A 
 
IIKIIIY 
 
 BRARY 
 
 TY Of 
 
 ■*l.ir»./i 
 
 RNIA 
 
^ 
 
 /3-^ 
 
 ^/-. 
 
KEHGION AND LITERATUEE. 
 
LOXDON 
 
 PRIXTBD nv BPOTTISWOODR AXD CO. 
 
 KKtV-STOfitri' SQUAna 
 
'^/fPlJ'c-'fL 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 owr 
 
 EELIGION AND LITEMTUEE. 
 
 BY VARIOUS WRITERS. \ 
 
 EDITED BY H. E. MANNING, D.D. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN. 
 
 1865. 
 
M4>^^''7 
 
 J.OAN STACK 
 

 PREFACE. 
 
 The following Essays were delivered before an Asso- 
 ciation, the nature and origin of which will be seen in 
 the circular letter which is here prefixed as the best 
 introduction to the volume. 
 
 The Essays now printed are only a portion of those 
 which have been so delivered ; others having been 
 already published by their Authors in various forms. 
 
 Letter of H, E. Cardinal Wiseman inviting certain persons 
 of the Clergy and Laity to unite in the Academia of 
 the Catholic Religion. 
 
 ' Next to the exercise of its purely spiritual office, the 
 Church has in all ages hestowed its special care on the culti- 
 vation of the intellect, and the advancement of science, 
 making the Word of Grod the interpretation of His works, 
 and His works the illustration of His Word, and the science 
 of God the centre and light of the manifold and various 
 orders of human knowledge. 
 
 ' For this cause the Church has always given especial en- 
 couragement to the studies which demonstrate the connection 
 
 477 
 
VI PREFACE. ♦ 
 
 between science and revealed religion, thereby a]>plyiiig 
 the truths and laws of the intellectual and natural world to 
 the confirmation of the Faith. 
 
 ' Now this, which is good at all times, at certain epochs is 
 of vital necessity ; as, for instance, when a perverse philosophy 
 or a false method in science has introduced a real or an 
 apparent opposition between the natural and supernatural 
 sciences. ^ 
 
 * Such an epoch, to pass by the earlier examples, was the 
 beginning of this century, when the sceptical and infidel 
 literature of Germany and France penetrated throughout 
 Europe. It was at that time that a number of learned and 
 pious Catholics formed, in Rome, the Academia of the Catho- 
 lic Religion, for the purpose of cultivating this special aspect 
 of science, and of promoting the same studies in the youth 
 then rising to manhood. This Institution was approved, in 
 a rescript of the then reigning Pontiff, Fel. Mem. Pius VII. 
 
 ' The circumstances of our days, and of England, seem to 
 demand an Institution of the same kind, for the purpose of 
 drawing into mutual correspondence and cooperation the 
 many minds capable of rendering service in the great work of 
 sacred literature and Christian science, and of promoting the 
 study of the same by example, influence, and guidance, in 
 the youth of our time and country. 
 
 ' The intellectual condition of England at this moment is 
 amply enough to alarm the least anxious as to the divergence 
 of sacred and secular science, and the unnatural opposition 
 in which they appear to stand. It would be premature in 
 this place to enter into details. It is enough- to note, that 
 rationalistic tendencies of thought in an advanced form have 
 explicitly shown themselves in the most educated centres of 
 England. 
 
 *Now it is for the Church, which alone possesses both 
 Divine certainty and Divine discernment, to place itself at 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 once in front of a movement which threatens even the frag- 
 mentary remains of Christian belief in England. 
 
 ' With this view, while suffering from illness last year, in 
 Eome, I obtained the necessary diplomas for the establishment 
 in London of an Academia of the Catholic Religion affiliated 
 to that in Rome ; and now being still ^hindered by the same 
 cause from otherwise carrying this purpose into effect, I de- 
 sire to invite you, in this form, to associate yourself to this 
 work with the hope of directing it in person hereafter. The 
 Card. Asquini, President of that Academia, at the same time 
 with my full concurrence entrusted to the Right Rev. Mgr. 
 Manning, then also in Rome, its practical foundation, organi- 
 sation, and direction. To him, therefore, you will be pleased 
 to address your reply. 
 
 ' The constitution and rules of the Institute shall be laid 
 before you. In the meanwhile, it will be enough to describe 
 in a general way its object and practice, which consists in 
 the preparation of papers on any subject relating to religion, 
 science, art, or literature, or bearing upon revelation, to be 
 read at a meeting held every month or fortnight, as may be 
 hereafter judged more expedient, and followed by conversa- 
 tion. It is hoped that much benefit will arise by the corre- 
 spondence and cooperation which such interchange of thought 
 will awaken. Should it be thought advisable, and likely to 
 procure additional advantage to the cause in view, steps will 
 be taken for the regular publication of such papers as may 
 be selected for the purpose. 
 
 * In the hope that you will lend your aid in this work, I 
 have directed this communication to be made to you ; and if 
 you should know of any friends desirous of being associated 
 in this Academia, I would request you to communicate the 
 same to me in the manner mentioned above. 
 
 ' At first it will be, perhaps, more prudent to associate 
 not more than a hundred members, to whom others may be 
 
VUl PREFACE. 
 
 aggregated, partly as honorary and partly as corresponding 
 members, at home and abroad. 
 
 'N. Card. Wiseman. 
 
 ' Etlob House, Letton : Easter, 1861/ 
 
 No further explanation appears needed, than to say 
 that the Academia has held its meetings regularly for 
 three years. 
 
 H. E. Manning. 
 
 Bayswater : Nov. 24, 1864. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Inaugural Discourse of H. E. Cardinal Wiseman at the 
 First Session of the Academia, June 29, 1861 . . 7 
 
 On the Subjects proper to the Academia. By H. E. 
 
 hB.B. 31 
 
 The Action of the Church upon Art and Civilisation, shown 
 IN THE High Altar in the Church of Saint Ambrose at 
 Milan, so valuable for its Liturgical Teachings, and as 
 AN Example of Anglo-Saxon Workmanship. By Daniel 
 Mode, D.D 67 
 
 On the Birthplace of Saint Patrick. By J. Cashel Hoey . 106 
 
 The Position of a Catholic Minority in a Non-Catholic 
 Country. By Frederick Oakeley 138 
 
 On Bishop Colenso's Objections to the Veracity of Holy 
 Writ. By Francis Henry Laing 159 
 
 The Truth of supposed Legends and Fables. By H.E. 
 Cardinal Wiseman 235 
 
 Christianity in relation to Civil Society. By Edward 
 Lucas. Part 1 287 
 
 Christianity in relation to Civil Society. By Edward 
 Lucas. Part IL . . , . . . . . 328 
 
Direction to Binder, 
 
 Inscription prom the Church of S. Ursula . To face p. 255 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 ON 
 
 RELIGION AND LITERATURE, 
 
§♦ 
 
NOTICE 
 
 Since the beginning of this century, there has existed in 
 Rome a Society, or ' Academy,' whose object it is to defend, 
 or illustrate, the Catholic and Christian religion. Application 
 was made to the President and Council of the Roman Society 
 for permission to found, and to affiliate, a similar society in 
 England, and it was at once conceded. 
 
 The following document was, subsequently, addressed by 
 H. E. the Cardinal to a certain number of priests and laity, 
 from all of whom an answer accepting membership was 
 received : — 
 
 * Next to the exercise of its purely spiritual office, the 
 Church has in all ages bestowed its special care on the culti- 
 vation of the intellect, and the advancement of science, 
 making the Word of Grod the interpretation of His works, 
 and His works the illustration of His Word, and the science 
 of Grod the centre and light of the manifold and various 
 orders of human knowledge. 
 
 ' For this cause the Church has always given especial en- 
 couragement to the studies which demonstrate ttfe connection 
 between science and revealed religion, thereby applying the 
 truths and laws of the intellectual and natural world to the 
 confirmation of the faith. 
 
 *Now this, which is good at all times, at certain epochs is 
 of vital necessity, as, for instance, when a perverse philo- 
 sophy, or a false method in science, has introduced a real, or 
 
 B 2 
 
4 ESSAYS OX RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 an apparent; opposition between the natural and supernatural 
 sciences. 
 
 * Such an epoch, to pass by the earlier examples, was the 
 beginning of this century, when the sceptical and infidel 
 literature of Germauy and France penetrated throughout 
 Europe. It was at that time that a number of learned and 
 pious Catholics formed, in Rome, the Academia of the 
 Catholic Religion, for the purpose of cultivating this special 
 aspect of science, and of promoting the same studies in the 
 youth then rising to manhood. This Institution was approved 
 in a rescript of the then reigning Pontiff, feL mem., Pius VII. 
 
 * The circumstances of our days, and of England, seem to 
 demand an Institution of the same kind, for the purpose of 
 drawing into mutual correspondence and cooperation the 
 many minds capable of rendering service in the great work 
 of sacred literature and Christian science, and of promoting 
 the study of the same by example, influence, and guidance, 
 in the youth of our time and country. 
 
 ' The intellectual condition of England at this moment is 
 ample enough to alarm the least anxious as to the divergence 
 of sacred and secular science, and the unnatural opposition 
 in which they appear to stand. It would be premature in 
 this place to enter into details. It is enough to note, that 
 rationalistic tendencies of thought, in an advanced form, 
 have explicitly shown themselves in the most educated 
 centres of England. 
 
 Now it is for the Church, which alone possesses both divine 
 certainty and divine discernment, to place itself at once in 
 front of a movement which threatens even the fragmentary 
 remains of Christian belief in England. 
 
 ' With this view, while suffering from illness last year, in 
 Rome, I obtained the necessary diplomas for the establishment 
 in London of an Academia of the Catholic Religion, affiliated 
 to that in Rome ; and now being still hindered by the same 
 
NOTICE. 5 
 
 cause from otherwise carrying this purpose into effect, I desire 
 to invite you, in this form, to associate yourself to this work, 
 with the hope of directing it in person hereafter. The Card. 
 Asquini, President of that Academia, at the same time, wnth 
 my full concurrence, intrusted to the Eight Eev. Dr. Manning, 
 then also in Rome, its practical foundation, organisation, and 
 direction. To him, therefore, you will be pleased to address 
 your reply. 
 
 ' The constitution and rules of the Institute shall be laid 
 before you. In the meanwhile, it will be enough to describe, 
 in a general w^ay, its object and practice, which consists in the 
 preparation of papers on any subject relating to religion, 
 science, art, or literature, as bearing upon revelation, to be 
 read at a meeting held every month or fortnight, as may be 
 hereafter j udged more expedient, and followed by conversation. 
 It is hoped that much benefit will arise by the correspondence 
 and cooperation which such interchange of thought will 
 awaken. Should it be thought advisable, and likely to pro- 
 cure additional advantage to the cause in view, steps will be 
 taken for the regular publication of such papers as may be 
 selected for the purpose. 
 
 ' In the hope that you will lend your aid in this work, I 
 have directed this communication to be made to you ; and if 
 you should know of any friends desirous of being associated 
 in this Academia, I would request you to communicate the 
 same to me in the manner mentioned above. 
 
 ' At first it will be, perhaps, more prudent to associate not 
 more than a hundred members, to whom others may be ag- 
 gregated, partly as honorary, and partly as corresponding 
 members, at home and abroad. ' N. Caed. Wiseman, 
 
 'Etloe House, Leyton: Easier 1861.' 
 
 A foundation was thus laid of the Academ}^, sufficient 
 to begin building upon ; and the Feast of the great Apostles 
 
b ESSAYS OX RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 8S. Peter and Paul having been selected as a fitting day 
 for its inauguration, invitations were sent to members to 
 request their attendance at the residence of the Cardinal 
 Archbishop. Nearly fifty priests and laymen were present 
 at the inaugural meeting. 
 
 After a few preliminary words by the President, his Address 
 was read by the Right Rev. Dr. Manning. This was followed 
 by the election of two Secretaries, the Rev. J. L. Patterson 
 and T. W. Allies, Esq. 
 
 The Academia is placed under the protection, under God, 
 of His Immaculate Mother and the two great Apostles. 
 
 Among the members present were persons representing 
 •literature, science, and art, medicine, law, and sacred learning, 
 from which Religion draws her most graceful tributes. 
 
INAUGUEAL DISCOURSE 
 
 ^ H. E. CARDINAL WISEMAN 
 
 AT THE FIRST SESSION OF THE ACIDEMIA, 
 
 JUNE 29, 1861. 
 
 Let a mould be prepared, no matter by what hands, 
 let it be a gem exquisitely engraved by an Athenian 
 lapidary : be it composed but of rough gashes made on 
 the face of a rock, by a carver of runes, or an Indian 
 warrior ; imagine it to be a die sunk in steel by the 
 great Florentine medallist : be its instrument the 
 diamond, flint, or iron, — you will not see its form 
 accurately, you will not judge its worth fairly, you will 
 hardly understand it, until you see the impression of it 
 transferred upon some other substance, which will form 
 its accurate counterpart. The seal, the cast, the medal, 
 interpret to you the true intention of the artist, and 
 represent to you his design or his record. If you press 
 the pliant wax into the shape, it will not lose one line 
 of its dimensions, or one grain of its weight, nor will 
 the slightest change occur in its structure ; yet it will 
 bear impressed upon its surface the te^derest or the 
 rudest lines^ the finest angles or most rugged edges, the 
 
8 ESSAYS OX RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 J|gure or the legend, or whatever else was meant to be 
 admired or understood. 
 
 Something resembling this plastic faculty has God 
 communicated to His Church, in its contact with the 
 outward world. Without undergoing aay organic or 
 substantial modification, without being more or less at 
 one time than another, she presents at every moment a 
 surfiice to the great life of society, over which this rolls 
 on, and imprints its features, its thoughts, its character- 
 istic and specific qualities. The moral and social 
 history of any age, l3r even portion of an age, can 
 noAvhere be so clearly deciphered as in the legislation, 
 the discipline, the struggles, the literature, the arts, the 
 biographies, nay, paradox as it may appear, in the very 
 blank pages and hues, of the Church. For what tells 
 us more of the world's condition than where the 
 Annals of the Church seem to have had whole leaves, 
 not torn out, but only here and there jotted over by 
 a trembling hand, and its scanty records blurred by 
 tears,' or even blood ? 
 
 We. begin with the very first age of its infancy* It 
 was too weak and too poor to raise commemorative 
 monuments of its progress : it buried its memoiials 
 beneath the groimd ; and modern industry has sought 
 and found them. At first sight of some chapels in the 
 Catacombs, the Christian antiquarian is startled, per- 
 plexed, almost scandahsed. He can scarcely decide 
 ' whether he has penetrated into a heathen tomb or into 
 a Christian crypt. The freedom of design, the elegance 
 of ornamentation, the vividness of colouring, and the 
 arrangement of the parts in the general composition. 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. U 
 
 recal perhaps to his mind the columbarium of the^ 
 Augustan freedmen, or of the Nasones ; and moreover, 
 he sees as leading figures demigods of pagan fiction, 
 engaged in scenes and actions of a hateful mytholog}^ 
 And yet the place, the disposition of its parts, its 
 tombs, its inscriptions, and its emblems, leave no doubt 
 that we are in a most Christian cemetery, that bears, 
 upon every panel and border, in its pictures and 
 arabesques, on its vaults and walls, the forms of that 
 early Eoman art which had faded and vanished even 
 before the later persecutions. The Church had taken 
 up, and represented on its subterranean temples the 
 transitory art of the period, even with its uncongenial 
 stories which, by a happy symbolism, she robbed of 
 their poison ; and thus displayed her power of appro- 
 priating to herself one of the few good gifts which the 
 most corrupt of worlds still possessed, and could com- 
 municate. 
 
 But, not to carry this illustration minutely through 
 successive centuries, not especially to dwell on the 
 marked influence, or rather impressions, manifested by 
 the Church in her adoption of the Basilica for her 
 architectural model, and of the Eoman law as the part- 
 foundation of her canonical code and the precedent of 
 her juridical proceedings, as evidences of her happier 
 connection with the Empire ; recal to mind the later 
 period when Europe emerged from the grave of a 
 departed civilisation, and struggled for one of its own, 
 heaving up the accumulated ruins and soil of the past, 
 like one of Michelangelo's figures bursting from the 
 tomb into the valley of judgment. What sort of 
 
10 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOX AND LITERATURE. ^ 
 
 times do you call those? You answer, 'Of iron.' 
 And yotf are right : days of massive, compacted, close- 
 grained, high-wrought iron. And that supposes strong- 
 built frames and well-knit muscles to wield the double- 
 handed sword, or the knotted mace, with unfailing 
 prowess. * • 
 
 Well, even of this almost ferocious power the Church 
 took the stamp ; not in the feudal institutions merely, 
 which she partly adopted, and which made barons of 
 her bishops, and nobles of her abbots. No : if the age 
 was iron-cased in its outward fashions, it was steel- 
 tempered in its inward organs, the organs of intellectual 
 life and power. If the Crusader could with ease often 
 cleave to the shoulder, by one blow, thepaynim's morjon, 
 it was no less the blow of a giant with which a Scotus 
 could smash a sophism that protected error. If the 
 fine-edged sword could cut through and through the 
 truest tempered mail on the infidel's breast, not because 
 of the brute strength with which it was handled, but 
 through the deftness and very delicacy of hand with which 
 it was gracefully waved, no less easily were the intricacies 
 of heresy or false theories ripped open, unravelled, and 
 stripped off, by the intellectual keenness of a Thomas 
 Aquinas, wielding the subtle weapons of the schools. 
 Sturdy intellects rose side by side with stalwart frames, 
 and robust brains shared the youth of noblest birth 
 with sinewy arms. Both were ofispring of the same 
 conditions of life, of a fresh, unprejudiced, and original 
 civihsation, of barbarian blood, well combined from 
 different races, under the engentling influences of Chris- 
 tian teaching, and the invigorating training of religious 
 enthusiasm. 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 11 
 
 The Church took to herself the mighty mental deve- 
 lopment, and, with it yet clearly imprinted on her 
 surface, retains the evidence of the wonderful vigour 
 and strength of the epoch at once of knighthood and 
 philosophy. 
 
 Nor was this all. The age of the troubadour, of the 
 minstrel, of the romancer, and of highminded chivalrous 
 affection, was naturally that of hymnology and sacred 
 song. The tenderest and most plaintive notes in which 
 the Church sings her love, or her sorrows, breathe the 
 spirit of those times. The tenderness of a Bonaventure, 
 the sweetness of a Bernard, the flashing love that breaks 
 out in the few hnes left us by St. Francis (the trouba- 
 dour, as he has been called, of love divine), by the 
 softest heart that ever beat beneath the roughest of 
 hair-shirts, — were the natural productions of times 
 when the rose and the Hly as truly symbohsed the 
 noble dame like Elizabeth of Hungary or of Portugal, 
 as the helmet and sword did a Tancred or a Godfrey. 
 
 Then, when this new social life created, or adapted, 
 its own forms for recording its sensations, where do 
 you look for them, as representative of ideas, feehngs, 
 instincts, pulsations, and even involuntary action, 
 which all Hfe must have ? Of the royal palaces which 
 every sovereign erected, from Scandinavia to Sicily, 
 scarcely one remains inhabited ; of the cathedrals which 
 the Church contemporaneously built, scarcely one has 
 fallen to decay. The few that have fallen have been 
 victims of religious fury, or of calculating avarice. As 
 you sail along the Ehine, the feudal castles that crown 
 its crags are but picturesque ruins ; the parish churches 
 
12 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 of the same date, that nestle at their feet, are fresh and 
 filled. Had not the Church preserved, almost intact, 
 her share of the monuments of those ages, the beautiful 
 architecture which is yet our model either would have 
 been eternally lost, ox would have to be studied in 
 fragments, scarcely less unintelligible than the history 
 on Babylonian bricks. 
 
 The rougli stem which with a superhuman, or ra- 
 ther with an unearthly, eifort had broken into air 
 and light, was soon covered with bright and beauti- 
 ful blossoms, and delicious fruit. New and different 
 from whatever the world had heard or seen was this 
 sudden and quickly-matured produce. Since the crea- 
 tion of Paradise, there had been no parallel. It began, 
 as was natural, with poetry and art ; and ended in the 
 revival, too sadly soon abused, of all classical learning. 
 And by whom was all that was beautiful adopted, 
 nursed, cherished and preserved ? 
 
 Secularise, for a moment, the ' Divina Commedia ; ' 
 leave to it only Virgil and Beatrice with the poet ; sup- 
 press all but the histories of the petty tyrants of Italy, 
 and of their deeds of atrocity and perfidy ; let it only 
 chronicle the crimes of men unknown, the passions of 
 parties long forgotten, — and you would indeed erase 
 some tender or harrowing legends ; but On the whole 
 you would remain with a dull chronicle, in beautiful 
 verse and rich poetry, but a labyrinth of contemporary 
 history, to be only threaded with a clue of ravelled 
 commentary. You might then safely strike out the 
 epithet of Divine frdm the title of the work : it would 
 be the most human of books. But where the vivid and 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 13 
 
 rich theological thought of the age kindles the poet's 
 imagination, Avhen first, at the end of his ' Purgatorio,' 
 he describes holy mysteries borne as of old on triumphal 
 cars ; then in his ' Paradiso ' soars from star to star, floats 
 from harmony to harmony upon angels' wings, or rather 
 breath, finds celestial knowledge and divine wisdom in 
 the discourse of the saints whom I have enumerated, — 
 we become conscious how all that is characteristic, 
 unique, and sublime in the poetry of the age to which 
 as yet we owe our sense of the truly beautiful, and 
 withal holy, belongs to the part which the Catholic 
 Church took in the action and movement of that period 
 of revival. She preserves in those enduring records, 
 which she inscribed on the vellum-slieets of Donte as 
 on her most solid monuments, the evidence of her con- 
 nection with the times of both, the fairest impression of 
 a new golden age, more indehble than the traces of the 
 former one are, in the writings or the edifices of the 
 Augustan period. That venerable old poet, whose 
 countenance is the type of a northern race, sitting day 
 by day, on the stone bench in the Piazza of Florence, 
 watching the growth of Giotto's belfry, is an excellent 
 symbol of that second mighty age. 
 
 And as to that great distinctive quality given to it, 
 of which that painter-architect is the aptest representa- 
 tive, it would seem superfluous to say, that if the world 
 at that time gave birth, education, even genius and un- 
 matched skill, to innumerable painters, illuminators, 
 engravers, enamellers, jewellers, medallists, artists in 
 bronze, sculptors in marble, wood, and every other 
 material, such as the world never before saw, all this 
 
14 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 prolific power would have been wasted and utterly lost 
 if the Church had not happily, in accordance with her 
 mission on earth, received upon her ample surface the 
 most beautiful and the most durable of its productions 
 there impressed. She rushed, like Veronica, with her 
 outspread veil to catch the inspired effigies and true im- 
 ages, which genius seemed to have caught in heaven, 
 of things celestial, and hung them up for the admiration 
 and reverence of generations to come. 
 
 Who goes to royal palaces, to imperial halls, to 
 national galleries, to contemplate or study the master- 
 pieces of nobler artists ? To view, indeed, a few small 
 pictures painted by favour for some noble patron, or 
 perhaps some altar-pieces torn from their places by 
 rapine or revolutionary covetousness. But the mighty 
 works of the great masters are inseparably fixed on the 
 vaults or walls of large churches, or of cloisters, or of 
 religious halls. You go to the deep mysterious grot- 
 toes of Asisi or Subiaco to admire the solemn frescoes 
 of early art ; you visit the churches of Florence and 
 Perugia for the second period of sacred art ; you wander 
 for hours in the halls of the Vatican for the purpose of 
 knowing it in its perfection, whether of grandeur in the 
 Sixtine chapel, of beauty in the Stanze, or of sweetness 
 in the oratory of San Lorenzo. AU that hus been pre- 
 served of the grand conceptions of revived and perfected 
 art, consists of what it has left grandly imprinted upon 
 the Church's hospitable home. 
 
 Yet while her outward walls were thus successively 
 beautified from age to age, while she ever appeared to 
 each generation ' circumdata varietate,' gathered on 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 15 
 
 her surface by the passing of centuries over her, still 
 was her inward structure unchanged, her essential 
 duties were unvaried, her course pursued with equal 
 success. Her Pontiffs all through, with the exceptions 
 which formed the necessary tribute to humanity, were 
 nobly grand, whether martyrs or confessors ; her Coun- 
 cils were splendidly dignified, whether general or pro- 
 vincial ; her Bishops, in their respective sees, form a 
 track of light through the history of nations ; her mon- 
 asteries and convents, with whatever varieties, rise as 
 landmarks over every flood of devastation, of ignorance, 
 or of impiety, nursing the sacred fire of Christian learn- 
 ing, and of even profane knowledge, till Providence 
 should bring the fulness of time for its manifestation. 
 Yes, without clothed and surrounded with rich variety, 
 but her real glory unchanged within. ' Omnis gloria 
 Filiae Regis ab intus.' 
 
 What a remarkable proof and illustration of this truth 
 is in the very period of which I have just spoken ! It 
 was one in which it might have been thought that the 
 world had most mastered the Church. Love of art 
 had been pushed the nearest to luxuriousness, hterature 
 had apparently most nighly reached enervation, even 
 ecclesiastical life seemed to have almost touched on 
 voluptuousness. And yet at this moment the jealousy of 
 truth, the ardent love of sound faith, the intolerance of 
 error, broke out with a vigour, a firmness, a briUiancy, 
 such as even at the Arian epoch had not been sur- 
 passed, with a learning, an acuteness, and extensiveness 
 never since rivalled. That period of supposed secu- 
 larism oppressing the Church proved to be the glorious 
 
16 ESSAYS OX RELIGION AND LlTEllATlTvE. 
 
 era of the Council of Trent ; and tlie very Pope who 
 hiis been accused of having yielded more than 'became 
 him to the weakening and effeminating influence of art, 
 was the very one who seized by the throat the hydra 
 of the new heresy, and grappled with it as it poured 
 out its first words of blasphemy. 
 
 And what further evidence we have of this necessary 
 mutual action, in the fact that even S. Charles, so 
 stem in his orthodoxy, so lynx-eyed in his watchfulness 
 over accuracy in faith, yet considered himself bound, in 
 graceful deference to the classical taste of the world, to 
 clothe the teaching of the Church in pure and elegant 
 diction, and employ the tasteful scholar to impress the 
 t}^)e of his age upon the unalterable doctrine of the 
 theologian ! 
 
 Such, honoured Academicians, has been the Church 
 in every age. Whatever is good, whatever virtuous, 
 whatever useful in the world, at every time, she has 
 allowed to leave its seal upon her outward form. And 
 now another day, another generation, another spirit 
 has come with the good will of God, has come through 
 His ever-varying Providence. 
 
 By dispensations, which no physical research has 
 yet mastered, cycles come, and run a course, then give 
 place to others ; cycles of natural ccwiditions, un- 
 traceable to any cause, unconnected with discoverable 
 laws. Year after year, the vineyards of continents are 
 bhghted and barren ; the olives of provinces are 
 withered and fruitless ; the plant which feeds the 
 poor population of a kingdom droops in its stem and 
 rots at its root, and belies all the promises of the 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 17 
 
 spriug. We are told that these things have been 
 before, and will come later again ; that they follow a 
 hidden law, like ague or neuralgia ; like them have a 
 periodicity. And so with the diseases that afflict 
 humanity; for years their type is depressing and de- 
 bilitating, and then return again the maladies of our 
 forefathers, like sins visited on their children, with 
 febrile energy and sanguine oppression. No study 
 can modify these phenomena, no skill can retard or 
 accelerate their appointed course. The simple-hearted 
 will call them, when they come with violence and 
 destruction in the field and in the body, visitations^ 
 and raise their arms in prayer ; they are visitations of 
 justice. 
 
 In hke manner, unaccountably, gifts of some peculiar 
 form seem to be poured out on mankind at a given 
 time, and appear to be as visibly withdrawn. Thou- 
 sands of artists rose simultaneously, and apparently 
 spontaneously, in every part of Europe, at a given 
 period. Art was self-sown in Italy, in Spain, in 
 Flanders, and in Germany, at two distinct periods : 
 just as now hundreds of men gifted with mechanical 
 powers are to be found to answer to any demand for 
 new and wonderful undertaking, — men, any one of 
 whom would have excited admiration, and gained 
 undying fame, a century ago ; just as some ages before, 
 every school of science or theology in Europe had its 
 doctors, each surpassing in subtlety of intellect, and 
 accurate learning, the most rarely-gifted professor 
 of our days. This periodical abundance of a peculiar 
 gift, wanted to help mankind forward another step, has 
 
 c 
 
18 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 no connection with any law of progress. In na in- 
 stance has the quality granted to Society reacned its 
 perfectibility before it is withdrawn. 
 
 Is it not so even in the Church ? Has she not, too, 
 her periods of martyrdom, of asceticism, of mysticism, 
 of learning, and of active charity ? And is not this one 
 more of those parallelisms betwen her nature, and the 
 social growth of man, which the more we find, the 
 more we are convinced, not by demonstration, but by 
 intuition, that one Lord and Master rules and directs 
 all, and that all which I have endeavoured to describe 
 is nothing more than a common moulding, impressed by 
 Him who holds all in the hollow of His hand, and 
 imprints the varied folds and lines of His ever-shifting 
 mercies equally on every part of His creation? 
 
 Then, as I have said, there is another change : we are 
 come to a time, or rather a time has come to us, when 
 a new spirit, to use the beautiful language of Him who 
 gives it, is poured out upon the world — the spirit of 
 scientific investigation. Humbly, gratefully, joyfully, I 
 accept it from the treasury, and from the hand of the 
 All-wise and the All-good. It is a new impulse to the 
 intellect which He has bestowed on man ; it is a new 
 sharpening of the keenness of the wits which He has 
 given him ; it is a new sphere, a new world, which He 
 has opened to his perception of the divine operations 
 ah extra. Fool will man be if he misdirects these facul- 
 ties, and makes not for himself a fresh and brilliant 
 field, where to gather new tributes of %dmiration and 
 love, and offers up his first and his later fruits in adora- 
 tion of God, his Creator. 
 
INAUGUEAL DISCOUKSE. 19 
 
 Be this as it may, I feel sure that this new phase of 
 social pursuits will leave its well-marked forms im- 
 pressed upon the Church, and that generations to come 
 will trace that with admiration there, which we see 
 perhaps with some uneasiness. And has not this been 
 always so ? 
 
 Did not warm and earnest souls view with alarm 
 the first great boon of assured peace to the Church, 
 and fear relaxation of discipline from the cessation of 
 martyrdom ? 
 
 Did not S. Bernard vehemently declaim against 
 the beautiful architecture that was springing up, and 
 the richness of decoration and church-ornaments which 
 an infant art was introducing, as a religious effeminacy 
 and unnerving luxury? Did not the followers of 
 severer learning reprobate the introduction of more 
 elegant literature, so as to be caricatured by Protestant 
 critics in the ' Literae ohscurorum virorum'? And were 
 they altogether wrong, when minds like Erasmus's 
 could be allured and seduced from the truth by the 
 elegances of profane letters ? 
 
 And did not many fear, what, unfortunately, came 
 to pass, that the beauty of art might be perverted to 
 the service of evil passions, and become the food and 
 stimulant of vice ? 
 
 And, in hke manner, be not surprised if something 
 similar should now occur. All these various gifts, 
 granted at different epochs, were brought by the world 
 that received*them before the seat of grace, within 
 God's Church. They came, asking for blessing ; they 
 approached, praying for guidance ; they drew near, 
 
 c 2 
 
20 ESSAYS ON EELIGION AND LITEIL\TUUE. 
 
 kneeling for sanctification. And yet cautiously, timidly, 
 did good and holy men accept them. They feared the 
 world as much as the Trojan did the Greek <3ven when 
 bearing gifts. 
 
 But here it is totally different. The science of our day 
 comes forward, not only disclaiming cooperation, sym- 
 pathy, or good wishes from the Church, or from religion, 
 but as a rival, an adversary, an antagonist It advances 
 defiant and rampant, and menacing ; too often with a 
 sarcasm on its lips, nay, with blasphemies, scoffs, and 
 lies upon its tongue. It 'speaks great things;' and 
 treats with levity -and contempt of what we deem most 
 holy. And because we do not run forward, and meet 
 half way, and embrace, and receive a Judas-kiss from 
 this declared foe, the Catholic is taunted as afraid of 
 science, as a lover of darkness, as a foe to progress. 
 When men go forth to welcome the burglar who plainly 
 tells them that he is coming to plunder and despoil them, 
 and lead him into their house, or the incendiary wlio 
 shows them the torch with which he intends to set fire 
 to their property, and point out to him the most in- 
 flammable part, — then we may be expected to frater- 
 nise with men whose avowed purpose is to rob and to 
 destroy. 
 
