We have selected this passage as the theme of some brief discussion, without any reference to the particular topic of the article in which it is contained, or intention of raising any special controversy with the writer of it, whose personality is entirely unknown to us. It has struck our attention simply as a remarkably tangible and felicitous expression of a sentiment or opinion shared in common by a large class of minds, and well worthy of our most serious consideration. They think that those who have embraced the Catholic religion have been driven, by the unrest and weariness of the soul, to take a spiritual opiate—a metaphorical expression, but one whose meaning is so obvious that it needs no explanation. They acknowledge the existence of the same unrest in their own souls, but refuse to accept the remedy offered by the Catholic Church, because they imagine that it can only produce its effect of relieving the pain of the soul by superinducing an artificial sleep of the intellect. The mind must slumber, intelligence must cease its activity, in order that the heart may be made peaceful and happy in the practice of the Catholic religion. They are unwilling to purchase rest at such a price, and, it may be, would be unable to do it if they were willing. Therefore, they prefer to endure the pain of doubt, the restlessness of scepticism, the weariness of a yearning after an unknown good, in the vague expectation of finding it at some distant period, if not in this world, yet in some future sphere of existence. The objection of these persons to Catholicity is, that it does not acknowledge or adequately satisfy the just demands of the intellect. Those who embrace it, they say, cannot justify their conversion on rational grounds, or allege sufficient and conclusive evidence of the truth of its doctrines. They have either never sought for a religion which satisfies reason, or have abandoned their search in despair, and laid their intellect to sleep upon the soft pillow of an unreasoning submission to an authority that supersedes all exercise of thought, and quiets all action of intelligence. The correctness of this assumption is the precise topic of discussion we now propose. It is evidently altogether useless to frame an argument on the supposition that we have to deal with any form of Protestant orthodoxy, so-called. Persons who profess to believe in a definite system of doctrine as revealed truth cannot admit any such unsatisfied yearnings after truth as those are whose existence is denoted by the writer of the paragraphs we have cited. It is, therefore, useless to take as data any of the principles or doctrines of the common Protestant theology. It is with a sceptical state of mind we have to deal, which rejects every received version of Christianity as incomplete and unsatisfactory, however it may admit, in a general way, that Christianity itself is something divine. We think we may take it for granted that the very state of mind indicated by the language on which we are commenting has been produced by a revolt of the reason against Protestant theology. Probably those whose sentiments are represented by this language have been more or less strictly educated in the tenets of some one of the Protestant churches. They have found these tenets to be absurd—incredible; based on no solid evidence; mere individual theories, contradicted by the facts of history and the dictates of mature reason. They have, consequently, abjured all allegiance to any sect or school of Protestant Christianity, and have fallen back upon their own reason as the exponent of the Christian religion, and of all other religions, as the only criterion of truth in all orders of thought, and the only guide which has been given to man amid the perplexities which beset his intellect on every side. The Catholic system of doctrines is supposed to be essentially the same with orthodox Protestantism, plus a few more dogmas, a system of elaborate ceremonial, and a peculiar hierarchical organization, which openly claims and enforces submission to its own doctrinal decisions and moral precepts as infallible and supreme. The same absurdities which exist in the Protestant system of theology are supposed to be contained also in the Catholic system. It does not occur to these persons that these absurdities maybe traced to exaggerated or distorted theories respecting the ancient dogmas of Christianity, which are rejected by the Catholic theology, and to the incompleteness of the Protestant systems, which are built up from fragments of the sublime edifice they have destroyed, without plan, order, or architectural harmony. This is, however, the fact; and when we speak of the unreasonableness of the orthodox Protestant form of Christianity as the occasion and temptation to scepticism, we must be understood to speak in accordance with this fact. We do not mean to say that the evidences of the divine revelation and truth of Christianity, and a vast body of true and reasonable doctrines, are not retained in the Protestant teaching, or that it makes scepticism justifiable. We merely intend to say that it does not satisfy reason or command assent as a system in all its essential parts, and therefore leaves the mind in a bewilderment by its partial truths and partial errors, which is the occasion of a kind of intellectual despair, resulting frequently in scepticism. The truly rational part would be to hold on to the conviction of the great facts of Christianity and its substantial truth, and to search for some more reasonable and satisfactory exposition of the true meaning of Christianity than that given by these self-constituted, unauthorized, and mutually conflicting expositors of divine revelation. Such a search would inevitably land the honest and persevering seeker in the Catholic Church, as it has done so many and will so many more in time to come. There is a divine philosophy in the Catholic religion which satisfies all the legitimate demands of reason—that same philosophy which attracted Dionysius of Athens, Sergius Paulus, Cornelius, Pudens, Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, Clement, Pantaenus, St. Augustine, and a host of other noble intellects, to Christianity in the days of old, and in which they found that perennial source of truth from which Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Lao-Tseu and Confucius, had only drawn some rills.
