Yes, Father! on the altar of the past
We may lay down a joy, too sweet to last;
See the flowers wither that our pathway strewed,
Incline our brows beneath the tempest rude,
Behold the rainbow glory fade away
That made fair promise for our opening day:
And yet, like that poor stricken plant, survive,
Blighted by frost, half dead and half alive,
Give to the desert winds our morning dream,
And still support our agony supreme!
We may behold, stretched on a bed of pain,
The form to which we minister in vain—
The last, the dearest, the consoling friend—
Count every moment of his weary end,
Kiss the pale brow, and watch each wavering breath;
Close the cold eyelids, murmur, "This is death!"
And still once more to life and hope belong.
O God! thou knowest through faith the heart grows strong
But, ah! another human soul to love
So fondly that we tremble as above
Its purity and beauty we incline,
Then suddenly to mark its depths divine
Shadowed and chilled, and from our Paradise
Perceive an icy, vaporous breath arise,
Whence blew sweet zephyrs, odorous with grace!
To seek in vain religion's luminous trace
Amid the ashes of her ruined shrine,
To pray, to weep, to doubt, to hope, divine
All but the truth; and at the last to dare
The long, deep look that tells us our despair,
Revealing vacancy, a faith withdrawn
Without a glance towards the retreating dawn,
Without a cry of grief, a sigh, a prayer—
O God! that loss is more than we can bear!
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Catholicity and Pantheism—All Truth or No Truth. An Essay by the Rev. J. De Concilio, etc., etc. New York: Sadliers. 1874.
This essay was first published in The Catholic World, and we are glad to see it published in a separate volume. It is not a complete treatise, but only one complete part of a treatise, the prima primæ of a more extensive work, which we hope the author may be able to write and publish. F. De Concilio is one of our most learned and acute philosophers and theologians, a disciple of no modern clique or innovating system, a vender of no patent contrivance of his own for reconciling contraries, but a modest yet intrepid advocate and defender of the old time honored scholastic wisdom of S. Thomas. In its own line, his essay is superior to anything ever before produced in this country, and we trust that due attention and a just meed of praise will be awarded to it by the few who will be able to understand it, in Europe as well as in America. If the author, who has for a long time struggled to bring his work into the light, is left in the lurch by everybody, as the learned Dr. Smith has been in England with his splendid unfinished work on the Pentateuch, it will be a sad proof of our intellectual degeneracy.
We will not make a critical review of F. De Concilio's argument in the present short notice, but we think a few words in reply to some criticisms which have been made, and may be repeated, either publicly or in private, are almost imperatively called for.
The only one of these criticisms really worth any attention relates to the argument from reason for the Trinity. It has been objected by some very respectable theologians that the rational argument for the Trinity professes to demonstrate from purely rational principles of natural human intelligence the entire revealed mystery of the Trinity. We admit frankly that, if the supposition is correct, the censure founded on it, that the author has undertaken something pronounced by Catholic doctrine impossible and unlawful, is just and inevitable. We have never, however, understood the author in this sense. We understand him to profess to argue in part from premises given by revelation, and thus merely to explicate a theological doctrine, and in part to furnish proofs from pure reason, first, that the rational objections against the dogma are invalid; and, second, that the dogma as disclosed by revelation taken as a philosophical hypothesis, and it alone, satisfactorily solves certain difficult problems respecting the divine nature, which otherwise would be insoluble. So far as any direct proof of the distinction and proprieties of the three persons in God is concerned, we understand that such proof is put forward as inadequate and only probable, but by no means either a complete or strictly demonstrative argument.
We think, therefore, with due submission to higher authority, that the author escapes the censures of the Syllabus and the Vatican Council, and attempts no more than has been done by Bossuet, Lacordaire, and other great thinkers, who have never been thought to have gone beyond the bounds of allowed liberty. We leave the author, however, to defend and advocate his own cause, if it requires to be further vindicated, and merely give this statement as an explanation of our own reason for admitting his admirable articles into this magazine without any alteration.
Another criticism, which the author himself has sufficiently answered, imputed to him the doctrine of a necessary creation and of optimism. It is only necessary to read his book carefully to see how unfounded is this imputation.