 With the researches or discoveries of Herschel, 
 Leverrier, or Lord Eosse, when has a single Catholic 
 quarrelled.^ Against the chemical transmutations of 
 Liebig or Faraday, when has any ecclesiastical authority 
 warned ? Upon even a single fact in geology, any 
 statement of Murchison or Lyell regarding the position 
 of a layer, or the bed of a fossil, when has a word of 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOUESE. 21 
 
 condemnation been spoken ? On science seriously and 
 conscientiously conducted, the Church looks on, fearless 
 but cautious; fearless of facts, but most cautious on de- 
 ductions. It is indeed a notable fact, that while you 
 will find the Eoman Index loaded with works on his- 
 tory, treatises of metaphysics, political, or rather anti- 
 social, pamphlets, you will look in vain there for 
 scientific books, astronomical or geological. 
 
 No, I repeat it ; it is not with the discoveries of 
 honest philosophers that the Church is at war, it is with 
 their application by the unscientific who come against 
 her in the name of natural pursuits, that she feels it al- 
 most a degradation to be compelled to fight. In other 
 words, she dislikes, she detests even, that very mode of 
 attack, which the Church of England is at this moment 
 disgusted at, and is trying to repel, such science and phi- 
 losophy as are put forward in the ' Essays and Eeviews/ 
 It is a providential permission, after the outcry and 
 calumny against our Church, that she shrinks from the 
 contact of science, and dreads the apphcation of its 
 principles as a test of her teaching ; that another re- 
 ligion which has joined in the taunt, or stood by ap- 
 plauding while it was made, should now not only feel 
 its point and stroke, but should struggle more hopelessly 
 under it, not having any measure of its own resisting 
 or healing power, not having skill or experience in 
 dealing with error, beyond the limits of past toleration. 
 The Church of England has joined in blaming the Ca- 
 tholic Church, because, in place of refuting, she has 
 contented herself with condemning ; and now, from the 
 palace to the parsonage, in Upper and Lower House of 
 
22 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Convocation, is the question seriously agitated, whether 
 or no condemnation of some sort, sy nodical, juridical, 
 convocational, or episcopal, is to be adopted and 
 applied. It does not now seem to. enter into the circle 
 of Anglican ecclesiastical consideration, whether the 
 Church of England ought not to welcome free, and 
 even di«ft*espectful, discussion of the objections extorted 
 from science against Eevelation, nay, as the phrase is, 
 ' to court ' the appeal to individual conscience or 
 intellect, on the disputed claims of geology against 
 the truth of the Old Testament, and of philology 
 against the inspiration of the I^ew. 
 
 We may truly call this a just retribution. For while 
 •our appearing to dispose easily of perplexing opinions 
 on the principle of a conscious authority, has been put 
 often severely aside, on the high ground of God's never 
 having granted to His universal Church so high a pre- 
 rogative, so large a dowry of His own unfailing wisdom, 
 our stern reprehender now feels itself in the dilemma, 
 of either putting its doctrine, as defendant, at the bar 
 of private opinion, with infidelity as its plaintiff, or 
 claiming place on the judgment-seat, from which it has 
 attempted to extrude the CathoHc Church, as God's 
 .judicial representative in the decision of dogma. 
 
 But pass by the painful scene of embarrassment and 
 vacillation which the proceedings of Anghcans present, 
 in this unpractised controversy ; let us leave them to 
 themselves — in their exercise of dogmatic jurisdiction 
 now first asserted — contemplating with dismay the new 
 patent crop of thistles and. briers which have sprung up 
 amidst their flowers, deliberating how to clip, or crop, 
 
DfAUGURAi DISCOUBSE. 23 
 
 or pluck them, but not having courage to put Ike spade 
 I )eneath their roots, and dig them out, and 3ist them 
 ^ . here they will dry and die harmless : sure that they 
 wiU pullulate again, and \dth ranker growth, if left 
 imbedded in the rich soil of tolerated error. Let us 
 r^her consider our own pootion relatively to this new 
 manifestation of scientific w^ur^ire. 
 
 i will express my faise of it in a few words. I have 
 read one of the confutations, out oi many published, of 
 the 'Essay oa tlie Mosaic Cosmogony,' by Mr. C^W. 
 Qpodwin, and I seriously declare that 1 have found in 
 it nothing new. In principle, or in line of argument, 
 or in generalised deduction, I do not see anything which 
 any Eoman prc^essor of * Sacked Yhymcs * (a chair in 
 the Boman Unitergity), nay, wfaidi as teadier jn my 
 own college I, might not ha;ie said five-and-twenty 
 years ago. I will even break through th^ reserve of 
 literary modesty-^I have found nothing which I did 
 not say, and print, in Latin first, and lay at the feet of 
 the most learned of modem 'Popes, Pius VIIL, in 1 ^9, 
 and then in English in 1836. 
 
 Xo doubt^ since ihea dc^ailf hare accumulated ; th^ 
 earth and its seaidi^s have tmdei'gpiie Ifae reirolntiotM 
 ci cme more geomtioa ; many new ^^scovmeB have 
 been made ;^past geaexai^des have been detailed and 
 particularised; we know more aiHhe true seat in the 
 downward ftages of tbe ^cbe, of die 9Ume§ m our 
 terraqne^ borne, j^ winch itM emhim aad mmwUom 
 iwhabft a nt af ||||g meeemvdy dwdt Ged^f^ hM h^tn 
 poetised by Hn^ Wiier^ mn^ the Jfocaie hhsUjry (4 
 \res]^cnha8heeaimoedhflAnmU»avmm; but the 
 
24 ESSAYS ON REUGIOX AND UTER.\TCEE. 
 
 great fegjure of the question is the same; and AngHcan- 
 ism only repeats the arguments of the Catholic, without 
 the grace to acknowledge that it is only second in the 
 field. 
 
 But this is taking up the controversy too low. And 
 it is even making unworthy concessions to ' the oppo- 
 sitions of learning falsely so called/ to allow its being 
 considei^d as an ally where it is in truth a disciple^ to 
 claim for it credit when it is really a debtor. The in- 
 solent blasphemer Yolney wrote a catechism of morality, 
 which pretended to deduce all practical vii'tue from 
 natimd reasonings ; but he forgot to tell his readers 
 that he had learnt his ' Christian doctrine * at his mother's 
 knee, or perhaps before the altar-rails, before he had 
 lost his faith. It was like one who had lost his sight 
 in youth pretending that he imagined his descriptions 
 of natural objects. 
 
 And something like this has been the case with 
 modem scientific enquiry. To say the least, it has been 
 often ungrateful. The basis of all its study, the clue of 
 its intricate researches, have been, in truth, the Bible. 
 The precurrence of a chaotic condition, indefinite in 
 duration, is found, indeed, vaguely expressed in Hindoo, 
 Scandinavian, Egyptian, and Western* cosmogonies; 
 nowhere so definite, so plain, nor so connected with 
 subsequent physical events, as in the scriptural narra- 
 tive. But in none other is the very groundwork of 
 modem science described as in this — the d^trine of 
 successive production, not vague and#onfused, but 
 definite, step by step, so as to challenge to proof — to 
 proof not attempted till after thousands of years. It 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 25 
 
 was not geology (no one suspects it) which suggested 
 tliis system, but it was this untested system tjiat sug- 
 gested geology. The Mosaic cosmogony was the very 
 liandbook of its reseai'ch : the elder proficients, PaUas, 
 Saussure, Cuvier, even Buckland, may be said to have 
 searched the rocks, opened the caverns, and turned over 
 the debris on the eaith's surface, with the certainty, 
 drawn from theory, that successive creations had peopled 
 the earth, or that evidences of its last cataclysm would 
 be found recorded on the Hues of its strata, or tiiat 
 earth had undergone preparatory revolutions, and rough 
 but carefid manipulations, before the hand that made 
 them had fasliioned man. From these first st^ps true 
 science has never departed ; nor has it cared to gainsay 
 that first point of departure, though it makes light of 
 its source. 
 
 It is, then, a solemn truth — the Bible has created 
 geology : Moses has kid down the first principles, by 
 which tlie modern science of the earth has been guided, 
 from its first infimt imsteady steps, to its present proud 
 and hurried strides. 
 
 Nor is this all. Sincere science asks for long in- 
 definite periods to accoimt for gradual developments of 
 organic beings, and for huge accumulations of inorganic 
 matter. SuperciUous science objects, that dap are not 
 long enough for these purposes, and will nail the com- 
 mentator to the literal sense for once. And here, for 
 the Church, her best teachers, her ancient Eathers, as 
 if foreseeing the future want, and the future strain 
 upon the text, have long anticipated the whole objec- 
 tion, by bearing their testimony to the all-suffidant^ 
 
26 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 interpretation that days may mean periods to any 
 extent, equal to the teaching of any scientific system. 
 I mention this only to show that the two modern 
 theories, either that days mean long periods, or that 
 there was an undefined interval between chaos and 
 order, as now established, are as old as the Fathers ; 
 for this second hypothesis is to be found no less in 
 their writings. The Bible has given the rule ; the 
 Church, its interpretation. 
 
 Then w^hat shall we conclude ? That it is our duty 
 to follow without anxiety, but with an unflinching eye, 
 the progress of science. Even when this is in the hands 
 of upright and sincere men, experience has shown — and 
 I could illustrate it by instances — that they may be 
 mistaken even in their statements, and in their obser- 
 vation of facts. There have been too many examples 
 of illusion, and of hasty deduction, for us to repose 
 absolute confidence in any naturalist, especially if he has 
 already formed a theory. But let repeated observation 
 establish a fact, and we need not fear its consequences. 
 How many human skeletons have been announced as 
 found in preadamitic positions ! Yet not one has yet 
 been admitted as proved. Let any number of new 
 hideous apes be found in Africa, and hailed as a more 
 remote progenitor by enlightened naturalists, I will be 
 satisfied to end my genealogy at the first of the line 
 endowed with reason, instead of pursuing it into the 
 primevalness of ferocity, and to trace my life to the 
 breath of life inhaled by Adam from the mouth of God, 
 rather than consider him only a link between myself 
 and the respectable, though somewhat unintellectual 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 27 
 
 family of baboons. Probably a gorilla points out man 
 to his apelings as a very degenerate specimen of his 
 descendants. 
 
 And if science needs careful watching in its observa- 
 tions, surely it sadly. wants it in its inferences. It is 
 chiefly over these that the Church invites her children 
 to be vigilant. For these fall generally into the hands 
 of sciolists, and those half-learned who deal in what 
 Pope has so well characterised as ' a dangerous thing.' 
 It is over their superficial applications, their half-sup- 
 pressed truths, and half-displayed errors, that we are 
 invited to keep watch and ward, lest httle ones be 
 seduced, and the weak-minded be misled. It is for 
 this purpose that we are incorporating ourselves this 
 day. As, in ancient times, those who loved and studied 
 art gathered round its masters or its models to learn its 
 principles, from the instructions of the former, or the 
 inspirations of the latter, — and these were the schools, 
 or academies, of art, — so, in later times, have similar 
 institutions been created, for gathering together persons 
 bound by a similar community of pursuits to learn from 
 one another, or from a common source. Such are the 
 learned societies of our own country, such the Academies 
 of the Continent. 
 
 In the seventeenth century, Eome saw spring up the 
 remarkable Academy of the Lincei, or Lynx-eyed, 
 whose principal and avowed object w^as to promote 
 physical science. Its founder was the clever and 
 religious young nobleman Federico Cesi, who, at the 
 age of eighteen, in the year 1606, established it in the 
 house of his haughty and ignorant father, the Duke of 
 
28 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Aquasparta ; who, while yet a striphng, was consulted 
 by Cardinal Bellarmine on scientific matters, and was 
 almost rebuked by him for his superfluous display of 
 patristic learning; who, after persecution, almost to 
 death, by his unnatural parent, still persevered through 
 his short life ; who inaugurated his Academy by a 
 devout visit of its members to S. John Lateran's on S. 
 John's day, and opened every meeting by prayer ; and 
 who has lately been commemorated in science by the 
 name of Caesia, given by Brown to an Australian family 
 in botany. The Acts of the Academy still form a 
 valuable fund of materials in the history of science. 
 His Academy was revived by Leo XII., and has its 
 halls and observatory on the Capitol. 
 
 In 1799, the growth of infidehty excited the zeal of 
 the learned Mgr. Zamboni, and suggested the necessity 
 of forming a society for the purpose of checking its 
 rapid and overbearing course over Italy. One man 
 wiU in vain cast a stone, or roll a rock into a torrent's 
 bed ; twelve men, from different tribes, may, by each 
 carrying one, raise a warning mound in the midst of a 
 river's course. The Society held its first meetings 
 privately, and members read their papers to try their 
 strength. In the first year of the century, the holy 
 Pontiff Pius VII. incorporated, blessed it, and approved 
 its mles under the name of the ' Accademia di Eehgione 
 Cattolica.' From that day it has prospered, has 
 flourished, and has grown. It has counted among its 
 members many illustrious men, and, no doubt, a few 
 less worthy of note. 
 
 Among the last, allow me to place myself; and bear 
 
INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 29 
 
 with me, if a second time in this discourse I liave the 
 folly to speak of myself It will be at least an expres- 
 sion of a strong feeling of grateful attachment, and in 
 ex|)lanation why I desire to transplant to Cathohc Eng- 
 land a shoot, which may here take root, of a plant 
 beneath whose shadow I have cultivated my own 
 slender pursuits. 
 
 In the year 1830, I had the honour of being, with- 
 out solicitation, elected a member of this Academy, and 
 the following year I read a paper in it, in presence of 
 Card. Cappellari, Prefect of Propaganda, whose gracious 
 commands I received to extend and publish it. Its 
 title was, ' The Barrenness of the Missions undertaken 
 by Protestants for the Conversion of Heathen Nations, 
 proved by their own Accounts.' The learned Cardinal 
 undertook not only to have the book published at the 
 Propaganda Press, but also to correct the proofs him- 
 self. This he kindly did, till the day of his election to 
 the Pontificate in the following year. ^ Not long after, 
 I read a paper on the Pontificate of Gregory YII. 
 
 On the 16th of June 1837, I delivered a discourse 
 on the Oxford movement, making it known for the 
 first time in Italy ; on the 4th of the same month 
 1840, 1 read a paper on Boniface YIIL, since expanded 
 in the Dublin 'Eeview.' None of the others have 
 appeared in English. 
 
 I venture, therefore, to come before you, as a veteran 
 of thirty years' standing in these ranks, with some right 
 to seek recruits for our renewed warfare. The Eoman 
 Academy, to which I have sent papers from England to 
 be read, in proof of my enduring connection, has 
 
30 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 encouraged us to fonn a branch here, as a bulwark or 
 outpost, nearer the front of danger from pretended 
 science, and has granted us a patent of incorporation as 
 a branch of itself. 
 
 Our call for associates has been nobly and graciously 
 responded to, and I beg, in the name of our Eoman 
 President, the Eminent Cardinal Asquini, my friend and 
 schoolfellow, and in that of our illustrious associates, to 
 thank you and welcome you. 
 
 Strong in faith, and secure in revelation, it will be 
 our pleasing task to meet from time to time, to discuss 
 interesting subjects, and bring into and keep in harmony 
 science and religion. The Church's position is lofty, 
 but only thus can she watch over the progress of other 
 institutions. It may be a homely illustration ; but she 
 seems to occupy, in our times, the place of the watch- 
 man whom we see standing, ever vigilant, where many 
 iron paths meet, cross, or diverge. His object is not to 
 arrest the rapid, career of the panting engine, or the 
 multitudes whom it draws after it, or the wealth which 
 it conveys far away. With one firm touch of his hand, 
 with one gentle pressure of the fine mechanism, he 
 directs its power and velocity upon its right track. 
 One moment of neglect, one mistake in his action, and 
 thousands may be driven into a fatal colhsion, or turned 
 into a wrong direction. Our office be, in her name, to 
 employ the resources at our command, gently, delicately, 
 yet firmly and strongly, to guide many on the right path, 
 and so earn for ourselves the blessings due to every one 
 who saves another from evil or leads him into good. 
 
ON 
 
 THE SUBJECTS PEOPER TO THE ACIDEMIA. 
 
 By H. E. manning, D.D. 
 
 <xji4Koo~ — 
 
 The office of addressing you to-day at the opening of 
 the third year of the Academia, through a cause which 
 we all very deeply regret and earnestly hope may soon 
 pass away, has fallen unexpectedly to me. And though 
 I could wish it in other hands, above all in his who 
 but for illness would have addressed you, I will do as 
 best I can. 
 
 When the other day I heard the Congi'ess of Malines 
 recommend the establishment of Academias such as 
 this, as one of the most efficacious means of counter- 
 acting the false and anti-Catholic principles abroad at 
 this day, it was not without a lively satisfaction that I 
 remembered that we in England, who are but in the 
 rudiments of our Catholic organisation, have neverthe- 
 less for two years had our Academia of the Catholic 
 religion. And on reviewing the subjects which have 
 been treated by its members, we may congratulate our- 
 selves, not only on the excellence of many of the 
 discourses addressed to us, considered in themselves, 
 but also on the timeliness and applicability of those 
 discourses in relation to the errors of the times and 
 
32 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 of the country in which we Hve. And this leads me 
 to offer a few remarks, not on any specific thesis, but, 
 as the custom is in Eome at the opening of each year, 
 on an argomento liber o — a wider and freer subject. 
 I will therefore speak of the nature and intention of 
 the Academia and of the subjects proper for its sessions. 
 Its main intention, as you are well aware, is, to exhibit 
 the truths and principles of the Catholic faith and 
 Church, not only in themselves, but in their relations 
 to the world and to the age, to philosophy, to science, 
 and to politics ; and that not too only ahsoluth^ but 
 especially in the bearing of these truths and principles 
 upon the errors of the time. The Academia in Eome 
 was instituted, as you well know, in the beginning of 
 this century, to combat the Voltairian infidelity and the 
 anti-Catholic revolution, which from France began at 
 that time to descend upon Italy. It is therefore what 
 the Germans would call the time-spirit that we have to 
 appreciate, and, so far as it is hostile to truth, to combat 
 and, by God's help, to counteract. 
 
 With a view to such an appreciation, and to mark 
 out in some degree the subjects proper to be treated, 
 I would ask leave to make a few remarks upon the 
 times in which we hve. 
 
 It is I know a common illusion to imagine that 
 our days are exceptional for good or for evil, and that 
 they surpass in importance the times of our fathers. 
 A slight event before our eyes is more vivid, real, and 
 exciting than the great actions of past history. It needs a 
 calm judgment, and a wide comparative survey of the 
 events both of the past and of the present, not to be 
 
THE SUBJECTS PROPER TO THE ACADEMIA. 3S 
 
 carried away by this illusion. Shall I seem to incur 
 this censure, if I say that the times in which we live 
 are exceptionally great, and pregnant beyond most 
 other times gone by with certain mature consequences 
 of past events? Let me, then, endeavour to shelter 
 myself from this fault and from the recoil of my own 
 censure. It would seem to me that the age in which 
 we live, that is the lifetime of our contemporaries, is 
 marked by a crisis of exceptional magnitude and 
 importance. 
 
 1. And first, the Protestant Eeformation has reached 
 its three hundredth year. It has run the career which 
 is usually permitted to a heresy. Felagianism and its 
 reliquiae infested Africa, Gaul and Britain for less than 
 three hundred years. Donatism ran out in three himdred 
 years. Arianism and its offsets possessed first the poli- 
 tical power of the Lower Empire, then the Gothic races, 
 then Lombardy and Spain for about three hundred years. 
 Where is Felagianism? where is Donatism? and where 
 is Arianism ? S* Gregory the Great lived when Arianism 
 was dying out. His pontificate inaugurated the begin- 
 ning of a new period of Cathohc faith and unity. In our 
 day Protestantism has reached its term. As a religion 
 it may be said hardly to exist, for its transformations 
 are such, that the forms of fragmentary Christianity 
 which pass under its name would be disowned by the 
 Protestant Keformers. It has ceased to be a definite 
 and inteUigible form of spiritual conviction, or of 
 intellectual thought. It exists as a form of politics, as 
 a plea for social hostility to the Catholic religion, and 
 for revolutionary diplomacy against the Cathohc Church, 
 
34 ESSAYS OX RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 It is a fact pointed out by Lord Macaulay in his earlier 
 years, when as yet the asperity of the partisan had not 
 soured and warped the candour of the historian, that 
 in eveiy instance Protestantism was estabUshed by the 
 civil power ; that when the civil power ceased to pro- 
 pagate it, Protestantism ceased to spread ; that there is 
 no example of a country becoming Protestant since the 
 first outbreak of the sixteenth century ; that there are 
 Protestant countries which have become Catholic again, 
 but no Catholic country which has become Protestant ; 
 that whatsoever in the confusions of the last three 
 hundred years has been lost to Catholicism has been lost 
 to Christianity ; that whatsoever has been gained to 
 Christianity has been gained to Catholicism.* 
 
 Now, as a form of religion or of intellectual thought, 
 it is certain that Protestantism has not been able to 
 perpetuate, much less to propagate itself In Germany 
 it has passed off into partial or into complete Neology ; in 
 Switzerland and France, extensively into Socinianism ; 
 in England into a congeries of irreconcilable hetero- 
 doxies, w^hich are in a perpetual flux. 
 
 Perhaps, in Scotland the original Protestantism retains 
 its character with greater tenacity, partly from the per- 
 sistent spirit of the Scottish rehgionists, and partly from 
 its isolation and remoteness from the Cathohc nations 
 which by contact powerfully affect other Protestant 
 countries. It is certain, nevertheless, that both specula- 
 tive unbelief and practical infidehty have made great 
 ravages in Scotland. My object, however, is not to 
 
 * Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes, vol. iii. p. 253. 
 
THE SUBJECTS PROPEB TO THE ACADEMIA. 35 
 
 enter into farther detail than is necessary for the 
 justification of the assertion which I have made, that is, 
 that Protestantism as a rehgion is dead. It has departed 
 from its own type. It has generated a multitude of 
 new and erroneous religions, and in them it has lost 
 its identity, and therefore as a religion its existence. 
 What number of professing Christians at this day are 
 intellectually represented by the Helvetic Confession, 
 the Augsburgh Confession, the Westminster Catechism 
 and the Thirty-nine Articles ? These things are now 
 what the Thalia of Arius, or the creeds of Sirmium, 
 Ancyra and Seleucia were in the times of S. Gregory 
 the Great. 
 
 But I must narrow the ground of our subject, and 
 confine myself to England, alone with which we have 
 chiefly to do. 
 
 There are, then, certain signs upon the Established 
 Protestantism of England which mark its advanced 
 decay. 
 
 First, its singular isolation. It is out of the unity 
 of the Catholic Church, and therefore of the great 
 Christian society of the world. It is rejected by the 
 •Greek Church, with which it endeavours in vain to 
 hold communion. It has no union with the Protestant 
 Churches of Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, 
 or France. It is repudiated by the Established Church 
 of Scotland. It is abandoned or rejected by 58 per 
 cent, of the population of England. Of the remain- 
 ing 42 per cent, much continues in it by mere no- 
 minal, traditional, social, pohtical adhesion. Anghcan 
 
 D 2 
 
36 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LlTERATUllE. 
 
 Protestantism is not only struck with sterility in pro- 
 pagation, but with an incapacity to retain even its own 
 hereditary members. It is remarkable that this is the 
 state of the Establishment, after an unprecedented stir 
 and exertion, in which it must be said that great 
 natural energy and generosity has been manifested 
 during a quarter of a century. But it is evident to all 
 who stand upon the shore, that nothing can save the 
 Established Protestant or Anglican religion from sink- 
 ing. Its seams are gaping wide, and the waters of 
 dissension, indifference, and rationalism must inevitably 
 draw it under. 
 
 Now this, though it be no new fact, is more advanced 
 and more evident than it was thirty years ago. Until 
 then the Anglican Establishment was girded and under- 
 pinned by its exclusive social and political privileges. 
 Three hundred years of regal supremacy and legal 
 primacy and religious monopoly had given to it an 
 apparent and fictitious superiority. 
 
 The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts and the 
 Catholic Emancipation threw the Anglican Establish- 
 ment upon its own centre for support. It could no 
 longer rest upon the legal repression of those who dis- 
 believed or rejected its claims. It had to go alone, 
 to depend upon its own spiritual and intellectual re- 
 sources. With what result the last thirty years will 
 show. It is true, that what is called freedom of action 
 has called forth much zeal from its members ; but it 
 has also called out their antagonisms ; if it has mul- 
 tiplied its churches and its ministers, it has multiplied its 
 contentions and its divisions. For three hundred years 
 
THE SUBJECTS PROrER TO THE ACADEMIA. 6i 
 
 its bond of coherence was mechanical and external, not 
 internal and dynamical. It was not the unity of 
 thought and will, because it had neither unity of faith, 
 nor even the principle of Divine Faith for its centre. 
 When the outward bonds which swathed it were taken 
 off, it began to separate every way. All its internal 
 repulsions began to exhibit themselves in a more 
 developed activity, and to reach a farther point of 
 divergence ; for instance, the two schools which are now 
 dominant in their activity are the Eationalistic and 
 what I must call the Eomanising. They are drawing 
 to themselves the vigour, zeal, generosity, and earnest- 
 ness of the Establishment, and in their vehement 
 departure from each other they are rending the Esta- 
 blishment asunder. And yet thirty years ago these 
 two schools existed only in germ. They who moved 
 the University of Oxford with such a vehemence of 
 alarm to condemn Dr. Hampden's Bampton Lectures, 
 never dreamed that in that very place in a few years 
 Professor Powell would deny the whole supernatural 
 order, and explicit Eationalists would be tutors and 
 heads of houses. They, too, who contended for Tract 
 90, as if for the body of Patroclus, never dreamed that 
 Anglican clergymen would now be not only burning 
 incense, or writing tracts about low masses, but would 
 be forming sisterhoods and professing to believe the 
 infallibility of the Church. \ 
 
 These things, which are thought to be signs of life, 
 are rather signs of the acute excitement which precedes 
 dissolution. They are like the mental over-activity of 
 men dying of consumption. They rise fitfully above 
 
38 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 themselves, and then sink by exhaustion. That 
 Anghcan Protestantism will ever become one in mind, 
 or opinion, or doctrine, is intrinsically impossible. 
 The law of internal divergence which distracts it, is 
 irresistible and multiplying in its force, and its in- 
 tellectual antagonisms are becoming every ten years 
 more and more intensely developed. That any one 
 form of thought should prevail over all the others and 
 cast them out is equally impossible. That the Eoman- 
 ising school should ever prevail, no Cathohc who knows 
 what an act of Divine Faith is, can for a moment 
 imagine ; nor anyone who knows how deep and 
 violent is the hostility of the English laity towards 
 these fanciful imitations of the popery which they 
 hate. 
 
 I cannot fail here to notice in passing, an error 
 which unhappily has found among Catholics a few 
 to countenance it. I mean the notion that the duty of 
 Anglicans is to remain where they are with a view to 
 spreading their opinions in the Established Church : in 
 other words that individuals may postpone, or even 
 refuse to submit to the Church in the hope of bring- 
 ing about what I may call a corporate union of the 
 churches. Such a theory, to make the .best excuse I 
 can for any Catholic who holds it, must rest upon the 
 assumption that the Anglican Establishment is as truly 
 a church as the schismatical Greek Church, that it 
 possesses vahd orders, succession, sacraments, jurisdic- 
 tion to absolve, and truth of doctrine, i.e. the principle 
 of Divine Faith. How any Cathohc can hold this view 
 without unsoundness I do not see. If all the pre- 
 
THE SUBJECTS PEOPER TO THE ACADEMIA. 39 
 
 tensions of the Establishment were as undoubted as the ^ 
 orders and sacraments of the Greek Church, still no 
 Catholic could maintain such a theory. Every several 
 Greek is bound to submit to the Catholic Church, one 
 by one, without question or thought as to what others 
 may or may not do. Salvation is the first law of 
 conscience, and to hasten out of a state of even material 
 schism or material heresy is an absolute duty. To 
 remain in it sciens et prudens would make the heresy 
 or the schism to be formal. If anyone wish to see an 4 
 example of the error I allude to, let them look at a 
 journal called the ' Union Eeview ; ' a singular example 
 of arrogant and pharisaical patronising of Catholics and 
 the Catholic Church, with much petty and malevolent 
 gossip, picked up it is to be feared in Catholic houses, 
 and from Catholics who lend the countenance of their 
 sympathy and, I fear, of their name to this mischievous 
 delusion. But to return. It has always appeared to 
 me that this intellectual movement towards the Cathohc 
 Church was providentially intended to restore the line 
 of continuity between the inteUigence of the Enghsh 
 people and the intelligence of the Universal Church. 
 The Keformation had utterly dissolved it, and the 
 breach was kept open by every means, as by change of 
 language and of terminology, and even change of pro- 
 nunciation in both Latin and Greek, whereby we have 
 become ' barbarians ' to all nations and all ^ nations 
 ' barbarians unto us.' England was so cut out from 
 the faith, the language, the spiritual and intellectual 
 context and communion of the Cathohc world, that it 
 ceased to receive from abroad the influences of other 
 
40 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 races, or to make itself understood by them. Nothing 
 but this can explain the strange ignorance of the 
 Enghsh respecting the Cathohc Church and faith. I 
 do not mean only among the poor — who in a part of 
 England known to me, call their Catholic neighbours 
 Romans, believing them to be the posterity of Julius 
 Caesar — but among educated and cultivated men. This 
 solution of continuity between the Enghsh intelligence 
 and the Catholic intelligence brings with it also a like 
 separation and variance of all the sympathies and 
 instincts which spring from unity of intellectual judg- 
 ment and belief. Now nothing, humanly speaking, 
 could have restored this continuity except a line of 
 minds advancing like skirmishers towards the Cathohc 
 Church, or like a pontoon bridge gradually thrown 
 across the gulf which the Reformation opened. It is 
 also to be noted that almost at the same moment there 
 sprang up in the Presbyterian Establishment a move- 
 ment on which the name of Irving has been fixed. 
 This movement has developed into a servile imitation 
 of Catholic doctrine and worship, together with the 
 most fanatical enmity against the Catholic Church. 
 These two parallel movements are not permitted 
 without design, nor will they fail to* bear their 
 fruits. 
 
 One consequence is already seen. The Catholic doc- 
 trines and practices, which, twenty years ago, were 
 defended controversially by our preachers and writers, 
 are now for the most part adopted, preached, and 
 defended by a numerous body among our opponents. 
 They are in mutiny, and have fallen into contention 
 
THE SUBJECTS PROrER TO THE ACADEMIA. 41 
 
 among themselves about our Catholic theology. We 
 may save the time which controversy wastes, and, instead 
 of going out into the battle-field, we may go into the 
 harvest-field to reap and to bind, and to gather our 
 sheaves into the garner. 
 
 This, then, is one point in which our times are more 
 critical than those of our fathers. 
 
 Another remarkable and unprecedented sign of decay 
 upon Anglican Protestantism is the fact that the young 
 men of cultivation and vigour of mind are turning away 
 from its ministry. It is not enough to say that worldly 
 callings present easier and higher prizes, and that the 
 poverty of the clergy repels young men from ordination. 
 This is not true of the Catholic Church, and that too in 
 our great poverty. The Catholic priests in England 
 certainly do not receive on an average the wages of 
 upper servants. But the sons of our best families, and 
 the highest and best for intellect and cultivation among 
 their sons, give themselves joyously, but humbly and 
 with fear of their own unworthiness, to the priesthood 
 of the Church. It is not poverty which causes this 
 repugnance. It is the doubt, the uncertainty, and the 
 bondage of an incoherent and untenable position, which 
 repels them from Anglican orders. On the other hand, 
 it is the living consciousness of the apostohc power and 
 jurisdiction, the certainty and freedom of divine faith, 
 which draws our youth to the narrow and self-denying 
 path of the priest's life. 
 
