Every rite has thus a lesson, and becomes an act of devotion. The cross above our churches and our altars, continually reappearing in all our ceremonies, impresses on us the incarnation, death, and atonement of Christ crucified, as the great central point of all religion. To this we are constantly brought back in every prayer which concludes by asking what we demand, through Jesus Christ, the familiar closing of which, the "per omnia saecula saeculorum," known to every child, calls forth from all, the heartfelt Amen! To this, and to what should accompany it, the Catholic is constantly directed by the ceremonial. The church bell, signed with the cross, and anointed with oil, which is a symbol of Christ, swings in the tower, and as his messenger, calls us in his name to his house—now, ringing out with joy, when some great mystery is to be commemorated—now, in deep solemn notes, to pray for one of his departed members. Three times every day it summons us to the recital of the Angelus, in which we commemorate the great mystery of the incarnation, and invoke the merits of the Saviour's death, and ask the benefit of his resurrection. If we enter the [{735}] church, the font at the door, from which we take a drop of blessed water to sprinkle our foreheads, is itself a sermon on the purity with which we should approach, and bids us cleanse our souls before we come near to him in prayer. The burning lamp speaks to us of him who is the light of the world, now dwelling on the altar, as well as of the constant fire of devotion, and pure adoration, due to the present God. The priest whom you see at the altar, clad in those quaint old vestments, tells you at a glance that you are in the presence of a worship that has come down from the remotest ages. The burning lights on the altar, which have now become an emblem of gladness, speak to you of the catacombs, in which our fathers took refuge, and preserved for us the sacred deposit, at the cost of property, of liberty, and of life.
Like old heirlooms, with their quaint old forms and their several indentations, these vestments and rites tell at the same time of their real antiquity and of the many vicissitudes through which they have passed. They are not like those imitations of the antique in use amongst some of our friends got up by studying ancient drawings and descriptions, having all the inconvenience without anything of the venerable character of what is truly ancient. With us they are inherited through uninterrupted use from the beginning. Whatever changes have occurred in minor details, only render them more venerable, for if on the one hand we are brought back to ancient days, these are marks of the many ages through which they have passed. Everything in the rites of the church is fraught with instruction, with devotion. It enables you to know, and what is better, to practice—for while it teaches, it leads you to love and adore. Do you wish to know the efficacy of that ceremonial? Look at those who have been nursed under its training. See the all-pervading influence of religion, that exists among them. Long and powerful discourses may make men skilful talkers and ardent partisans. Those who have been reared under a divinely inspired ritual have religion deeply engraven on their hearts. It takes possession and enters into the whole nature of the man; and even when he gives way to the allurements of iniquity, it retains its hold on him. This may indeed make him appear, and be, an inconsistent object of pity or of scorn. But, happy inconsistency! For if he will not be consistent in good, far better that he be inconsistent or not consistent in evil. He would otherwise become a monster. The links by which he is yet bound to what is good, may one day draw him within the pale of that mercy to which no sinner appealed in vain, before which no sinner is too great to be pardoned.
To the Catholic, in every position, the ceremonial is light and nourishment—a plentiful source of vigor and life.
From Le Correspondant.
MADAME DE SWETCHINE.
BY REV. FATHER LACORDAIRE.
Many times already have I rendered to illustrious Catholics who have died in our day, a funeral and a pious homage. In turn, General Drouot, Daniel O'Connell, and Frederic Ozanam have heard my voice above their tomb, a voice far below that which their glory merited, but which, nevertheless, holds from a sincere admiration the right to praise them. To-day, after these familiar names for which praise can do nothing, I pronounce another name, a name which may appear almost unknown, perhaps even that of a foreigner, which, however, belongs to the nation of the great minds of our age. A superior writer, Madame de Swetchine published nothing; a conversationalist of the first order, the fame of her salon never penetrated beyond that circle which, though not public, is more than privacy; a woman of antique faith and of active piety, she neither founded nor presided over any orders; and yet, for more than forty years she swayed an empire, to which the Count de Maistre submitted, before which Madame de Staël inclined, and which retained around her, even to her last days, admirers accustomed to act on public opinion, but still more accustomed to enlighten their own by hers. To the Count de Maistre succeeded M. de Bonald. The Abbé Frayssinous, M. Cuvier, to these M. de Montalembert, the Count de Falloux, Prince Albert de Broglie, and many others, a younger generation, but not less submissive to the ascendency of a soul where virtue served genius.
Why should we be silent? Why not tell the living what they have lost in the dead? While a man lives, modesty should guard all his actions, and friendship itself should be restrained by it; but death has this of admirable; that it restores to memory as to judgment all its liberty. In taking away those from whom it strikes the double rock of weakness and envy, it permits those who have seen to lift the veil, those who have received to acknowledge the benefit, those who have loved to pour forth their affection. Even the obscurity of merit adds to the desire of making it known; and if this merit was illustrious, being all hidden, it is almost a religious duty to draw it forth from the tomb, and to render it before men the honor it has before God. So I hope I shall be pardoned these few pages; but did I not, yet I should still write them. I owe them to a friendship which began in the shadows and perils of my youth, and which since, through all the vicissitudes of a quarter of a century, never ceased to open to me perspectives of honor so difficult to recognize in the confused and agitated times when faith itself is troubled by earthly events, and seeks a route worthy of its mission.