Letters from Spain

by Joseph Blanco White

“I was now about ten years old, and though, from a child, excessively fond of reading, my acquaintance with books did not extend beyond a history of the Old Testament—a collection of the Lives of the Saints mentioned in the Catholic Almanack, out of which I chose the Martyrs, for modern saints were never to my taste—a little work that gave an amusing miracle of the Virgin for every day of the year[10]—and prized above all, a Spanish translation of Fenelon’s Telemachus, which I perused till I had nearly learned it by heart. I heard, therefore, with uncommon pleasure, that, in acquiring a knowledge of Latin, I should have to read stories not unlike that of my favourite the Prince of Ithaca. Little time, however, was allowed me for study, lest, from my love of learning, I should conceive a dislike to mercantile pursuits. But my mind had taken a decided bent. I hated the counting-house, and loved my books. Learning and the church were, to me, inseparable ideas; and I soon declared to my mother that I would be nothing but a clergyman.

“This declaration roused the strongest prejudices of her mind and heart, which cold prudence had only damped into acquiescence. To have a son who shall daily hold in his hands the real body of Christ, is an honour, a happiness which raises the humblest Spanish woman into a self-complacent consequence that attends her through life. What, then, must be the feelings of one who, to the strongest sense of devotion, joins the hope of seeing the dignities and emoluments of a rich and proud Church bestowed upon a darling child? The Church, besides, by the law of celibacy, averts that mighty terror of a fond mother—a wife, who, sooner or later, is to draw away her child from home. A boy, therefore, who at the age of ten or twelve, dazzled either by the gaudy dress of an officiating priest—by the importance he sees others acquire, when the bishop confers upon them the clerical tonsure—or by any other delusion of childhood, declares his intention of taking orders, seldom, very seldom escapes the heavy chain which the Church artfully hides under the tinsel of honours, and the less flimsy, though also less attainable splendour of her gold. Such a boy, among the poor, is infallibly plunged into a convent; if he belongs to the gentry, he is destined to swell the ranks of the secular clergy.

“It is true that, in all ages and countries, the leading events of human life are inseparably linked with some of the slightest incidents of childhood. But this fact, instead of an apology, affords the heaviest charge against the crafty and barbarous system of laying snares, wherein unsuspecting innocence may, at the very entrance of life, lose every chance of future peace, happiness and virtue. To allow a girl of sixteen to bind herself, for ever, with vows—not only under the awful, though distant guardianship of heaven, but the odious and immediate superintendence of man—ranks, indeed, with the most hideous abuses of superstition. The law of celibacy, it is true, does not bind the secular clergy till the age of twenty-one; but this is neither more nor less than a mockery of common sense, in the eyes of those who practically know how frivolous is that latitude.[11] A man has seldom the means to embrace, or the aptitude to exercise a profession for which he has not been trained from early youth. It is absurd and cruel to pretend that a young man, whose best ten or twelve years have been spent in preparation for orders, is at full liberty to turn his back upon the Church when he has arrived at one-and-twenty. He may, indeed, preserve his liberty; but to do so he must forget that most of his patrimony has been laid out on his education, that he is too old for a cadetship in the army, too poor for commerce, and too proud for a petty trade. He must behold, unmoved, the tears of his parents; and, casting about for subsistence, in a country where industry affords no resource, love, the main cause of these struggles, must content itself with bare possible lawfulness, and bid adieu to the hope of possession. Wherever unnatural privations make not a part of the clerical duty, many may find themselves in the Church who might be better elsewhere. But no great effort is wanted to make them happy in themselves, and useful to the community. Not so under the unfeeling tyranny of our ecclesiastical law. For, where shall we find that virtue which, having Nature herself for its enemy, and misery for its meed, will be able to extend its care to the welfare of others?—As to myself, the tenour and colour of my life were fixed the moment I expressed my childish wish of being a clergyman. The love of knowledge, however, which betrayed me into the path of wretchedness, has never forsaken its victim. It is probable that I could not have found happiness in uneducated ignorance. Scanty and truly hard-earned as it is the store on which my mind feeds itself, I would not part with it for a whole life of unthinking pleasure: and since the necessity of circumstances left me no path to mental enjoyment, except that I have so painfully trodden, I hail the moment when I entered it, and only bewail the fatality which fixed my birth in a Catholic country.

“The order of events would here require an account of the system of Spanish education, and its first effects upon my mind; but, since I speak of myself only to shew the state of my country, I shall proceed with the moral influence, that, without interruption, I may present the facts relating severally to the heart and intellect, in as large masses as the subject permits.