 The true cause, then, of this ominous desertion of the 
 young men is to be found in their unwilhngness to bind 
 themselves by subscription to incoherent and untenable 
 
42 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 formularies. There have been, indeed, attempts made at 
 other times to abohsh subscription to the Articles ; but 
 with this difference. In 1688, it was a movement in 
 order to comprehend non-conformists ; in 1774, it was 
 a feeble attempt got up by a few Socinianising clergy- 
 men. But now it is far more widely demanded. The 
 Eationahstic school, as a body, and the Eomanising 
 school, as a body, desire to be free from the Articles. 
 The laity are forward in asking that their pastors should 
 enjoy the same liberty as themselves. No layman holds 
 himself in any way bound by the Thirty-nine Articles. 
 He rejoices in the liberty of thinking and criticising, 
 beheving and disbeheving, as he likes. And he asks 
 the same hberty for his teachers. 
 
 In proof of this I will quote an authority which must 
 carry no little weight. Professor Stanley, in a letter to 
 Dr. Tait, says : — 
 
 ' The intelligent, thoughtful, highly-educated young 
 men, who twenty or thirty years ago were to be found 
 in every ordination, are gradually withheld from the 
 service of the Church, and from the profession to which 
 their tastes, their characters and their gifts best fit them. 
 For this great calamity, the greatest that threatens the 
 permanence and the usefulness of the Church of England, 
 there are, no doubt, many causes at work — some tran- 
 sitory, some beyond the power of any legislative enact- 
 ment to reach. But there can be no question that one 
 cause is the reluctance, the increasing reluctance, of 
 young men of the kind just described to entangle them- 
 selves in obligations with which they cannot heartily 
 sympathise, and which may hereafter be brought against 
 
THE SUBJECTS PROPER TO THE ACADEmA. 43 
 
 them to the ruin of their peace and of their professional 
 usefulness.' * 
 
 Again he adds : — ' I have been told on good authority 
 that of nineteen young men, within the acquaintance of 
 a single individual, who were within the last few years 
 known to have gone to Cambridge with the intention 
 of becoming clergymen, every one has since relinquished 
 his intention, chiefly on the ground of the present state 
 of subscription. Similar statistics to a larger extent, 
 although of a less definite form, might be produced at 
 Oxford.' t 
 
 This again is a new sign of these times, and one 
 which is full of consequences. It has been well said 
 that the opinions of the young men are a prophecy 
 of the future. And certainly a system from which the 
 young men turn away has the sentence of death in 
 itself. 
 
 Finally, the rationalism which lay hid in the Anghcan 
 Eeformation has at last reached its legitimate develop- 
 ment. After rejecting the Divine authority of the 
 Church, the tradition of dogma, the Catholic interpre- 
 tation of Holy Scripture, it is ending by a denial of the 
 inspiration and authenticity of the sacred books. I 
 notice this, not to dwell upon it, but because it is the 
 most signal evidence of the failure of Anglicanism. 
 Its ' Articulus stantis aut cadentis Ecclesiae ' is the 
 sixth Article, which affirms the sufficiency of Scripture, 
 
 * A Letter to the Lord Bishop of London on the State of Sub- 
 scription in the Church of England and in the University of Oxford, 
 by Arthur P. Stanley, D.D. 
 
 t Ibid, note, p. 31. 
 
44 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 ^ and rests its authenticity and canonicity upon the testi- 
 mony of the Church. It is precisely here that the last 
 blow has been struck at the Anglican system : and the 
 rationalistic infidelity which has robbed Protestant 
 Germany of its belief in Holy Scripture is beginning to 
 gather and to descend from high places upon England. 
 The Sixth Article has been tried and found wanting ; 
 and Anghcanism, which has based itself upon the 
 Scriptures, has generated a spirit of unbelief which has 
 undermined the Scriptures on which it professed to rest. 
 Whatsoever may tend to the exposure and extinction 
 of error must be a cause of thankfulness to Catholics ; 
 and yet we cannot but view with sorrow and with 
 alarm the gradual decay and dying out of the frag- 
 mentary truths of Christianity which survived the Ee- 
 formation. A behef in the revelation of Christianity 
 and in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures may be 
 said to have been universal in England. But it is this 
 which is now giving way in the educated classes and in 
 the masses of the English people. 
 
 I might add many more reasons for the belief that 
 Protestantism in general, and Anglicanism in particular, 
 has reached the term of its pretensions, and that we are 
 at the crisis of its decline, but time forbids.' 
 
 2. Another reason for regarding these times as 
 critical and of singular importance is the condition of 
 the Cathohc Church both in the East and in the West. 
 In the East there is a disposition among the populations 
 separated from it to return to its unity : of which 
 movement Eussia may be considered as the centre : in 
 the West a similar movement is in progress, of which 
 
THE SUBJECTS PROPER TO THE ACADEMIA. 45 
 
 England is visibly the centre. The missionaries of 
 the Church are penetrating the East with a vigour and 
 success never known since the missions of S. Francis 
 Xavier : and the Church in the West is renewing its 
 strength and its action upon the old Catholic countries 
 of Europe with an energy never seen since the Council 
 of Trent. Neither is it without a significance that the 
 other day the tercentenary of that great council was 
 solemnly celebrated in the presence of a prince of the 
 Church, delegated from the Holy See, in the ancient 
 city of Trent. For three hundred years its decrees de 
 Reformatione have been working deeply and surely in 
 the universal Church. The civil powers have dis- 
 tracted its operations by their jealous maintenance of 
 old abuses of prerogatives and customs ; but revolutions 
 have come as the scourges of God to sweep them clean 
 away. After these reigns of terror the Church has 
 renewed itself in a purity, majesty and expansion 
 exceeding all its past. Witness the Church in France, 
 the Church in Holland, and now the Church in Ireland 
 and the Church in England. After three hundred years 
 of penal laws, to which the fabulous cruelties of the 
 Spanish Inquisition are merciful, the Church in England 
 is once more free. I shall not touch even in outline the 
 well-known events of the last thirty years — the Emanci- 
 pation, the Hierarchy, the expansion of the Catholic 
 Church in England. These three words are enough to 
 show that our days are exceptional : that we are witnesses 
 of one of those miracles of grace, of those resurrections 
 of the Church after generations of death, by which God 
 manifests His presence and His sovereignty. But it is 
 
46 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 a wonderful and almost articulate Providence that the 
 same event which liberated the Catholic Church to use 
 the freedom of its power should have driven the Angli- 
 can Establishment upon the infirmities of its own 
 internal incoherence: that when the State ceased to 
 persecute the Church and to protect the Establishment, 
 Protestantism should have begun to dissolve and Catho- 
 licism to expand itself: nothing has held the Church 
 under for three hundred years but the whole weight of 
 a penal code : and nothing has held the Establishment 
 up but the favour and force of the civil power. 
 
 Divine Providence has seemed to watch its opportu- 
 nities to exhibit the office and action of the Church by 
 diametrical contrasts. When the Eoyal Supremacy 
 becomes visibly intolerable in its pretensions, the 
 Supremacy of Eome enters in its calmness and power. 
 When an article of the Apostles' Creed disappears 
 from the religion of the Anghcans, the definition of 
 the Immaculate Conception is promulgated : while the 
 Established rehgion is visibly losing its social and 
 political influence in England, the revolutions of 
 Europe in fifteen years of sedition, intrigue and warfare, 
 cannot overthrow the temporal power of the Vicar of 
 Jesus Christ : when the Protestants of Germany and 
 England by the aid of their pastors are denying the 
 inspiration of Holy Scripture and undermining the 
 authenticity of its books, the Catholic Church, the 
 mother of unwritten traditions, against whom they 
 have been perpetually clamouring, stands sole as the 
 pillar and ground of the Truth, the witness and keeper 
 of Holy Writ. 'Usee non sine numine.' They are 
 
THE SUBJECTS PEOPER TO THE ACADEMIA. 47 
 
 like the chips of wood which under the childish hands 
 of Hildebrand, manum pueri ductante numine, fell into 
 legible forms and prophesied of the future. 
 
 It was, then, in such a time as this that the Academia 
 of the Catholic rehgion was founded in London. Its 
 object, as we know, was to form a centre to which 
 Catholics, both priests and laymen, who desire to serve 
 the Truth and the Church may be drawn : as a means 
 of communication and correspondence : and as a mu- 
 tual help for the study and solution of questions which 
 affect the Catholic religion, that is both the Faith and 
 the Church, and that both in speculation and in prac- 
 tice. And first we have to be thankful for its existence 
 and for its continuance, and for the discourses which 
 have been addressed to us, especially for some of 
 them. ^N'evertheless we have not as yet recognised as 
 much as we may the direct and practical uses for which 
 it may be employed. And with a view to this I 
 would endeavour to suggest the subjects which appear 
 to be proper to this Academia. 
 
 They may, I think, be stated as follows : — 
 1. First, all such arguments as exhibit the relation of 
 reason to Eevelation, of reason to the Church, of the 
 Church to the Scriptures, of reason to the Scriptures. 
 These subjects are especially forced upon us by the 
 intellectual condition of England, by the dissolution of 
 Protestantism, and by the influence of these two causes 
 upon many among our own people. It is much, to be 
 desired that certain men would subdivide these subjects 
 among themselves, and engage to produce papers upon 
 each of them, to be read before the Academia. From 
 
 
48 ESSAYS OX RELIGIOX AND LITERATURE. 
 
 such, a volume most useful and needful at this moment 
 might easily be formed. We must all desire that the 
 Catholic Church should be seen by all men to stand fore- 
 most in the defence of the Word of God, unwritten and 
 written, in these days of unbelief. 
 
 2. Next, the relation of the Church to politics re- 
 quires a new and careful restatement. The great 
 Catholic writers, such as S. Thomas, Suarez and Bel- 
 larmine, treated of these subjects in the abstract, and in 
 their bearing upon the forms of political society known 
 in their day. But the last centuries have changed the 
 whole aspect and application of their principles. The 
 political society of the last three hundred years is a new 
 phase of Christian civilisation. The inevitable divorce 
 of the ecclesiastical and civil powers, which is every- 
 where accompHshing, and the separation of the nations, 
 as such, from the unity of the faith, which brings with 
 it the desecration of the corporate life and action of 
 society — that is of the civil power — is a new and un- 
 precedented fact of a portentous character, charged 
 with a future which we can only contemplate with sub- 
 mission to the will of God and confidence in His care 
 of His Church and people. A multitude of subjects are 
 at once forced upon us. What is the relation of the 
 Church to the civil society of the world ? Has it any 
 duty towards it, or direction over it ? Do politics enter 
 into morals, and has the Church any jurisdiction within 
 the sphere of politics ? Can pohtics be separated from 
 the faith, and Christian society from the Church ? Is 
 civilisation dependent on or independent of Christianity, 
 and therefore of the Church ? Was the concurrent 
 
THE SUBJECTS PROPER TO THE ACADEMIA. 49 
 
 action of the spiritual and civil powers in past ages for 
 good or for evil ? Is their present divorce an advance 
 or a retrogression in Christian civilisation ? 
 
 I need not point out that these questions are inevit- 
 able ; they are forced upon us ; they underlie the 
 whole continental revolution against the Holy See ; 
 they are mixed up in the foreign policy of every 
 government ; they are ventilated in every newspaper ; 
 Catholics cannot meet in a congress without . being 
 overtaken by them as by a spring-tide ; they enter 
 into the duties of every Englishman who possesses the 
 trust of a vote or the responsibility of influence ; they 
 are the fine wedges which are rending us asunder, and 
 throwing many, who are otherwise sound in faith, upon 
 a stream which will carry them not only away from 
 the spirit of the Church, but, at last, into opposition to 
 the Holy See. Do not think I exaggerate, or speak as 
 a theorist. Every parish priest will know that the 
 subtilest form of political sedition is at this moment 
 being propagated among our Catholics in England by 
 brotherhoods, secret societies, and obscure newspapers. 
 For all this we must prepare ourselves. If we need a 
 last reason to attract us to these studies, we may find it 
 in the allocution of the Holy Father at the canonization 
 in 1862, in which all the faithful of every nation and 
 people were warned to beware of the anti-social and 
 anti-Christian principles of modern political theories. 
 
 3. Once more, the relation of philosophy to faith lies 
 at the foundation of the chief intellectual problems of 
 the day. Without a clear decision on this subject there 
 can be no sufficient treatment of the first truths oJ 
 
 E 
 
50 EgSATS ON REUGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 theology. The most lamentable aberrations of these 
 later years may in some cases be traced to a single 
 pliilosophical error, which, hke a morbid particle in the 
 blood, will produce death. 
 
 A certain class of modern metaphysical philosophers 
 has been well subdivided into objective and subjective 
 atheists, and yet these writers are read both without 
 and within the Church in England without scruple or 
 hesitation. Happily many men are not consequent, and 
 many have no conception of the character and reach of 
 the books they read. Inconsequence and unconscious- 
 ness preserve them from the evil of the anti-Catholic 
 and anti-Christian philosophy by which they are 
 surrounded. 
 
 A still more urgent subject is the relation of Faith 
 and the Church to Science. It would seem to be too 
 trivial to go on repeating, that between revelation and 
 science there can be no opposition ; that the works of 
 God are His words, and the words of God are His 
 works, and that both are in absolute harmony. In the 
 Divine mind they are one truth : in the Divine action 
 they may be only partially and successively developed. 
 They may for a time seem to be diverse, and to involve 
 discrepancies of signification ; but ultimately and essen- 
 tially they must be one, even as God is one. ' Deus 
 scientiarum Tu es.' God is the fountain of all sciences. 
 For this cause Catholics have no fear of science, scien- 
 tifically elaborated and scientifically treated. They 
 have no fear of any accumulation of facts and pheno- 
 mena, truly such, nor of any induction or conclusion 
 scientifically established. They fear only science un- 
 
THE SUBJECTS PROPER TO THE ACADEMIA. 51 
 
 scientifically handled, superficial observations, hasty 
 generalisations, reckless opposition to revelation, and 
 undissembled readiness to reject revelation rather than 
 doubt of a modern theory about flint instruments and 
 hyena's bones. It is indeed true that Cathohcs have an 
 intense dislike and hostility to such science as this, and 
 to all its modifications. They hold it to be guilty, not 
 only of leze majeste against the Christian revelation, but 
 against the truth and dignity of science itself They 
 abhor — and I accuse myself of being a ringleader in 
 this abhorrence — the science now in fashion, which I 
 take leave to call ' the brutal philosophy,' to wit, there 
 is no God, and the ape is our Adam. 
 
 How necessary it is for Catholics to prepare them- 
 selves on the relation of society and of science to the 
 Church, may be seen by what passed the other day, as 
 at Malines so at Munich. Catholics cannot meet without 
 being forced into the time-spirit. We do not live in an 
 exhausted receiver. The middle ages are passed. 
 There is no zone of calms for us. We are in the modern 
 world — in the trade winds of the nineteenth century, 
 and we must brace ourselves to lay hold of the world 
 as it grapples with us, and to meet it intellect to intel- 
 lect, culture to culture, science to science. 
 
 For in these last centuries, first politics and now science 
 have fallen away from the faith. This is the paradisaical 
 state according to some. To others it is the dissolution 
 of the Christian society of the world carried out to its 
 last consequence. Kow it will be a subject very proper 
 to the sessions of the Academia to discuss whether 
 Science have any dependence upon Faith, or whether 
 
 £ 2 
 
52 16SATS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 it be independent in a province of its own ; whether it 
 be scientific to threaten the received chronology with a 
 jaw-bone found at Amiens, or with cities submerged in 
 lakes, or with formations arbitrarily assumed to be slow 
 in their accretion and the hke ; or whether it be not 
 the part of Science to proceed with the dociUty of a 
 learner, and the patience of an interrogator, waiting for 
 the answers of nature, who will not be rudely or con- 
 temptuously questioned, but demands of its disciples the 
 reverence and the piety of sons to its great Creator. 
 
 Lastly — for I must not trespass longer upon your 
 patience — under the name of science is included not only 
 Metaphysics and Physics, but also the scientific treat- 
 ment of Theology, Philosophy, and History in its 
 relation to theological science. In this sense it goes to 
 the root of faith. I cannot better illustrate my meaning 
 than by quoting the words of a Swiss theologian, 
 Gugler, whose works I do not pretend to know beyond 
 the passage which I have met in quotation. Either 
 that passage does adequately represent the mind of the 
 writer, or it does not. With this I have less to do than 
 with its inevitable efiect on the mind of the reader. 
 ' We are to beheve,' says the author to his antagonists, 
 ' the voice of the Church, you say, without seeking to 
 understand ; but where do we hear this voice ? Not in 
 your mouths, certainly, or with the ears of the body ; 
 it must be sought for in history, and in the written 
 records of the Church. We must examine each docu- 
 ment historically in order to know whether it is the 
 authentic expression of the mind of the Church without 
 interpolation ; only then does faith begin.' ' Embrace 
 
THE SUBJECTS PEOPER TO THE ACADEMIA. 53 
 
 reason and science, become what you ought to be ; and 
 your kingdom will rise again from the dead.'* 
 
 First, I would wish to know who we are who are 
 bound to examine each document historically ? and 
 next, what documents ? and lastly, for the establish- 
 ment of what doctrines? Does it signify that the 
 faithful are to receive the articles of their Baptismal 
 Creed from documents historically examined by each 
 one for himself, and not from the voice of the Church ? 
 Or the interpretation of those articles, or the interpre- 
 tation of Scripture ? And is it only after examination 
 of each document historically that faith begins ? Have 
 they no faith before baptism, nor after baptism, till they 
 become historical critics ? 
 
 If by these high-sounding phrases be meant only that 
 we must know what we believe, and why we beheve, 
 before we beheve it, or that reason is the preamble of 
 faith, there is no need of such imposing phraseology, 
 nor of any discovery. We may answer with S. Augustin, 
 ' Absit ut ideo credamus ne rationem accipiamus, sive 
 qu^eramus, quum etiam credere non possemus nisi ra- 
 tionabiles animas haberemus.'f But if it be meant that 
 science precedes faith, and that the unscientific have 
 no faith, I would leave the writer to reconcile himself 
 with the Prophet who says, ' Nisi credideritis non intel- 
 ligetis,' and with S. Augustin, who with the principle 
 transfixes the pretensions of the Manichees. We are 
 no lovers of darkness, nor of the kingdom of the dead, 
 and we have, I hope, as ardent a love of science and 
 
 * Home and Foreign Review^ July 1863, p. 194, 
 f S. Aug. Epist. cxx. 3, torn. ii. p. 347. 
 
 :-.3^-, 
 
54 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 reason as any men of our time ; but we have learned 
 in tlie school of those doctors and saints who teach 
 that faith is a rational act, and that to believe is the 
 condition of understanding, and understanding the 
 reward of faith. ' Si a me,' says S. Augustin, ' aut a 
 quoUbet aho doctore non irrationabiliter flagitas, ut 
 quod credis inteUigas, corrige definitionem tuam, non 
 ut fidem respuas, sed ut ea, quas fidei firmitate jam 
 
 tenes, etiam rationis luce conspicias Et ideo 
 
 rationabiUter dictum est per Prophetam, " nisi credi- 
 deritis non intelUgetis." ' 
 
 Again he says : ' Sed prius Sanctarum Scripturarum 
 auctoritatibus colla subdenda sunt, ut ad intellectum per 
 fidem quisque perveniat.'* 
 
 And once more, for the principle pervades the works 
 of S. Augustin from beginning to end — 
 
 ' Sed sunt quidam^ inquit, in vobis qui non credunt 
 Non dicit, sunt quidam in vobis qui non intelligunt : sed 
 causam dixit, quare non intelligant. Sunt enim quidam 
 in vobis qui non credunt : et ideo non intelHgunt, quia 
 non credunt. Propheta enim dixit. Nisi credideritis, 
 non intelUgetis. Per fidem copulamur, per intellectum 
 vivificamur. Prius hasreamus per fidem, ut sit quod 
 viyificetur per intellectum. Nam qui non hasret, re- 
 sistit : qui resistit, non credit. Nam qui resistit, quo- 
 modo vivificatur? Adversarius est radio lucis, quo 
 penetrandus est : non avertit aciem, sed claudit mentem. 
 Sunt ergo quidam qui non credunt. Credant et aperiant, 
 aperiant et illuminabuntur.' f 
 
 * De peccatorum mentis, cap. xxi. 16 D. torn. x. p. 16. 
 j- In Joan. Evang. cap. 6, Tract. XXVII. torn. iii. pp. 504. 
 
THE SUBJECTS PEOPER TO THE ACADEMIA. 55 
 
 In a word, it is not science which generates faith but 
 faith which generates science by the aid of the reason 
 illuminated by revelation. 
 
 In what I have hitherto said, I have assumed one 
 truth as undeniable and axiomatic, namely that God 
 has revealed Himself ; that He has committed this reve- 
 lation to His Church ; and that He preserves both His 
 revelation and His Church in aU ages by His own pre- 
 sence and assistance from all error in faith and morals. 
 Now inasmuch as certain primary truths — which may be 
 naturally known of God and the soul, and of the relations 
 of the soul with God, and of man with man, that is cer- 
 tain truths discoverable also in the order of nature by 
 reason or by philosophy — are taken up into and incor- 
 porated with the revelation of God, the Church possesses 
 the first principles of rational philosophy and of natural 
 ethics both for individuals and for society. And inas- 
 much as these principles are the great regulating truths 
 of philosophy and natural morahty, including natural 
 politics, the Church has a voice, a testimony and a juris- 
 diction within these provinces of natural knowledge. I 
 do not affirm the Church to be a philosophical authority, 
 but I may affirm it to be a witness in philosophy. Much 
 more when we come to treat of Christian philosophy or 
 the Theodicea, or Christian morals and Christian politics ; 
 for these are no more than the truths of nature grafted 
 upon the stock of revelation and elevated to a super- 
 natural perfection. To exclude the discernment and 
 voice of the Church from philosophy and pohtics is to 
 degrade both by reducing them to the natural order. 
 First it pollards them, and next it deprives them of the 
 
56 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 corroboration of a higher evidence. Against this the 
 whole array of Catholic theologians and philosophers 
 has always contended. They have maintained that the 
 tradition of theological and ethical knowledge is di- 
 vinely preserved, and has a unity in itself, that there is 
 a true traditive philosophy running down in the same 
 channel with the divine tradition of faith, recognised 
 by faith as true by the light of nature, and guarded by 
 the circle of supernatural truths by which faith has 
 surrounded it. In saying this I am not extending the 
 infallibility of the Church to philosophical or pohtical 
 questions apart from their contact with revelation ; but 
 afl&rming only that the radical truths of the natural 
 order have become rooted in the substance of faith 
 and are guaranteed to us by the witness and custody 
 of the Church. So hkewise, as the laws of Christian 
 civilisation are the laws of natural morality elevated 
 by the Christian law, which is expounded and applied 
 by the Church, there is a tradition both of private and 
 public ethics, or in other words of morahty and juris- 
 prudence, which forms the basis of all personal duty 
 and of all political justice. In this again the Church 
 has a discernment, and therefore a voice. A distribu- 
 tion of labour in the cultivation of all provinces of 
 truth is prudent and intelligible : a division of authority 
 and an exclusion of the Chiu*ch from science is not 
 only a dismemberment of the kingdom of truth ; but 
 a forcible rending of certain truths from their highest 
 evidence. Witness the treatment of the question 
 whether the existence of God can be proved, and 
 whether God can be known by natural reason in the 
 hands of those who turn their backs upon the tradition 
 
THE SUBJECTS PROPER TO THE ACADEMIA. 57 
 
 of evidence in the universal Church. Unless revelation 
 be an illusion, the voice of the Church must be heard in 
 these higher provinces of human knowledge. Newton, 
 as Dr. Newman says, ' cannot dispense with the meta- 
 physician nor the metaphysician with us.' Into cosmo- 
 gony the Church must enter by the doctrine of creation ; 
 into natural theology by the doctrine of the existence 
 and perfections of God; into ethics by the doctrine of the 
 cardinal virtues; into politics bytheindissolubihty of mar- 
 riage, the root of human society as divorce is its dissolu- 
 tion. And by this interpenetration and interweaving of 
 its teaching, the Church binds all sciences to itself. They 
 meet in it as in their proper centre. As the sovereign 
 power which runs into all provinces unites them in one 
 Empire, so the voice and witness of the Church unites 
 and binds all sciences in one. 
 
 It is the parcelling and morselhng out of science, and 
 the disintegration of the tradition of truth, which has 
 reduced the intellectual culture of England to its pre- 
 sent fragmentary and contentious state. Not only 
 errors are generated, but truths are set in opposition : 
 science and revelation are supposed to be at variance, 
 and revelation to be the weaker side of human 
 knowledge. 
 
 The Church has an infallible knowledge of the original 
 revelation. Its definitions of Divine Eaith fall within 
 this limit. But its infalhble judgments reach beyond 
 it. The Church possesses a knowledge of truth which 
 belongs also to the natural order. The existence 
 of God — His power, goodness, and perfections — the 
 moral law written in the conscience— are truths of 
 the natural order, which are declared also by reve- 
 
58 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 lation, and recorded in Holy Scripture. These truths 
 the Church knows by a twofold hght — by the 
 supernatural hght of revelation, and by the natural 
 light which all men possess. In the Church this 
 natural hght is concentrated as in a focus. The 
 great endowment of common sense, that is the 
 communis sensus generis humani, the maximum of 
 hght and evidence for certain truths of the natural 
 order, resides eminently in the collective intelhgence 
 of the Church, that is to say, in the intelligence of 
 the faithful, which is the seat of its passive infalhbihty, 
 and in the intelhgence of the pastors, or the Magisterium 
 Ecclesiae, which is the organ of its active infaUibility. 
 That two and two make four is not more evident to the 
 Catholic Church than to the rest of mankind, to S. 
 Thomas or S. Bonaventura than to Spinoza and Comte. 
 But that God exists, and that man is responsible, because 
 free, are moral truths, and for the perception of moral 
 truths even of the natural order a moral discernment is 
 needed ; and the moral discernment of the Church, even 
 of natural truths, is, I maintain, incomparably higher 
 than the moral discernment of the mass of mankind, by 
 virtue of its elevation to greater purity and conformity 
 to the laws of nature itself. 
 
 The highest object of human science is God; and 
 theology, properly so called, is the science of His nature 
 and perfections, the radiance which surroimds ' the 
 Father of light, in whom is no change, neither shadow 
 of vicissitude.' Springing from this central science flow 
 the sciences of the works of God, in nature and in 
 grace : and under the former fall not only the physical 
 sciences, but those also which relate to man and to his 
 
THE SUBJECTS PROPER TO THE ACADEMIA. 59 
 
 action — as morals, politics, and history. Now, the 
 revelation God has given us rests for its centre upon 
 God Himself, but in its course describes a circumference 
 within which many truths of the natural order relating 
 both to the world and to man are included. These the 
 Church knows not only by natural hght, but by Divine 
 revelation, and declares by Divine assistance. But these 
 primary truths of the natural order are axioms and 
 principles of the sciences within which they properly 
 fall. And these truths of philosophy belong also to the 
 domain of faith. The same truths are the objects of 
 faith and of science ; they are the links which couple 
 these sciences to revelation. How, then, can these 
 sciences be separated from their relation to revealed 
 truth without a false procedure ? No Catholic could 
 so separate them ; for these truths enter within the 
 dogma of faith. No Christian who believes in Holy 
 Scripture could do so ; for they are included in Holy 
 Writ. No mere philosopher could do so ; for thereby 
 he would discard and perhaps place himself in opposi- 
 tion and discord with the maximum of evidence which 
 is attainable on these primary verities, and therefore 
 with the common sense not only of Christendom but of 
 mankind. In this I am not advocating a mixture or 
 confusion of rehgion and philosophy, which, as Lord 
 Bacon says in his work, ' De Augmentis Scientiarum,' 
 'will undoubtedly make an heretical religion and an 
 imaginary and fabulous philosophy,' but affirming that 
 certain primary truths of both physical and ethical 
 philosophy are delivered to us by revelation, and th'at 
 we cannot neglect them as our starting-points in such 
 sciences without a false procedure and a palpable 
 
60 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 forfeiture of truth. Such verities are, for instance, the 
 existence of God, the creation of the world, the freedom 
 of the will, the moral office of the conscience, and the 
 like. Lord Bacon says, again: 'There may be veins 
 and hues, but not sections or separations,' in the 
 great continent of Truth. All truths alike are suscep- 
 tible of scientific method, and all of a religious treat- 
 ment. The father of modern philosophy, as men of 
 our day call him, so severe and imperious in maintaining 
 the distinct province and process of science, is not the 
 less peremptory and absolute as to the unity of all truth 
 and the vital relation of aU true science to the Divine 
 philosophy of revelation. 
 
 In confirmation of what I have said, I will use better 
 words than my own. In the second of the well- 
 known Lectures on University Education,* Dr. Xewman, 
 treating of the relation of theology to other sciences, 
 speaks as follows : ' Summing up, gentlemen, what I have 
 said, I lay it down that all knowledge forms one whole, 
 because its subject-matter is one ; for the universe in 
 its length and breadth is so intimately knit together 
 that we cannot separate ofi* portion from portion, and 
 operation from operation, except by a mental abstrac- 
 tion ; and then again, as to its Creator, though He, of 
 course, in His own Being, is infinitely separated from 
 it, yet He has so imphcated Himself with it, and taken 
 it into His very bosom, by His presence in it. His provi- 
 dence over it. His impressions upon it, and his influences 
 through it, that we cannot truly or fully contemplate 
 
 ♦ Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education, 
 J. H. Newman, Disc. II. 
 
THE SUBJECTS PROrEE TO THE ACADEMIA. 61 
 
 it without contemplating Him. Next, sciences are the 
 results of that mental abstraction which I have spoken 
 of, being the logical record of this or that aspect of the 
 whole subject-matter of knowledge. As they all belong 
 to one and the same circle of objects, they are one 
 and all connected together ; as they are but aspects 
 of things, they are severally incomplete in their rela- 
 tion to the things themselves, though complete in their 
 own idea and for their own respective purposes ; on 
 both accounts they at once need and subserve each 
 other. And further, the comprehension of the bearings 
 of one science on another, and the use of each to each, 
 and the location and limitation, and adjustment and 
 due appreciation of them all, one with another — this 
 belongs, I conceive, to a sort of science distinct from all 
 of them, and in some sense a science of sciences, which 
 is my own conception of what is meant by philosophy, 
 in the true sense of the word.' .... 
 
 Further on he says : — ' What theology gives, it has 
 a right to take ; or rather, the interests of truth oblige 
 it to take. If we would not be beguiled by dreams, if 
 we would ascertain facts as they are, then, granting 
 theology as a real science, we cannot exclude it, and 
 still call ourselves philosophers. I have asserted 
 nothing as yet as to the preeminent dignity of religious 
 truth ; I only say, if there be religious truth at all, we 
 cannot shut our eyes to it without prejudice to truth of 
 every kind, physical, metaphysical, historical, and moral; 
 for it bears upon all truth. And thus I answer the 
 objection with which I opened this discourse. I sup- 
 posed the question put to me by a philosopher of the 
 
62 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 day, "Why cannot you go your way and let us go ours ?" 
 I answer, in the name of theology, "When Newton 
 can dispense with the metaphysician, then may you 
 dispense with us." ' . . . . 
 
 ' Man, with his motives and works, his languages, his 
 propagation, his diffusion, is from Him [God]. Agri- 
 culture, medicine, and the arts of life are His gift. 
 Society, laws, government — He is their sanction. The 
 pageant of earthly royalty has the semblance and the 
 benediction of the Eternal King. Peace and civilisa- 
 tion, commerce and adventure, wars when just, con- 
 quest when humane and necessary, have His coopera- 
 tion and His blessing upon them. The course of events, 
 the revolution of empires, the rise and fall of states, 
 the periods and eras, the progresses and the retro- 
 gressions of the world's history, not indeed the inci- 
 dental sin, over-abundant as it is, but the great out- 
 lines and the issues of human affairs, are from His 
 disposition. The elements, and types, and seminal 
 principles, and constructive powers of the moral world, 
 in ruins though it be, are to be referred to Him. 
 He " enlighteneth every man that cometh into the 
 world.'" .... 
 
