Let the reader peruse these passages carefully. They read very differently from the other set of extracts, and yet they occur together, mixed up with each other, and we have separated them in order to exhibit more clearly the singular clashing in the author’s mind between old, timeworn prejudices, and a new, intruding set of thoughts and sentiments derived from the perusal of F. Faber’s life and writings. We have shown how he attempts to reunite the two. But they cannot live peaceably together in the same breast, any more than could Sara and Agar in the same tent. They are incompatible. It is impossible to make out of Father Faber an exceptional case. If the charge of idolatry is sustained against us, and if, in other respects, the Roman Church deserves the epithets applied to her by our enemies, Father Faber went with his eyes open, and remained with his eyes opening wider and wider, and died in a religion which cannot be embraced without bringing death to the soul.
He was no adherent of any softening, modifying, minimizing school. He was not like any of those whom Protestants are wont to regard with favor as belonging more to themselves than to us, as a sort of secret, unconscious Protestants, who are only externally united to the Roman Church, while their spirit is alien from her spirit. There was nothing of Pascal, Martin Boos, or Hyacinthe about him. He was not even one of those who stopped short at the line of strictly defined and obligatory doctrine, as if afraid of being extreme Catholics. He was no Gallican, no rigorist, no advocate of anything that might be called Neo-Catholic or Anglo-Catholic. Even in regard to minor and accessory matters, to modes and ways in which there is great room for variation in opinion and practice, he preferred those which characterize the genius of the Italian and Spanish nations, and which seem to the colder and more reserved temperament of the English to be the most remote and foreign to their tastes and intellectual habits. He endeavored to divest himself of everything which bore the semblance of conformity even in accidentals to Anglicanism, and to throw his whole soul into what he considered to be the most perfectly Catholic mould. He outran in this many both of the old English Catholics and of his fellow-converts. Especially in regard to the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, he made himself the champion of the most exalted views concerning the power and glory of the Mother of God, and the importance of her cultus in the practical teaching and piety which is directed to the end of the conversion and perfection of souls. He followed St. Bernardine of Sienna, St. Alphonsus, and the V. Louis Grignon de Montfort, and his entire spiritual doctrine is derived
from similar sources, as it were flowing from the very topmost heights of mystic contemplation, above the clouds, and far remote from the paths and ken of ordinary mortals. In his theology, which is remarkable both for accuracy and depth, he always follows those authors whose doctrine accords with the strictest criterion of Roman orthodoxy. It is not, then, anything in Father Faber which is peculiar and self-originated, or which he brought over from his Protestant education, and has mixed with Catholic doctrine as a clarifying ingredient, that makes his books popular with Protestants, and has excited the admiration of the writer in the Princeton Review. F. Faber’s doctrine and sanctity are purely Catholic products. The homage which he has extorted is homage paid to the school in which he learned, and the masters and models he followed. The sheep shows the quality of his pasture in the fineness and whiteness of his wool. “Men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles.” If our reverend friend were more familiar with the lives of the Saints and the works of Catholic spiritual writers, he would cease to wonder at F. Faber and his works. We can point him to whole libraries of works in which the characters and actions of a multitude of similar men and women are depicted, and where countless forms of the same divine truths and holy sentiments are presented. Those who “practised austerities” to the greatest possible extent, the solitaries of the desert, the holy monks and nuns, the saints of the most heroic type, are precisely those who were marked at the same time by their entire conformity to the doctrine and spirit of the Roman Church, their profound humility, and their ardent love of the great Lord and Saviour of mankind. Contrasting
