of the Boulevards, where, as the third Fors would have it, I suddenly came in view of one of the temples of the modern superstition, which is to replace Mariolatry. For it seems that human creatures must imagine something or someone in Apotheosis, and the Assumption of the Virgin, and Titian’s or Tintoret’s views on that matter being held reasonable no more, apotheosis of some other power follows as a matter of course. Here accordingly is one of the modern hymns on the Advent of Spring, which replace now in France the sweet Cathedral services of the Mois de Marie. It was printed in vast letters on a white sheet, dependent at the side of the porch or main entrance to the fur shop of the “Compagnie Anglo-Russe.”
“Le printemps s’annonce avec son gracieux cortège de rayons et de fleurs. Adieu, l’hiver! C’en est bien fini! Et cependant il faut que toutes ces fourrures soient enlevées, vendues, données, dans ces 6 jours. C’est une aubaine inesperée, un placement fabuleux; car, qu’on ne l’oublie pas, la fourrure vraie, la belle, la riche, a toujours [[108]]sa valeur intrinsique. Et, comme couronnement de cette sorte d’Apothéose la Cie. Anglo-Russe remet gratis à tout acheteur un talisman merveilleux pour conserver la fourrure pendant 10 saisons.”
“Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them.”
The Anglo-Russian company having now superseded Divine labour in such matters, you have also, instead of the grand old Dragon-Devil with his “Ye shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil,” only a little weasel of a devil with an ermine tip to his tail, advising you, “Ye shall be as Gods, buying your skins cheap.”
I am a simpleton, am I, to quote such an exploded book as Genesis? My good wiseacre readers, I know as many flaws in the book of Genesis as the best of you, but I knew the book before I knew its flaws, while you know the flaws, and never have known the book, nor can know it. And it is at present much the worse for you; for indeed the stories of this book of Genesis have been the nursery tales of men mightiest whom the world has yet seen in art, and policy, and virtue, and none of you will write better stories for your children, yet awhile. And your little Cains will learn quickly enough to ask if they are their brother’s keepers, and your little Fathers of Canaan merrily enough to show their own father’s nakedness without dread either of banishment or malediction; but many a day will pass, and their evil [[109]]generations vanish with it, in that sudden nothingness of the wicked, “He passed away, and lo, he was not,” before one will again rise, of whose death there may remain the Divine tradition, “He walked with God, and was not, for God took him.” Apotheosis! How the dim hope of it haunts even the last degradation of men; and through the six thousand years from Enoch, and the vague Greek ages which dreamed of their twin-hero stars, declines, in this final stage of civilization, into dependence on the sweet promise of the Anglo-Russian tempter, with his ermine tail, “Ye shall be as Gods, and buy cat-skin cheap.”
So it must be. I know it, my good wiseacres. You can have no more Queens of Heaven, nor assumptions of triumphing saints. Even your simple country Queen of May, whom once you worshipped for a goddess—has not little Mr. Faraday analysed her, and proved her to consist of charcoal and water, combined under what the Duke of Argyll calls the “reign of law”? Your once fortune-guiding stars, which used to twinkle in a mysterious manner, and to make you wonder what they were,—everybody knows what they are now: only hydrogen gas, and they stink as they twinkle. My wiseacre acquaintances, it is very fine, doubtless, for you to know all these things, who have plenty of money in your pockets, and nothing particular to burden your chemical minds; but for the poor, who have nothing in their pockets, and the wretched, who have much on their [[110]]hearts, what in the world is the good of knowing that the only heaven they have to go to is a large gasometer?