It is not within the scope of our thesis to show positively the truth of the above affirmation. We merely intend to show that it is made; that the church does not "disallow the claims of the intellect," or "claim the right to outrage or ignore wants yet profounder than those which she supplies;" that "the pursuit of truth as an ultimate object" is not "totally incomprehensible" to those who yield the allegiance of their minds to the light of faith; that they do not "conceive of their judgment, will, and reason, as mere counters with which to purchase eternal rest." Whether the Catholic solution of the problems of reason is objectively the true one is not the direct aim of our reasoning. The point is, whether Catholic theology and philosophy propose any solution at all; whether any class of minds who seek earnestly after such a solution find one which they hold and maintain to be completely satisfactory to reason in the Catholic Church. The writer whose language we have quoted denies it, and Dr. Bellows has recently denied it, asserting boldly that those who have embraced the Catholic faith have done so by a reaction from an extreme rationalism into superstition. What is gratuitously asserted may be gratuitously denied, and we deny it accordingly. Some few persons, perceiving that they were following principles which lead logically to Pantheism and Atheism, and that there is no real logical alternative of the denial of God except Catholicity, have been led to examine and embrace the Catholic faith. Neither Dr. Bellows nor any other person professing to be rational is entitled to call this act a superstitious one, unless it can be shown that the motives of it are reducible to an irrational credulity, or a voluntary submission to some claim of supernatural authority which is destitute of probability, on grounds which are incapable of convincing a prudent man. The remark of Dr. Bellows is, therefore, simply an intolerable impertinence. The statement which he makes is, moreover, false in point of fact, since a large proportion of modern converts to the Catholic Church have travelled the road of orthodox Protestantism, and not that of rationalism.
It is no less incorrect to state that it is only persons in whom the sentimental element predominates who find satisfaction for the wants of their souls in the Catholic religion. In the first place, it is absurd to suppose that the legitimate cravings or aspirations of any one part of human nature can be satisfied completely by that which is not real, and therefore not true. Truth, goodness, and beauty are identical in respect to their being or reality. The religion which is adapted to one class of minds is adapted to all. It is, moreover, incorrect to reduce all men to two classes—those who are led by the logical faculty, and those who are led by sensibility. The intelligence has its intuitions in an order of thought far superior to the mere understanding. The will has also a sublime range in an order far superior to the sphere of sensible emotions. Those who never occupy their minds in any metaphysical or theological speculations whatever may, therefore, in their spiritual nature, apprehend divine truth far more immediately and perfectly, and may possess the truest and highest wisdom in a much more eminent sense, than the most acute philosopher. The interior or spiritual life, moreover, of those persons who are rather seeking to perfect their souls in virtue than their intellects in knowledge, is by no means a life of indulgence in pleasurable emotions, the enjoyments of sensible devotion, or anything else which gives sensitive nature the pabulum or the opiates after which it hankers. This whole order of ideas belongs to sentimental Protestantism, and is totally alien from Catholic ascetics, as is well known to the youngest novice in any religious community.
