Yes, it is the glory of Christianity to have rendered possible, nay frequent, this sanctity of love which ancient philosophy pursued in its dreams, but which it had never either contemplated or exemplified. It is the glory of Christianity to have so well schooled, so well regulated the heart of man, to have made that heart at once so virginal and so strong, as to be capable of loving more, and better than ever, all that is lovable on earth, and at the same time capable of always loving it less than God. It is the glory of Christianity to have made a young girl—not a philosopher, not a poet, but a simple and pious girl—to realize unconsciously in her heart that sublimest conception of human wisdom; the continual, incessant passage of love from the shadows of being and of beauty, to the infinite being and the infinite beauty, from "divine phantoms," to use the expression of Plato, to the eternal reality. It is the glory of Christianity to have in all things opened to man a road toward God; to have taught him to make all his affections serve as so many steps whereby he may ascend to the absolute love: "In his heart he hath disposed to ascend by steps." [Footnote 183] In fine, it is the glory of Christianity to have worked this prodigy, that a holiness so extraordinary, a perfection so superhuman, neither destroys nor fetters the pure affections of earth; so that the saints did not attain to the loving God alone by stifling in their hearts all love for their fellow-beings; but, on the contrary, they learned to love all mankind more than themselves, by first loving God above all.
[Footnote 183: Psalm lxxxiii. 6.]
Whoever, after seeing this, will meditate on the nature of the human heart, and on its history when abandoned to itself, will be forced to admit that here is indeed a transfiguration.
And as regards death, I find this transfiguration to be, if possible, more striking still. Death learned upon the cross that its highest office is to be the auxiliary of love. There an indissoluble fraternity was established between these two great forces; and there love received its mission to transform death into sacrifice. The ideal statue of the dying Christian is not then the ancient gladiator, falling, resigned but passive, his head bowed, his dim eye fixed on the earth which is fast escaping from him, impatient for the approach of nothingness, plunging willingly into eternal night. No; his ideal is the Crucified, dying erect, above the earth, "exaltatus a terra" in the attitude of the priest at the altar, pardoning all men, loving them to his latest breath, acquiescing in his death, nay, willing it, making himself the solemn deposit of his soul into the hands of his Father, at once the subject and the king of death, at once priest and victim.
Such is the Christian fraternity of Love and Death.
Hence it is, that through the differences of ages, of conditions, of minds, all holy deaths resemble one another; it is still love ruling death and transforming it into sacrifice. We have just portrayed the last hours of a betrothed bride who died in sacrificing to Jesus Christ her nuptial crown; ere while we followed through tears of admiration the account of another death, grander, more celebrated, more striking. [Footnote 184]
[Footnote 184: These lines were written a few days after the death of the Rev. Father de Ravignan. We give them to-day just as the first emotion dictated them, persuaded that time cannot take from the virtues of the saints their eternal actuality.]
Now, what similitude could we expect to find between the last hours of a holy religious, an illustrious orator, a great and heroic soul, and those of a simple young girl, strong only in her innocence? And yet I venture to compare these two deaths, and the longer I consider them the more do I find that they resemble each other, that they are blended together in one ruling sentiment; they are both a sacrifice, and a sacrifice conducted by love. Sacrifices very different, victims very unequal, I admit. What peace in the death of the holy Father de Ravignan; or rather, what triumph of the Christian will over death! How he rules it! He speaks of "this last affair which is to be conducted, like all others, with decision and energy;" he gives the directions for the sacrifice; he offers it himself! When did he more truly live than on that bed of death? when was he more wakeful than in that seeming sleep! Then was he so strong and vigorous that he seemed to dominate death itself; in this resembling, as far as is possible to man, Christ upon the cross, whom, say the doctors, death could not approach except by his express order. What love, in fine, in his every word and in those desires of heaven, for the impatience and the ardor of which he reproaches himself! For my part, I fancy I see him welcoming death, for which he had been preparing himself for more than thirty years, with that grave, sweet smile whose charm was so extraordinary.
The young bride of Pisa is far from this severe grandeur. There are tears, there are regrets in her last farewell. There is one earthly name that lingers on her lips even to the confines of heaven. She does not command death—she obeys it; and yet here, too, I see an altar, a victim a sacrifice. Here, too, I see the will, more tremulous, more surprised, indeed, than in the great religious, but still armed by love, ending by conducting itself the last affair, and by absorbing death in its victory. Once again, what becomes of death in such deaths? where is it? It seems to disappear: "Death, where is thy victory? Where is thy sting? It is swallowed up!"
Let our souls become inebriated with hope at the recital of holy deaths; let us yield ourselves without fear to the attraction which they give us for the life to come. Undoubtedly, the true secret of dying well is to live well; and our imperfection does not allow us to treat death as may the saints. But surely the love which transfigured their death, is at least begun in our souls; it may increase, and, the hour come, may transform for us also the supreme defiles into regions of light and peace.