 ' If this be a sketch, accurate in substance and, as 
 far as it goes, of the doctrines proper to theology, and 
 especially of the doctrine of a particular Providence, 
 which is the portion of it most on a level with human 
 sciences, I cannot understand at all how, supposing it 
 to be true, it can fail, considered as knowledge, to exert 
 a powerful influence on philosophy, literature, and 
 every intellectual creation or discovery whatever. I 
 
THE SUBJECTS PROPER TO THE ACADEMIA. 63 
 
 cannot understand how it is possible, as the phrase 
 goes, to bhnk the question of its truth or falsehood. It 
 meets us with a profession and a proffer of the highest 
 truths of which the human mind is capable ; it em- 
 braces a range of subjects the most diversified and dis- 
 tant from each other. What science will not find one 
 part or other of its province traversed by its path? 
 What results of philosophic speculation are unquestion- 
 able, if they have been gained without enquiry as to 
 what theology had to say to them ? Does it cast no 
 fight upon history? Has it no influence upon the 
 principles of ethics ? Is it without any sort of bearing 
 on physics, metaphysics, and political science ? Can we 
 drop it out of the circle of knowledge, without allow- 
 ing either that that circle is thereby mutilated, or, on 
 the other hand, that theology is no science ? ' 
 
 Such being the essential unity of all truth, and such 
 the mind and instinct of the Church, it is no wonder 
 that humble and pious minds not largely cultivated 
 beyond their Catechism should turn with fear and 
 suspicion from the pursuit of science. It is deplorable, 
 but not wonderful, that they should be thereby set 
 against the progress of scientific knowledge. But on 
 whom rests the blame ? Without question, on us, who 
 profess to know better, if we so use our better know- 
 ledge as to offend and to affright our weaker brethren. 
 Life is short, and at longest there is little time for the 
 pursuit of knowledge. Better to use it for science 
 silently and humbly. There is as little fear of our 
 modern philosophers being burnt for magic, or even 
 accused of it by their ignorant cotemporaries, as of our 
 
64 ESSAYS OX RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 attaining the intellectual superiority of Sylvester 11. or 
 Nicolas of Cusa. Nothing is gained to science, still less 
 to charity, by a tone of pretentious menace : such as, 
 ' If the facts of geology are contrary to the Catholic 
 faith, let the Catholic faith look to it.' We need no 
 such admonitions, be they threats or warnings. It 
 would inspire us with more confidence in their science 
 and humility, if our geologists said : ' If the facts of 
 geology are contrary to the Catholic faith, let geology 
 look to its facts.' It is much easier to trumpet about 
 facts than to fix them. Even in our own short hfetime 
 we have seen the facts of geology to be made, unmade, 
 remade, and made over again, I know not how many 
 times. The nature and origin of man has been so often 
 fixed and unfixed that I am in doubt whether I am 
 descended, as I said, from Adam or from an ape, or from 
 a jelly, or from a capsule, or whether I am created at 
 aU, or am a transient manifestation of an uncreated 
 whole, that is whether I am man or Pan, whom I revered 
 in boyhood, but never aspired to be. And this is 
 science. Truly the CathoHc faith has not much need 
 to fear it, save only for the half-learned, vain-glorious, 
 pretentious and unbelieving. But they are many. 
 
 To illustrate my meaning from a high authority not 
 to be suspected of partiaHty to us, I will quote the words 
 of Mr. Lewes, the hierophant or archimandrite of 
 Comtism, or as I have ventured to call it in respect to 
 theology, the Brutal Philosophy. After a review in 
 four volumes of the triumph and progress of philosophy 
 along the via sacra of ages from the seven friends of 
 our boyhood, Thales, Pythagoras, Solon, &c., through 
 
THE SUBJECTS PJIOPER TO THE ACADEMIA. 65 
 
 Anaximenes, Anaximander, to Spinoza, Locke, Eeid, 
 Kant, Hegel, Fichte, to Auguste Comte, he sums up the 
 pcean in this melancholy strophe which closes his last 
 volume. ' Modern philosophy opens with a method — 
 Bacon ; and ends with a method — Comte ; and in each 
 case this method leads to positive science, and sets 
 metaphysics aside. Within these limits we have wit- 
 nessed various efforts to solve the problems of philosophy ; 
 and all these efforts have ended in scepticism.' * 
 
 It sounds like the voice of the buffoon in the chariot 
 reminding Caesar that he is but a man. 
 
 The mission, then, of the Catholic Church in England 
 at this moment is a noble and beneficent work, that of 
 calling home, first, truths to their proper centre, and 
 then men to those truths. 
 
 It has first to reorganise the elements of Christian 
 belief which he scattered in fragments around its unity. 
 And this it is already doing beyond all hope : even error 
 is working with it, revealing its own incoherence. It is 
 certain that as the Cathohc Church stands at this hour 
 in England the only witness for unity of faith, so in ten 
 years it will be recognised as the only Divine evidence, 
 and therefore the only certain authority, for the inspira- 
 tion and canon of Holy Scripture. 
 
 It is the duty therefore of Catholics to prepare them- 
 selves for the future which is before them. They little 
 thought thirty years ago to be as they are now. 
 
 They little thought ten years ago of the majestic 
 
 expansion of the Catholic Church at this hour, and of 
 
 its dignified attitude of calm in the midst of the religious 
 
 * Vol. iv. p. 263. 
 
 F 
 
66 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 confusion and dissolution which is around it. Still less 
 can we anticipate what the next ten years may bring. 
 The advance of the Church is in geometrical progression. 
 And in proportion as it regains the intelligence of the 
 English people, the hearts of men will turn to it sicut 
 torrens in austro. It will be seen to be in England also 
 what it ever has been in the civihsed world — the mother 
 and nurse of all intellectual culture. The people of 
 England are already beginning to hear its voice and to 
 recognise it as the pleading of truth, charity, and com- 
 mon sense. 
 
THE ACTION OF THE CHURCH UPON AET 
 AND CIVILISATION, 
 
 SHOWN- IN THE HIGH ALTAK IN THE CHURCH OP S. AMBROSE AT 
 
 MILAN, SO VALUABLE FOR ITS LITURGICAL TEACHINGS, AND AS 
 
 AN EXAMPLE OE ANGLO-SAXON WORKMANSHIP. 
 
 By DANIEL EOCK, D.D. 
 
 Aftee Eome, there is no Italian city so crowded 
 with stirring recollections belonging to the olden times 
 as Milan ; and some of its churches have a peculiar 
 interest about them for ecclesiastical antiquaries and 
 artists of all nations, but more especially for every 
 well-read Englishman. Its Gothic cathedral, the daring 
 thought of a Teutonic mind, bodied forth and made to 
 live in marble, with the three thousand statues that 
 people its roof and the outside niches of its walls, is 
 one of the wonders of mediaeval constructive science, 
 and takes high rank among the most beautiful erec- 
 tions of Christendom, notwithstanding that its western 
 end is deformed rather than finished by an incongru- 
 ous front in the Pagan style perpetrated at the begin- 
 ning of the present century under French usurpation 
 and influences when classicism in government, in arts, 
 and letters was the idol of the day. Its magnificent 
 bronze seven-branched candlestick, called by the Mi- 
 lanese the ' Albero di Maria,' or as we should name it, 
 
 r 2 
 
68 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 a ' Jesse tree ' — an admirable work of the thirteenth 
 century, and although once so common in England, 
 France, and Germany, is now almost the only one of 
 the kind known of anywhere — makes us deeply regret 
 the still finer one which adorned the abbey church of 
 Saint Eemi at Eeims, and the finest one of all, that 
 reached almost to the roof of our own majestic Dur- 
 ham. The sacristy, though often plundered, can yet 
 show not a few specimens of some of the oldest and 
 most interesting liturgical appliances, among which, a 
 beautiful ivory holy-water vat, two diptychs, ivory 
 covers for the evangeliarium or book of the Mass 
 Gospels, and one especially precious cover for the same 
 kind of text us in the rare style of framed enamel, are 
 not the least conspicuous ; but the underground silver- 
 sheathed chapel, with the gorgeous shrine of S. Charles 
 Borromeo, is, as it always must be, the great attractive 
 point to every pious traveller who will, for the moment, 
 forget arts and archseology, and shut his eyes to the 
 glare of lamps and tapers and the rays of precious 
 stones, and the sparkling of gold and silver, the while 
 he kneels to beg the intercession of one of the best and 
 the most active among the thousands oY holy and 
 sainted bishops whom God has given to His Church. 
 
 To the lover of mediaeval art, S. Eustorgio's will 
 furnish many an object of noteworthy attention ; ^nd 
 the English archaeologist will not overlook the efiigy of 
 Stefano Visconti, wearing about his neck that well- 
 known badge of the house of Lancaster, borne by its 
 followers through many a hard-fought field during the 
 war of the Eoses, the collar of SS., or Sanctus, Sanctum, 
 
THE GOLDEN FEONTAL AT MILAN. 69 
 
 Sanctus — the name of God, as John of Gaunt's mother 
 said of it — written upon each one of its hnks ; an orna- 
 ment which Henry VII. had wrought as a border 
 round those twenty-four magnificent copes of cloth of 
 gold which he got made for his chapel in Westminster 
 Abbey, one of which, belonging to Stonyhurst, was 
 lately exhibited in London. This badge, coming down 
 from Catholic times, and speaking of the Catholic 
 liturgy, is yet worn by the Lord Chief Justice of Eng- 
 land on saints' days and solemn occasions. This same 
 Enghsh collar of SS may be found upon another sepul- 
 chral effigy in the Church of S. Ambrose, to which 
 edifice we will now hasten. 
 
 The Ambrosian basiHc is set out in true orientation — 
 due east and west ; it has a square colonnaded fore- 
 court, a wide vestibule opening upon a nave and two 
 aisles, one ambo, a screen between the people and the 
 chancel, an isolated altar beneath a dome-shaped 
 canopy upheld by four porphyry columns, and an apsi- 
 dal east end, with a marble chair against the wall ; bear- 
 ing in fact, a strong likeness, in very many of its features, 
 to the venerable Church of S. Clement at Eome. 
 
 While standing on the threshold of this hallowed 
 building, the mind dreams back to persons and to things 
 gone by more than fourteen centuries ago ; and we 
 cannot help thinking of those two great saints and 
 doctors of the Church who so often trod its pavement. 
 We behold, in imagination, S. Ambrose, with a long- 
 drawn procession of clerics and people, bringing hither, 
 at its consecration, the so much longed-for and newly- 
 found rehcs of SS. Gervase and Protase, and a mob of 
 
70 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 scoffing Arians and Manicheans hovering round : an 
 earnest cry — a prayer to those martyrs — is suddenly 
 heard, a halt is made, and a blind man that sat by the 
 wayside, poor Severus, known to all Milan as having 
 been blind for years, at his own earnest wish is led 
 forwards by some friendly hand, a Hnen cloth that over- 
 spreads the relics is put upon his eyes, and lo ! he sees 
 again : the Catholics shed tears of joy and thankful- 
 ness, the Arians gnash their teeth with vexation, and 
 scream out that it is all a trick. Amid the crowd that 
 throng about Severus is one whose keen searching look 
 and lively cast of countenance bespeak anything but 
 weakness of understanding ; he is the celebrated teacher 
 of oratory, a heretic, Austin by name, and this distin- 
 guished man shouts out aloud that it is the work of 
 God — a miracle obtained by the prayers of the saints. 
 Another moment, and again imagination shadows to us 
 that same Austin, melted to tears by the sweetness of 
 the music as he stands outside that large open door- 
 way with a curtain hanging over it, hearkening to the 
 singing of the choir. Though his footsteps falter, 
 deeming as he does that there cannot be truth in Catho- 
 licism, a something draws him in, and he leans against 
 one of those pillars out of sight of the increasing 
 crowd. Shortly Ambrose the bishop is seen to come 
 from that large marble chair at the furthest end of the 
 presbytery, and go up into the ambo, or as some then 
 called it, the ' tribunal,' to preach. Austin listens, eye 
 and ear, not so much to learn as to criticise ; every 
 moment, however, he is more and more overpowered 
 by the speaker's strength and fitness of argument, and 
 
 \ 
 
THE GOLDEN FRONTAL AT MILAN. 71 
 
 deliglitecl with the beauty of his language ; but still he 
 thinks, or strives to think, that his friend Faustus, the 
 Manichean, has a more graceful utterance, a much 
 more sonorous delivery. A few more sermons and 
 Austin ceases to be a Manichean, yet does not become 
 a Catholic. Two years creep away, when early one 
 bright September morning in A.D. 386, Ambrose the 
 bishop, surrounded by a few of his clergy, is seen 
 walking from the baptistery to the cathedral, hand in 
 hand with a neophyte clad all in white ; that convert is 
 Austin, who, like his teacher, will be a great bishop 
 and learned doctor in God's Church, and a most power- 
 ful and successful opponent of heretics and heresy in 
 different ages. Again imagination brings other person- 
 ages before us, and we behold S. Ambrose clad for mass 
 in wide majestic chasuble and long broad pall twined 
 with such seemhness about his shoulders, and before 
 him in some church's vestibule a glittering array — an 
 emperor robed in imperial purple and a crowd of cour- 
 tiers as grand as golden bravery of dress can make 
 them. Nothing dazed, and heedless alike of royal 
 frowns or ministerial threats, the undaunted man of 
 God, with the same right hand that led the reclaimed 
 Austin across the church's threshold, now uplifted in 
 mild sternness, bars the entrance there of a master of 
 the earth, the blood-stained Theodosius. As the pre- 
 sent cathedral stands Avhere stood the ancient mother 
 church of Milan, and as the then one sole baptistery 
 for the city, as well as the imperial palace, were both 
 close to it, the Ambrosian basilic could not have been 
 the scene of these two thrilling events. 
 
72 ISSHS €KS MEMJGSOS ASD UnXilCSE. 
 
 Go we now to look wcH aft diafc beanfifiil m 
 find ifc wucihy of mosfc tl 
 
 to nm^ liiiMiyi^^ l psESi^liiiC&s ot 
 die olden times, and so TdoaUe as a woric of eaify 
 mediaeival ait. An..oUoi^ cnbe in Aaape, it stands 
 perfac^^drtafiiffd; ontlnee di its ades it, is aanilied 
 in ahrer pand-gilt^ on tibe n^est side, all in poiesfc gold, 
 hoL cvajwbere gpnnlded wth ^ecious ytonBs, and 
 widi bandb of dabonfte cnandL Adbo- 
 
 opnahadoiis iL Deemed hw the people as 
 wdlasliy tiie pdestliood die tinone i^on wfaicb the 
 Sing of kii^s, flie Word made fle^ Ae God-man, 
 down in all Ids nuuesl^, thon^fliidden beneath 
 T^k, and occupies as oflben as the ifwds of 
 at mass are ottered, tibe altar had ^en to 
 it that pecidiar maik — tiiat endifem fiom the eaifieat 
 agesctfandiiigpnnoe^dieGanopff — ^dnchdiitnigoidied, 
 as it jet di etii ^ ui ahea^ after mai^ JaJiionflf, the sove- 
 icign, or km^^, or mipenal <jiair, fiom ewety odier 
 seatc^fllateu Eren when there weiemoiealfaisdian 
 one, each had its own dnne-like ooverii^ as may yet 
 be seen in the Aiee old ahan, standing in a low within 
 the ptedbyteiy in that cmioas bat ovedocdoed chnrch, 
 the cathedral of Tenadna. Those ^imitive fisefings of 
 loyal reverence §ar our L(Hd in the Eochadst, and for 
 the ahar a^His throne, still hve and show themsdhres 
 in the nmbrdla and the cano^ borne oirer the Slessed 
 Sacrament, and in the crimsm alk g(M4&iiiged b^ 
 dardiino found hanging down fiom die roof oro* many 
 a hi^ attar in die chordies on the Continent. Xot 
 
THE GOLDEN FRONTAL AT MILAN. 73 
 
 merely because gold happened to be the most precious 
 among metals, and porphyry one of the most beautiful 
 and rarest of marbles, was it that these two substances 
 came to be employed upon this altar and its canopy : 
 in the well-known symbohsm of the times, gold typified 
 the heavenly wisdom, the divinity of Our Lord ; and 
 the purple of the porphyry told of Him as being tlie 
 King of kings, while its fire-like colour spoke of that 
 glowing warmth of love which made Him pour forth 
 His heart's blood for man's redemption. 
 
 The first glance, however hasty, at this altar-covering 
 of gold and silver, will be enough to show how strong, 
 in the mind of its designer, was the wish to set before 
 the beholders' eyes the token of the great Atonement, 
 and all the mysteries connected with it ; for the cross is 
 the grand leading ornament spread out all over three 
 of its four sides ; and in each place, upon the cross is 
 lavished, always the most beautiful, often by far the 
 greater number, of the precious stones there. This 
 earnestness in associating the table for the Eucharistic 
 sacrifice, and the emblem of the sacrifice at Calvary, so 
 closely with one another — so as to teach the people that 
 they were, in reality, but the one same sacrifice— was, in 
 those times, carried so far, that there may be found in 
 some illuminated codices of the hturgy the altar figured 
 as overspread by a clotlv marked all its length with one 
 large wide cross. 
 
 Between the hmbs of the large cross on the western 
 front of the altar facing the people are wrought, in low 
 relief, the chief events in the hfe, death, and resurrec- 
 tion of Our Lord, all in purest gold. On the eastern 
 
7i ESsiAYS ON REUGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 side, the subjects are taken from the life of S. Ambrose, 
 done in silver parcel-gilt. This distinction between the 
 precious metals — of gold for Our Lord, of silver for 
 one of His saints — is not without a strongly emphasised 
 symbohc meaning. Gold, being understood as the em- 
 blem of the Godhead, is here given as the especial 
 material for setting forth the life, death, and uprising of 
 Our Saviour; while the far lower, less costly metal, 
 silver, is purposely allotted for showing the doings of 
 the saints, all of whose strength for what is good and 
 holy is not their own, but the free gift of Heaven, shed 
 like rays of light upon them from on high, so happily 
 expressed by those partial streaks of gold or parcel- 
 gilding, that gleam so thickly all about this eastern 
 portion of the frontal. To this side of the altar, wrouglit 
 with some of the events in the life of S. Ambrose, we 
 will now confine ourselves ; for several of them are 
 highly interesting in a ritual point of view, as affording, 
 in one instance, unmistakeable evidence upon a question 
 which has hitherto been misunderstood by all writers 
 on the liturgy, and throwing an equally strong light 
 upon another matter lately much discussed among 
 ecclesiastical antiquaries and secular archasjologists. 
 
 On one of the panels S. Ambrose is figured standing 
 at the altar, but in a state of trance : a deacon and a 
 subdeacon are with him. The saint wears a large 
 chasuble reaching well down upon his arms, and from 
 his shoulders falls, before and behind, a long broad pall. 
 Though made in such graceful fullness, the chasuble is 
 not an atom wider than that vestment would now be, 
 were it allowed the same ample dimensions assigned it 
 
THE GOLDEN FRONTAL AT MILAN. iD 
 
 by S. Charles Borromeo in his Acta Ecclesige Mediola- 
 nensis. The deacon's dahnatic shows very full sleeves, 
 and he bears his stole outwards hanging on his left 
 shoulder. Such, to this day, is the practice followed 
 both in the Ambrosian and the Greek rite, as well as 
 in the Armenian. The subdeacon's tunicle sits some- 
 what closer to the person, and its sleeves are narrow 
 when seen along with those of the deacon's dalmatic. 
 This subdeacon is reading the epistle, in an elevated 
 position — in an ambo — shown by an ornamented kind 
 of stool upon which he is standing. The old ambones 
 are still happily left in many churches through Italy, 
 and in some places are even yet used, for their original 
 purposes, at high mass ; for instance at Narni, not far 
 from Eome, as I was assured by the parish priest there, 
 A.D. 1853. This I witnessed myself, the same year, at 
 Milan in the cathedral, where they sang the epistle and 
 gospel, at high mass, in the same ambo — that on the 
 north side — and the sermon was preached in the one 
 on the south. On that occasion the epistle was chanted 
 by a cleric in a surplice ; but lights, incense, subdeacon, 
 deacon — all went up into the ambo for the gospel. The 
 deacon had his stole outside his dalmatic, but crossed, 
 hke a belt, from left to right ;* and priest, deacon, and 
 subdeacon wore an apparel about the neck, just as 
 I had observed to be the custom in the south of Spain, 
 
 * In a fine oil painting by Macrino d'Alba, of S. Lawrence, now, 
 A. D. 1864, possessed by the Marchese d'Azeglio, Sardinian minister 
 in England, the holy martyred deacon wears his stole after the usage 
 of the Ambrosian rite, that is over, not under, his dalmatic, and 
 beltwise. By this I should think Macrino had studied or lived 
 some time at Milan. 
 
76 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 A.D. 1836. But to get back to the bas-reliefs figured on 
 this ancient frontal. 
 
 There is neither candlestick nor crucifix shown upon 
 the altar, but right over it hangs a small crown, the 
 appearance of which, in such a position, will help us in 
 clearing up a controversy which has been, and is still 
 agitating, odd enough to say, some diplomatic circles, 
 as well as the antiquarian world in England and abroad. 
 Towards the beginning of 1859, at Fuente de Guarrazza, 
 two leagues from Toledo, was found, in an old burial- 
 ground, a hoard of no less than eight golden crowns of 
 difierent sizes, all of them having beautifully wrought 
 chains for hanging them up, and several were gorgeously 
 jewelled. As mere metal they were valued to be 
 worth 2,000/., without estimating the fine pearls, oriental 
 sapphires, and precious stones with which they were 
 studded, and of which the value doubled the above 
 amount. From the name of Eeccesvinthus thus occurring 
 upon the best and largest, it was immediately assumed 
 that this was nothing less than the very regal crown 
 once worn by that prince, one of the last Gothic kings 
 of Spain; the others, those of his queen and several 
 children ; and that the royal family, while flying before 
 the invader Tarick and his Arabs, had buried them at 
 Guarrazza, twelve hundred years ago. The whole of 
 this find was stealthily carried ofi* to Paris, sold to the 
 French Government for a high sum, and may now be 
 seen in the museum at the Hotel Cluny. On both sides 
 the Pyrenees, they were unhesitatingly pronounced to 
 have been the crowns of the Gothic rulers of Spain — 
 in fact, the olden regalia of that country. As rightly 
 
THE GOLDEN FRONTAL AT MILAN. 77 
 
 belonging to herself as such, Spain naturally sought to 
 recover all these crowns, and instructed her minister at 
 Paris to ask them from France ; and a diplomatic con- 
 troversy began, which, under some circumstances, might 
 have grown into a pretty quarrel between two great 
 nations.* At one of the meetings in 1859 of the 
 Archaeological Institute, I was the first individual to 
 deny that these Spanish crowns were royal ones at all, 
 or that any of them had ever been worn as such, and 
 to assert that they were no other than liturgical crowns 
 for hanging over altars and about the walls in churches, 
 and had all been made and given to some sacred edifice 
 for such ritual purpose. This shows how the knowledge 
 of ecclesiastical antiquities may, sometimes, stand in use- 
 ful stead even to those who are, or are likely to be, 
 employed in diplomacy. 
 
 If, but a few years ago, Spaniards fell into such a 
 mistake about crowns. Frenchmen, at the beginning of 
 tliis same nineteenth century, were betrayed into a 
 much more egregious blunder concerning sceptres. 
 For the coronation of the First Napoleon, it was wished 
 that, of the several appliances needed on the occasion 
 by the ritual, as many as possible which had a dynastic 
 antiquity about them, should be sought out and used 
 at the function. Something of Charlemagne's was 
 much wanted ; and a silver-gilt wand with the 
 figure of that great man at top of it, in the sacristy of 
 S. Denis's, was thought of and brought to Paris to do 
 
 * Since this first discovery, other and more splendid liturgical 
 crowns of the like kind have been found at the same spot, and are 
 now to be seen at Madrid. 
 
78 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 duty as a sceptre — Charlemagne's own sceptre — for 
 the hnportant occasion. With regard to age and 
 ownership, this staff had its own and quite another tale 
 to tell, for it bore inscribed upon it its pedigree, in 
 these verses : — 
 
 D'argent fist faire ce baston 
 
 Lan MCCC quatre vins 
 
 Quatorze ne plus no moins 
 
 Ceux qui le tiendront en leurs mains 
 
 Veuillent prier apres la vie 
 
 Que same soit es cieux ravie 
 
 Qu'il fust gard6 
 Et en grans festes regarde 
 Car pour loyault^ maintenir 
 Le doibt chantre en la main tenir. 
 
 Or in other words, the giver — but his name is lost — to 
 get prayers for his soul after death — had this silver 
 staff made in the year 1394, on purpose for the 
 precentor's use on great solemnities : it is, in fact, 
 nothing but a ruler of the choir's staff, then always, 
 and even now in some places still, borne about, in 
 hand, by the precentor, on high festivals. To hinder 
 the cheat from being found out, the inscription was 
 scratched off, and instead of the illustrious Charlemagne's 
 sceptre, Buonaparte swayed, on his coronation day, 
 the choir staff of the monk precentor of S. Denis's 
 abbey. Mediasval archasology was at a very low ebb in 
 Paris towards the beginning of the century, and not 
 knowing enough then to see the glaring discrepance 
 between an artistic work said to be of A. D. 800, and 
 the one wrought in 1394, with the gap of six hundred 
 years intervening. But, worse still, though French 
 
THE GOLDEN FRONTAL AT MILAN. 79 
 
 antiquaries were for the time successfully deluded, 
 more recent ones have ably exposed the trick ; yet this 
 supposititious relic of Charlemagne's regaha is still left 
 to carry on the falsehood in the museum at the Louvre, 
 where whatever had once belonged to the regal or 
 imperial families of France, that could be brought from 
 far or near, is shown ; or as Didron expresses it, 
 ' Aujourd'hui cet heureux baton se pavane dans le Musee 
 des Souverains, au Louvre, au milieu des pieces les 
 plus authentiques.' — Annales Archeologiques, t. xix. 
 p. 127. 
 
 Of those various rich and beautiful adornments that, 
 at the remotest periods, were everywhere employed for 
 the ornamentation of the church, but more especially 
 the altar, there is a distinguished one — the crown — 
 which, singularly enough, has been either quite over- 
 looked, or, at best, but slightly glanced at, by everyone 
 who has written upon the architecture or the ritual of 
 the early ages : a few words, then, to fill up such a gap, 
 may not be out of place on this occasion. 
 
 Those sayings of the Psalmist, ' Thou hast crowned 
 him with glory and honour ' (Ps. viii. 6) ; ' Thou hast 
 set on his head a crown of precious stones ' (xx. 4) ; as 
 well as that of S. Paul to Timothy (2 Tim. iv. 8), 
 ' There is laid up for me a crown of justice,' that have 
 been so strongly set forth in all the liturgies of the 
 Greek as well as Latin quarters of the Church, no doubt 
 made a deep impression upon the earliest rituahsts no 
 less than the framers of Christian symbolism. S. Eu- 
 charius, made Archbishop of Lyons a.d. 412, looked 
 upon the crown as the emblem of everlasting glory — 
 
80 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 corona, aBterna gloria ; and our own countryman, the 
 unnamed Cistercian monk, who, at the end of the twelfth 
 or beginning of the thirteenth century, wrote his valu- 
 able ' Distinctiones,' first given in print to the world by 
 Dom (now Cardinal) Pitra, utters at his day the same 
 sentiment : — ' Corona significat prsemium vitaa a^ternas ; 
 unde : " Esto fidelis usque ad mortem, et dabo tibi 
 coronam vitaj" ' (Apoc. ii. 10) — Spicilegium Solesmense, 
 t. iii. 402, 461. That at a very early epoch sprang up 
 the custom of hanging crowns wrought of gold, and 
 silver richly gemmed, at various spots about the church 
 and for different symbolic purposes, we know from the 
 best authorities. The wise economy exercised by the 
 Church in introducing into public use the crucifix — that 
 is, a full-length figure of Our Lord nailed to a cross — 
 I have hinted at elsewhere (' Hierurgia,' p. 360, 2nd 
 edition) ; and how praiseworthy was her sagacious pre- 
 caution, in this instance, is well shown us by that 
 blasphemous crucifix, with an ass's instead of Our 
 Saviour's head, found scrawled in charcoal on the wall 
 of a vault on the Palatine hill at Eome not long ago, 
 and affording an illustration of the scoff which the 
 heathen tried to fasten on our holy belief by calling its 
 followers by the nickname of ' Ononychites.' Among 
 the Church's first endeavours to strip the emblem of 
 redemption of ethnic opprobrium, one was to wreathe 
 it with the victor's floral garland, and encircle it with 
 the mark of regal honour, at the same time that she 
 sought to convey a salutary teaching through this sym- 
 bolism. Telling his friend Severus all about the church 
 he had just built at Nola, the learned bishop of that 
 
THE GOLDEN FRONTAL AT MILAN. 81 
 
 city, S. Paulinus, a.d. 394, speaks first of the crosses 
 in the vestibule : — ' Item dextra lasvaque crucibus minio 
 superpictis, hasc epigrammata sunt — 
 
 Ardua floriferae crux cingitur orbe coronae, 
 Et Domini fuso tincta cruore rubet, &c. 
 
 Epist. ad Severum. 
 having before that told him — 
 
 Cerne coronatam Domini super atria Christi 
 Stare crucem, duro spondentem celsa labori 
 Praamia : tolle crucem qui vis auferre coronam. 
 
 Inside the church walls the same principle, but after a 
 more costly manner, was acted on. All about the 
 sacred building, but more especially over the altar and 
 within the ciborium or domed canopy resting upon four 
 columns which overshadowed it, hung, by three chains, 
 a narrow but often richly-gemmed golden crown, having 
 within it and hanging still lower down, but much more 
 jewelled, a figureless cross : the olden mark, in heathens' 
 eyes of ignominy, by being thus honoured, became in due 
 time, even to their thinking, a token free from shame — 
 nay, honourable. Of such hturgical crowns with crosses, 
 one of the earliest and most noteworthy is that which 
 S. Aredius, who died in the latter half of the sixth 
 century, bequeathed in his will to a favourite church : — 
 ' Similiter in oratorio sancti Hilarii corona cum cruce 
 argentea deaurata cum gemmis pretiosis plena reliquiis 
 sanctorum Domnorum, et suo ornatu — habens corona 
 ilia in- se pendentes (sic) folia ex auro et gemmis facta 
 numero viii. et in ilia cruce similes factaB dute, et 
 mimitat^e gemma grande circumcirca auro, et subtus 
 crucicula ex auro et gemmulenas viii.' (S. Gregorii 
 
82 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATUEE. 
 
 Turon. App. ed. Euinart, p. 1313.) Of this kind of 
 crown, sometimes called ' regnum,' mention is often 
 made by Anastasius Bibliothecarius, while enumerating 
 the precious gifts bestowed by the Eoman Pontiffs and 
 royal personages upon the churches at Eome. In that 
 writer's list of all those costly presents made to S. 
 Peter's and the other basilicas, by the untiring Leo m., 
 A.D. 795-816, we are struck by the astonishing num- 
 ber of these coronas, not merely of silver but oftener 
 of gold, far beyond a hundred ; and as so near to our 
 purpose, we may aptly instance the ' regnum panocly- 
 stum, ex auro purissimo cum cruce in medio pendens 
 super ipsum altare, pensans libram unam et uncias xi.,' 
 which that Pontiff bestowed upon the oratory of the 
 Holy Cross in S. Peter's. (Liber Pontificalis, ed. Vig- 
 noho, t. ii. p. 280.) Of this good and bountiful Pope's 
 immediate successor, another Leo and a Saint, Anastasius 
 tells us : — ' Confessionem (in ecclesia Quatuor Corona- 
 torum) cum sacro altari argenteis tabulis pensan. libras 
 nonaginta et tres decoravit Sanctorumque effigiebus 
 perornavit. Super quod etiam obtuht regnum de argento 
 purissimo pretiosissimisgemmis,habens in medio crucem, 
 quod usque nunc super eodem pendere altari conspicitur.' 
 (Lib. Pont. iii. 96) ; and for the high altar of the 
 same church the same Pontiff provided a still far richer 
 crown : — ' Kegnum ex auro purissimo unum pendens 
 super altare majus cum catenuhs similiter aureis sculpti- 
 lem habens in medio crucem auream habentem gemmas 
 quatuordecim, ex quibus quinque in eadem cruce fixas, 
 et quae ibidem pendent, novem ; sex quidem albas et 
 hyacinthinas tres, pens, simul libram unam et semis 
 
THE GOLDEN FRONTAL AT MILAN. 83 
 
 uncias.' {lb. p. 122.) The way in which these jewels 
 were arranged, some set immediately upon the cross, 
 but the greater number drooping from it, will not escape 
 the notice of those curious about the mounting of 
 mediaeval jewellery. No less than twelve golden coronas 
 were given to S. Peter's by Leo. {lb. p. 137.) 
 
