Of course we can lay a great deal on the back of the devil and on the perversity of the human will. But it may be as well to remember also that those who have the faith may prove false to their trust. St. James tells us that even the devils believe and tremble. And so a man may possess the letter of the faith in full with very little of its spirit. A man may know St. Thomas from cover to cover, and assent to all his propositions, yet lead a bad life. Faith without works is dead. Christians must show forth in their lives whose disciples they are. If their lives are good; if the lives of a large body of believers are good; if they are chaste, charitable, honest in word and deed, and if such be the normal condition of their lives, men will not have far to go to look for faith. Virtue is the great preacher and converter. Even natural virtue—courage, sobriety, manliness, self-restraint—wins universal admiration. Supernatural virtue proclaims its godhead.
If the world is to be converted to faith, it will only be converted by the good lives and works of the faithful. The human intellect may carp at intellectual difficulties, but the human heart is overcome by goodness, by charity, by chastity. Faith is now what it always was; men are as they always were. But from a faithless and corrupt generation the inheritance is taken away. Thus the Jews lost it, thus Christian nations lose it. Had there been no corruption among the faithful there would have been no Protestant Reformation. Had there been no corruption in France, had the leaders of the people been true to the faith that was in them, infidelity would never have made such fearful havoc in a land of saints. And so with Germany, England, Scotland, Austria, Italy, and the other nations; when we examine closely we shall find that the revolt had its origin less in pride of intellect than in the concupiscence of the flesh and the pride of life. Intellectual assent to God’s teaching is not enough to lead a man to heaven. There must be a corresponding moral assent in his life. Why did Ireland, the weakest of the nations, not lose the faith? She was decimated, starved, made ignorant, brutalized as far as inhuman legislation can go to brutalize man, but she never lost the faith. Why? Because her sons and her daughters, whatever they may have known or not known of theology, of science, of philosophy, of literature, lived the faith, kept it stored up in their hearts, died for it, bequeathed it as a sacred legacy—their only legacy—to their children. Ah! it is on this that the future of faith hangs more than on intellectual discussion, articles in magazines, or theological writings. Shall we to-day doubt or hesitate about the future of faith—we the members of a church that numbers its millions by the hundred thousand? Are not we the children of Peter, of Paul, of Christ himself? Have not we the deposit that he confided to the twelve? Did they hesitate to face a world from which faith was almost blotted out, a world steeped in iniquity? They went out—twelve men; they preached Jesus, and him crucified; they lived what they preached, they suffered for what they preached, and, when nothing more was left for them to do, they died for it. We are not called upon to die for it to-day. The church is established. Its temples cover the world. Its children are in every land. From the rising of the sun to the going down thereof the living Sacrifice of Christ’s redeeming body and blood is daily offered up to God from the world and for the world. Can we tremble for the future of faith?
Of course sin and schism and infidelity will exist in the world till the end; but great multitudes may be saved and brought back if only the faithful are true. One great opposing element to the advance of faith is dissolving before our eyes—Protestantism. Shall all the children of Protestants perish and be given over to infidelity? Are there no earnest and well-inclined minds among them, no good people? There are multitudes of such, who are wavering and in doubt and sore perplexity because such support even as they had is slipping from under them, and beneath they see nothing but a blank and awful abyss. We do not anticipate that they will come back to us in multitudes. We scarcely look for that general “craving amongst men for the certainty, the guidance, and the consolation that the Catholic Church alone offers them,” as Mr. Mallock puts it. We do not rely upon “such an outburst of feeling”; and yet even that might come. Sensim sine sensu will the wanderers come back. What we Catholics have to consider is our duty in the matter. We can indeed hasten that coming. If we would do so effectually we must be brothers to them in charity, examples to them in our lives, above them in intelligence as in that faith which is the highest intelligence.
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Elements of Ecclesiastical Law. By Rev. S. B. Smith, D.D. Second edition, revised and enlarged. Benziger Bros., New York.
