And rose, and drowned with one black wave
Those twelve on-wading; and with glee
Bore down King Cormac to his grave
By southern Boyne, at Rossnaree!
Close by that grave, three centuries past,
Columba reared his saintly cell;
And Boyne's rough voice was changed at last
To music by the Christian bell.
So Christ's true Faith made Erin free,
And blessed her women and her men;
And that which was again shall be,
And that which died shall rise again.
He ceased: the wondering clansmen roared
Accordance to the quivering strings,
And praised King Cormac, Erin's Lord,
And Prophet of the King of kings.
Aubrey de Vere.
THE APOSTASY OF DR. DÖLLINGER.
The formal and public act of renunciation of the Catholic faith by Dr. Döllinger which has been looked for as a probable event for many months past, has at length been made. In itself, such an act cannot be regarded by any sound Catholic as of any moment whatever to religion or the church. It is only one suicide more, which destroys an individual, but does not hurt the stability of the church, whose life is in God, and, therefore, immortal. It may have more or less of accidental importance, however, on account of its effect upon certain persons who are weak or ill-instructed in the faith, and the use which may be made of it by the enemies of the church. We think it proper, therefore, to make some explanations concerning the past and present acts and opinions by which Dr. Döllinger has gradually but surely approached and finally reached his present position of open, declared rebellion against the infallible authority of the Catholic Church.
Dr. Döllinger has been living, until a recent period, upon the reputation which he had acquired during his earlier career as a professor and an author, supported by his high rank in the church as a mitred prelate, and in the state as a member of the Bavarian House of Peers. His great intellectual gifts and extensive learning in the department of history have never been questioned, and he was deservedly honored through a long course of years as one of the chief ornaments and ablest advocates of the Catholic religion in Germany. The relative superiority very commonly assigned to him, however, we are inclined to think, is only imaginary. Even in history he has met with some very severe defeats from antagonists more powerful than himself, and in philosophy and theology he has never shown himself to be a master. He is now an old man, seventy-three years of age, having spent above forty years of this period in his professorial chair at the University of Munich. During the earlier part of his life, as is proved by unimpeachable testimony, he was a strict Ultramontane in his theology. The gradual progress by which he went slowly down the declivity towards his present position we cannot pretend to trace accurately. It is certain, however, that no public expression of opinions having a heterodox tendency, on his part, excited any general notice before the year 1861. Even then, although the murmur of dissatisfaction which has been growing louder ever since began to be heard, and the sure Catholic instinct began to make its wounded susceptibilities known, the substantial orthodoxy and loyalty of Dr. Döllinger were not questioned or even doubted. This is proved by the language used by the editor of Der Katholik at that time, in which he says that the book which had given offence, namely, the celebrated "Church and Churches," "is imbued with the genuine color of sincere Catholic faith and immovable fidelity to the church and her supreme head."[105] From that date to the present time, these first indistinct intimations of what now appears as a full-blown heresy can be seen in their successive stages of clearer manifestation in the writings and acts of Dr. Döllinger. The language used by him is ambiguous, and generally capable of being understood in a good sense, and his steps are cautious. There is nothing to compromise him seriously, before the time of the intrigues which went on under his direction for the purpose of defeating the Vatican Council. Looking back, however, upon the dark ways in which he has been walking, and the dark sayings which he has been uttering, in the light which his present open declaration of rebellion casts behind him, everything becomes clear and apparent to the day. There is a continuity and a logical sequence manifest in those ambiguous utterances, when explained in a schismatical and heretical sense, which they otherwise could not have. The acts and expressions of Dr. Döllinger's disciples in Germany, France, and England appear in their coherence and in their relation to the instruction which they received from their master. Moreover, a series of historical facts, in connection with the University of Munich and with Dr. Döllinger himself, show themselves in their proper bearing; and among other things of this kind, the secret end and object of the famous scientific congress of Munich become perfectly manifest. In a word, Dr. Döllinger has had an idea which has gradually supplanted the Catholic idea in his mind, and for the sake of which he has at last sacrificed the last lingering remnant of honor, conscience, loyalty, and divine grace in his soul, and stooped so low as to write his name at the bottom of that long and infamous list of traitors and heretics against whom none have ever pronounced sterner sentence of condemnation than himself. This great idea has been nothing less than the reunion of Christendom on a basis of compromise between the Catholic Church and the Eastern and Western sects, excluding the supremacy of the Roman Church and Pontiff. This is no new idea of Döllinger's. The only thing which was new and original in it was the particular scheme or plan of operation for carrying it into effect. Even this was not originated by Döllinger himself, but first planted in the mind of Maximilian II., King of Bavaria, during his youth, by Schelling. When this able and enterprising prince ascended the throne, he undertook the extraordinary task of effecting a universal intellectual and moral unification of Germany, of which Munich should be the radiating centre. The union of the different religious confessions formed a principal part of this plan. Moreover, Germany was to become the mighty power, after being united in herself, to bring all the rest of Christendom into unity in a perfect Christian civilization, which would then extend itself triumphantly through the rest of the world. The great lever by which this mighty work was to be accomplished was to be a society of learned men and able statesmen, directed by the sovereign authority of the king himself. The gathering point for these learned men was naturally the University of Munich, and from the chairs of this university would proceed that teaching and influence which should train up a body of disciples ready to sustain and carry out in their various professions and posts of influence the grand project conceived in the philosophic brain of Schelling and eagerly adopted by his royal pupil. As a matter of course, those professors of the university who were thoroughly loyal to Rome must either submit to the royal dictation or be removed. Phillipps and several other distinguished professors sacrificed their places to their conscience. Döllinger submitted. This was the fatal rock on which he split, the one which has caused injury or total shipwreck in every age of the church to so many eminent ecclesiastics. It was necessary to choose between unconditional loyalty to the spiritual sovereignty of the Pope, or subserviency to the usurpation of the temporal prince. This was the real question from the outset, and hence Dr. Döllinger's utter abjuration of the Papal supremacy is but the last logical consequence of this weak yielding at the beginning. Bossuet yielded to Louis XIV. in a similar manner. But Bossuet was a thoroughgoing theologian, priest, and bishop. He yielded against the grain, and his heart was always Roman and on the side of the Pope. Therefore Bossuet only marred but did not destroy his character and work as a great bishop and a great writer. His Gallicanism is only a single flaw in a majestic statue. But in the case of Döllinger, the German, the ambitious scholar, the courtier has predominated over and finally cast out entirely the Catholic, the theologian, and the priest. He has not been a passive tool, but a most active and energetic master-workman in carrying out the plan of Schelling and Maximilian. Nevertheless, he has been cautious, secret, and indirect in his method of working, not attacking openly, but artfully undermining the citadel of the faith, throwing out hints and scattering seeds which he left to germinate in other minds, in his published works, and chiefly intent upon privately initiating certain chosen persons into his doctrines. In this way, a subtle and deadly poison has long been spreading its baleful influence among a certain class of intellectual Catholic young men not only in Germany, but also in France and England. Thank God! this secret poisoning by concealed heresy has been stopped. The poison is now openly exposed to view, and advertised as a pleasant refrigerant or gentle purgative medicine, but is likely to deceive no one who is in good faith, for its color, taste, and smell betray it; and whoever has made his head dizzy for awhile by hastily swallowing a few drops by mistake is likely to be trebly cautious for the future.