 Sometimes these same crowns were anciently put to 
 another and important ecclesiastical use, which, although 
 it is not without some weight in helping to support the 
 doctrinal teachings of the Church, is, at the present 
 period, known to a very few. At a very early epoch, 
 perhaps even in the days of Constantino himself, 
 the custom was to hang just over the grave of the 
 holy dead one of these crowns, in signification of the 
 Church's behef that he or she whose body lay en- 
 tombed there, had won a place in heaven, was living 
 a saint with God in everlasting glory ; in fact, to put, 
 in those far-off times, a crown of gold or silver over 
 a sepulchre, was like the Church's present system of a 
 solemn canonisation ; and a valuable record of such 
 an instructive practice is afforded us by a contempo- 
 rary of Anglo-Saxon England's apostle S. Gregory 
 the Great — another S. Gregory — S. Gregory of Tours. 
 Telling, as is his wont, with great and to us most for- 
 tunate minuteness, of a theft committed in a church, 
 the illustrious Gauhsh prelate says : — ' Chunus quidam 
 rabidus instinctu demonis actus, coronam sepulchri 
 quse Sancti (Martini) meritum declaravit, violenter 
 arripuit,' &c. (De Mirac. S. Martini, ib. i. c. ii. p. 1002 
 opp. ed. Euinart.) But this idea was carried out further : 
 such a crowning — the emblem of holiness, and ever- 
 
 G 2 
 
84 ESSAYS ON BELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 lasting happiness in the saintly dead — was used as 
 such, over the statues and pictorial effigies of apostles, 
 martyrs, and saints in general, long before the em- 
 ployment of the nimbus or circle of lightsome glory 
 round their heads, and must have given rise to the 
 modern emblem. Keeping this in sight, we more easily 
 understand the introduction into art-works of these 
 crowns. At the Church of S. ApoUinaris in Classe near 
 Eavenna, there are figured, in mosaic, all round the 
 apsis, several of the early bishops of that see, and over 
 the head of each one of them is shown hanging, between 
 curtains, a crown suspended by three chains ; such a 
 crown then, at the beginning of the sixth century when 
 the church was built by Theodoric, betokened the per- 
 sonage over whom it hung was a saint. Two hundred 
 years later the very same ritual practice was still 
 followed at Eome, where we find that zealous and 
 most munificent Pontiff Leo III., among other splendid 
 gifts in art-work, bestowing the one following upon S. 
 Peter's : — ' Salvatorem stantem ; dextra Igevaque ejus 
 beati apostoli Petrus et Paulus, habentes pariter coronas 
 ex gemmis pretiosis,' &c. (Lib. Pontif. ii. 273.) 
 
 Beginning with the early Christian consular ivory 
 diptychs up to the illuminations in service-books of the 
 eleventh century, modifications of such a symbohsm 
 may be found in those crowns that are represented 
 about, though rarely over, the head of a consular dig- 
 nitary or an imperial personage. In one of the illumi- 
 nations of a beautiful evangeliarium now in the public 
 library at Munich, but brought thither from Bamberg, 
 the emperor Henry II., a.d. 1002 — 1024, is figured 
 
THE GOLDEX FRONTAL AT MILAN. 85 
 
 wearing his imperial diadem and throned between two 
 of these Hturgical coronge, which have drops all about 
 them like the Guarrazza ones, but without a cross 
 hanging down within. The Emperor's crown, as well 
 as those of the four angels hovering around him, are 
 quite different from the Church-crowns, as may be seen 
 in a curious recent publication (Foster, Denkmale 
 Deutscher Baukunst Bildnerei, t. ii.). The indication of 
 such crowns upon the ivory diptych, and in the illumi- 
 nated page, may have been a piece of delicate courtier 
 flattery, or perhaps, as then understood, a gentle hint 
 to the consul or the emperor to lead a life of holiness 
 here if he wished to win for the hereafter the guerdon 
 of the upright and the good — a crown of everlasting 
 glory. 
 
 The liturgical usages of Eome were followed in other 
 parts of Christendom, and in Spain, as elsewhere, these 
 crowns were abundantly supplied for the embellishment 
 of churches. Of this the ' Coronica General de la 
 Orden de San Benito,' by Yepez, will yield us many 
 proofs. ' Confero' — says a prince living a.d. 759 — ' ibi- 
 dem sacrosanctis altaribus suis in ornamentorum esse — 
 tres coroneas argenteas,' &c. (t. iii. p.20. b. opp.) — ' Offero 
 — coronas argenteas — ecclesiee S. Andrese, — Testamen- 
 tum S. Genadii Ep. Astorgensis, a.d. 953.' [lb. t. iv. p. 
 447.) — ' Ministeria ecclesioe — coronas argenteas tres, ex 
 quibus unam gemmis et auro comptam,' &c. (Test. Eu- 
 desindi Ep. Dumiensis, a.d. 930 ; ih. t. v. p. 424 a.) 
 In a deed as late as a.d. 1101 the Spanish King 
 Ferdinand makes over to a church, among other ritual 
 appliances, — 'coronas tres aureas una ex his cum sex 
 
86 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 alphas (unionibus) in gyro — tertia vero est diadema 
 caj)itis mei aureum,' &c. {lb. t. vi.) 
 
 Up then to the end of the tenth century, and even 
 later, almost every altar had hanging over it a crown 
 either of gold, silver, or of the baser metals, doing wor- 
 ship, as it were, to the cross which, though not always, 
 very often, it encircled ; and this same cross that, when 
 there, came from the middle and hung somewhat lower 
 and out of the crown so as to be well seen — like the 
 Spanish ones, and the one given by Queen Theodolinda 
 to the Church at Monza, where it may yet be found — 
 was usually covered with pearls and jewels, out of love 
 for Him who died upon a cross, and to honour, in the 
 most conspicuous way, this token of redemption ; in 
 fact these crowns served all the ritual purposes of the 
 crucifix which superseded them, and began in general 
 to be put upon the altar itself, about the end of the tenth 
 century. Of the several altars shown in this gold and 
 silver frontal, almost every one has over it a suspended 
 crown. There may be, though I do not know, another 
 work of art in any kind which so unmistakeably lets us 
 see the ancient use of these liturgical crowns, of which 
 such frequent mention is made by writers of the early 
 mediaeval period, and that, as offerings, were so often 
 carried from this country to Eome, by our Anglo- 
 Saxon kings, nobles, and wealthy churchmen when they 
 went on pilgrimage to the cradle of their faith, and to 
 pray at the shrine of the Apostles. 
 
 More interesting still — indeed of the utmost value in 
 a ritual point of view — is another panel where the 
 saint is figured with the same sort of square altar in 
 
THE GOLDEN FRONTAL AT MILAN. 87 
 
 front of him, and where the artist has handed down 
 to us the key for unlocking what has hitherto been a 
 puzzle to every writer who has tried the solution of 
 that curious and much-debated canon of the council of 
 Tours held a.d. 570. 'Ut corpus Domini in altario, 
 non in imaginario ordine, sed sub crucis titulo compo- 
 natur.' Eminent canonists, the greatest Hturgical 
 scholars, are divided on the meaning of this ordinance. 
 In it some behold a prohibition to place the holy 
 Eucharist — when kept as a viaticum for the dying — 
 among the images that stand upon the altar ; others 
 see in it a command to bake the altar-breads with a 
 sign of the cross impressed upon them ; one imagines 
 that by it the host and chalice were directed to be 
 put on the centre of the altar; and Mabillon, after 
 noticing these variations of opinion, puts forth another 
 of his own, and thinks the canon refers to keeping the 
 Eucharist not among the sacred vessels in the sacristy, 
 but hung up over the altar, from the cross on the 
 canopy. Mabillon, Lit. GalHc. pp. 92 &c. Gavanti, 
 following Baronius, understood it as referring to 
 the way in which the Blessed Sacrament should be 
 continually reserved within a tabernacle fixed upon 
 the altar. — T. i. p. 127. At first sight, this seems by 
 far the most plausible interpretation of the canon : 
 such I took it, in 1833, rendering it to mean, ' That the 
 Body of the Lord should be placed upon the altar, not 
 amid the row of images, but beneath the figure of the 
 cross,' that is, ' upon the altar itself, within an ark or 
 tabernacle which was surmounted by the cross.' — 
 Hierurgia, 1st ed. p. 283. Soon afterwards, however. 
 
88 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 I saw reason to doubt of this interpretation : I remeni' 
 bered that for centuries after the holding of that 
 council, the altar was left to stand alone, quite away 
 from the wall, and without cross or crucifix, or image 
 of any kind resting immediately upon its table ; bear- 
 ing also in mind that in the Mozarabic and the 
 Gaulish rituals — ^perhaps, too, in all the other hturgies 
 then in use in the other Western parts of the Church, 
 the many particles into which the host was broken, 
 were directed to be so arranged — ' Corpus Domini . . . 
 componatur' — upon the altar, as to form a cross, it 
 therefore seemed to me that this canon had nothing to 
 do with how the Blessed Sacrament was to be kept 
 night and day at the altar, but that it meant to say 
 that the particles into which the host, after conse- 
 cration, is broken at mass, should be arranged — ' com- 
 ponatur' — not in any way that individual caprice or 
 imagination might suggest — ' imaginario ordine ' — but 
 invariably in the form of a cross— r' sub crucis titulo.' 
 Being at Milan in 1853, I had an opportunity of often 
 seeing, and minutely studying, the Ambrosian high 
 altar. I had beheld it many years before, when I was 
 young and did not know how to read its liturgical 
 teachings, or understand its worth as a sample of 
 mediaeval workmanship. Now was it that a view of 
 that precious ornament strengthened my conviction 
 that this latter v?ay I had adopted, and put forth four 
 years before — in 1849 — of interpreting the canon of the 
 council of Tours, was the true one. — ' Church of our 
 Fathers,' i. 106. As said just now, S. Ambrose is 
 figured standing, in his mass vestments, at an altar in 
 
THE GOLDEN FROXTAL AT MILAN. 89 
 
 front of him. The words of consecration have evi- 
 dently been uttered, and a deacon is holding a large 
 two-handled chalice, called a ministerial chalice because 
 it served for the ministration or communion to the 
 people under both kinds. Eight before the holy 
 bishop are four round particles, each marked with a 
 cross ; and they are so put out upon the altar as to 
 
 form among themselves a cross, thus : ©. Whether 
 
 © 
 
 the intention of the artist were to signify many entire 
 hosts piled up into four heaps, or to express the particles 
 only of one large host broken in four, and each frag- 
 ment represented, for the sake of identification and 
 symmetry, quite round and with a cross upon it, matters 
 not ; for, from the way in which they are so carefully 
 placed, that they should form by themselves an exact 
 cross upon the altar, it is quite evident his wish was to 
 represent some well-known rubric of those times : that 
 is, 'ut corpus Domini in altario, non in imaginario ordine, 
 sed sub crucis titulo componatur.' Thus, to my thinking, 
 we get from art- work, from a figured monument, a most 
 trustworthy, nay, the only true explanation, of a written 
 monument of ecclesiastical antiquity which has hitherto 
 bafiied many eminent and learned men ; furthermore, 
 from this placing of the particles crosswise, we gather 
 another proof of how the Church sought to teach then, 
 as she teaches now, that the body of Christ crucified at 
 Jerusalem is the very same as the one present before 
 the priest, upon the altar. The rubrician, too, will not 
 overlook the fact that, when this frontal was designed. 
 
90 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 altar-breads were made round, thin, and stamped with 
 the sign of the cross. 
 
 The love, the reverence, the warm devotion then 
 cherished for our Blessed Lady, are well signified by 
 the way in which she is figured upon this altar. In 
 one of the panels on the western or golden side the 
 subject of the Annunciation is treated. Here we behold 
 her, not in the posture of an equal or inferior — standing 
 — but like some higher being, one above even an 
 archangel — seated, and seated, too, not in an ordinary 
 chair, but on a royal throne, with its dome-hke canopy 
 upheld by two columns. Exactly after such a manner 
 is the Mother of God represented in the splendid Anglo- 
 Saxon Benedictional, once ^thel wold's, now belonging 
 to the Duke of Devonshire ; in that MS., so beautifully 
 written and so gorgeously illuminated by the hand of 
 Godeman the monk of Winchester, Gabriel stands, as a 
 token of respect, while telling his message to her who 
 was full of grace ; and Christ's future Mother listens to 
 the errand — seated, queen-like, upon a domed and pil- 
 lared throne. This same feeling for sweet S. Mary 
 was proclaimed in works of art, all through the middle 
 ages, by a throne and crown, and in paintings by that 
 ensign of royalty called the cloth of estate, or piece of 
 richly brocaded stuff hung behind her, or spread out 
 over her head like an extemporised canopy or royal 
 throne, as we find in every work of art belonging to that 
 period. Moreover, in the abovenamed Anglo-Saxon 
 MS., the archangel, while calling the Virgin ' blessed,' 
 suits, after a certain manner, his action to his words by 
 outstretching the first three fingers, the thumb being 
 
THE GOLDEX FKOXTAL AT MI LAX. 91 
 
 one, of his right hand, according to the Latin way of 
 holding the hand the while the words of blessing were 
 being said by pope or bishop, by abbot or simple priest. 
 In the middle of the east or silver side of this frontal, 
 its artist has figured himself holding this very altar in 
 his hands, and bending down his head for a blessing 
 which he has asked, and is getting from S. Ambrose, 
 who stands, not upon the same level upon earth, but 
 on a higher one in heaven. The inscription hard by — 
 ' Wolvinus magister phaber ' — tell us his name was 
 Wolvin. The word 'faber' is written with 'ph' instead 
 of 'f,' being phaber, a peculiarity in spelling upon which 
 I shall soon have to lay some stress. Now comes the 
 question ; — what countryman was Wolvin ? However 
 wishful to make him out an Italian, Ferrario, Cicognara, 
 and other Italian writers, have failed in all their en- 
 deavours. The name itself, with its stubborn foreign 
 W., while so very un-Italian, is quite Teutonic — just 
 such a one in fact which might have been, as in reality it 
 was — still is, common in this island. That its bearer, 
 the artist of this precious altar, was, by birth as well as 
 education, an Anglo-Saxon, I have not the slightest 
 doubt. Then, as now, the names of people were very 
 generally compounded of two words, and had a signifi- 
 cation. In Anglo-Saxon ' Wol ' means ' wretched,' 
 'miserable,' 'lowly,' and 'Win,' a 'scholar,' a 'follower;' 
 thus Wolvin, put into modern Enghsh, would be 'Lowly- 
 follower,' which, to our forefathers' ears, ten centuries 
 ago, must have sounded as natural and unsingular a 
 name as does Lowman, Slowman, Trotman, or Long- 
 fellow, or Stringfellow, to ourselves at the present day* 
 
92 ESSAYS OX RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Wolvin, as a name, never died out here : it lived all 
 through the middle ages, and families still bearing it 
 are to be met with in this country, and as far as I know, 
 in this country alone. Among the lands that in Saxon 
 times belonged to the monks of Ely were : apud Gyl- 
 linges V hydas quas Wlwinus cocus et uxor ejus JSlfsueth 
 — per transgressionem amiserunt. Hist. Eliensis, lib. 
 secund. p. 116, ed. Stewart, for the ' Anglia Christiana.* 
 The precious ' Liber Yitae ' which once used to lie upon 
 the high altar at Durham cathedral, and was lately 
 printed by that most useful society — the Surtees — gives, 
 among the names of its Anglo-Saxon benefactors, that 
 of one Walewein, p. 84. 
 
 In the year 1316, the Earl of Hereford warmly 
 besought the monks of Durham, at a vacancy of that 
 see, to elect as its bishop one of the clerics belonging to 
 his household, one John Walwyn. Uistorice Dunel. 
 Scriptores Tres, ed. Surtees, p. 98. Among the many 
 beautiful stained glass windows which once adorned the 
 fine priory ch lurch at Great Malvern, one there was 
 which had been given by a man and his wife, bearing 
 this name, as under it was written : — ' Willielmus Wal- 
 wein et Jana uxor ejus — Christe nos adjuva — Omnes vos 
 qui ituri estis istam per fenestellam pro animabus orate 
 nostris ut det Deus ' as we learn from that dis- 
 tinguished CathoHc antiquary, the unjustly treated Mr. 
 Abingdon, Mon. Ang. iii. 446. Of the three who bore 
 witness to the good state of the parish, at a visitation 
 of the church of Merington, in the diocese of Durham, 
 A.D. 1501, one was Eobert Wolwen. Ecclesiastical 
 Proceedings of Bp. Barnes, ed. Surtees, Appendix, p. 
 
THE GOLDEN FRONTAL AT MILAN. 93 
 
 xxviii. ' The morowe after the day of coronation of 
 (Tudor Mary) — at the palys of Wystmister, were dobyd 
 the knightes of the carpet foloinge, in the presence of 
 the quenes majestic in her chamber of presens under 
 the clothe of estate, by therl of Arundell.' Of these 
 many gentlemen, the last was Sir Eychard Wallwine. 
 Diary of H. Machyn, ed. J. G. Nichols for the Camden 
 Society, p. 335. H. Walwyn, a citizen of London, a.d. 
 1612, bequeathed various sums of money for charities. 
 Hibbert's ' Livery Companies,' t. i. p. 353. Myself, when 
 living in Staffordshire, twenty-odd years ago, I knew a 
 labourer's family named Wolwin in the neighbourhood 
 of Alton; and people bearing that patronymic are yet 
 common in Herefordshire. True, indeed, is it that in 
 every one of the instances just now given, this name of 
 Wolvin is written differently. That, however, with 
 those who know what ancient documents are, will make 
 nothing against the argument. Until lately people 
 spelt their words more to the ear than the eye, and in 
 drawing up a deed, or while framing his will, a man 
 would spell his own name, even in as many ways as he 
 had occasions for writing it. This happened not only 
 here but elsewhere. Among our French neighbours, 
 not the least remarkable instance of this variation of 
 spelling a proper name is the one furnished by the 
 family of Nouailher, which had, through several gene- 
 rations, given to Limoges some of its best workmen in 
 enamel. Speaking of the last members of that race, in 
 the eighteenth century, the late Abbe Texier, whose 
 death was such a loss to ecclesiastical archseology, 
 says : — ' A peine savent-ils leur nom ; ils signent indis- 
 
94 ESSAYS ON KELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 tincteraent Noalher, Noualher, Nouailher, Nouailliher, 
 Nouaillier, Noualhier, et NoailM.' ' Essai Historique et 
 Descriptif sur les Argentiers etlesEmailleurs de Limoges, 
 Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de I'Ouest, 
 ann^e, 1842/ p. 512. But a very few months ago, the 
 short inscription on the Guards' Crimean monument in 
 Pall Mall, had to be amended in its bad spelling ; and 
 lately only, in the papers given in at a competitive ex- 
 amination, the word ' Mediterranean,' as I was told by 
 a credible individual, was spelt seventeen various ways. 
 As far then, as mere name goes, we may fairly claim 
 Wolvin, the artist of the beautifully wrought altar at 
 Milan, as an Anglo-Saxon countryman. Whether 
 written W6>1 win or Wal win, that is, with 'o' or with 'a,' 
 the soimd from an English mouth would be the very 
 same. 
 
 No Italian would ever think of writing ' Phaber ' for 
 ' Faber;' so thoroughly does he disHke this ' ph,' that 
 instead of putting it in where it should not be, he in- 
 variably leaves it out wherein it ought to come ; for 
 example, Phihppus and Photius he spells Fihppus and 
 Fotius with F for Ph, and 'filosofia' for ' philosophia.' 
 I do not know whether a Teuton of Germany Proper 
 would have in the ninth century substituted ' ph ' for 
 ' f ' in a Latin word ; but the Anglo-Saxons would, and 
 did so. To give an instance : in that valuable work 
 the ' Pontifical of Ecgberht Abp. of York, from a.d. 732 
 till 766,' ' proferatur ' is written with ' ph ' for ' f.' Ed. 
 Surtees Society, p. 122. For such an affectation of a 
 Grecism it is easy to account. Theodore, born at 
 Tharsus in Cihcia, and sent by Pope Vitahan to Britain 
 
THE GOLDEN FRONTAL AT MILAN. 95 
 
 as archbishop of Canterbury, after having been conse- 
 crated by that Koman Pontiff himself, a.d. Q6S, was very 
 learned in the Greek tongue, and ever showed his 
 eagerness in spreading the knowledge of it through this 
 land. So successful, too, were this primate's labours, in 
 which he had a wilHng helper in his friend the abbot 
 Hadrian — an African by birth, who came with him from 
 Eome — that Beda says of them, in his own times there 
 were yet living some of their scholars who knew the 
 Greek and Latin languages quite as well as their own 
 mother-tongue : — ' Usque hodie supersunt de eorum di- 
 scipuhs qui Latinam Gr^ecamque linguam £eque ut 
 propriam in qua nati sunt norunt.' Bist. Eccl. lib. iv. 
 cap. a. While Wolwin's ' ph ' for ' f ' cannot make us 
 wonder, it leads us to believe that he was born and bred 
 in this country, where this peculiar way of spelling was 
 followed through many centuries afterwards. At the 
 beginning of the history of Ely monastery, where its 
 writer evidently keeps to the Anglo-Saxon spelling of 
 the original documents which he is transcribing, the 
 word ' multifaria ' is written ' multij^Aaria.' Hist. Elien. 
 lib. i. p. 46 ; again, ' ph ' for ' f ' may be read in one 
 of the Close EoUs of Henry IH.'s reign, in the expenses 
 ' ad operationem ^Aeretri beati Edmundi/ in Westmin- 
 ster Abbey ; and at the threshold of the chapter-house 
 at York Cathedral, these two Leonine verses, blazoned 
 in letters of gold, thus set forth in flowery yet fitting 
 praises, the beauty of perhaps the most beautiful 
 building of the kind that the world ever saw : — 
 
 Ut Rosa phlos phlorum. 
 
 Sic est Domus ista domorum. 
 
96 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Wolvin's spelling, then, leads to the belief that he was 
 born and bred in this country. 
 
 Hardly ever did an Anglo-Saxon sovereign send 
 messengers, or Anglo-Saxon churchmen go to Eome, 
 but they carried with them, as presents for the Pontiff, 
 vessels made of gold or silver. Thus, when Vighard 
 the priest went thither to be consecrated Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, a.d. 664, he took along with him as gifts 
 to Pope Vitahan from Ecgberct II. of Kent, and Osvio, 
 King of the Northumbrians, gold and silver vessels not 
 a few : ' Missis pariter apostohco papse donariis, et 
 aureis atque argenteis vasis non paucis.' Beda, Hist. 
 Ecc. lib. iv. c. i. Hence not only at Wolvin's time, but 
 very long before, we easily understand how Anglo-Saxon 
 skill in every sort of nice work in gold and silver, stood 
 so high in the estimation of Italy, that certain kinds of 
 church-lamps made in this island were much sought for, 
 and became known at Eome itself by the distinctive 
 name of Saxon vessels — ' gabatse Saxicae ' — as we find 
 from so many passages in the curious 'Liber Pontificalis.' 
 That these lamps or gahatce were beautiful, not merely 
 as specimens of handicraft, but also as works of art, and 
 admirable for the sculptures on them, we gather from 
 that epithet, ' interrasiles,' bestowed upon them : ' Ob- 
 tuht (Gregorius IV. a.d. 827) in ecclesia beati Marci — 
 gabatas interrasiles de argento xii. Anglorum opere 
 constructas ' (Lib. Pon. iii. 13). The meaning of ' inter- 
 rasiles ' is shown by these lines : — 
 
 Quod nunc sculpturis, quod nunc planitia variatur, 
 Hoc et non aliud opus interrasile dicas. 
 
 In the printed Anastatius here quoted, its editor, 
 
THE GOLDEN FEONTAL AT MILAN". 97 
 
 Vignoli, instead of 'Anglorum opere/ gives us 'Angelo- 
 rum opere.' Were tliis the true reading, sucli angels' 
 work would have had bestowed upon it, as it merited, 
 other and far more conspicuous notices and from other 
 pens besides that of the writer of the ' Liber Pontiiica- 
 lis.' Such notices are, however, all wanting. To those 
 who have had to look into old codices, it is well 
 known that those MSS. are crowded with contractions. 
 Now, it so happens that the words ' Angelorum ' and 
 'Anglorum' are shortened by the selfsame form of 
 contraction, written thus, ' Anglor.' Forgetting this, 
 Yignoli was easily led into his mistake of transcribing 
 ' Angelorum,' instead of the true reading, ' Anglorum.' 
 In most glowing terms does Leo, cardinal bishop of 
 Ostia, speak of the magnificent shrine of Anglo-Saxon 
 workmanship standing in the abbey church of Monte 
 Cassino : — ' Loculus ille mirificus — argento et auro gem- 
 misqueAnghco opere subtiliter et pulcherrime decoratus.' 
 Chron. SM. Cassin. lii. c. xxxiii. A short hundred years 
 after the death of S. Gregory the Great, the arts 
 throughout Italy fell into decay amid the din of war 
 raised by the uncouth Northmen as they rushed down 
 upon and swarmed all over that beautiful but unhappy 
 land. By Leo the Isaurian, Constantino Copronymus, 
 and several of the other Greek emperors who reigned 
 in the seventh and next two centuries, not only were 
 all sacred art works torn or broken, but the makers of 
 them, the unfortunate artists themselves, were driven 
 from their native land, or put to death, if they stayed 
 to work there. Thus, as the Church has ever been 
 and always will be the great support of art-labour, 
 
 n 
 
98 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 the arts themselves fell headlong into barbarism at 
 Constantinople and all over the East wherever the 
 wrathful ill-will of iconoclasm might follow them. Not 
 so here in this our island. From the eighth till the end 
 of the thirteenth century England stood far above 
 Greece and Italy in the successful cultivation of the 
 fine arts. Objects of Anglo-Saxon workmanship won 
 admiration at Eome and in other places in Italy, and 
 our workmen themselves were sought for, and going 
 thither found wide employment among the ItaHans. 
 While recording the events in the pontificate of Pope 
 Nicholaus I., a.d. 858, the Liber Pontificalis tells us that 
 ' quidam de Anglorum gente Eomam venerunt, qui in 
 oratorio beati Gregorii papas et confessoris Christi, in 
 principis Apostolorum a3de Frascatas constructa, unam 
 tabiilam argenteam posuerunt habentem hb . . .* — T. iii. 
 p. 203. Of this body of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims then at 
 Eome, some, as it seems to me, were goldsmiths work- 
 ing there, where, at the common expense, they wrought 
 this silver altar-frontal, which w-as given as the united 
 ofiering of all to the church at Frascate. "Be that as it 
 may, proof positive we have that Anglo-Saxon artists 
 were employed in the neighbourhood of Eome, since 
 Leo Ostiensis, telling of an awful thunderstorm that 
 rolled over Monte Cassino, mentions how an English 
 goldsmith, while busy about some work in the church 
 at the time, happened to be kiUed upon the spot by a 
 flash of hghtning : — ' cum Anglo quodam aiuifice duos 
 ahos longe distantes uno ictu ad portam majorem ceci- 
 disse.' Cliron. S. Mon. Cassin. lib. iii. c. xxii. 
 
 The great quantity of fine enamel work, in the shape 
 
THE GOLDEN FEONTAL AT MILAN. 99 
 
 of long bands and many small medallions of saints' heads, 
 upon the work at Milan of Wolvin's, makes this jewelled 
 gold and silver altar still more precious as an art pro- 
 duction. The enamelHng is done in that early style 
 known as framed enamel, called by the French 
 cloissonnee^ now become so rare, and so eagerly 
 sought for by collectors. One of the oldest, as well as 
 finest samples, is the jewel made by order, as its Anglo- 
 Saxon inscription says, of Alfred, which was found at 
 one of the hiding-places of that great good man, in 
 Somersetshire, and now is in the Ashmolean Museum, 
 Oxford. The heads on the Ambrosian altar are of the 
 framed enamel identically the same in workmanship 
 with this Anglo-Saxon piece of work wrought in the 
 same century in this country. The Italians of that 
 period were totally unacquainted with the process. 
 Enamelhng, as an art, entirely unknown either to the 
 Greeks and Eomans, was found out and exclusively 
 followed by the barbarians in the ocean, as we are told 
 by Philostratus, a Greek, who was brought to Eome by 
 Septimius Severus (third century), with whom he lived 
 amid all that was most beautiful or curious in art that 
 imperial rapacity could bring together from a plundered 
 world. Of a certainty these ocean barbarians were no 
 other than our ancient Britons, and sure enough, while 
 enamelled ornaments are found in graves in this island, 
 on the opposite coast of France, and in some parts of 
 north-west Germany, whither trade could have easily 
 carried them, never are they turned up from tombs of 
 an early date in Italy. If the Anglo-Saxons were igno- 
 rant of enamelling before their coming hither, very 
 
 H 2 
 
100 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 soon afterwards they learned to become great proficients 
 in that art, as the ornaments lately brought to light 
 from Anglo-Saxon burial-grounds sufficiently declare. 
 By themselves, therefore, these framed enamels, set like 
 gems upon the altar, afford an additional argument in 
 our favour. 
 
 Knowing then that Wolvin's is an Anglo-Saxon — nay, 
 even now an EngHsh name, and that his spelling of 
 Latin was so un-ItaHan and so very Anglo-Saxon ; 
 remembering, too, that while at a time that the Greeks 
 and Italians had no good artists in the goldsmiths' craft, 
 then precisely was it the Anglo-Saxons were famous in 
 that art, their works so admired, so sought for, and 
 Anglo-Saxon workmen employed by the Italians them- 
 selves even in and about Eome, we are fully justified, 
 methinks, in saying that Wolvin was, as well by artistic 
 education as by birth, an Anglo-Saxon. Very likely, 
 in going to or coming back from Eome, he found work 
 at Milan. Whether so or not, his frontal is an admirable 
 proof of the widely felt and healthy action exercised 
 by the Church upon arts and artists, making them, in a 
 manner, her mouthpiece for her teachings to the people. 
 Her principles on that matter are weU set forth by S. 
 Gregory the Great, in two of his letters to Serenus : — 
 * Idcirco enim pictura in ecclesia adhibetur, ut hi, qui 
 literas nesciunt, saltem in parietibus videndo legant, 
 quae legere in codicibus non valent.' Lib. vii. Ep. 110. 
 ' Nam quod legentibus scriptura, hoc idiotis pra^stat 
 pictura cernentibus, quia in ipsa etiam ignorantes vident 
 quod sequi debeant, in ipsa legunt qui litteras ne- 
 sciunt.' L. ix. Ep. 9. Besides its general aesthetic 
 
THE GOLDEN FRONTAL AT MILAN. 101 
 
 excellence, Wolvin's work is very instructive on several 
 particulars ; for instance — 
 
 1st. Those crowns wreathing with royal — with im- 
 perial — dignity, as it were, a richly jewelled cross, 
 figured hanging over altars, are valuable among those 
 other proofs furnished by the arts — not forgetting the 
 heathen's gibe, the ' Deus Christianorum ononychites,' 
 or blasphemous crucifix of the Palatine — of that honour 
 and reverence shown from early times by the Church to 
 the sign of our redemption, and how a cross was pre- 
 sent near the altar, to identify it as the spot whereon the 
 one same great sacrifice of Calvary is ofiered in the mass. 
 
 2nd. Hung over a grave, it told the Church's belief 
 that the soul of the saint buried there is even now 
 reigning with God, wearing its crown of everlasting 
 brightness ; or, as the Anglo-Saxon ritual then said : 
 ' Magnificavit eum (Deus) in conspectu regum, et dedit 
 ilH coronam glorias,' &c. Eitual. Ecc. Dunelm. ed. Sur- 
 tees Society, p. 88. ' Accipient sancti regnum decoris 
 et diadema speciei de manu Domini.' lb. -p. 92. And 
 as the Anglo-Saxon hymn-book sang : — 
 
 Spiritiim sumpsit chorus angelorum 
 Intulit coelo pie laureandum. — Ed. Surtees Society. 
 
 3rd. In that ritual distribution of the particles of the 
 consecrated host, so as to form with them a cross, we 
 behold how the Church sought to teach by her hturgy 
 that the sacrifice in the mass, and that on Calvary, was 
 one ; that the body of Christ, crucified by the Jews at 
 Jerusalem, was the very same as the one there stretched 
 out in a cross before the priest upon the mount-like altar. 
 
 4th. The supphant position of Wolvin, so lowly 
 
102 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 bending down before S. Ambrose, whose head has 
 about it the nimbus, is a further evidence of the belief 
 of those times, and announces that the invocation and 
 intercession of the saints in heaven were among its 
 articles. 
 
 5th. And the way in which the Annunciation is 
 represented proclaims to us that she, whom all genera- 
 tions are to call 'blessed,' was then, as now, looked upon, 
 and loved, and honoured, though a creature, as the best, 
 the first, the highest of created beings, the queen of 
 men, the queen of angels. 
 
 To conclude, this altar is but one amid a thousand 
 examples that might be brought to show what powerful 
 help art-work often lends to ecclesiastical studies in 
 their widest range, proving, in fact, how instances may- 
 be found in which figured are better even than lettered 
 documents, and that the pen of the writer is not some- 
 times so able to tell his meaning as is the pencil or the 
 chisel of the artist, reahsing the poet's words :-^ 
 
 Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem, 
 Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et qua? 
 Ipse sibi tradit spectator. 
 
 The fair inference from this is that the keenest 
 theologian, the clearest Hturgist, the readiest polemic 
 must be he who knows, not merely the Church's writings, 
 but also the Church's works of art, and therefore, that 
 the study of ecclesiastical antiquities in architecture, 
 sculpture, painting, and all the sister arts, is to be ear- 
 nestly recommended ; and instead of being, as unhappily 
 it oftener is, lost sight of, ought to be untiringly followed 
 by every good churchman, not merely as affording him 
 
THE GOLDEN FRONTAL AT MILAN. 103 
 
 a seemly recreation after higher and more urgent duties 
 have been fulfilled, but as yielding a help so mighty for 
 upholding against the unbeliever God's revealed truths 
 and articles of faith, and for showing how the teachings 
 of them by His Church has been, through various ages, 
 at different places, the same unvarying one, though 
 uttered after several ways, at sundry times and different 
 ages, and by men unlike each other in laws, in language, 
 and in country. 
 
 Before ending this paper, I ask to say a few words, 
 which, though not immediately belonging to the subject, 
 are not unfitting this occasion. 
 
 From the earhest times, amid the bishops whom God 
 has set to watch over that part of His Church existing 
 in this island, always have there been those who learned 
 themselves, or, loving learning, were anxious to further 
 its advance among their fellow-countrymen. The results 
 of such a zeal were happy ; Keligion left her mark upon 
 all the civil institutions of the land, and stamped her 
 character on all the arts of civilised life. Among the 
 Britons, S. Dubritius and S. Iltute are renowned as 
 having founded colleges ; and the names of Gild as, 
 Nennius, and Mark the hermit are, or ought to be, known 
 to every Enghshman. Theodore, S. Aldhelm, Ecgberht, 
 -^Ifric, S. -(Ethelwold, and S. Dunstan among our 
 Anglo-Saxon archbishops and bishops, with Eddi, Benet 
 Biscop, Venerable Beda, Alcuin, Wolstan and other 
 monks, besides a crowd of lesser worthies belonging to 
 the secular clergy, are examples of that high state to 
 which learning was carried in their days. After them 
 came Lanfranc, S. Anselm, S. Thomas — whose life 
 
104 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 and martyrdom have been so admirably written lately 
 by Canon Morris — Lancton, Peckham, Bradwardine, 
 Chiclieley and Pole, all English primates — Bury, Wyke- 
 ham, Waynflete, Fox, and Wolsey, EngUsh bishops 
 and all learned or promoting learning. Without a 
 thought on our fine old cathedrals and parish churches, 
 Oxford, the best endowed, the most beautiful of all 
 scholastic cities in the world, is by itself a sufficient stand- 
 ing witness to the rehgious zeal, the pious munificence, 
 of our old Catholic churchmen, and of their wishfulness 
 to spread around them the influence of all the elegant 
 and intellectual arts of peace. In these our own times 
 some among us have known a Milner, an Oliver, a Lin- 
 gard — all have read the works of a Challoner, an Alban 
 Butler, each of them, by far, the foremost in his own 
 path of literature during his day. Though the last 
 in his order of sitting upon England's primatial chair, 
 by no means the least in multifarious learning is the 
 highly gifted prelate, the Cardinal Archbishop of 
 Westminster, whom we have the happiness to see pre- 
 siding over a young institution so needed at the pre- 
 sent time, and of which his Eminence is the origin- 
 ator. Had we not already those several productions 
 of his learned and varied pen that have won for him a 
 lofty place in the Catholic literature of this country, the 
 establishment of the present branch of the Academy 
 would have been quite enough to show how the zeal 
 for learning had come down to him as an inheritance 
 from the earliest through the latest bishops and church- 
 men of this land ; and how, hke them, he had striven to 
 cleanse the gold from dross, and stamp it with the true 
 
THE GOLDEN FEONTAL AT MILAN. 105 
 
 effigy, by letting Eeligion assay and make her impress 
 on it. 
 
 While, then, we all thank the Cardinal Archbishop 
 most heartily for providing God's Church in England 
 with such a useful apphance for upholding and defend- 
 ing her truths ; and for gathering together, churchmen 
 and laymen — the divine, the historian, the herald, the 
 antiquary, the botanist, the painter, the naturalist, the 
 poet, the geologist, the sculptor, the linguist, each strong 
 in wielding his own peculiar weapon, and ready at the 
 call of Faith to do battle for her sake — let us cherish 
 the hope that our Primate may long be spared to wit- 
 ness the happy growth and energetic action of this his 
 own good work. 
 
ON 
 
 TEE BIRTEPLACE OF SAINT PATEICK. 
 
 By J. CASHEL HOEY. ♦ 
 
 The question of the birthplace of S. Patrick — a 
 question which has been debated with considerable 
 learning and acrimony for several centuries — has always 
 seemed to me to have an interest far beyond the rival 
 claims of clans and the jealous litigation of the anti- 
 quary. It is interesting not merely because it is in 
 reahty a curious archaeological problem, but also be- 
 cause it may in some measure afford a clue to the 
 character of one of the greatest saints and greatest men 
 of his own age or of any other — a saint who was the 
 apostle of a nation which he found aU heathen and left 
 all Christian : who succeeded in planting the CathoHc 
 faith without a single act of martjrrdom, but planted it 
 so firmly that it has never failed for now 1,400 years, 
 though tried in what various processes of martyrdom 
 God and man too well know ; a saint whose apostolate 
 was the mainspring of an endless succession of mission- 
 ary enterprises, prosecuted with the same untiring zeal 
 in the nineteenth century as in the fifth, wherever the 
 vanguard of Christendom may happen to be found, 
 whether in Austria, in Gaul, in Switzerland, or in 
 
ON THE BIKTHPLACE OF S. PATRICK. 107 
 
 Iceland, as now at the farthest confines of America 
 and of Australasia. Add to these ordinary evidences 
 of the supernatural efficacy of S. Patrick's mission, the 
 testimony which is derived from the peculiar spiritual 
 character of the people that he converted. The Irish 
 nation retains the impress which it received from the 
 hands of S. Patrick in a way that I beheve no 
 other Christian nation has preserved the mould of 
 its apostle. If that nation has never even dreamed of 
 heresy or schism, it is because in terms as positive as 
 an Ultramontane of our own days could devise,* S. 
 Patrick established the supreme authority of the Eoman 
 Pontiff as a chief canon of the Irish Church. Patience 
 in poverty, an innate love of purity, prodigal alms- 
 giving, and mutual charities, the practice of heavy 
 penances and of long fasts, a pecuharly vivid sense of 
 purgatory, and a strong devotion to the doctrine of 
 the Trinity, which the Saint taught in the figure of the 
 shamrock — these have always been the distinguish- 
 ing characteristics of Irish piety. They were the 
 pecuHar characteristics of the Christian of the fourth 
 
 * * QusecunqTie causa valde difEcilis exorta fuerit atque ignota 
 cunctis Scotorum gentis judiciis, ad catliedram archiepiscopi Hiber- 
 nensium, atque hujus antistitis examinationem recte referenda. Si 
 vero in ilia, cum suis sapientibus, facile sanari non poterit talis causa 
 prasdictaj negotiationis, ad Sedem Apostolicam decrevimus esse mit- 
 tendam ; id est, ad Petri Apostoli catliedram, auctoritatem Eomje 
 urbis habentem.' This canon of S. Patrick is contained in the Book 
 of Armagh, the antiquity of which is instanced in the text of the 
 present paper. The canon is of a date early in the fifth century ; and it 
 would be difficult to show so early, so emphatic, and so complete a 
 recognition of the Papal authority in the ecclesiastical legislation of 
 any other national church. 
 
108 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 century, who had not yet learned to live at peace with 
 the world — who felt that as yet Christians were in the 
 strictest sense one family community — who practised 
 mortification, as if the untamed Pagan blood were still 
 burning in his veins, and the great temptation to 
 whose faith was the heresy of Arius, and the question of 
 the relations of the Three Divine Persons. But S. 
 Patrick was not only a great saint — was not merely and 
 simply the apostle of the Irish ; he was their teacher 
 and their lawgiver, their Cadmus and Lycurgus as well. 
 The school of letters, which he founded in Ireland, so 
 well preserved the learning which had become all but 
 extinguished throughout Western Europe, that your 
 own Alfred, following a host of your nobles and clerics, 
 went thither to be taught, and the Universities of Paris 
 and Pavia owe their earliest lights to Irish scholars. The 
 Brehon laws, which are at last to be published, by order 
 of Parliament, a complete code of the most minute and 
 comprehensive character, were, according to the evidence 
 of our annalists, carefully revised and remodelled by S. 
 Patrick, with the consent of the different Estates of the 
 Kingdom of Ireland ; and there is good reason to 
 believe that this revision, of which there is abundant 
 intrinsic evidence, had reference, not merely to the 
 Cliristian doctrine and the canons of the Church, but 
 to the Body of the Eoman civil law. 
 
 It would throw a certain hght upon the character of 
 a saint whose works were so various and so full of 
 vitaHty, if we could arrive at any sohd conclusion as to 
 the place of his nativity, the quahty of his parentage, 
 and the sources of his education. The theory most 
 
ON THE BIRTHPLACE OP S. PATRICK. 109 
 
 generally accepted, and which certainly has the greatest 
 weight of authority in its favour, is that which assumes 
 that S. Patrick was born in Scotland, at Dumbarton, 
 on the Clyde — the son, as we may suppose, of a French 
 or British official employed in the Eoman service at 
 that extreme outpost of their settlements in this island, 
 where he would have spent his youth surrounded by a 
 perpetual clangour of barbarous battle, amid clans of 
 Picts and Celts swarming across the barriers of the 
 Lowlands. The opinion that S. Patrick was a Scotch- 
 man has the unanimous assent of all the antiquaries of 
 Scotland ; but I am not aware that any of them has 
 succeeded in identifying any single locality named in 
 the original documents with any place of sufficient 
 antiquity in or near Dumbarton ; nor could I, in the 
 course of a careful examination of the district and the 
 recognised authorities concerning its topography, arrive 
 at any acceptable evidence on the subject. I have to 
 add to the Scotch authorities and pleadings, however, all 
 the best of the Irish. That S. Patrick was born in Scot- 
 land is the opinion of Colgan,* a writer whose services 
 to the history of the Irish Church cannot be excelled 
 and have not been equalled. The opinion of Colgan 
 has overborne almost every other authority which inter- 
 vened between his time and the present. The Bol- 
 landists f accepted it without hesitation ; and I hasten to 
 add to their great sanction that of the two most learned 
 
 * Colganus, E. P. F. Joannes, Triadis ThaumaturgcB, sen Divo- 
 rum Patricii, Columhcey et Brigidce, trium Hihernice Patronorurriy 
 Acta, Lovanii, 1647. 
 
 t Acta Sanctorum Martii a Joanne Bollando, torn. ii. Antverpiae, 
 1668. 
 
HOT ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 antiquaries of the latter days of Ireland, Dr. John- 
 O'Donovan and Professor Eugene O'Curry. They, I am 
 aware, were also of Colgan's opinion; and so, I beheve, 
 are Dr. Eeeves and Dr. Todd, whose views on most 
 points of ecclesiastical antiquities connected with Ireland 
 are entitled to be named with every respect. 
 
 StiU it is to be said, on the other hand, that the 
 opinion that S. Patrick was born in France has always 
 had a traditional establishment in Ireland. It is as- 
 serted in one of the oldest of his Lives, that of S. 
 Eleran, and indicated in another, that of Probus. 
 Don Phnip O'Sullivan Bearre* is not the first nor 
 the last of the more modern biographers of the Saint 
 who has held that he was of French birth, though 
 of British blood. But before the time of Dr. Lanigan, 
 the most acute, the most conscientious, and perhaps the 
 most generally learned of Irish historians, there appears 
 to have been no really candid and scientific examination 
 of the original documents and evidences. Irish scholars 
 were too angrily engaged in the controversy of Scotia 
 Major and Scotia Minor to be seriously regarded when 
 they proposed to remove S. Patrick's birthplace from 
 the neighbourhood of Glasgow to the neighbourhood of 
 Nantes. Until Dr. Lanigan pubhshed his Ecclesiastical 
 History,f no one seems to have even attempted to 
 identify the locahties named in the various original 
 documents which concern the Saint. Dr. Lanigan came 
 
 * D. Philippi O'Sullevani Bearri Iberni, Patritiana Decas. 
 Madrid, 1629. 
 
 ■}■ Lanigan, John, D.D., An Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. 
 Dublin, 1829. 
 
ON THE BIRTHPLACE OF S. PATEICK. Ill 
 
 to the conclusion that he was born not at Dumbarton 
 but in France, at or in the neighbourhood of Boulogne- 
 sur-Mer. I am able, I hope, to perfect the proof which 
 Dr. Lanigan commenced, and which, if he had been en- 
 abled to follow it up by local research and by the light 
 lately cast on the geography of Eoman Gaul, would, I 
 am sure, have come far more complete from his hands. 
 I hold, then, with Doctor Lanigan, and with a tradi- 
 tion which has long existed in Ireland, and also in 
 France, that S. Patrick was born on the coast of 
 Armoric Gaul ; and that Eoman in one sense by de- 
 scent — by his education in a province where Eoman 
 civilisation had long prevailed, where the Latin lan- 
 guage was spoken, and the privileges of the Empire 
 fully possessed — Eoman too by the possession of nobility, 
 which he himself declares, and of which his name was 
 a curious commemoration* — Eoman, in fine, in the 
 connection of his family which he testifies with the 
 Eoman government and with the Church, S. Patrick 
 was a Celt of Gaul by blood. The fact that the district 
 between Boulogne and Amiens was at that time in- 
 habited by a clan called Britanni has misled both 
 those who supposed he must have been born in the 
 island of Britain, and those who held that, if born in 
 
 * Gibbon says (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, v. vi.), 
 * At this period the meanest subjects of the Eoman Empire assumed 
 the illustrious name of Patricius, which by the conversion of Ireland 
 has been communicated to a whole nation.' It is supposed that the 
 name was conferred on S. Patrick in consideration of his parting with 
 his nobility for a motive of charity, as he mentions in his Epistle to 
 Coroticus. But he was certainly not the first of the name. Patricius 
 was also the name of S. Augustine's father, born iully a century 
 before. 
 
112 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 France, he must have been born in that part of it 
 wliich was subsequently called Brittany. 
 
 The original documents which bear on the point 
 are only two in number — the Confession of S. Patrick 
 himself, and the hymn in his honour, composed by his 
 disciple S. Fiech. Of the antiquity of these documents, we 
 have evidence the most complete that can be conceived. 
 Not merely does written history certify the record of 
 their age — they have borne much more deHcate tests. 
 The hymn of S. Fiech is written in a dialect of Irish 
 that is to the Irish of the Four Masters as the English 
 of Chaucer is to the English of Lord Macaulay. The 
 quotations of Scripture, which are given in the Con- 
 fession of S. Patrick, are taken from the version 
 according to the interpretation of the Septuagint, and 
 not according to the recent version of S. Jerome, which 
 had indeed been just executed in S. Patrick's time, but 
 had not yet been publicly received. At the same time, 
 the ' Liber Armachanus,' which contains the original 
 copy of the Confession, contains also S. Jerome's trans- 
 lation of the New Testament — thus curiously marking 
 the fact, that the date of the one document by a httle 
 preceded the date of the other. The manuscript itself 
 has been subjected to a most curious and rigorous ex- 
 amination. The authentic signature of Brian, Imperator 
 Hibemorum, commonly called Brian Boroimhe, on the 
 occasion of his visit to Armagh, carries us back at a 
 bound eight hundred years in its history ; but the 
 scholar who is expert in the hue of vellum and the 
 style of the scribe, will tell us that the Book of Armagh 
 was evidently a book of venerable age even then. The 
 
ON THE BIRTHPLACE OF S. PATRICK. lid 
 
 Eev. Charles Graves,* a Fellow of the University of 
 Dublin, and a scholar specially skilled in the study of 
 the Irish manuscripts and hieroglyphs, published a paper 
 some years ago in the 'Proceedings of the Eoyal Irish 
 Academy' on the question of the age of the Book of 
 Armagh. That the version at present preserved in the 
 library of Trinity College, is a copy from a far older 
 version, he says there can be no doubt. The marginal 
 notes of the scribe show that he found it difficult in 
 many places to read the manuscript from which he was 
 transcribing. But the same notes, the character of his 
 writing, and a reference to the Irish Primate of the time, 
 under whose authority the work was undertaken, leave 
 no doubt that the transcript was executed by a scribe 
 named Ferdomnach, during the primacy of Archbishop 
 Torbach, at a date not later than the year of Our Lord 
 807. 
 
 Of the Confession, besides the original copy in the 
 Book of Armagh, there are several manuscript versions 
 of great age in England : two at Salisbury ; two in the 
 Cotton Library; one, I believe, at Cambridge ^ another 
 very interesting and valuable copy, that which was used 
 by the BoUandists in printing their edition of the Con- 
 fession, existed until the time of the Eevolution in the 
 famous French monastery of S. Yedastus. Fragments 
 of the precious manuscripts of that learned congregation 
 are scattered among the libraries of Arras, of Saint 
 Omer, of Boulogne, and of Douai ; but among them I 
 could not find any trace of the missing manuscript of 
 
 * Graves, Rev. C, On the Age of the Booh of Armagh; Proceed- 
 ings of the Eoyal Irish Academy, vol. iii. p. 316. 
 
 I 
 
114 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 S. Patrick's Confession ; nor could the present learned 
 representatives of Bollandus, who were good enough to 
 interest themselves in my enquiry, give me any room 
 to hope that it still exists. It would have been of much 
 importance to have been able to compare the style and 
 the text of the only existing French copy with the 
 original in Ireland — especially as that French copy 
 belonged to the very district from which S. Patrick 
 originally came. 
 
 There are four localities designated in these docu- 
 ments ; three of them in the Confession of S. Patrick, 
 and one in the hymn of S. Fiech. In the Confession, 
 S. Patrick says of himself, 'Patrem habui Calphur- 
 nium Diaconum (or Diacurionem) qui fuit e vico 
 Bonaven-Taberhige ; villam Enon prope habuit, ubi ego 
 in capturam decidi.' The hymn of S. Fiech adds that 
 the Saint was bom at a place called Nem-tur. 
 
 The ancient Lives of S. Patrick cite these localities 
 with Httle variation. 
 
 The first Life given in Colgan's collection, and ascribed 
 to S. Patrick Junior, says, 'Natus est igitur in illo 
 oppido, Nempthur nomine. Patricius natus est in campo 
 Taburnae.' 
 
 The second Life, which is ascribed to S. Benignus, is 
 word for word the same with the fir^t on this point. 
 
 The third, supposed to be by S. Eleran, suggests that 
 he was of Irish descent through a colony allowed by 
 the Eomans to settle in Armorica ; but that his parents 
 were of Strato Cludi (Strath Clyde) ; that he was bom, 
 however, 'in oppido Nempthur, quod oppidum in campo 
 Taburniee est.' This Life is of very ancient date, and 
 
ON THE BIETHPLACE OF S. PATRICK. 115 
 
 shows clearly enough how old is the Irish tradition 
 concerning the Saint's birth in France. 
 
 The fourth Life, by Probus, says : ' Brito fuit natione 
 , . . de vico Bannave Tiburnise regionis, haud procul a 
 mare occidentali — quern vicum indubitanter comperimus 
 esse Neustriae provinciae, in qua olim gigantes.' Here, 
 again, we observe the same confused tradition of the 
 Saint's French origin ; for Neustria was the name in the 
 Merovingian period of the whole district comprised 
 between the Meuse and the Loire. 
 
 The fifth and best known Life, by Jocelyn, has it, 
 ' Brito fuit natione in pago Taburnias — eo quod 
 Eomanus exercitus tabernacula fixerant ibidem, secus 
 oppidum Nempthor degens, mare Hibernico collimitans 
 habitatione.' 
 
 The sixth Life, by S. Evin, declares that he was ' De 
 Brittanis Alcluidensibus, natus in Nempthur.' 
 
 The Breviaries repeat the same names with as little 
 attempt to fix the actual localities. 
 
 The Breviary of Paris says: 'In Brittania natus, 
 oppido Empthoria.' The Breviary of Armagh : ' In illo 
 Brittanise oppido nomine Emptor.' The old Eoman 
 Breviary says simply: 'Genere Brito.' The Breviary 
 of Eheims : ' In maritimo Brittanise territorio.' The 
 Breviary of Eouen : ' In Brittania GaUicana.' The 
 Breviary of the Canons of S. John of Lateran : ' Ex 
 Brittania magna insula.' 
 
 It will be observed that in the principal of these 
 authorities, there is a concurrence in accepting the 
 locality called so variously Nemthur and Empthoria, 
 as well as the second of the localities, the Taberniee, 
 
 X 2 
 
IIG ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 named by S. Patrick himself; and also that there is no 
 appearance of certainty in the minds of the writers as to. 
 the exact sites of the places of which they speak. None 
 of them ventures to name the exact district or diocese 
 where Empthoria or the Taberniae ai'e to be found. 
 
 But certain scholia upon the Hymn of S. Fiech, which 
 were for the first time pubhshed by Colgan in the 
 ' Triadis Thaumaturgae,' boldly lay down the proposition 
 that 'Nemthur est civitas in Brittania Septentrionah, 
 nempe Alcluida ; ' and the name is also translated as 
 meaning 'Holy Tower.' The same writer, however, 
 adds in another note that S. Patrick was not carried 
 into his Irish captivity from Dumbarton, but from 
 Boulogne, where he and his family were visiting some 
 of their friends at the time when the Irish pirates swept 
 down upon the coast of GauL The Irish annals say that 
 about the period of S. Patrick's captivity, Mai of the 
 Nine Hostages lost his life on the Sea of Iccius between 
 'France and England. These long piratical forays were 
 not uncommon at the time.* A little later,. the last of 
 our Pagan kings, Dathy, was killed by lightning near 
 the Ehaetian Alps. 
 
 Colgan with a curious creduhty accepted this im- 
 probable solution of the scholiast, of which it may in 
 the first place be said that it is incompatible with the 
 statement of S. Patrick himself, who declares distinctly 
 that he was captured at a country house belonging to 
 his father, near the town to which his family belonged. 
 
 Usher, however, who had equal opportunities of 
 
 * Totum cum Scotiis lernen 
 
 Movit, et infesto sjmmavit remige Tethys. — Claudian. 
 
ON THE BIRTHPLACE OF S. PATRICK. 117 
 
 studying the original documents, also adopted this 
 explanation. Several Irish writers, and especially Don 
 Phihp O'Sulhvan, vaguely conscious of the tradition of S. 
 Patrick's French origin, attempted to reconcile the fact of 
 his being a Briton with the fact of his birth in France by 
 the supposition that he was a Breton of Brittany. This 
 theory, however, falls summarily to the ground, when 
 it is opposed to the fact that the province now known 
 by the name of Brittany, was not inhabited by any 
 tribe which bore the name in the time of S. Patrick. 
 ' The year 458,' says the Benedictine Lobineau* in his 
 learned History of Brittany, ' is about the epoch of the 
 establishment of the Bretons in that part of ancient 
 Armorica which at present bears the name of Bretagne.* 
 There was, however, a clan called Brittani, farther to- 
 wards the north of France, a clan whose territory Phny 
 and the Greek Dionysius Periegetes had long before 
 designated with accuracy : Pliny in these words, ' Deinde 
 Menapii, Morini, Oromansaci juncti pago, qui Gessori- 
 acus vocatur; Brittani, Ambiani, Bellovaci.'f The 
 
 * Lobineau, D. Giii Alexis, Histoire de Bretagne, Paris, 1707. 
 
 f Plinii Secundi Historia Naturalis ; de Gallia, 1. iv. The 
 editors of the Dauphin's edition have a note on the word Brittani, 
 which is worth quotation. ' Ita libri omnes. Hi inter Gessoriacenses 
 Ambianosque medii, in ora similiter positi, ea loca tenuere certe, ubi 
 nunc oppida Stapulse, Monstrolium, Hesdinium, et adjacentem agrum, 
 Ponticum ad Somonam anlnem. Cluverius hie Briannos legi mavult.' 
 See also the learned essay on the Britons of Armorica in the Acta 
 Sanctorum, Vita S. Ursulas; Octobris, vol. ix. p. 108. A glance at 
 the map will show the close relation of the district marked by the 
 present towns of Etaples, Montreuil, Hesdin, and Ponthieu to the 
 localities named a little farther on. That the Britons of Great 
 Britain originally came from this district is declared in the Welsh 
 Triads : thus — ' The three beneficent tribes of the Isle of Britain, 
 
118 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Brittani of the time of S. Patrick are to be found in the 
 country that lies between Boulogne and Amiens. It 
 is there that Lanigan came upon tie first authentic 
 traces of the origin of our Apostle. 
 
 He was guided to his conclusion, mainly, I think, by 
 the History of the Morini, published in the year 1639 
 by the Jesuit Malbrancq,* and which seems strangely 
 to have escaped the notice of every earlier Irish writer. 
 In this work, there are two chapters devoted to the 
 tradition of the connection of S. Patrick with the see 
 of Boulogne. Malbrancq relates this tradition, which 
 states that previous to his departure for the Irish mis- 
 sion, S. Patrick remained for some time at Boulogne, 
 occupied in preaching against the Pelagian heresy, to 
 contend with which Saints Germanus and Lupus had 
 crossed over to Britain. Malbrancq refers, in proof of 
 this fact, to the ' Chronicon Morinense,' to the Catalogue 
 of the Bishops of Boulogne, and to the Life of S. 
 
 The first was the nation of the Cymmry who came with Hu the 
 mighty to the Isle of Britain, who would not possess nor country 
 nor lands through fighting and persecution, but of equity and in*peace; 
 the second was the stock of the Lloegrians, who came fi*om the land 
 of Gwasgwyn (Gascoigne), and were descended fi-om the primitive 
 stock of the Cymmry ; the third were the Brython, and fi-om the land 
 of Llydaw they came, having their descent from the primary stock of 
 the Cymmry.' And again, Cynan is spoken of as lord of Meirion 
 (probably a Celtic form of the word Morini) in Llydaw. Taliessin 
 also mentions the Morini Brython in his Prif Gyfarcli. Lydaw, 
 Latinised Letavia, is one of the early Celtic names of the country of 
 the Morini, as Neustria, in the Life by Probus, was that given in 
 the Merovingian period to the whole province between the Meuse 
 and Loire, including Boulogne of course. Pliny mentions Boulogne 
 itself as the Portus Morinorum Brittanicus. 
 
 * Malbrancq, Jacobus, De Morinis et Morinorum rebus. Tomaci 
 Nerviorum, 1639 — 1654. 
 
ON THE BIETHPLACE ■ OF S. PATRICK. 119 
 
 Arnulphus of Soissons. This tradition is to a certain 
 extent a clue in tracing the early and intimate con- 
 nection of S. Patrick with this country — but as yet it 
 is nothing more. 
 
 The critical question is, whether the four names given 
 by S. Patrick himself, and by S. Fiech, can be identi- 
 fied with any localities now known either in the district 
 of Boulogne or any other district in which, towards the 
 close of the fourth century, it is possible to find the 
 conditions of Eoman government and British blood 
 combined. Before Lanigan there was, it seems to me, 
 no serious attempt made to solve this question. The 
 scholiast whose authority was so unhesitatingly adopted 
 by Colgan and Usher, simply says, ' Nempthur est civitas 
 in Brittania Septentrionali, nempe Alcluid.' There is 
 not a word more. He does not attempt to show how 
 Nempthur and Alcluid are to be considered as con- 
 vertible terms. Nor does he attempt to interpret the 
 names of the three localities stated by S. Patrick him- 
 self The same may be said, in the most sweeping 
 wa^ of the biographies and the Breviaries. 
 
 I will now read the reasons which Lanigan gives for 
 identifying Bonaven with Boulogne, and Tabernise with 
 a city very famous in the wars of the middle ages, long 
 before Arras had been fortified by Yauban or defended 
 by General Owen Eoe O'Neill. It will be observed 
 that Lanigan does not attempt to identify the two other 
 locahties Enon and Nempthur. The former he regarded 
 as too insignificant, the latter he did not believe had 
 any existence. I will not say that his proof with regard 
 to the identity of Boulogne with Bonaven is conclusive ; 
 
120 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITEKATUEE. 
 
 but if the whole of his proof rested on as strong pre- 
 sumptive grounds, little would remain to be said on the 
 subject. The second part of it is, however, in my 
 humble opinion, wholly erroneous. He says : — 
 
 ' Colgan acknowledges that there is an ancient tra- 
 dition among the inhabitants of Armoric Britain that 
 S. Patrick was bom in their country, and that some 
 Irishmen were of the same opinion. He quotes some 
 passages from Probus and others, whence they argued 
 in proof of their position, but omits, through want of 
 attention to that most valuable document, the following 
 passage of S. Patrick's Confession: "My father was 
 Calpurnius, a deacon, son of Potitus, a priest of the 
 town Bonavem Tabernias. He had near the town a 
 small villa Enon, where I became a captive." Here we 
 have neither a town Nemthor, nor Alcluit. Nor will 
 any British antiquary be able to find out a place in 
 Great Britain to which the names Bonavem Tabernias 
 can be applied. Usher, although he had quoted these 
 words, has not attempted to give any explanation of 
 them, or to reconcile them with Nemthur. ^ 
 
 ' The word Taberniae has puzzled not only Colgan, but 
 some of the authors of the Lives which he chose to 
 follow ; for while they left out Bonavem as not agreeing 
 with Nemthur^ they retained Taberniee, or, as they were 
 pleased to write it, Taburnice, which they endeavoured 
 to account for by making it a district that got its name 
 from having been the site of a lloman camp in which 
 there were tents or tabernacles. Colgan, who swallowed 
 all this stuff, quotes Jocelin as his authority for Taburnia 
 being situated near the Clyde, at the South Bank. Great 
 
ON THE BIETHPLACE OF S. PATRICK. 121 
 
 authority, indeed ! It is, however, odd that such a place 
 should be unnoticed by all those who have undertaken 
 to elucidate the ancient topography of Great Britain. 
 The places of Eoman camps in that country were 
 usually designated by the adjunct castra, whence chester, 
 or cester, in which the names of so many cities and 
 towns in England terminate. 
 
