As to temporal goods or the right to possess them, and as for religious corporations—that is, the liberty of community life, of prayer, benevolence, of wearing a peculiar dress, and of worshipping according to your conscience—what could Alimonda say which had not been said by all the independent men of our century?
As to those who assert that the clergy are not educated up to the standard of modern civilization, we need only appeal to those who have any knowledge to see if the ecclesiastics do not rank high in every part of the encyclopedia; nor do we hesitate to say that the most educated man in every village is ordinarily the priest; the priest who is compelled to make a regular course of study, to pass repeated examinations, and assist at conferences.
VII.
It is very strange that at a time when the love of show has become a mania; when kings, ministers, journalists, and myriads of ephemeral heroes are honored with canticles, poems, and ovations; when some button-holes have more decorations than our altars; when there is hardly a name to which pompous titles are not appended, it should be deemed necessary for the benefit of religion to abolish external worship in our churches. Is not our century especially vain of its investigations in matter? Is not the aspiration of the age after physical comfort? Why, then, try to restrict religion to the spiritual, to prevent the erection of temples which would please the senses of that double being—man?
When Constantinople, austerely interpreting the evangelical ordinances, attempted to destroy reverence for holy images, the church fought for the right to cultivate the fine arts; and sustained martyrdom and exile to maintain the privilege of guarding the fine arts in her sanctuaries. When the reform of the sixteenth century called the Catholic Church Babylon, because she asked Michael Angelo and Raphael to immortalize the grandeurs of Christianity, she resisted again—knowing how to distinguish the exceptional life of the voluntary anchorite from the social life of the merely honest man; exacting virtues from all her children, but virtues suitable to their state, to the mystic life of Mary and to the external life of Martha, to the viceroy Joseph and to the shoemaker Crispin.
The same church defends, to-day, love and art from the modern iconoclasts and spurious Puritans.
Discoursing about worship, our author begins by that of Mary, showing it to be a religious principle in accord with reason; a public fact, approved by history; a most tender affection, sanctioned by the heart. It is not long since the chief of the English ritualists, Doctor Pusey, made the most honorable admissions in reference to the Catholic dogmas and ceremonies, excepting, however, the reverence which Catholics have for the Mother of God. Archbishop Manning's [Footnote 76] reply is one of the most beautiful and rational apologies for this worship for which Italy is so remarkable. For all republics were consecrated to her; she was the chosen patroness of our chief cities; her likeness was impressed on our coins and seals; our first poets sang her praises, and their echoes have not yet died; our painters could find no higher or sweeter model; our architects competed in erecting grand temples to her honor; our musicians to compose canticles to her praise; great expeditions were undertaken in her name; colonies were consecrated to her, where now Italian power, but not Italian influence, has ceased. And it is Mary who will save our Italy from humiliations, and from that degradation which seems to be the only aspiration of her intolerant sons. [Footnote 77]
[Footnote 76: Probably a mistake for Dr. Newman.]
[Footnote 77: I may be permitted to refer the reader to the fifty-fourth chapter of my Heretics of Italy, in which the respect due to saints and to Mary is discussed.]