“The Jesuits, till the abolition of that order, had an almost unrivalled influence over the better classes of Spaniards. They had nearly monopolized the instruction of the Spanish youth, at which they toiled without pecuniary reward; and were equally zealous in promoting devotional feelings both among their pupils and the people at large. It is well known that the most accurate division of labour was observed in the allotment of their various employments. Their candidates, who, by a refinement of ecclesiastical policy, after an unusually long probation, were bound by vows, which, depriving them of liberty, yet left a discretionary power of ejection in the order; were incessantly watched by the penetrating eye of the master of novices: a minute description of their character and peculiar turn was forwarded to the superiors, and at the end of the noviciate, they were employed to the advantage of the community, without ever thwarting the natural bent of the individual, or diverting his natural powers by a multiplicity of employments. Wherever, as in France and Italy, literature was in high estimation, the Jesuits spared no trouble to raise among themselves men of eminence in that department. In Spain, their chief aim was to provide their houses with popular preachers, and zealous, yet prudent and gentle, confessors. Pascal, and the Jansenist party, of which he was the organ, accused them of systematic laxity in their moral doctrines: but the charge, I believe, though plausible in theory, was perfectly groundless in practice. If, indeed, ascetic virtue could ever be divested of its connatural evil tendency—if a system of moral perfection that has for its basis, however disavowed and disguised, the Manichæan doctrine of the two principles, could be applied with any partial advantage as a rule of conduct, it was so in the hands of the Jesuits. The strict, unbending maxims of the Jansenists, by urging persons of all characters and tempers to an imaginary goal of perfection, bring quickly their whole system to the decision of experience. They are like those enthusiasts who, venturing upon the practice of some Gospel sayings, in the literal sense, have made the absurdity of that interpretation as clear as noon-day light. A greater knowledge of mankind made the Jesuits more cautious in the culture of devotional feelings. They well knew that but few can prudently engage in open hostility with what in ascetic language is called the world. They now and then trained up a sturdy champion, who, like their founder Loyóla, might provoke the enemy to single combat with honour to his leaders; but the crowd of mystic combatants were made to stand upon a kind of jealous truce, which, in spite of all care, often produced some jovial meetings of the advanced parties on both sides. The good fathers came forward, rebuked their soldiers back into the camp, and filled up the place of deserters by their indefatigable industry in engaging recruits.

“The influence of the Jesuits on the Spanish morals, from every thing I have learned, was undoubtedly favourable. Their kindness attracted the youth from the schools to their company: and, though this intimacy was often employed in making proselytes to the order, it also contributed to the preservation of virtue in that slippery age, both by the ties of affection, and the gentle check of example. Their churches were crowded every Sunday with regular attendants, who came to confess and receive the sacrament. The practice of choosing a certain priest, not only to be the occasional confessor, but director of the conscience, was greatly encouraged by the Jesuits. The ultimate effects of this surrender of the judgment are, indeed, dangerous and degrading; but, in a country where the darkest superstition is constantly impelling the mind into the opposite extremes of religious melancholy and profligacy, weak persons are sometimes preserved from either by the friendly assistance of a prudent director; and the Jesuits were generally well qualified for that office. Their conduct was correct, and their manners refined. They kept up a dignified intercourse with the middling and higher classes, and were always ready to help and instruct the poor, without descending to their level. Since the expulsion of the Jesuits, the better classes, for the most part, avoid the company of monks and friars, except in an official capacity; while the lower ranks, from which these professional saints are generally taken, and where they re-appear, raised, indeed, into comparative importance, but grown bolder in grossness and vice, suffer more from their influence than they would by being left without any religious ministers.[12]

“Since the abolition of the Jesuits, their devotional system has been kept up, though upon a much narrower scale, by the congregations of Saint Philip Neri (l’Oratoire, in France), an Italian of the sixteenth century, who established voluntary associations of secular clergymen, living together under an easy rule, but without monastic vows, in order to devote themselves to the support of piety. The number, however, of these associated priests is so small, that, notwithstanding their zeal and their studied imitation of the Jesuits, they are but a faint shadow of that surprising institution. Yet these priests alone have inherited the skill of Loyóla’s followers in the management of the ascetic contrivance, which, invented by that ardent fanatic, is still called, from his Christian name, Exercises of Saint Ignatius. As it would be impossible to sketch the history of my mind and heart without noticing the influence of that powerful engine, I cannot omit a description of the establishment kept by the Philippians at Seville—the most complete of its kind that probably has ever existed.