 ' Bonavem, or Bonaven, was in Armoric Gaul, being 
 the same town as Boulogne-sur-Mer in Picardy. That 
 town was well known to the Komans under the name 
 of Gessoriacum ; but about the reign of Constantine the 
 Great, the Celtic name Bonaven or Bonaun, ahas Bonon, 
 which was Latinised into Bononia, became more general. 
 According to Bullet, who informs us that Am, Aven, 
 On, signify a river in the Celtic language, the town was 
 so called from its being at the mouth of a river ; Bon, 
 mouth, on or avon, river. Baxter also observes that 
 Bononia is no other than Bonavon or Bonaun, for aven, 
 avem, avon, aun, are pronounced in the same manner. 
 The addition of Tahernice marks its having been in the 
 distilit of Tarvanna or Tarvenna, ahas Tarabanna, a 
 celebrated city not far from Boulogne, the ruins of 
 which still remain under the modern name of Terou- 
 anne. The name of this city was extended to a 
 considerable district around it, thence called pagus 
 Tarhannensis, or Tarvanensis regio. Gregory of Tours 
 calls the inhabitants Tarabannenses. It is often mentioned 
 under the name of Civitas Morinorum, having been the 
 principal city of the Morini, in which Boulogne was also 
 situated. Boulogne was so connected with Tarvanna 
 that both places anciently formed but one episcopal 
 
122 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 see. Thus Jonas, in his " Life of the Abbot Eustatius," 
 written near twelve hundred years ago, calls Audomarus 
 Bishop of Boulogne and Tarvana. It is probable that 
 S. Patrick's reason for designating Bonaven by the 
 adjunct Tabernice was lest it might be confounded with 
 the Bononia of Italy, now Bologna, or with a Bononia 
 in Aquitain, in the same manner that, to avoid a similar 
 confusion, the French call it at present Boulogne-sur- 
 Mer. Perhaps it wiU be objected that Tabemia is a 
 different name from Tarvenna. In the first place, it 
 may be observed that, owing to the usual commutation 
 of b for V, and vice vers4, we might read Tavernia. 
 Thus we have seen that Tarvenna was called by some 
 Tarabanria. To account for the further difference of 
 the names, nothing more is required than to admit the 
 transposition of a syllable or a letter, which has fre- 
 quently occurred in old words, and particularly names 
 of places. Nogesia, the name of a town, became Genosia. 
 Dunbritton has been modified into Dunbertane, Dun- 
 barton, Dumbarton. Probus agrees with the Confession, 
 except that, according to Colgan's edition, for Boftvem 
 Tabernice he has " Bannave Tyburniae regionis," and adds 
 that it was not far from the Western Sea or Atlantic 
 Ocean. Although we may easily suppose that some 
 errors of transcription have crept into the text of Probus, 
 yet as to Bannave there is no material difference be- 
 tween it and Bonavem. Ban might be used for Bon ; 
 andlthe final /?^, which was a sort of nasal termination, 
 as it is still with the Portuguese, could be omitted so as 
 to write for Bonavem, or Bonauem {v and u being the 
 same letter), Bonaue. Probus's addition of regionis is 
 
ON THE BIRTHPLACE OF S. PATRICK. 123 
 
 worth noticing, as it corresponds with what has been 
 said concerning the Tarvanensis regio.' 
 
 I think the proof in this passage with regard to the 
 word Bonaven is very strong. The passage which 
 Lanigan cites from Baxter distinctly says, ' Gallorum 
 Bononia eodem pene est etyino ; quasi dicas Bon-avon 
 sive Bonaun.' The derivation of the word is clear 
 enough. Avon even in England retains its Celtic 
 signification of a river. But the passage identifying the 
 Tabernice of Boulogne with Therouanne is in my opinion 
 altogether incorrect. Where he accounts for the 
 change in the structure of the word by the usual 
 transmutation of b and v, he overlooks the letter r — a 
 letter which does not melt into the music of patois by any 
 means so easily. Again, he hardly lays sufficient stress on 
 the fact that the word Tabernice is invariably under- 
 stood in all the schoha, and in all the Lives, to 
 mean the Campus tabernaculorum — the barracks and 
 district occupied by a Eoman army. In fine, he 
 confuses Therouanne, which is at a distance of thirty 
 mildl from Boulogne, and certainly did not stand in the 
 relation he supposes to it, with another city some twenty 
 miles still farther away. But Malbrancq, who was his 
 chief authority, does not omit to mention that Ter- 
 vanna and Taruanna are two absolutely distinct places : 
 Tervanna was the old Eoman name of the town now 
 known as Saint Pol * — Taruanna that of Therouenne. 
 
 It is very possible — I may add to the proof concern- 
 ing the word Bonaven — that it may have been written 
 
 * Comitum Tervanensium Annales Historici, CoUectore Th. Turpin 
 Paulinati. Ord. Predicat. 1731. 
 
124 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 originally Bononeii, for Boiionenses Taberniae. Anyone 
 familiar with the form of the letters of the early Irish 
 alphabet, indeed of almost all early manuscript, will 
 readily comprehend how easily an o might be written 
 for an a, an n for a v^ and vice vers4, by a scribe ignorant 
 of the exact locality, and copying from a half-defaced 
 document. Anyone who looks at the form of the 
 letters in the alphabet of the Book of Kells, given in 
 Dr. O'Donovan's Grammar, will conceive at a glance 
 how this might have happened. 
 
 Assuming, however, that Lankan is correct in his 
 conjecture as to Boulogne, I have endeavoured to 
 discover whether the other locahties named in the 
 Confession and Hymn can be identified with locahties 
 now existing within the proper circumscription of the 
 Eoman military occupation arovmd that city, and of 
 a certain and unquestionable antiquity. I need not 
 inform the Academy of the great mihtary importance 
 of Boulogne at the time of which we treat. It was the 
 point from which England had been invaded. It was 
 the principal mihtary settlement of the Eomaffs in 
 Northern Gaul. Juhan the Apostate had held his 
 head-quarters there shortly before S. Patrick's birth. 
 The country all around is marked by roads and 
 mounds, which exhibit the rigid lines and stern 
 solidity of Eoman construction. I learn from a recent 
 essay by M. Quenson, an accomplished scholar of Saint 
 Omer, that eighty-eight different works have been 
 written to settle the site of the Portus Itius, whence 
 Csesar embarked to invade Britain, and nineteen dif- 
 ferent localities assigned. Since M. Quenson wrote. 
 
ON THE BIRTHPLACE OF S. PATRICK. 125 
 
 M. cle Saulcy has again opened, and this time I think 
 finally determined, that controversy. Perhaps I am 
 so far fortunate that the absorbing zeal with which this 
 difficult problem has been pursued, in a country of such 
 zealous scholars, still leaves to a stranger somewhat to 
 glean, in places far inland from the famous Port which 
 they have so long laboured to identify. 
 
 The localities to which S. Patrick refers have, I find, 
 all been preserved with the least alteration of their 
 etymology that it is possible to conceive in the space of 
 so many centuries ; and this, I may add, is peculiarly 
 wonderful in a country where so many Eoman names 
 have, * by the friction of the much mixed dialects of 
 Northern France, been almost frayed out of recognition. 
 Who would suppose, for example, taking some of the 
 familiar names of the Department, that Fampoux was 
 the Fanum Pollucis, Dainville Diance villa, Lens Elena, 
 Etaples Stapulce,lIermsiYille Hermetis t;z7/a,Hesdin Hele- 
 num, Souchez Sabucetum, Surques Surcce, Ervillers He- 
 rivilla, Tingry Tingriacum? * And yet regarding these 
 names there is no doubt that the modern French is a cor- 
 ruption of the old Latin form. Of the locaHties, which 
 I proceed to designate, I submit that each has kept its 
 original name with far less violation of the ancient word. 
 The Enon, the Nemthur, the Tahernice of S. Patrick are, 
 to my mind, manifest in comparison with the majority 
 of a hundred other localities in the Boulonnais which 
 undoubtedly derive their titles from a Eoman source. 
 
 * The name of the neighbouring village of Ardres has run through 
 the following traceable variations since the Roman period : Horda, 
 Ardra, Arda, Ardrea, Ardes, Ardres. 
 
a-.iiMiiL« 
 
 126 ESSAYS OX RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 In tlie first place, let us take the word Enon. The 
 river Liane, which runs into the sea at Boulogne, was 
 known to the Eomans as the Fluvius Enna. It is so 
 marked on the most ancient maps of Northern Gaul. 
 It is so written in Latin by Malbrancq. Near Desvres — 
 once called Desurennes, or Desvres-sur-Ennes — there 
 is marked a little village of the same name, called also 
 Enna. I will not be said to strain language, which has 
 survived so many centuries, very severely when I venture 
 to identify S. Patrick's Enon with this undoubtedly 
 Eoman Enna. 
 
 Lanigan totally disbelieved in the existence of the 
 town called Nempthor. I could not do so ; nor under- 
 rate the importance of identifying it, if possible, in 
 such an enquiry as this. But the difficulty of discover- 
 ing this place was hitherto greatly increased by a mis- 
 translation of its meaning, for which I believe Colgan 
 is responsible. The word was always supposed to mean 
 'Holy Tower' — Neim holy, and Tur tower — until Profes- 
 sor Eugene 0' Curry, when compiling, some years ago, 
 his valuable Catalogue of the Irish MSS. of the British 
 Museum, after a minute examination of the manuscript, 
 which is the oldest copy of the Hymn in existence, came 
 to the conclusion that the word should really be written 
 ' Emtur,' as it is indeed, though by accident I take it, 
 in some of the Breviaries. ' The place of Saint Patrick's 
 birth/ he says, ' is generally written Nemtur ; but there 
 is clear evidence that the N is but a prefix introduced 
 to fill the hiatus in the text, and that Emtur is the 
 proper form of the word.' The word, then, means not 
 Holy Tower, but the tower of some place or person 
 
ON THE BIETHPLACE OP S. PATEICK. 127 
 
 indicated by the word Em. Some eight miles distant 
 from Desvres, towards the north, still within the mili- 
 tary circumscription of which it is the centre, there is 
 such a place. The Eiver Em, or Hem, flows past a 
 village of so great an antiquity, that even in the ordi- 
 nary geographical dictionaries, the record is preserved 
 that Julius Caesar slept there on his way to embark for 
 the invasion of Britain.* The town contains a Eoman 
 
 * * Ce lieu existait lorsque les legions romaines p^netr^rent dans 
 la Morinie, Fan de Eome 697, ou 57 ans avant I'ere vulgaire, et 
 consistait alors en un chateau fort garni de tours, d'ou est venu, 
 Belon Malbrancq, la denomination de Tournehem, du latin a Turrihus. 
 Cesar s'empara de ce chateau et yfit quelque sejour pour I'avantage 
 de sa cavalerie. Environ deux siecles et demi apres, c'est k dire en 
 218, Septime-Severe, autre empereur romain, fit camper dans le 
 voisinage de Tournehem (sur la montagne de Saint Louis) une 
 partie de son armee destinee pour une expedition contre la Grande 
 Bretagne, qu'il effectua glorieusement la meme annee.' — P. Collet, 
 Notice Historique de Saint Omer, suivi de celles de Therouanne et de 
 Tournehem, Saint Omer, 1830. Both M. Collet and Pere Mal- 
 brancq, however, overlook the obvious derivation of the word — though 
 both note the name of the river, which flows through the town, 
 and which M. Collet calls * la riviere de Hem ou de Saint Louis.^ 
 Again, M. H. Piers, in the Memoir es de la Societe des Antiquaires de 
 la Morinie (Saint Omer, 1834), says, * Cesar apres s'etre empar^ des 
 forteresses de la contree s'y rendit de Therouanne, Sithieu et Tour- 
 nehem, Tan 55 ou 56 avant I'^re vulgaire, pour subjuguer la Grande 
 Bretagne.' In the same volume there is an interesting paper by M. 
 Pigault de Beaupr^ on the castle of Tournehem, which, he says, was 
 partially rebuilt by Baldwin IL, Count of Guines, in 1174, and con- 
 tinued to be a principal residence of the Dukes of Burgundj^ at so 
 late a date as 1435. But the vastness and solidity of the works 
 which he describes, some of them subterranean roads evidently used 
 for communication with other fortified works, clearly indicate their 
 Eoman character. Baldwin, indeed, a prince far in advance of his 
 age, seems to have attempted to revive Eoman ideas, and rebuild 
 Eoman works wherever he found them within his dominions. The 
 castle of Hames, near Calais, which he likewise rebuilt, and which 
 he ceded to the English as part of the ransom of King John 
 
128 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 arch and the ruins of a Eoman tower, from which the 
 village derives its name. The name is Tournehem, or, 
 as it was written in Malbrancq's time, Tur-n-hem. The 
 tower and the river show the derivation of the word at 
 a glance. The exigencies of Irish verse simply caused 
 their transposition. I have only to add to Mr. O'Curry's 
 ingenious note on the subject the remark, that the 
 n was not, as he supposes, merely inserted to fill up 
 a hiatus in the line, but was obviously a part of it. It 
 is a copulative as common in Celtic words as de in 
 modern French, and has precisely the same meaning. 
 Ballynamuck, for example, means the town of, or on, 
 the river Muck. TuUoch na Daly (whose swelling 
 dimensions the French afterwards curbed into the 
 famous name of ToUendall) is a more apposite instance. 
 1 have yet to identify the Tahernice. To the eye, 
 and on the old maps, they almost identify themselves. 
 Desvres has all the characters of a great Eoman military 
 position — a vast place of arms, the tracings of fortified 
 walls, the fosse, lines of circumvallation, and hard by 
 on the forest edge the Sept Voies, or Septemvium, the 
 meeting of the seven great military roads leading from 
 and to the other principal strongholds of the Imperial 
 power in Northern and Western Europe. Any one who 
 examines in particular the ' Carte des Voies Eomaines 
 du Departement du Pas de Calais,' published by the 
 Commission of Departmental Antiquities,* cannot fail 
 
 of France, was also, as M. Pigault de Beaupre shows, of Tioman 
 construction. 
 
 * Statistique Monumentale du Departement du Pas de Calais. 
 Puhliee par la Commission des Antiquites Departementales. Arras : 
 chez Topino, Libraire, 1840. 
 
ON THE BIRTHPLACE OF S. PATRICK. 129 
 
 to perceive that this now obscure village, which cer- 
 tainly never was raised to the rank of a Eoman city, was 
 nevertheless once a great nucleus of Eoman power. The 
 fragment of an ancient bridge is still known as the Pont 
 de Ccesar. The Septenivium, with its remarkable con- 
 centration of roads, is alone sufficient to indicate the im- 
 portance of the place. There is one road leading straight 
 to Amiens ; one that reaches the sea by the mouth of the 
 Canche ; another that runs to the harbour of Boulogne ; 
 another that joins the roads from Saint Omer and from 
 Tournehem, and carries them on to Wissant and Sangate, 
 the supposed Portus Itius and Portus Inferior ; the fifth 
 road was to Tervanna and Arras ; the sixth to Taruanna ; 
 the seventh to Saint Omer. Would so many roads, com- 
 municating with places of such mihtary importance, 
 have been concentrated by a race of such a centralising 
 talent as the Eomans, anywhere except at the site of a 
 great city or a great camp ? On the ancient maps, 
 indeed, the country which lies between Desvres and 
 Boulogne, along the Liane, is simply marked Castrum, 
 I now approach, not unconscious of its difficulties, the 
 etymology of the word. In the lax Latin of the mid- 
 dle ages, we first find Desvres spoken of as Divernia 
 Bononiensis. There is the epitaph of a churchman, 
 born in the place, which says on his behalf : — 
 
 * Me Molinet peperit Divernia Bononiensis.' 
 
 The local historian. Baron d'Ordre, speaks of the place 
 as ' Desurene, Divernia, aujourd'hui Desvres.' * The 
 
 * Notice historique sur la ville de Desurene, Divernia, aujourd'hui 
 Desvres. Par M. d'Ordre. Boulogne, 1811. 
 
 K 
 
130 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 name Desvres itself evidently has undergone strange, 
 yet traceable, variations and modifications.* Its first 
 appearance as a French word is ' Desurennes,' and this is 
 derived from Desvres sur Enna, or Desvres upon the 
 Enna or Liane, which, as I have said, flows past the 
 place, giving its name to a little village near the forest. 
 By this derivation, however, only the first two letters of 
 the original word Desvres are left. How do they dis- 
 appear, why do they reappear in the modern form of 
 the word, and what is its original derivation ? 
 
 It is a very curious fact, that in England the Eoman 
 camps seem to have been always known as ' Castra,' 
 while in Gaul the Tabernse is the name which generally 
 adhered to them. Lanigan says, and correctly, so far 
 as I have been able to discover, that there is no trace 
 of a Eoman station called Tahernce in England, while 
 the affix Chester is the most common in its topography. 
 In England, it may be said the Eomans encamped ; in 
 France, the Tabernce meant a more settled and familiar 
 residence, as familiar as the Caserne of the Empire. It 
 would be interesting to inquire whether as many cities 
 in France do not derive their origin from these mihtary 
 stations, as England has of Chesters. But the student 
 who attempts this task will be sure to find the Latin 
 word almost defaced beyond power of recognition by 
 the etymological maltreatment which it has sustained 
 
 * * II n'y pas 50 ans que le nom de Desvres a prevalu sur celui de 
 Desurenne que cette ville avait toujours porte auparavant.' — M. L. 
 Cousin, Memoires de la Socie'te des Antiquaires de la Morinie, vol. iv. 
 p. 239. M. Cousin's papers on Monthulin and Tingry, in the Trans- 
 actions of this society, are in general accord with what I have said 
 of the ancient military importance of the whole district of Desvres. 
 
ON THE BIETIIPLACE OF S. PATRICK. 131 
 
 in that conflict of consonants which has resulted in the 
 present high polish of Academic French. I may mention 
 one or two instances to show how little violence I do to 
 French philology in identifying the Divernia Bononi- 
 ensis of the middle ages with the Tabernse of Boulogne. 
 Saverne in Lorraine is well known to be the Tabernce 
 Trihorocorum. It was known in a semi-Germanic form 
 as Elsas Tahern. Gradually the sibilant ss of the first 
 word invaded the second ; and it has long settled down 
 into one word in the form of Saverne. The Tabernoe 
 Rhenanoe^ on the other hand, retained the hard b instead 
 of converting it into v, as inevitably happened in the 
 South, and instead changed the T into Z, Ehein-Zabren. 
 In ages which had no hesitation in changing the pure 
 dental T into the sibilant dentals S or Z, it will not be 
 considered surprising that it was sometimes changed 
 into D — the only other pure dental sound. Indeed, of 
 all the transmutations of letters, those of d and t, and 
 those of V and 6, are notoriously the most common. 
 ' The Irish c?,' says O'Donovan, ' never has such a hard 
 sound as the English dJ Again, ' in ancient writings, 
 t is frequently substituted for d.' Again, ' it should be 
 remarked that in ancient Irish MSS. consonants of the 
 same organ are very frequently substituted for each 
 other, and that where the ancients usually wrote jr?, c. t, 
 the moderns write b, q, d.'* Decline the Irish word 
 Tad, father. It becomes Ei dad, his father ; Ei thdd, her 
 father ; by nhdd, my father. We carry the tendency into 
 English. The mistake is one from which certain parts 
 
 * O'Donovan, Jolin, LL.D., A Grammar of the Irish Language. 
 Dublin, 1845. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 of Ireland, as well as certain parts of France, are not 
 exempt even to the present day ; and in Munster one 
 may still hear, as in the times when the ballad of 
 ' LiUibuUero ' was written, the letter d occasionally 
 used where the tongue intended t or th. Nor is this 
 vagary of speech confined to the Irish. Why do the 
 Welsh say Tafyd for David ? It is the most frequently 
 recurring of that systematic permutation of consonants, 
 Vhich is one of the chief difficulties of the Cymric 
 tongue. The Welsh d and t turn about and wheel 
 about in their mysterious alphabet without the shghtest 
 scruple. In German, the convertibihty of the same 
 letters is also very marked. The German says das for 
 that. Dank for thanks, Durst for thirst; and again, 
 Teufel for Devil, Tanz for Dance, Theil for dial. As 
 to the same abuse in France, the Dictionary of the 
 Academy and that of Bescherelle* lay down the 
 principle very plainly : — ' Le t est une lettre k la fois 
 hnguale et dentale, comme le d son correlatif, plus faible, 
 plus doux,avec lequel il est frequemment confondu, non- 
 seulement dans les langues germaniques, mais dans la 
 plupart des langues. En latin, cette lettre se permute 
 frequemment avec le d : attulit pour adtulit. On ecrivit 
 primitivement set, aput, quot, haut, au lieu de sed, 
 apud, quod, haud.' 
 
 So far as to the permutation of T and D. I will not 
 waste the time of the Academy in order to show that 
 the conversion of v into h is even more common. We 
 find a familiar illustration of it in the old Latin name of 
 
 * Dictionnaire de VAcademie Franqaise. Bescherelle, Diction- 
 naire National. Paris, 1857. 
 
ON THE BIRTHPLACE OF S. TATPJCK. 133 
 
 Ireland, which, as every one knows, is variously written 
 Ibernia, Ivernia, Hibernia, Juvernia, and lernia. But 
 the Enghsh word Tavern, which is exactly derived 
 from the Latin Tabernse, is a still more apposite illus- 
 tration in the present case. In this word, finally, the 
 intermediate vowel swayed in sound with the conso- 
 nants which enclosed it. As the primary Latin T changed 
 into the softer and feebler D, and the h into v, the 
 intermediate a lost its full force. The mediaeval Latin 
 melts it into an i in Divernia. The modern French 
 form, Desvres, brings it halfway back towards its place 
 at the head of the alphabet. It does not run the whole 
 gamut of the vowels, as from Ibernia to Juvernia. 
 
 This Divernia Bononiensis, then, I claim to identify 
 with the Tahernice Bononienses, Tournehem with Nem- 
 tur or Emtor, Enna with Enon. If it were necessary 
 even to push the proof a step further, there is the dis- 
 trict called Le Wicquet, which M. Jean Scoti, who was 
 Lieutenant particulier de la Sennechaussee de Boulogne^ 
 tells us is undoubtedly derived from the Latin Vicus, 
 and which might naturally be the vico Bonaven Taher- 
 nice of which the Confession speaks ; but the historian 
 of Desvres, Baron d'Ordre, whom I have already cited, 
 disputes this derivation, and says the word is Celtic, 
 and comes from Wic, Celtic for wood, like our word 
 wicket. Both may be right, for Vicus may be a Latin 
 form of the same word.* But the point is not material. 
 
 Let me now add to the etymological evidence a few 
 historical illustrations. 
 
 * Among the names of villages in this district of whose history 
 I could find no trace, is one called Erin, the place where Blessed 
 Benedict Joseph Labre was born. 
 
QPHHmKNPMIMMMI^pqilpniim^piR*-*- 
 
 134 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 S. Patrick is stated in almost all his biographies to 
 have been a nephew of S. Martin of Tours. S. Martin, 
 though said to be a Celt of Pannonia, was during his 
 military and early ecclesiastical career stationed in this 
 identical district. The well-known legend of his division 
 of his cloak with the beggar, who proved to be Our 
 Lord Himself, is alleged to have taken place at Amiens. 
 It is recorded that he was baptised at Therouanne. The 
 first church raised to his honour was built there. The 
 principal missionaries of the district are said to have 
 been his disciples, and evidently entertained a deep devo- 
 tion to him, of which there are still abundant evidences.* 
 
 S. Patrick, while in captivity at Slemish in Ireland, 
 lived within sight of Scotland. A few miles only separate 
 the coasts at Antrim. But when he escaped, he did 
 not attempt to pass into Scotland. He made his way 
 south, and passed through England to France. He says 
 he was received amgng the Britons as if {quasi) among 
 his own clan and kin. Doubtless there was close rela- 
 tionship of race and language between the Britons of 
 the island and of the continent. There were Britons 
 and there were Atrebates on both sides of the sea.f But 
 
 * Of the 420 churches comprised in the ancient diocese of Bou- 
 logne, 82 had S. Martin for patron. I also find several dedicated 
 to the Irish S. Maclou and S. Kilian ; but, strange to say, not one to 
 S. Victricius. — V. Histoire des Eveques de Boulogne, par M. I'Abbe 
 E. Van Drival. Boulogne, 1852. 
 
 f M. Piers, in the paper already cited, quotes M. Amedee Thierry 
 as saying : ' Les Brittani furent les premiers qui s'y fix^rent ; ils 
 habitaient une partie de la Morinie ; peut-^tre par un pieux souvenir 
 ont-ils appele leur nouvelle patrie la Grande Bretagne. Les Atre- 
 bates anglais, originaires de Belgium, residaient a Caleva ou Galena 
 Atrebatum, a 22 milles de Venta Belgarum dans le canton ou est 
 
ON THE BIRTHPLACE OF S. rATRICK. 135 
 
 Britain was not the Saint's native place nor his resting- 
 place. He went on, and abode with those whom he 
 calls his brethren of Gaul, ' seeing again the familiar 
 faces of the saints of the Lord,' until he was summoned 
 to undertake his mission to Ireland. 
 
 In his own account of the vision, which induced him 
 to undertake the apostolate of Ireland, he says he was 
 called to do so by a man, whose name is variously written, 
 Victor, Victoricius, and Victricius. The real name is 
 in all probability Victricius ; but if it were Victor or 
 Victoricius, it would be equally easy (were it not for 
 the fear of failing by essaying to prove too much) to iden- 
 tify the source of the Saint's inspiration with the same 
 district. Saint Victricius was the great missionary of the 
 Morini at the end of thg fourth century ; but he had been 
 preceded in that capacity by S. Victoricius, who suffered 
 martyrdom with SS. Fuscien and Firmin, at Amiens in 
 A.D. 286. Again, the name Victor is that of a favourite 
 disciple of S. Martin, whom Sulpicius Severus sent to 
 S. Paulinus of Nola,* and of whom they both write 
 in terms of extraordinary encomium. But the person 
 
 aiijourd'hui Windsor.' M. Piers adds, that there is a tradition that a 
 colony of the Morini had given their name to a distant country of 
 islands which they discovered ; but that he has found it impossible 
 to discover the name in any ancient atlas. Perhaps the district of 
 Mourne, on the north-east coast of Ireland, is that indicated. The Irish 
 derivation of the name is at all events identical Math the French. 
 
 * S. Paulini Nolani Opera. Epistola xxiii. in the Patrologioe 
 Cursus Computus of J. P. Migne, vol. Ixi. Paris, 1847. See also 
 the two epistles to S. Victricius, who with S. Martin persuaded 
 Paulinus to withdraw from the world. I have a suspicion that the 
 disciple of S. Victricius, named in these epistles now as Paschasius, 
 now as Tytichus or Tytius (the name being evidently misprinted, 
 but there being no doubt, as the BoUandists say, that the two names 
 
136 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 referred to in the Confession is far more probably S. Vic- 
 tricius,* who was an exact contemporary of S. Patrick, 
 who was engaged on the mission of Boulogne at the 
 time of his escape, and who is said to have been a French 
 Briton himself Malbrancq's ' Annals of the See of Bou- 
 logne' aver that in the year 390 the ' Morini a Domino 
 Victricio exculti sunt/ and that in the year 400 he 
 dedicated their principal church to S. Martin.f 
 
 When S. Patrick was on his way to Ireland, with fiill 
 powers from Pope Celestine, it is recorded that he Avas 
 detained at Boulogne by the request of SS. Germanus 
 and Lupus, who were proceeding into Britain in order 
 to preach against the Pelagian heresy ; and that during 
 their absence, he temporarily exercised episcopal func- 
 tions at Boulogne, and so came.to be included in the 
 list of its Bishops. If S. Patrick were a native of the 
 island, is it not probable that Germanus and Lupus would 
 rather have invited him to join their mission? But their 
 object in asking him to interrupt his own special enter- 
 prise for a time, in order to remain among the Boulon- 
 nais, was, it is said, to guard against the spread of this 
 heresy on the Continent. And it is very natural that 
 
 refer to one and the same person), may have been in reality 
 S. Patrick. In his 17th Epistle, S. Paulinus refers to the accounts he 
 had heard from this young priest of the anxiety of S. Victricius for 
 the evangelisation of the most remote parts of the globe, and speaks 
 of him as a disciple in every way worthy of his master : ' In cujus 
 gratia et humanitate, quasi quasdam virtutum gratiarumque tuarum 
 Hneas velut speculo reddente collegimus.' 
 
 * Franciscus Pommergeus, O.S.B., in his History of the Bishops of 
 Bouen, says S. Victricius was also sometimes called Victorious and 
 Victoricius. 
 
 ■(• See also Acta Sanctorum Augusti, torn. ii. p. 193. Antverpiae, 
 1735. 
 
ON THE BIRTHPLACE OF S. PATRICK. 137 
 
 they should have asked him to stay for such an object, 
 and that he should have consented, if this were in- 
 deed his native district, in which his intimacies were 
 calculated to give him a special degree of influence ; 
 but not otherwise, hastening as he was under the sense 
 of a Divine call to the conversion of a whole nation 
 plunged in Paganism. 
 
 And, as I began by saying, all this proof is important 
 mainly because it tends in some degree to elucidate the 
 spirit and the work of the Saint. We begin to see how 
 with the Celtic character of a French Briton, which 
 made him easily akin to the Irish, he combined the 
 Eoman culture and civilisation, which added to his 
 mission a peculiar literary and political energy, that 
 long remained. We «ee in him the friend and com- 
 rade of the great saints of a great but anxious age. 
 We see how he connects the young Church of Ireland, 
 not with Eome alone, but with the great mihtant 
 Christian communities of Gaul — a connection which his 
 disciples were destined so to develope and extend in the 
 three following centuries ; and we cease to wonder that 
 both Ireland and France have clung so fondly to a 
 tradition, which linked together in their earliest days 
 two Churches whose mutual services and sympathies 
 have ever since been of the closest kind. 
 
mm 
 
 THE POSITION OF A CATHOLIC MINOEITY IN 
 A NON-CATHOLIC COUNTRY. 
 
 By FREDERICK OAKELEY. 
 
 The position of Catholics forming a minority in a 
 nation whose institutions and instincts are diametrically 
 opposed to the genius and habits of their religion, is a 
 state of circumstances too well known to most of us by 
 experience to require any laboured elucidation. Its 
 anomalies, its drawbacks, its compHcations, and its 
 trials, are painfully familiar to all classes of Catholics 
 in this country with two only exceptions ; the exception, 
 first, of those (if such there be) who have so deeply 
 imbibed the national spirit as to have lost their Catholic 
 susceptibiUties ; and the exception, secondly, of those 
 favoured children of the Church who have been with- 
 drawn under the shelter of the Eeligious Life from the 
 stormy atmosphere of the world, and are winning by 
 their prayers, and earning by their sacrifices, those vic- 
 tories of faith over heresy, and of right over oppression, 
 which their brethren whom they have left behind must 
 slowly work up to with dizzy eyes, and feeble hands, 
 and fainting hearts. But, between these extreme points 
 in the horizon, there lies a wide field of labour and 
 enterprise, with many to occupy it. Every class, order, 
 
THE POSITION OP A CATHOLIC MINORITY, ETC. 139 
 
 .and rank, of Catholics in these islands, but especially 
 in our own, whose calling is carried out in the world, is 
 brought into situations of difficulty, because into prac- 
 tical relations of some kind or other with the great 
 non-Catholic majority ; and is thwarted, or embarrassed, 
 or tempted, or tried, in consequence, according to its 
 characteristic h abilities. Around one class the majority 
 weaves the scarcely perceptible, and therefore all the 
 more dangerous, web of worldly sophistry. Others it 
 entangles in the silver meshes of fashion ; while those 
 of a lower grade it assails with weapons of a ruder 
 temperament and a more cruel contrivance — the 
 armoury of petty persecution — the instruments of that 
 domestic and purely moral warfare which involves no 
 sacrifice in the wagers, and brings no renown to the 
 conquerors, but which threatens a more terrible retri- 
 bution to the one in proportion as it entails no earthly 
 punishment, and promises a more exalted glory to the 
 other in proportion as it enlists no human sympathy. 
 But nowhere is the experience of these difficulties more 
 frequent or more acute than in the great arena of 
 pohtics. For there it is that the dominant and domi- 
 neering majority is most at home, and the Catholic 
 minority most defenceless. There it is that the in- 
 compatible principles, and inconsistent aims, of the 
 two contending parties are brought into the closest 
 juxtaposition and the most active conflict; and that 
 compromise, greater or less, becomes the absolutely 
 essential condition of practical success. Cathohcs, even 
 the most valiant and ingenuous, must there be prepared 
 to act a part and sustain a character in that dignified 
 
140 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 drama, in which there is no duphcity but such as is 
 common to all, and no deception, because deception, 
 like injury, presupposes, as a general rule, an unwilling 
 subject. We are all, in fact, thrown, against our incli- 
 nation, upon a discipline of economy or management ; 
 we must adapt our sentiments, so far as it may be safely 
 and rightly done, to the popular standard of acceptance ; 
 adjust our claims to the measure of probable recognition, 
 and shape our language by the rule of the public intelli- 
 gence. This, then, is our position ; and to state and 
 describe it is to denote its intricacy, imply its arduous- 
 ness, and shadow forth its moral dangers. 
 