Of course we cannot expect literary gentlemen to understand these matters, and cannot wonder at the mistakes they make when they write about them. We can justly require of them nothing more than a supreme love of truth for its own sake, and a willingness to see it when it is presented to them. Any one who loves the truth on this point sufficiently to read Rodriguez on Christian Perfection, F. Baker's Sancta Sophia, or F. Faber's Growth in Holiness, can satisfy himself of the very low estimate in which sensible devotion is held by our spiritual writers. If he should wish for a more extensive course of reading, we would recommend Tauler's Sermons and the works of St. John of the Cross. He will there see that the pleasures of sensibility, imagination, taste, the affections, the romance and poetry of religion, are not condemned or rudely trampled on, but simply relegated to the lowest place, made use of as the waiting-maids of the divine wisdom and strong virtue which constitute solid perfection. The Catholic religion satisfies not merely the emotional nature of man, but his spiritual nature. It could not do this unless it were capable of placing the soul in its true relation to its proper object, to its final end, to its real destiny, and furnishing it with all the means of advancing continually toward the union with God in which beatitude consists. It could not be capable of doing this unless it came from God; and, coming from God, it must teach the truth which is necessary and adequate to the perfection of the reason, as well as the perfection of the will. We will take up the question, however, in a more historical and inductive manner, in order to show, as a matter of fact, that those minds in which the logical faculty and the taste for the cultivation of pure reason is more strongly developed and active, find an equal scope and satisfaction in Catholicity with the other class above mentioned.
One needs but a moderate acquaintance with the method and spirit which have always prevailed in the great Catholic schools to know how powerfully they stimulate the activity of the intellect, awaken the thirst for rational investigation, encourage the effort to penetrate as far as possible into the domain of ideal truth, and to trace the relations of all things in the world of thought to their first and final cause. The basis and foundation of the whole structure of the higher education, especially in the department of theology, is laid in a thorough training in logic and philosophy. The same logical and philosophical method pervades the entire system of theological instruction. Every dogma of faith, every opinion of the schools, every principle of philosophy, is subjected to a rigid and critical analysis, including an examination of all the difficulties and objections which have ever been raised by the adversaries of the Church, during all past ages and in the present. In the theses which the students of theology and philosophy are obliged to defend, covering the whole field of these higher sciences, sceptical, atheistical, pantheistic, infidel, and heretical arguments, stated with the utmost logical subtlety of which the objector is possessed, are presented without any restriction or reserve, not only by other pupils but by the professors and other learned theologians. In the universities, colleges, and religious houses, where bodies of men are collected possessing the means and requisites for a life of study and learned labor, there is every facility and inducement afforded for the most thorough prosecution of every branch of human knowledge which can possibly have any bearing on the advancement of the queen and mistress of all sciences, theology. Moreover, in modern times there has sprung up among the educated laity, among the statesmen, professional men, scholars, and gentlemen of leisure and intellectual tastes, a school of students and authors in the same high department of thought, independent, so far as their private and temporal interests are concerned, of any ecclesiastical authority, and free to follow the dictates of their reason and conscience wherever these may lead them. It is the easiest thing in the world to make a catalogue of names, illustrious among the advocates and defenders of the Church, in whom the intellectual powers have been, through the force of native genius and acquired culture, brought to the highest grade of development. Bellarmine, Suarez, Canus, Cajetan, Sfondrati, Petavius, Molina, Gerdil, Thomassin, Mabillon, Muratori, Bossuet, Malebranche, Des Cartes, Galluppi, Rosmini, Gioberti, Mastrofini, Mai, Mezzofanti, Görres, Möhler, Theiner, Lacordaire, Ozanam, Donoso Cortes, Balmes, Wiseman, England, Montalembert, De Broglie, Cantù; are these the names of men of weak judgment and strong emotions, who were mastered by an unreasoning, pietistic sentiment? Or, are they the names of hypocrites and impostors, who prostituted their genius to the support of a cause which they knew to be based on falsehood, illusion, and deceit? Listen to the words written from his couch of pain by Montalembert, near the close of the last volume of his Monks of the West:
"The more I advance in my laborious and thankless task—that is to say, the nearer I approach to my grave—the more do I feel mastered and overpowered by an ardent and respectful love of truth, the more do I feel myself incapable of betraying truth, even for the benefit of what I most love here below. The mere idea of adding a shadow to those which already shroud it fills me with horror. To veil the truth, to hide it, to forsake it under the pretence of serving the cause of religion, which is nothing but supreme truth, would be, in my opinion, to aggravate a lie by a kind of sacrilege. Forgive me, all timid and scrupulous souls! But I hold that in history everything should be sacrificed to truth—that it must be always spoken, on every subject, and in its full integrity." [Footnote 123]
[Footnote 123: Monks of the West, vol. v. p. 305.]
Hear also the language used by the eminent historian Cesare Cantù: