These are the kind of books that stuff the shelves of the libraries in our great secular universities.
There is perhaps no other period in the history of the world that requires more careful investigation than that of the Renaissance in Italy, and this because of its complex character. Speaking of this complexity Dr. Pastor says: “In the nature of things it must be extremely difficult to present a truthful picture of an age which witnessed so many revolutions affecting almost all departments of human life and thought, and abounded in contradictions and startling contrasts. But the difficulty becomes enormously increased if we are endeavoring to formulate a comprehensive appreciation of the moral and religious character of such an epoch. In fact in one sense the task is an impossible one. No mortal eye can penetrate the conscience of a single man; how much less can any human intellect strike the balance between the incriminating and the extenuating circumstances on which our judgment of the moral condition of such a period depends, amid the whirl of conflicting events. In a rough way, no doubt, we can form an estimate, but it can never pretend to absolute accuracy. As Burckhardt, author of ‘The Civilization of the Period of the Renaissance in Italy,’ says: ‘In this region the more clearly the facts seem to point to any conclusion the more must we be upon our guard against unconditional or universal assertions.’”
It were well assuredly if some of our professors of history in the great secular universities—professors who assume to understand the Catholic Church and her policy better than her own clergy and laity—it were well, we say, if these would lay to their historical souls Pastor’s judicial words ere they indict the “Renaissance Period” and blacken the character of its popes, its prelates and its people.
The truth is that few if any non-Catholic students read Catholic historical works to-day. Jansen’s great work, dealing with the social and religious life of Germany in the period that preceded the advent of Luther, is considered to be the last word on this debatable ground, and yet how many non-Catholic students have ever opened its pages? The same may be said of Pastor’s monumental work. “Lives of the Popes Since the Close of the Middle Ages.” When this ignorance of Catholic fact is supplemented by the reading of such misrepresentation as is found in Browning’s poem, “The Bishop Orders His Tomb,” what hope can there be of justice to Catholic truth and the Catholic faith in our great secular universities?
We see, then, that not alone are the facts of history falsified, but the genius of the poet is enlisted to give glamor and glow to the historical slander.
Take again Tennyson’s poem, “St. Simeon Stylites.” This is a satire on ascetic life. Tennyson was a Broad Churchman, and it is said that he was particularly careful not to write anything that would offend the religious feelings of any of his friends. He saw, however, at the time of the “Oxford Movement,” the English mind in certain quarters look with favor on monasticism, and he wrote “St. Simeon Stylites” as a rebuke to the movement. But is it a true picture of the spirit and life of those early hermits of the desert? Not at all. Tennyson as a satirist did not aim at truth, but rather at exaggeration. So he puts into the mouth of this pillar-fixed saint these words of pride:
“A time may come, yea, even now,
When you may worship me without reproach,
And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones,
When I am gathered to the glorious Saints.”