VIII.
Such is the prestige of the Curé d'Ars since his death; and the influence he exercised during his life was no less astonishing. We are amazed at hearing or reading the details of this exceptional existence. Eighty to a hundred thousand persons came to Ars every year, and from all parts of the world. France, Belgium, Germany, England, Italy, America, Asia, by turns sent their pilgrims; and the enthusiasm of old—of the days of Bernard, Dominic, Francis d'Assise, Vincent Ferrier, Philip de Neri—has been renewed. Petitions were addressed to the Curé d'Ars as to a superior being. Every day he received letters, demands, confidences, and prayers. "One must come to Ars," said he sometimes, "to know the sin of Adam and the evils he has caused his poor family!" Sinners, the ill in body and mind, the suffering of all kinds, went to the Curé d'Ars as the healer sent by God himself. His faith, his humility, his love of God and man, his frightful austerity, his perfect abnegation of self, astonished and ravished souls; the gift given him to read the human heart, his marvellous intuition, his power over nature, his predictions, his miracles, ended by according him the supernatural aureole, and the signs of election which in all ages have carried away multitudes. At Ars one could learn how the Christian religion was founded; by what virtues, what miracles, its initiators had acted on the public mind and conquered. The life of the gospel and the glorious days of the church reappeared; hagiography lived again; the supernatural and legendary history of Catholicism became comprehensible and impressed itself on every mind.
According to calculations which may be called official, nearly three millions of pilgrims have been admitted to the Curé d'Ars. Every kind of human misery has presented itself before him, and how many have been comforted! The blind have seen, the deaf have heard, the paralyzed have walked; bread, wine, and corn have been multiplied; and all the miracles of the gospel, except the resurrection of the dead, have been reproduced. The greatest miracle of the Curé d'Ars was, perhaps, the resurrection of the living and the conversion of sinners, to which the holy priest had dedicated his life, and was the principal end of all his efforts. Notwithstanding his ardent desire for death and heaven, he would have consented to remain on earth until the end of the world to gain hearts for Jesus Christ. It was in this rôle that so brilliantly shone the supernatural character of the life and mission of the Curé d'Ars. When we think of the sixteen to eighteen hours of the confessional, of the eighty to a hundred penitents who knelt daily at the feet of the holy priest, we may form some idea of the attraction that he exercised, and the deep furrow he ploughed in the soul of the present age.
So many shining traits give to the Curé d'Ars the most wide-spread fame of his time. Chateaubriand, De Maistre, Goethe, Voltaire even, and others less famous, are only known to the more refined. Their names have not penetrated the stratum of an immense humanity. The Curé d'Ars was known to all, and his name had traversed every country, every ocean, every race. In Europe, America, Asia, it echoed and wakened souls; and everywhere we find his portrait, in every town, in every country. Siberian huts can show the Curé d'Ars. No face—not even that of Napoleon I.—is as popular. His hair, his cap, his cassock, his shoes, his furniture, his books, his breviary, have been sold over and over again for more than their weight in gold. His blood, if taken from him in illness, was collected and treasured as a relic; and we see still at Ars, in several places, vials containing this blood, as pure as the day it flowed: can science account for this? The phenomenon is, to say the least, unique, abnormal. The objects that he blessed were almost taken by assault, and before his death rival countries disputed for his body, and the dispute came near degenerating into a bloody conflict. No honor, homage, or public respect was wanting to the Curé d'Ars, and once again piety and Christian virtues have proven themselves the surest means of acting on the world and attracting the masses, because they represent the superior and eternal ideal of life and of humanity.
IX.
But I must pause. I have wished to sketch in a few words the appearance of this remarkable man, but yesterday our contemporary, and of whom an extraordinary work of art has given me the opportunity to speak. I fear I have been prolix, and, forgetting the statue, have occupied my readers' attention with the person represented; but I hope to be forgiven, as the best way, surely, to impress the merit of a portrait is to make known the model the artist has wished to depict. The statue will be better appreciated as the Curé d'Ars himself is fully understood.
Again, it seems to me that the appearance and actions of such a man, in the uncertain times in which we live, are a symptom and hope of something better, to which we cannot give too much weight. Truly the age is bad enough; hardened against God, it is hardened against his church, and tries to sap every foundation of virtue and honesty. It destroys faith, attacks good principles and the virtuous instincts that prompt them, and endeavors to replace the ancient order of consciences by a sort of individual independence which, sowing division, can only produce ruin. Character and manners are falling as low as ideas; cupidity, egotism, unbridled pleasure, sensual enjoyments, sought for and held up as the only end of life; the expansion of luxury by every ingenuity gives to society an ideal of Babylonian civilization; revolution, that is to say, revolt and universal overthrow, cap the climax, and threaten to swallow up everything: behold the situation and its dangers! Seldom have ages been more troubled, or the symptoms more terrible.
But hope revives and the mind is elevated when it contemplates the opposing camp. So long as an age is able to produce a Curé d'Ars, it is full of strength; and if the Catholic faith can excite such a sensation as that of which I have just spoken, she assures her future. Monarchs, generals, politicians, legislators, writers, may become powerless. They could not preserve the society of old, and saints alone saved it, walking in the footsteps of Christ. They reconstructed and regenerated it, because they were the last and unique expression of the true and beautiful in morals, the only pivot of progress, the only lever which lifted a people to lead them onward to God, the only source of life. Producing the same men, modern society may hope for the same regeneration; its cure and its future health will not depend on human means or agents, but on the divine grace exercised by its saints.