For this reason not only the Vestal Virgins themselves deemed celibacy an honorable privilege which drew them nearer to the Deity, and gloried in its faithful practice, if history is at all truthful; but their self-sacrifice invested them with a special halo in the eyes of the multitude. Had Dr. Draper shared the ennobling sentiments of these pagan women, he would never have uttered the base slander on humanity—which puts his own manhood to the blush, and brands the warm-blooded days of his single life—that “public celibacy is private wickedness.”
Animated by the same sentiment of rendering all things subject to the Divinity, men consecrated to him the fruits of the earth, and invoked his blessing on the seedling buried in the soil. Familiar objects became typical of divine attributes, as water of the purity of Diana, and salt of the incorruptibility of Saturn; hence the sprinkling of the aqua lustralis among the Romans on all solemn occasions, and the use of salt in their sacrifices. Even the scattering of a little dust on the forehead was to them expressive of the calm and tranquillity of death succeeding to the storms and passions of life. No doubt, had Dr. Draper recalled those lines of Virgil:
“Hi motus animorum atque hæc certamina tanta
Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescunt,”
he would, in accordance with his peculiar logic, have perceived in the ceremonies of Ash-Wednesday another instance of a return to paganism. Without entering at greater length into those spontaneous expressions of reverence towards the Deity which abound in every religious system, and which well up from the human heart as a necessary confession of its dependence on a higher cause, we will hasten to the conclusion, implied in them, that there is an identity of external worship in all religions which, so far, proclaims an identity of origin. What, therefore, Dr. Draper pronounces to be a paganization of Christianity is nothing more than acceptance by it of those features of older creeds which are founded on truth, and spring from the constitution of human nature.
What though the Romans did pay homage to Lares and Penates, to river gods and tutelary deities; should that fact stigmatize as idolatrous or heathenish the reverence exhibited by Christians towards the Blessed Virgin and the saints? Does not the fact rather indicate, by its very universality, that it is part of the divine economy, and that such worship best represents the wants of the human heart? Assuredly, this is not intended as a vindication of pagan practices, but aimed to show that, in the struggles of the human heart to satisfy its cravings, an undeserting instinct guides it along a path which, however tortuous and winding, leads in the end to truth. Draper’s charge of paganization in all respects resembles Voltaire’s assertion that Christianity is a counterfeit of Buddhism.
That noted infidel contended that celibacy, monasticism, mendicity, voluntary poverty, humility, and mortification of the senses, were so many features of Buddhism unblushingly borrowed by the Christian Church. But, like the other misstatements of Voltaire, made through pure love of mischief, this one has been refuted time and again. It has been shown that the ethics of Buddha flow from the dogma that ignorance, passion, and desire are the root of all evil, and, this principle granted, nothing could be more natural than the moral system thence resulting. In the Christian code, on the contrary, purity, voluntary poverty, and mortification of the senses are practised for their own sake; not for the purpose of enlightenment or the extirpation of ignorance, but that our natures may thereby become purified. No matter, therefore, how strong and striking analogies may be, the difference in principle destroys the theories of Voltaire and Draper; for similar consequences often proceed from widely differing premises. We see this fact impressively exhibited in the practice of auricular confession as it exists among the followers of Gautama. According to them, the evil tendencies of the human heart are manifold and varied, and, to be successfully combated, must be divided into classes. Thus the sin of sensuality admits of a division into excess at table and concupiscence of the flesh, the latter being in turn subdivided into lust of the eye and lust of the body, evil thoughts, evil practices, etc. We have here in reality a true system of casuistry. Faults should be confessed with sorrow and an accompanying determination not to repeat them; nay, even wrongs must be repaired as far as possible, and stolen property be restored. Such are the views which have been firmly held by the disciples of Buddha from time immemorial. Thus we find confession and its concomitant practices established among the Buddhists on grounds of pure reason; and surely the fact is no argument against the same practice in the Christian Church, nor does the existence of the practice among Christians necessarily denote a Buddhic origin. The explanation is still the same that practices and beliefs founded on the wants of human nature are universal, circumscribed neither by church nor creed. We believe, therefore, that Dr. Draper’s philosophy of gradual paganization is not tenable; and if we strip it of a certain veneer of elegant verbiage, we shall find a rather dull load of unsupported assertion beneath:
“Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne.”
The whole account of this pretended paganization breathes a spirit of bitterness and malignity that makes one perforce smile at the title-page of the book, on which is inscribed the name of that sweet daughter of philosophy, Science. The reader is constantly startled by volleys of assertions, contemptuous, blasphemous, ironical, and derisive. Indeed, it may be said that hatred of Catholic doctrine and usages is the attendant demon of Dr. Draper’s life, the wraith that haunts him day and night. He says that it was for the gratification of the Empress Helena the Saviour’s cross was discovered; that when the people embraced the knees of S. Cyril after the Blessed Virgin was declared Mother of God, it was the old instinct peeping out—their ancestors would have done the same for Diana; that the festival of the Purification was invented to remove the uneasiness of heathen converts on account of the loss of their Lupercalia, or feasts of Pan; that quantities of dust were brought from the Holy Land, and sold at enormous prices as antidotes against devils, etc., ad nauseam. Through all this rodomontade we perceive not a single attempt at proof, only an unbroken tissue of unsupported assertion. It is said; it is openly stated; there is a belief that—these are Draper’s usual formularies whenever an obscure but impure and blasphemous tradition is related by him. When, however, he surpasses himself in obscenity, he drops even this thin disguise of reasoning, and boldly asserts. But with matter of this sort we will not stain our pages. Indeed, these vile and obscure traditions seem to have a special charm for our author. Worse, however, than this packing of silly and stupid fables into his book is the implied understanding that the church is answerable for them all. She it is who falsifies decretals, invents miracles, discovers fraudulent relics, beholds apparitions, sanctions the trial by fire, massacres a whole cityful, and perpetrates every crime in the calendar. Surely, she were a very monster of iniquity, the real scarlet lady, the beast with seven heads, were the half true of her which Dr. Draper lays at her door. There is in it, however, the manifest intent and outline of a crusade against the church and the institutions she fosters; the shadowing forth of a purpose to array against her, what is more formidable than Star Chamber or Inquisition—the feelings of unreflecting millions who are allured by the glamour of manner to the utter disregard of matter. But it must be remembered that Exeter Hall fanaticism has never found a genial home on this side of the Atlantic, and we are not afraid that the stupid conglomeration of silly charges brought against the church by Dr. Draper, more akin to fatuous drivel than to the dignified and scholarly arraignment of a philosopher, will do more than provoke a pitying smile. His feeble blows fall on adamantine sides which have oft resisted shafts aimed with deadlier intent than these:
“Telumque imbelle sine ictu