F. Faber, and others like him, with the great body of fervent Catholics, as if they had a “different spirit,” the great body being “full of self-righteousness,” and these select few having “no confidence in their own righteousness,” is sheer nonsense, and an unmeaning rattle of words. We cannot all pretend to possess the genius, the loveliness of character, the extraordinary graces, or the exalted sanctity of F. Faber. But all those who hold the genuine Catholic doctrine which our holy mother the church teaches, and possess in any degree the genuine Catholic piety which she inculcates, are, so far, like F. Faber. The same spirit is in all, whether they be the frail and sinful confessing their sins with contrition, the sincere though imperfect who are striving to keep God’s commandments with more or less diligence, or the more advanced in Christian virtue and holiness of life. Those who have a false and counterfeit piety, who indulge in the spiritual sins of pride, self-confidence, and vainglory, who are willing victims to the illusions of the devil, and seek to play the part of saints in order to gratify their self-love and win applause, are like other sinners, except that they have more of the hypocrite about them. They generally become heretics, or fall into open sin, and cease acting their wearisome part, unless they are truly humbled and converted. These are the persons who have a “different spirit” from that which actuates the true children of the church. That F. Faber touched the common chords which vibrate through the great Catholic heart is shown by the fact that he is the most popular spiritual writer of this century. Three hundred thousand copies of his works, in some six or seven languages, had been sold some time ago, and they still continue
to circulate everywhere. It is not a little remarkable that the same chord is obedient to his touch in the hearts of so many Protestants. What genius, learning, reasoning, philosophy, cannot do, the faith and love which spring from prayer and penance accomplish with ease. It is a remarkable fact, and we call the attention of Catholic preachers and writers to it, as well as that of Protestants. One who disdained the thought of diluting Catholic doctrine to suit the delicate palate of the age, who was regardless of the opinion of men, who plumed his pinions for a kind of audacious flight into the lofty ether in which saints alone are wont to soar and poise in contemplation, who threw off all drapery from the glorious form of Catholic truth, and loudly called on all men to gaze and worship, is the one who wins the confidence and captivates the hearts of the greatest number of the church’s lost and estranged children. We trust that his works will win their way, and exercise their gentle, attractive force still more extensively among evangelical Protestants. The recommendation of a Presbyterian pastor, which goes forth under the sanction of Princeton, will, we trust, produce its full effect, and excite the pious curiosity of a great number of readers to become acquainted with the biography and writings of the gifted, lovely, holy poet, priest, and teacher, who has been called the Bernardine of Sienna of the nineteenth century.
We have endeavored to bring out into strong relief what is really of the greatest moment in the article of the Princeton Review, and what the weak though violent counter-protests only make more prominent and definite, that the concessions to the personal and doctrinal purity of Father Faber are a yielding of the most grievous
of the charges against Catholics and their religion. It argues, we hope, a change in the spirit and manner of maintaining the controversy with us which is coming on. The teaching of Father Faber is admitted to contain the “essential truths of the Gospel,” and his most distinctively Catholic and Roman doctrines are admitted to be “not incompatible with piety.” The conclusion is rigidly logical and irresistible, that Calvinists must consider the controversy between us as one not respecting directly, but only indirectly, the essential, fundamental dogmas and precepts of the Gospel and Christianity. Let them, then, realize this view to themselves, think in accordance with it, and regulate their conduct and language in harmony with it. Let them no longer ignore and practically abjure the Christian church from the fourth century to the present moment, and confine their sympathies to an imaginary primitive period and the sphere of modern Protestantism. Let them study ancient, mediæval, and modern Catholic authors, read history and theology, and learn to discuss the real issue with us. The Chinese method of warfare, charging upon us with shields aloft, bearing the hideous figure of the beast with seven heads and ten horns, with outcries and shouts of derision and vituperation, will not answer any longer. Those who choose to follow such tactics will soon be forced to throw their shoes into the air and take to flight. It is too late to frighten even Presbyterian children with such nonsense. The weakness and helplessness of the poor Irish Catholics, and of the handful of Catholics in England, made them for a long time the easy victims of oppression and calumny. But the day for treating the Catholics of the English-speaking world with haughtiness and contumely has passed by. We desire, however, no revenge or retaliation. We ask nothing of Protestants except that they will seek the truth. In the words of Montalembert: “The truth, and nothing but the truth—justice, and nothing but justice—let that be our sole revenge!”[97]
[94] The Princeton Review, October, 1871. Art. II.: The Life and Letters of Frederick William Faber. By Rev. William Scribner.
[95] Lecture IV., p. 206. Dublin. Third Edition.
[96] We do not intend to affirm positively that Gioberti formally renounced the communion and faith of the Catholic Church, a matter about which there hangs a great obscurity. But his violent enmity to the Jesuits and his revolutionary principles in general would have certainly led him to attack the clergy and the existing order in the most vulnerable part.