And this is not all. In the poem alluded to above Tennyson puts these words into the mouth of his hero, the virgin-knight:
“My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.”[166]
He who thus reveals to us the intimate relation existing between purity and strength is not a Catholic. If we had expressed the same thought as originating from ourselves, we might have been charged with mysticism; this is why we have quoted the great poet. He would not fear being called upon to justify his thought; let him therefore be the one attacked.
But whatever may be the weight which experience gives to this thought of Tennyson's, there is no need to wait for the time when the Russian clergy shall be waging war against unbelief, to judge of the strength they are likely to have for the combat. In a chapter devoted to revelations of the state of the “orthodox” clergy, M. Schédo-Ferroti takes praiseworthy pains to exhibit their good qualities. “I have found,” he writes, “with some regrettable exceptions, that the Russian priest possessed two valuable and truly Christian qualities, the frequency of which constitutes in some sort a characteristic feature of the class. The Russian priest is pious without any ostentation, and he is gifted with a wonderful faculty for supporting misfortune, under whatever form it may overtake him.”[167] We have already made some observations on the first of these two qualities, and will now do the same for the second.
To be endowed with a marvellous power of supporting misfortune—what better preparation, apparently, could there be for supporting the struggle of the future? It is to patience that our Lord Jesus Christ promises the possession of our souls for a happy eternity when he says: In patientia vestra possidebitis animas vestras—“In your patience you shall possess your souls” (S. Luke xxi. 19). These divine words, alas! cannot in any way find their application in the patience of the Russian clergy. The patience whereof our Lord speaks is that which fills and sustains the soul, and which places in our mouths words whose wisdom puts our adversaries to silence.
This explanation is not our own; it is that of Jesus Christ himself. “They will lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for my name's sake: and it shall happen to you for a testimony. Lay it up, therefore, in your hearts, not to meditate before, how you shall answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and gainsay. And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends: and some of you they will put to death. And you shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but a hair of your head shall not perish. In your patience you shall possess your souls” (S. Luke xxi. 12-19). The patience here described corresponds exactly with the patience of which the Catholic bishops and priests of Switzerland, Germany, and elsewhere are offering us at this very time so edifying and admirable an example.
The patience taught by our Lord, then, is not wanting to the Catholic clergy; can we hope to find it in the Russian clergy in the day when orthodoxy shall be threatened? Let us well consider the words of our Lord which we have just quoted, bearing in mind the energetic spirit which they suppose, and let us then compare them with the following words of the most devoted advocate of the orthodox clergy in Russia: “This readiness to bear, without murmuring, the sudden reverses of fortune,” says Schédo-Ferroti, “this spontaneous submission to the decrees of Providence, is too Christian a virtue to allow us to refuse it the admiration which it deserves; but it seems to us that the combination of circumstances which has contributed to develop in the Russian clergy this mute resignation has also exercised a depressing influence upon their moral strength, in paralyzing [pg 706] the powers of their will by rendering its free exercise utterly and invariably impossible. It is the natural consequence of excessive suffering, whether physical or moral, to end in the enervation of the patient, by depriving him of the faculty of action, by destroying all his energy, and leaving him destitute even of any belief in his own strength; allowing him to remain in possession of but one single conviction, that of his powerlessness to struggle against fate—a conviction that finds its expression in this mute and absolute resignation which we find in the lower Russian clergy.”[168]