“The Exercises of Saint Ignatius are a series of meditations on various religious subjects, so artificially disposed, that the mind being at first thrown into distressing horror, may be gradually raised to hope, and finally soothed, not into a certainty of Divine favour, but a timid consciousness of pardon. Ten consecutive days are passed in perfect abstraction from all wordly pursuits. The persons who submit to this spiritual discipline, leave their homes for rooms allotted to them in the religious house where the Exercises are to be performed, and yield themselves up to the direction of the president. The priest, who for nearly thirty years has been acting in that capacity at Seville, enjoys such influence over the wealthy part of the town, that, not satisfied with the temporary accommodation which his convent afforded to the pious guests, he can now lodge the Exercitants in a separate building, with a chapel annexed, and every requisite for complete abstraction, during the days of their retirement. Six or eight times in the year the Exercises are performed by different sets of fifty persons each. The utmost precision and regularity are observed in the distribution of their time. Roused by a large bell at five in the morning, they immediately assemble in the chapel to begin the meditation appointed for the day. At their meals they observe a deep silence; and no intercourse, even among each other, is permitted, except during one hour in the evening. The settled gloom of the house, the almost incessant reading and meditation upon subjects which, from their vagueness and infinitude, harass and bewilder the fancy, and that powerful sympathetic influence, which affects assemblies where all are intent on the same object and bent on similar feelings, render this house a modern cave of Trophonius, within whose dark cells cheerfulness is often extinguished for ever.

“Unskilful, indeed, must be the hand that, possessed of this engine, can fail to subdue the stoutest mind in which there lurks a particle of superstitious fear. But Father Vega is one of those men who are born to command a large portion of their fellow creatures, either by the usual means, or some contrivance of their own. The expulsion of the Jesuits during his probationship in that order, denied him the ample field on which his early views had been fixed. After a course of theological studies at the University, he became a member of the Oratorio, and soon attracted the notice of the whole town by his preaching. His active and bold mind combines qualities seldom found in the same individual. Clear-headed, resolute, and ambitious, the superstitious feelings which melt him into tears whenever he performs the Mass, have not in the least impaired the mental daringness he originally owes to nature. Though seldom mixing in society, he is a perfect man of the world. Far from compromising his lofty claims to respect, he flatters the proudest nobles of his spiritual train by well-timed bursts of affected rudeness, which, being a mere display of spiritual authority, perfectly consistent with a full acknowledgment of their worldly rank and dignity, give them, in the eyes of the more humble bystanders, the additional merit of Christian condescension. As an instance of this, I recollect his ordering the Marquis del Pedroso, one of the haughtiest men in this town, to fetch up-stairs from the chapel, a heavy gold frame set with jewels, in which the Host is exhibited, for the inspection of the company during the hour of recreation allowed in the Exercises. No man ever shewed such assurance and consciousness of Heaven’s delegated authority as Father Vega, in the Confessional. He reads the heart of his penitent—impresses the mind with the uselessness of disguise, and relieves shame by a strong feeling that he has anticipated disclosure. In preaching, his vehemence rivets the mind of the hearers; a wild luxuriance of style engages them with perpetual variety; expectation is kept alive by the remembered flashes of his wit; while the homely, and even coarse, expressions he allows himself, when he feels the whole audience already in his power, give him that air of superiority which seems to set no bounds to the freedom of manner.

“It is however, in his private chapel that Father Vega has prepared the grand scene of his triumphs over the hearts of his audience. Twice every day, during the Exercises, he kneels for the space of one hour, surrounded by his congregation. Day-light is excluded, and a candle is so disposed in a shade that, without breaking the gloom of the chapel, it shines on a full-length sculpture of Christ nailed to the Cross, who, with a countenance where exquisite suffering is blended with the most lovely patience, seems to be on the point of moving his lips to say—“Father, forgive them!” The mind is at first allowed to dwell, in the deepest silence, on the images and sentiments with which previous reading has furnished it, till the Director, warmed with meditation, breaks forth in an impressive voice, not, however, addressing himself to his hearers, from whom he appears completely abstracted, but pouring out his heart in the presence of the Deity. Silence ensues after a few sentences, and not many minutes elapse without a fresh ejaculation. But the fire gradually kindles into a flame. The addresses grow longer and more impassioned; his voice, choked with sobs and tears, struggles painfully for utterance, till the stoutest hearts are forced to yield to the impression, and the chapel resounds with sighs and groans.