We are glad to see that the Rev. Dr. Smith has been obliged to issue a second edition of his Elements of Ecclesiastical Law so soon after his first edition. This is an evidence that his book was a desideratum in our country. Though considered as a missionary country and under the direction of the Propaganda, yet, owing to the progress which the church has made here during the last twenty-five years, we have almost all the qualifications for being put on the same regular footing as the oldest churches of Europe. At all events it cannot be denied that we are steadily and swiftly approaching that stage. Very soon the church in this country will assume the regular canonical status of the churches on the Continent of Europe. The necessity, therefore, is apparent of studying the common legislation of the church universal, in order to assimilate ourselves to the spirit and, as far as possible, to the letter of that legislation, and to apply its general principles to the particular conditions, wants, and requirements of our country. This has been Dr. Smith’s aim in the Elements he has published. He gives, in the first place, an idea of law and jus in general, and in particular of canon law with its divisions. Next he inquires into the sources of canon law—which are the Scriptures, tradition, apostolic enactments, decrees of the Roman pontiffs and of the councils, œcumenical, national, provincial, and diocesan, the Roman congregations and customs—along with a history of canon law in the Latin church, and especially a history of canon law in our country. This occupies the whole of the first part. In the second part our author treats of jurisdiction in general as vested in ecclesiastical persons, of the different kinds of jurisdiction, of the manner of acquiring it in general and in particular, of the manner of resigning and losing jurisdiction, and of the right and duties of such as are vested with ecclesiastical jurisdiction; hence in the third part he speaks in particular of the Sovereign Pontiff, his election, primacy, and other prerogatives, of cardinals and of the Roman congregations, of legates, nuncios, of patriarchs, primates, metropolitan bishops, auxiliary bishops, coadjutor-bishops, vicars-general, deans and pastors, etc., of the rights, privileges, and duties of all these respective dignitaries.
It might be said against this book that all these things are treated in every elementary treatise on canon law. Of course the author of the book before us does not claim to discuss any matter which has not found its place already in the canonical legislation of the church. But that does not make Dr. Smith’s book less valuable nor its author less worthy of praise for having rendered a great service to the church in this country. In the first place, he has put together in a comparatively small volume and at great labor what would only be found scattered in many books. In the second place, he has given us his Elements in the English language, so that every one, even those who are not familiar with the Latin tongue, can acquire a fair knowledge of the church’s legislation.
Thirdly, and above all, he has taken great pains to give us the particular legislation of our country as derived from the first and second Plenary Councils of Baltimore, of both of which he has fairly interpreted the spirit and the aim. At the first glance, and upon a superficial perusal of their enactments, it would seem that the whole tendency of these two councils was a centralization of power as vested in the hierarchy—as, for instance, the power of governing without consulting the chapter or the advisers of the bishop; the power of having seminaries regulated altogether by the bishop without the three canonical committees of the clergy, one to look after the spiritual welfare, the other two after the temporal interests, of seminaries; the power of appointing priests to parishes without the concursus, or competitive examination; the power of moving priests from parishes, and many other instances, would seem to indicate a tendency of centralizing all power in the hierarchy. Yet the spirit of the two Plenary Councils of Baltimore was far from intending any such thing, as is evident by other enactments, and by the desire which the fathers of the council frequently express of conforming themselves as far as possible to the general legislation of the church, and by the regret which they manifest that, owing to the particular circumstances of our country, they are unable to adopt the general canon law of the church in many things. Dr. Smith’s book clearly puts forward this spirit of our two plenary councils, and the enactments which the fathers made in order to put a just and fair limit to their power, as in the question of removing pastors; in which case the last Plenary Council of Baltimore enacted that no bishop should remove a pastor without a proper cause.
In questions which these two councils left undecided our author, with all proper respect, gives a decision more consonant with the general canon law of the church and with the dictates of natural jus, thus conforming himself to the spirit of the two councils.
How far it would be desirable to adopt the common canonical law in this country, or whether the time has fully arrived for doing so, the author very properly leaves for the decision of the hierarchy and the Holy See. We do not deem it inconsistent with the respect we owe to our American prelates in coinciding with the desire expressed by the Council of Baltimore that some few things pertaining to the common canonical law of the church might be carried out; for instance, the exacting of a concursus for parishes. Our bishops could require a concursus at least for the larger parishes, and abstain from appointing any one to such parishes except one of those who have received a sufficient number of points required for approbation. This would secure always for the larger parishes at least an occupant sufficiently instructed in moral as well as parenetic theology. It would also be a great inducement for the younger clergy to cultivate these sciences, and not to abandon them as soon as they are out of the seminary. Our bishops would attain these great beneficial results without losing their perfect right and freedom of appointment, as they would not be bound to give the parish to the best in learning, but to the best all things considered, learning as well as probity, prudence, and ability in looking after the temporal welfare of the church; as, indeed, they would not be bound to give it to the best at all, but only to one of the approved.