TRUE GREATNESS.
There is a singular power in that pithy summons of the exordium to the preface of the Mass—“Sursum Corda.” It stirs the deepest feelings of the human heart. Human nature is keenly sensitive to every appeal addressed to her true instincts. Man needs not to be told that he possesses the power of fixing his thoughts on things superhuman, educing from them principles of action, and shaping thereby his manifold relations with society. It is in stimulating this latent energy, and lovingly decoying it up to its most congenial atmosphere, that we experience the tender force of “Sursum Corda” as a touching address to our innermost self.
Axioms are beyond demonstration. But man, no less than science, has his own living first principles, and their evidence is of such a clearness as to be but obscured by ratiocination. For instance, it is always agreeable to our better nature to give praise where praise is due. Heathen wisdom has beautifully witnessed to this homely truth: “Palmam qui meruit ferat.”[121] The inspired son of Sirach makes it an imperative duty: “Let us now praise men of renown, and our fathers in their generation.... Let the people show forth their wisdom, and the church declare their praise.”[122] If we should be asked to expound the philosophy of this noble instinct, we should be obliged, we apprehend, either to mystify what is self-evident, or super-illustrate it by the equally undemonstrable fact that greatness of character challenges universal admiration. It is like the golden sunset of Italy, or the many-tinted beauty of the rainbow. We feel, one and all, impelled to do it unsolicited homage.
Further, we secretly covet and thirst after it. For, by a cardinal law of our being, we fain would appropriate and monopolize whatsoever we deem worthy of admiration. Concerning the particular qualities of which true greatness is made up, there may be some difference of opinion. What is indisputable is that its attainment is the result of sustained effort; that that effort is itself a fertile source of pleasure; and that in proportion as we loiter in listless indolence, and shrink from making it, our life is retrogressive and self-condemned.
Artists, in aiming at eminence copy the great masters. They seek to touch their lips to the primal fount of inspiration. Now, it is rather matter of history than abstract speculation or ascetic predilection, that the very best models of greatness of character have been the saints. With their deep piety, lengthened vigils, and extraordinary ecstasies, we are not now concerned. It is as simple men and women we view them. We are dealing rather with effects than with causes. Aside from the supernatural aims whereupon they ever bent and concentrated all their energies, and whereby they daily renewed their youth, and whereat they ceaselessly imbibed fresh draughts of vitalizing nectar, they are the highest types on record of individual excellence. Those fine traits of character which men are agreed in admiring shine out more conspicuously in the saints than in any other class of men. On the other hand, human frailties, social incongruities, personal imperfections, find little or no place in their history.
Only true men love solitude. Not that anybody positively hates it, but that most people prefer, instead of soaring alone with the eagle, to fly low with the herd of the feathered tribe. Hence they hold, with Aristotle, that he who loves solitude must be either a wild beast or a god. It is indeed a godlike love, but it was the cherished heritage of the saints. They were “never less alone than when alone.”
Independence wins the respect of all. Not that reckless thrusting of ourselves against all established usages which borders on silliness, nor yet that waspish spirit of antagonism by which littleness would, in distinguishing and gainsaying anything, fain assume the garb of greatness. Christian independence, which is ever both manly and modest, lies between rashness and sycophancy, but partakes of the nature of neither. The harebrained truant is but little further removed from the saint than the fawning parasite. The kingly prophet of Israel makes frequent and beautiful allusions to independence, as: “Dominus illuminatis mea et salus mea: quem timebo?” And again: “Expecta Dominum, viriliter age, confortetur cor tuum, et sustine Dominum.”[123] If a moral chemist were to analyze independence, he would most likely discover that its seed and stem is love of principle. Men have at all times been found who smiled upon the frowns of fortune, and cheerfully welcomed adversity, simply because principle still survived in unimpaired integrity, though all else had perished. There was yet one rich germ of abiding felicity. Of such it has been well said that “they need not flatter the vain, nor be tried with the impertinent, nor stand to the courtesy of knavery and folly. They need not dance after the caprice of a humorist, nor take part in the extravagance of another.” Perhaps no one sentence in the writings of the illustrious Archbishop Hughes furnishes a true key-note to his character better than this: “I have never had a patron in church or state.” Few are able to pen such words, and, in doing so, defy any impeachment of their veracity. A wholesome disregard for the opinions of others or indifference to human respect is the synonym of independence. It is, indeed, under the latter name we find independence mentioned in hagiology and ascetic theology; and it is one of the insidious poisons which the saints seem most to have feared. They considered the world so whimsical that, do what they might, they never could satisfy it. They everywhere saw good reason for pondering the old argument: “John came neither eating nor drinking, and you say: He hath a devil. The Son of Man is come both eating and drinking, and you say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a drinker of wine.”[124] There is a remarkable instance of independence in the life of St. Thomas à Becket, and it shows how utterly irreconcilable are human respect and love of principle. It was clear to the chancellor that one of two things needs must come to pass. Either he should be allowed to remain chancellor, and continue in kindly relations with Henry, or he should be constrained to accept the archbishopric, and, by denouncing Henry’s conduct, cease to be the friend of the king. The latter would have saints for friends at the cost of principle; he would have precedence given to the crown over conscience; he would have a courtier prelate with elastic convictions; he would have reconciled anomalies and “harmonized impossibilities.” But the independence of conscience is inflexible; and hence the memorable collision between a powerful monarch, whose fraudulence time has unveiled, and a prelate of unsullied integrity, whose glorious martyrdom is one of the great triumphs of the church. A beautiful writer[125] lays down a simple rule whereby men of vacillating character, in matters of conscience and duty, may meet those who would shake their independence with a sort of argumentum ad hominem: “Since worldlings look upon us as foolish, let us regard them in the same light.”
Closely akin to independence is steadfastness, or firmness of resolve. Not a mulish obstinacy which spurns counsel, and, by magnifying ourselves above all others, teaches us only to unlearn ourselves. Such a spirit betrays utter want of self-knowledge; for few suffice for themselves, and fewer still see themselves as they are seen by others. Whoever would attain to greatness should avoid the fickle and the inconstant. “He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith.” And as instability in the convictions of the mind and affections of the heart extends to men’s relations and occupations in life, branding them in all things as volatile, supercilious, and untrustworthy, so we should study to be immovably firm in retaining and acting upon principles which we know to be based upon truth and justice. In pursuing any course of action maturely planned, and followed up from commendable motives, we must courteously but firmly resist all attacks materially affecting the nature of our resolve. It is common with the giddy and the irresolute to seek to bring down men of unbending firmness to their own contemptible level. Whoever lacks the courage to be singular, lacks the first element of greatness, is wanting in a source of solid happiness, and can scarcely be a true Christian. To give up a tried and disinterested friend, to relinquish a line of conduct in itself good and deliberately entered upon—unless from motives far more overpowering than those which had hitherto swayed you—besides furnishing clear evidence of fickleness, inflicts upon the will an incurable wound.
If steadfastness be the twin-sister of independence, fortitude is its eldest daughter. It has various manifestations; but it is best evidenced in danger and in time of difficulty. Opposition is its touchstone, elicits its latent powers, displays them in their modest and unborrowed beauty, making us regard their possessor with feelings akin to those with which we behold a gallant ship that has just ridden out a violent tempest, or the conqueror who, having waded, in calm courage, through a sea of blood, conducts his triumphant legions through the captured provinces to survey the rich spoils of victory. Fortitude may be considered the lion-virtue of the human breast. It is the shield of all the other virtues, rising in earnest promptness at the signal of approaching combat, and waiting, with giant force, to crush, if it cannot repel, the invader. Sydney Smith would compare no pleasure to that of conversation with a man of well-stored mind and communicative disposition. It seems to us there is no sight more beautiful to contemplate than that of a brave man in the midst of danger. If aught could enhance its thrilling interest, it would be the elevating assurance that the invincible hero wars with bitter reluctance, and solely for the sacred interests of truth and justice. Yet such, in all instances, has been the struggle of the saints and the eminent servants of the church, in which her history so copiously abounds. Such, in these latter days, was the attitude of Dr. Doyle, before the lords and commons of Britain, disdainfully repelling their calumnies against the Catholics of Ireland, scattering a serried phalanx of Oxford’s ablest champions, and submitting his very examiners to an unexpected ordeal of scrutiny. A still more beautiful instance of quiet courage is that evinced by St. Paul before the judgment-seat of Festus: “Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Cæsar, have I offended in anything. But Festus, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, answering Paul, said: Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things before me? Then Paul said: I stand at Cæsar’s judgment-seat where I ought to be judged. To the Jews I have done no injury, as thou very well knowest. For if I have injured them, or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die. But if there be none of these things whereof they accuse me, no man may deliver me to them: I appeal to Cæsar.”[126] It was not only a fearless assertion of the civil rights and liberty of the subject, but also the stirring rebuke to the perfidious judge for that he sought to transgress the limits of the constitution. St. Chrysostom’s reply to the courtier who brought him the intimation of the Empress Eudoxia’s intention to banish him from his see, breathes the spirit of conscious fortitude: “Is there any place she can send me where God will not be with me?”