 Even we, the clergy, whose comparative immunity 
 from the occasions of these temptations might seem to 
 render us safe from their approaches, have many of the 
 same perils to face, and the same questions to solve. 
 The clergy of Cathohc countries have some trials from 
 which we are happily exempt ; but those under con- 
 sideration are (at least in their actual extent) peculiarly 
 our own. We cannot help being brought into constant 
 relations, special to ourselves, with this ahen and power- 
 ful majority ; and the conditions of trial and difficulty 
 thus introduced are such as might well justify a new 
 chapter in our practical theology. Protestants frequent 
 our churches from curiosity, and even resort to our 
 presbyteries for advice. How are they to be dealt with, 
 counselled, and converted ? Protestants cross our path 
 in the transactions of business, or are found at our side 
 in the intercourse of society. How are they to be met 
 with a dignity which involves no breach of humility, with 
 a tact which is consistent with Christian simplicity, with 
 
THE POSITION OF A CATHOLIC MINOEITY, ETC. 141 
 
 a kindness which impHes no recognition of their error? 
 Where may controversy be safely employed ; where may 
 it more safely be suspended ; what is to be its character 
 and what its conditions ? But of all the exigencies which 
 this anomaly entails upon the same order, those perhaps 
 are the hardest to encounter with firmness, with judge- 
 ment, and with charity, which result from our official 
 connection with Protestant institutions; and for this, 
 among other reasons, that such difficulties are generally 
 of the nature of emergencies, sudden in their origin, 
 yet critical in their result, and requiring therefore to 
 be met rather by instinct than by calculation. 
 
 We receive all these trials as the merciful counter- 
 poise of our present especial consolations. They do not 
 belong to a crushed Church, such as the Eoman under 
 the persecuting Emperors, or our own in the time of the 
 Penal Laws ; still less, of course, to a Church in the 
 ascendant. They are the natural and necessary accom- 
 paniments of a state of progress towards recovery. They 
 are not the sharp pangs of martyrdom, nor the inert 
 throes of helpless prostration ; neither are they, on the 
 other hand, the temptations of confirmed health and re- 
 stored vigour, but the drawbacks on a state of conva- 
 lescence. They are not much more than half a century 
 old, and they have made marvellous strides towards 
 maturity in the last few years. It is far easier to note 
 the date of their origin, and the steps of their progress, 
 than to foresee the term of their continuance. Certain 
 only it is, that other troubles will be ready to take their 
 place whenever they shall pass away. But they con- 
 stitute, for the time being, the problem of our day, and 
 
142 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 as such it may be interesting to discuss them. I hope 
 that, in presuming to do so, I may obtain credit for 
 sincerity when I say that my object is not to teach, still 
 less to dogmatise, but to enquire, consult, and suggest. 
 Perhaps, indeed, I am not quite free from the pardon- 
 able selfishness of a desire to clear my own views and 
 ascertain my own duty through an interchange of 
 thought, and a comparison of difficulties, with the repre- 
 sentatives of so many Cathohc interests, the subjects of 
 so much varied experience, and the victors in so many 
 critical combats. 
 
 The position, then, to be realised is this : we Catholics 
 are, by the grace of God, children, whether by inherit- 
 ance or adoption, of the Church which is the sole and 
 exclusive depository on earth of eternal and immutable 
 Truth ; nor alone the passive receptacle of that Truth, but 
 its ordained guardian and active dispenser. We neither 
 share our treasure, nor divide our claims, with any 
 other religious body whatever. The most imposing of 
 the pretensions of other bodies does not even approach 
 the limits, far less invade the province and threaten the 
 majesty of our prerogative; the most orthodox of their 
 opinions does not, in one and that a most important 
 sense, come a whit nearer to our Truth, than the wildest 
 and most fanatical of their doctrinal innovations. We 
 claim their agreement as an impressive coincidence, 
 we appreciate it as an independent testimony ; but we 
 utterly discard it as a point of ecclesiastical assimilation. 
 
 I am bound to apologise for the enunciation of truisms 
 so obvious ; I produce them, of course, merely in order 
 to illustrate, in the strongest manner, the opposition 
 
THE POSITION OF A CATHOLIC MINORITY, ETC. 143 
 
 which exists between the very rudimental principles of 
 our rehgion and those with which we are called upon 
 at every step to contend. Far from having conceded to 
 us the exclusive possession of rehgious truth, we are 
 extensively beheved to lie in the depths of extreme and 
 most pernicious error. Far from being accredited with 
 our claims as Catholics, we have to battle every inch of 
 our way in order to secure our rights as citizens. Far 
 from being accorded an external position in this coun- 
 try which is any fit representation, or sufficient public 
 exponent, of our true place in the world, we are doomed 
 to the humiliation of seeing the upstart sects of yester- 
 day preferred to us in the race of privilege or the 
 scale of power. Far from being permitted to assert our 
 ascendency as a prerogative, we are treated to scant 
 measures of the barest right with a smile of patronage 
 or a bow of condescension. 
 
 I hope that I shall sufficiently clear myself, as I pro- 
 ceed, from being supposed to note such facts in any tone 
 of complaint and expostulation, or indeed any otherwise 
 than as the illustration of an argument. They are the 
 phenomena, neither strange nor inexplicable, of our 
 position as a Catholic minority in a non-Catholic nation. 
 Thanks to a merciful Providence, things are much better 
 than they might have been, than they have been, and 
 than elsewhere they are ; and, thanks, under the same 
 gracious superintendence, to the zeal, perseverance, and 
 good judgment of those .who stand foremost in the 
 battle, our difficulties are every day diminishing in num- 
 ber and weakening in force. My present concern with 
 them is chiefly in their bearing upon our own personal 
 
144 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 characters. The problem which tliey bring before us 
 is that of adjusting the greatest amount of practical gain 
 with the least surrender of characteristic principle. This 
 problem, I need not add, is both soluble and solved. 
 But its tendency is to throw us into one of two extreme 
 attitudes ; that of unpractical theorists, on the one hand, 
 or that of practical laxists on the other ; those who 
 stand upon abstract principles with too little regard to 
 great practical results, and those who pursue such re- 
 sults at some cost or other of essential principle. 
 
 For, no matter how severe the sacrifice of feehng, we 
 must make up our minds either to understate our claims, 
 economise our principles, and resort to a phraseology 
 utterly inadequate to the true facts of the case, or with- 
 draw altogether from the arena of pubHc usefulness. But 
 of tliis course the present hne of our duty does not admit. 
 It is not now either solely or chiefly some object of 
 personal aggrandisement, or political exemption, which 
 claims our interest and invites our exertion. It is the 
 training of the youthful members of Christ's family ; it 
 is the protection of God's poor ; the nurturing of His 
 orphans ; the emancipation of the helpless inmates of 
 the workhouse or of the gaol* from a far tighter bond 
 than either human art can forge or human mercy snap 
 asunder. With interests such as these at stake, it becomes 
 our duty to ascertain the conditions of essential principle 
 and the limits of lawful concession ; how far we may 
 
 * Since this address was delivered, a most important step has 
 been gained in this department of our claims by the * Prison 
 Ministers' Act,' as well as by the regulations made for the improve- 
 ment of the religious condition of Catholics in the Government 
 prisons. 
 
THE POSITION OP A CATHOLIC MINORITY, ETC. 145 
 
 relax abstract rules of duty in the presence of an over- 
 powering necessity; how far descend from our true 
 place without abandoning it, or derogate from our just 
 rights without surrendering them ; and lop off from our 
 vocabulary some of those luxuriant shoots which, while 
 they minister to its beautiful efflorescence, are not 
 necessary to its vital integrity. 
 
 It cannot, however, be denied that the process, 
 needful as it is, has its attendant dangers. It is a 
 misfortune when our best argument with an opponent 
 is the argumentum ad hominem. The position of 
 standing upon rights and stickhng for prerogatives, is 
 anything rather than one which the humble and retiring 
 Catholic would choose if he had the option. But it is 
 peculiarly painful to his best instincts, when even the 
 rights for which he is compelled to battle are but the 
 phantoms of his true claims. Here are we, in this 
 country, the treasurers and guardians of the eternal 
 Truth, the inheritors of the original Eeligion, the mem- 
 bers of that Church whose ancestry alone is royal, whose 
 pedigree alone untarnished, and whose relations with 
 the world she has to conquer are alone unfettered by 
 the boundaries of human empire, and independent of the 
 fluctuations of human caprice — here are we, I say, 
 through the effects of that misery which is proverbially 
 the parent of unnatural coalitions, compelled to cast in 
 our lot with those separatists of yesterday, even in their 
 largest comprehension and minutest intersection ; with 
 the rejected of the rejected, the offshoots of the dis- 
 severed branch ; with the fautors, however unconscious, 
 of heresy doubly distilled, and the victims of schism 
 
146 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 twice divided ; and compelled to think it gain if we can 
 get anywise into port by the aid of a towage so rude, 
 or under a convoy so shabby. Certainly it is an abject 
 position for the Queen of the nations and the Bride of 
 the Lamb. 
 
 The bare mention of such exalted titles, lighting up as 
 they do in our minds the vision of that illustrious Church 
 whose fortunes were the theme of prophets, and whose 
 glories the consolation of saints, is enough to throw into 
 a contrast, which would be ludicrous if it were not 
 melancholy, the forms of expression into which one and 
 all of us are driven, by the necessities of our position, 
 to cast our Catholic ideas. Thus, while forced to apply 
 the venerable name of a Church to that great rehgious 
 society, the queen of all the sects, though but a sect, 
 which in this nation and its dependencies usurps the 
 place, assumes the titles, affects the privileges, and 
 appropriates the revenues, of the ancient and rightful 
 Church of England, we are precluded from applying to 
 ourselves in popular parlance any loftier appellation than 
 that of ' the CathoHc body.' While using, in a certain 
 sense correctly, of heretics and schismatics, who are our 
 fellow-citizens and companions in distress, the amiable 
 and endearing title of ' brethren,' we are obhged so far 
 to fall in with the very defective notions of religious 
 brotherhood which prevail around us as to call our own 
 true brethren, and the fellow-heirs with ourselves of the 
 Christian promises, by so cold a title as that of our 
 ' co-rehgionists.' While compHmenting those motley 
 forms of heterogeneous error which prevail outside with 
 the magnificent appellation of ' creeds,' we must needs 
 
THE POSITION OF A CATHOLIC MINORITY, ETC. 147 
 
 hear without protest the faith of the saints designated 
 as a ' denomination ' or a ' persuasion.' 
 
 All this is a simple matter of necessity. But it 
 cannot be denied that the habit is full of danger to 
 ourselves — of danger which can be obviated by nothing 
 but by habitual acts of faith and renewals of intention, 
 by frequentation of the sacraments, and occasional re- 
 treats from the world. Our minds and characters are 
 the creatures of our hps. If it be true that we may 
 talk ourselves into the belief of a known fiction ; if 
 professors of the histrionic art, through constant use of 
 elevated language, can scarcely help falling into the use 
 of blank verse in ordinary conversation, then conversely 
 the habit of applying to Catholic subjects a language 
 which, if not absolutely false, is at any rate equivocal, 
 and which, if not wholly unsuitable, is at any rate 
 miserably inadequate to the matter in hand, must be 
 likely to react dangerously upon our own minds, and 
 tempt us to impute exaggeration and eccentricity to 
 those who speak of the Church of God in terms strictly 
 accurate, though now grown by long desuetude un- 
 familiar to our ears. 
 
 But more perilous still than the constant use of ex- 
 tenuating and apologetic language, is the temptation to 
 defend Catholic Truth, or promote Cathohc objects, by 
 un-Cathohc means. I do not forget that it is quite as 
 easy to exaggerate this danger as to undervalue it ; it 
 is indeed of the utmost importance, in endeavouring to 
 steer clear of those twin rocks which beset our course, 
 that we should beware of mistaking for that which is 
 essentially Catholic some personal taste, or private fancy, 
 
 L 2 
 
148 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND UTERATURE. 
 
 or favourite crotchet of our own. But, witli full al- 
 lowance for this exception, there can be no doubt that 
 the temptation in question is peculiarly the danger of 
 zeal; though I must also add, that the disposition to 
 impute it is sometimes the attribute of lukewarmness. 
 However, at any rate, it is necessary that we should all 
 clear up our principles and make up our minds as to 
 what may, and what may not, be done with a safe con- 
 science ; and for this, among many better reasons, that 
 there is absolutely no point upon which our enemies, 
 whether rehgious or political, are more keenly vigilant, 
 or more conspicuously unfair, than upon the least ap- 
 pearance of inconsistency between our supposed prin- 
 ciples and our actual exhibition. We ought, I think, 
 to have a reason to give them for this apparent incon- 
 sistency, such as even they may be able to understand, 
 however incapable of appreciating it. Such a reason, I 
 cannot help thinking, would often be found in the plea 
 of the argument ad hominem. Thus, when we are 
 charged with advocating principles highly favourable to 
 toleration in one country, and apparently at variance 
 with it in another, to this charge we have a complete 
 and satisfactory answer at hand. But as it is one which 
 our opponents are quite incapable of appreciating, we 
 may therefore well waive the abstract question and refer 
 them to those principles of religious equality which in 
 this country are so ostentatiously professed, and often so 
 partially apphed. 
 
 It is a trite, but all the truer observation, that this 
 kind of inconsistency (where really such) has a peculiar 
 habit of avenging itself in the failure of the objects it 
 
THE POSITION OF A CATHOLIC MINORITY, ETC. 149 
 
 seeks to compass. The policy of that ill-starred sove- 
 reign James the Second will suggest itself to every 
 reader of English history as a case in point. James, to 
 his honour, had one grand object at heart — the re- 
 storation of religion in England. But he made the mis- 
 take of trying to effect in a trice what was the work, at 
 least, of a generation ; hence, like a desperate gambler, 
 or a drowning man, with a great cause at stake, and but 
 feeble human resources at his call, he caught at the first 
 relief which offered itself, with more of eagerness in the 
 pursuit than of care in the selection. Two expedients 
 presented themselves to his short-sighted zeal : the one 
 to concihate the High Church party on the ground of 
 religious approximation ; the other, to buy over the Dis- 
 senters by a liberal act of amnesty. Either course was 
 feasible by itself, but the two together were self-contra- 
 dictory and mutually destructive. However, he tried 
 first one and then the other. What was the conse- 
 quence ? He was reproached by his natural allies with 
 ingratitude, and by his natural enemies with hypocrisy. 
 He managed, with an infelicity which knows no parallel, 
 to help every cause except his own, and to make every- 
 body friends with everybody except himself. He 
 effected what were, in their own way, little less than 
 miracles of policy. He reconciled regicides with cavaliers, 
 and made Puritanism shake hands with Prelacy. More 
 wonderful than all, he raised a complete furore of 
 romantic interest and chivalrous enthusiasm in favour of 
 that most prosaic of causes, the cause of the Church 
 Establishment. He raised the arms of seven zealous 
 and conscientious Anglican prelates into the unwonted 
 
150 ESSAYS OiN RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 attitude of benediction, and bowed the knees of myriads 
 of their dehghted followers into the still more unwonted 
 attitude of genuflection. But this most unexpected and 
 unintentional of victories was the prelude of his speedy 
 ruin. An ungrateful posterity has forgotten his sincerity 
 in his ill success, and his zeal in his maladroitness ; and 
 with the same power of amalgamating the most hetero- 
 geneous elements, and uniting the most opposite parties 
 in common hostiUty to himself, which he manifested 
 when ahve, he has blended in a chorus of adverse 
 criticism so discordant a triad of historians as the infidel 
 Hume, the liberal Macaulay, and the Cathohc Lingard. 
 It will not, I hope, be considered as at variance with 
 the undidactic and interlocutory tone which I feel to 
 be the only suitable expression of my relations with an 
 assembly like the present, if I submit to your better 
 judgment some few very general thoughts on the mode 
 by which we may hope to thread, without unlawful 
 concession on the one hand or needless offence on the 
 other, the singularly arduous course upon which we are 
 thrown as a handful of Catholics in the midst of a 
 population deeply imbued with prejudices, whether 
 natural or simply gratuitous, against our religion. 
 When I add my sincere conviction that the mean to be 
 hit is as delicate as the needle's point, upon which it is 
 said that angels alone can poise their steps, I shall make 
 it evident how httle I feel that any general directions 
 can avail in a case where so much must be left to the 
 conditions of individual trial, and so much more to th'e 
 powers of a well-trained spiritual instinct. It is the 
 reproach of human philosophy, though it is the consola- 
 
THE POSITION OF A CATHOLIC MINOEITY, ETC. 151 
 
 tion of Divine faith, that there are sons and daughters of 
 Cathohc Ireland in this wild and wicked metropolis, 
 who, with little of worldly knowledge, are practically 
 solving this great problem with an accuracy and 
 precision which education cannot teach, nor rules 
 supply. With this qualification I proceed. 
 
 We shall all, I am sure, agree in this conclusion, that 
 those understatements of Catholic truth which our 
 position entails should be strictly limited to cases of 
 overpowering necessity, or the most obvious expediency. 
 They come, indeed, under the head of those studied 
 ambiguities of phrase which our theology rather per- 
 mits than encourages. Nor can I conceive but that a 
 Catholic must ever use such phrases with regret, and 
 escape from them with pleasure. He must regard 
 them as a kind of condescension, the only sort of conde- 
 scension which is consistent with Christian humility ; 
 and the sense of relief with which he must exchange 
 the society to whose dwarfish standard of moral and 
 spiritual attainment they are accommodated, for the 
 company of like-minded friends, and for the House of 
 Prayer where Cathohcs breathe most freely, and things 
 are called by their right names, is but faintly paralleled 
 by that with which the recovering patient exchanges, 
 for the first time, the closeness of the sick-room for the 
 fresh air of the early summer, or with which the 
 monarch passes from his levee, where for several hours 
 he has been receiving strangers in an uncomfortable 
 position, and with forced civilities, for the solitude of 
 his private apartment, and the conversation of his inti- 
 mate friends. 
 
152 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 The course of my argument has hitherto led me to 
 dwell chiefly on dangers to faith. But I must not 
 for a moment be understood to mean that the dangers 
 to charity are either fewer or less momentous. It is a 
 pleasant thought that faith and charity are but different 
 sides of the same truth, and that by harbouring 
 thoughts of kindness, and multiplying inventions of love, 
 towards our estranged fellow-countrymen, we are not 
 deviating from our Cathohc path, but advancing in it ; 
 not raising obstacles in the way of our faith, but regu- 
 lating, and so deepening it. 
 
 1. The first suggestion of such a policy must surely 
 be, that we habitually abstract the error from its main- 
 tainer, and accompany our needful severity against the 
 one by even an excess of kindness and tenderness 
 towards the other. Another, that we should never 
 meditate on our own superior privileges, but as a motive 
 to increased humility and superior virtue ; using the lesser 
 responsibility of the heretic (where his heresy is not self- 
 chosen) as a set-off against his inferior attainments, and 
 the greater responsibility of the Catholic as a counterpoise 
 to his more exalted privilege. Another, that we should 
 make the largest allowance which our theology per- 
 mits for the possibilities of an exculpating ignorance ; 
 bearing especially in mind, that the ground of excuse is 
 not alone the privation of knowledge, but some such 
 incapacity of receiving that knowledge in its practical 
 consequences as God sees to be independent of any 
 fatal obliquity of the will. 
 
 And here I may take occasion, by the way, to remark 
 that one of the misfortunes of our position is the temp- 
 
THE POSITIO OF A CATHOLIC MINORITY, ETC. 153 
 
 tation it creates to think better of ' liberal Protestants ' 
 than of what are called 'bigots.' Of course, in this 
 judgement we are not entering into a comparison be- 
 tween the spiritual state of these several classes, but on 
 their respective relations towards ourselves. Nor can 
 it be denied that, cceteris paribus^ it is in favour of 
 any Protestant, and even suggests a well-grounded hope 
 of his conversion, that he should be kindly disposed 
 towards the Church. But we all know that our theology 
 gives a preference to those who are faithfully acting 
 upon the dictates of an erroneous conscience over those 
 who renounce, in practice, the conclusions of their better 
 knowledge, and treat the question between themselves 
 and us under any other point of view than as one of 
 the gravest personal import ; and since we ought to 
 seek out the motives to charity most of all in those 
 cases which present the most provoking temptations to 
 a breach of it, we may do well to rest occasionally in a 
 consideration which invests even our bitterest opponents 
 with a softening and attractive light. 
 
 One or two additional reflections on this more inviting 
 side of my subject, and I will release you. 
 
 There is no duty more eminently Christian, and 
 therefore more characteristically Catholic, than that of 
 habitually putting ourselves in the place of others, 
 looking at things through their medium, and making 
 their trials our own. The great moral philosopher of 
 antiquity, if my memory do not fail me, gives to this 
 quality of fellow-feeling a place in his system inter- 
 mediate between selfishness and active sympathy. Then 
 only would such a habit become dangerous, when, in 
 
154 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 eliciting our forbearance, it should stifle our zeal, and 
 pass from the character of an indulgent allowance, or 
 an equitable judgement, into a surrender of principle 
 and a contented toleration of error. There is one class 
 of Catholics among us, at all events, who should find 
 no difficulty in this exercise — the converts. One of 
 the most beautiful features in the character of S. Paul, 
 is the tenderness of his bearing towards those who, 
 having been once his companions in error, afterwards 
 became the objects of his converting zeal. 
 
 Just in proportion to the extent and gravity of our 
 moral and theological differences with our heretical 
 fellow-countrymen, must be our eagerness to seize upon 
 points of accidental agreement, and even occasions of 
 lawful cooperation with them. There is, happily, a 
 vast neutral territory of benevolence, involving no com- 
 promise, upon which our theology, with characteristic 
 largeness and tenderness of spirit, permits us to unite 
 even with those ^ho are most opposed to us ; and the 
 liberty is one of which no Catholics are more ready to 
 avail themselves than those who are proved to be the 
 most unflinching champions of the Faith. 
 
 Nor is it on the broad platform of active benevolence 
 only, that we may find a point of contact with our 
 rchgious opponents, and reciprocate those friendly offices 
 which, in justice to them it must be said, they are so 
 generally disposed to extend to us. We have often the 
 power, and should never want the will, to render them 
 essential service in the common cause of public morality. 
 The question, for instance, is now frequently mooted, of 
 removing one or other of those venerable landmarks of 
 
THE POSITION OF A CATHOLIC MINOKITY, ETC. 155 
 
 purity or decorum, wliicli are among tlie last surviving 
 remnants of the ancient religion of England. The con- 
 troversy on the subject of divorce which terminated so 
 fatally for the interests of wedded sanctity, will occur 
 to every mind as an illustration of this remark. The 
 unrestricted allowance of marriage in cases of close 
 affinity is another. This class of political questions 
 seems to be peculiarly our own property ; and, to aid 
 in their adjustment on terms the most favourable to 
 national virtue, seems no less the act of true Christian 
 citizenship than the obvious dictate of a wise and 
 enlarged Catholic policy. 
 
 In contrast to the line of duty which I have here 
 attempted to sketch, are the attributes of what I may 
 call the sectarian spirit. A few words will suffice to 
 explain my meaning. The more truly we reahse our 
 position as the Church of the whole world, the stronger 
 our faith in the promises which guarantee our inde- 
 fectibility, and the principles which should regulate 
 our course, the less shall we manifest of that sensitive- 
 ness to reproach, and craving after popularity, which 
 are rather the characteristics of sectarian mistrust than 
 of Catholic confidence. These nervous sensibilities, the 
 effect of conscious weakness, so far as they enter into 
 our temptations, are the natural relics of a state of 
 obscurity and depression. If I might sum up in a 
 single item the gains of the Catholic Church during the 
 eventful quarter of a century in which our lot has been 
 cast, I think I should select our advances, under high 
 guidance, to a truer estimate of our place and character, 
 as the most accurate exponent of the great result. But 
 
156 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 to dwell for an instant upon the topic from which I 
 have thus digressed : I know of no more miserable 
 feature in the spirit which I have called sectarian, than 
 the readiness to make what may be called 'contro- 
 versial capital ' out of the mistakes or humiliations of 
 those w^ho are divided off from us. To dwell with 
 complacency, or rather without shame and sorrow, upon 
 the lapses and reverses of others, even though it make 
 for ourselves, is to reduce the great contest between 
 truth and error to a game of mere mechanical balance 
 in whicli the elevation of the one side is due, not so 
 much to its own skill or prowess, as to the accidental 
 depression of the opposite. Where, indeed, the fall or 
 failure is the direct consequence of some specially 
 heretical tenet, or the reductio ad ahsurdum of some 
 vaunted but baseless theory, I grant not only that the 
 temptation in question is strong, but that the oppor- 
 tunity may lawfully, if guardedly, be turned to our 
 account. Yet I cannot but feel that such cases are often 
 too sad for triumph, and that the evil of the common 
 scandal generally outweighs the benefit of the con- 
 troversial advantage. The recent opening of the 
 feeble flood-gates which have heretofore secured the 
 Established Church from the influx of scepticism and 
 infidelity, will probably occur to everyone here present 
 as a case directly in point ; and I cannot but think that 
 the instinct of self-preservation, no less than of charity, 
 is enUsted on the side of sympathy with those of our 
 unhappily separated brethren, who are endeavouring, 
 by whatever means at their command, to put down a 
 movement which, although it confirm our anticipations 
 
THE POSITION OF A CATHOLIC MINOKITY, ETC. 157 
 
 and illustrate our theories, is of too subtle and elastic a 
 character to be confined within the limits of the par- 
 ticular sphere in which it happens, in this country, to 
 have originated. 
 
 Tua res agitur, cum proximus ardet 
 Ucalegon. 
 
 I had intended to illustrate this whole subject, with 
 the assistance of a learned friend, by some passages 
 from the New Testament, and from the Fathers of 
 the Church, bearing upon the relations of its members 
 with those who are without. But my limits are 
 already reached. With two extracts from S. Augus- 
 tine, which occur in the course of his controversy 
 with the Donatists, I will bring this essay to a 
 close : — 
 
 ' si eos charitas potius quam animositas superaret ; 
 inde victores fierent, unde victi essent. Nos autem 
 Ecclesiam Catholicam, ad cujus pacem et concordiam et 
 reconciliationem invitamus inimicos ejus, non humanis 
 opinionibus, sed divinis testimoniis, amamus, tenemus, et 
 defendimus.' 
 
 The Saint concludes the same discourse with these 
 noble words, which I cannot do better than make my 
 own: — 
 
 'Dlum pro nobis rogetis, in quo spem ponimus ut 
 de nostra disputatione gaudeatis. Tenete ista, fratres, 
 obsecramus vos : per nomen ipsius Domini, per auctorem 
 pacis, plantatorem pacis, dilectorem pacis, oramus vos, 
 ut Eum pacifice oretis, pacifice deprecemini ; et memi- 
 
158 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 neritis esse filii Ejus, a quo dictum est, Beati pacifici, 
 quoniamjilii Dei vocahuntiir.' *. 
 
 * S. Aug. Serm. ccclviii. 
 
 Note. — The above paper was prepared, on a very short notice, to 
 supply the place of one which its author was unavoidably prevented 
 from completing. I have not felt myself justified in making any 
 material additions to my own essay, but have let it remain exactly 
 in its original shape. These facts will account for its insufficiency 
 as an exposition of the whole subject on which it is employed. 
 
 F. O. 
 
ON 
 
 BISHOP COLENSO'S OBJECTIONS TO THE 
 YERACITY OF HOLY WRIT. 
 
 By FEANCIS HENRY LAINQ. 
 
 On Dr. Colensd's cldef objection concerning the name 
 ' Jehovah ' ; as being asserted in Ex. vi. 3 not to have 
 been known before, in contradiction to the fact that, be- 
 fore, habitual use is well known to have been made of it 
 
 Of the objections that Dr. Colenso has brought forward 
 in his now notorious book, some are but mere cavils on 
 words, which criticism revolts at ; others are made out 
 of obscurities, which, capable themselves of satisfactory 
 explanation, are nevertheless such as, considering the 
 amount of knowledge — that is, the ignorance — which 
 our distant age, and, along with it, Dr. Colenso himself, 
 has of the Hebrew times, a book like the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures must, of its own nature, be expected to present. 
 Among these objections, one alone of any such dignity 
 as a really impressive-looking charge of inconsistency 
 could lend to it, is his allegation of falsity against the 
 Scripture for its statement concerning the introduction 
 of the name Jehovah ; which is said, in God's revelation 
 of it to Moses, not to have been known before that very 
 
160 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 occasion. This assertion's seeming incompatibility with 
 the undoubted fact of the word's previous customary- 
 use, forms the grounds of his accusation, which the 
 grounds themselves are of a sort to make very specious. 
 And it has accordingly received at the objector's hand 
 a greater amount of handling than most others, occupy- 
 ing in his Second Part, of almost four hundred pages, 
 the principal place, as culminating point of the whole 
 argument. It is founded on Ex. vi. 3, where, notwith- 
 standing the commonness of the Name in the mouths of 
 the Patriarchs, a distinct statement is yet made that it 
 was not known to them. ' By My name Jehovah was 
 I not known to them.* The passage it is worth while 
 to quote at length, as given by Dr. Colenso. His words 
 are these : — 
 
 ' In the story of the Exodus we read as follows : — 
 ' " Then the Lord said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see 
 what I will do to Pharaoh : for with a strong hand 
 shall he drive them out of his land. And God spake 
 unto Moses and said unto him, I am Jehovah : and I 
 appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, 
 by the name of God Almighty, but by My Name 
 Jehovah was I not known to them. And I have also 
 established My covenant with them, to give them the 
 land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein 
 they were strangers. And I have also heard the 
 groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians 
 keep in bondage ; and I have remembered my cove- 
 nant. Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am 
 Jehovah, and I wiU bring you out from under the 
 burdens of the Egyptians, and I will redeem you with 
 
FIRST PROMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 161 
 
 a stretched-out arm, and with great judgements, and 
 I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be 
 to you a God, and ye shall know that I am Jehovah 
 your God which bringeth you out from vmder the 
 burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in 
 unto the land concerning the which I did swear to 
 give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob ; and I 
 will give it to you for a heritage. I am Jehovah." 
 
 ' The above passage,' he continues, ' cannot, as it seems 
 to me^ without a perversion of its obvious meaning — 
 the meaning which would be ascribed to it by the 
 great body of simple-minded readers, who had never 
 had their attention awakened to the difficulties in 
 which the whole narrative becomes involved thereby, 
 be explained to say anything else than this : that the 
 name Jehovah was not known at all to the Patriarchs, 
 but was now for the first time revealed as the name 
 by which the God of Israel would be henceforth dis- 
 tinguished from aU other gods.' 
 
 After a few more lines, he goes on : — 
 
 ' But then we come at once upon the contradictory 
 fact, that the name Jehovah is repeatedly used in the 
 earlier parts of the story, throughout the whole Book 
 of Genesis. And it is not merely employed by the 
 writer, when relating simply as an historian, in his own 
 person, events of a more ancient date, in wliich case he 
 might be supposed to have introduced the word as 
 having become in his own day, after having been thus 
 revealed, famihar to himself and his readers, but it is 
 put into the mouth of the Patriarchs themselves, as 
 Abraham (xiv. 22), Isaac (xxvi. 22), Jacob (xxviii. 16), 
 
 M 
 
1G2 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Nay, according to the story, it was not only known to 
 these, but to a multitude of others : to Eve (iv. 1), and 
 Lemech (v. 22), before the Flood ; and to Noah after it 
 (ix. 26), to Sarai (xvl 2), Eebekah (xxvii. 7), Leah 
 (xxix. 31), Eachel (xxx. 24), to Laban also (xxiv. 3), 
 and Bethuel (xxiv. 30), Abraham's servant (xxiv. 27) ; 
 even to heathens, as Abimelech the Philistine, king of 
 Gerar, his friend and his chief captain (xxvi. 28), and 
 generally we are told that as early as the time of Enos, 
 the son of Seth, there began men to call upon the name 
 of Jehovah (iv. 26), though the name was known to 
 Eve according to the narrative more than two centuries 
 before.' It may be said to occur about one hundred and 
 sixty times. 
 
 A very tangible objection, and fairly enough put — 
 against which it is of Httle use to say, as is so often 
 superciliously said against these difficulties, that ' it is 
 all an old story; we have heard it all before.' True, the 
 objection is old, and common enough too — treated by 
 many men before for centuries, and one which every 
 attentive reader himself meets without further suggestive 
 aid than his own recollection of the preceding part of 
 the Scripture narrative. But neither is it put forward, 
 as we must admit, by Dr. Colenso as being new, but as 
 being invincible : upon which therefore but little ad- 
 vance is to be gained out of the fact that his meeting with 
 it has been in common with many others before him : 
 for, that a difficulty has presented itself to many minds 
 is nothing to allege in the way of its solution ; rather,- 
 perhaps, the objection is advantaged by it, unless equal 
 famiharity attend its satisfying reproof. To be content. 
 
FIEST PEOMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 163 
 
 therefore, as is perhaps too often the custom, with 
 throwing the imputation of oldness or commonness upon 
 the objection, is only letting the thing grow still older 
 or more common in its strength. It must be allowed, 
 then, that, for bringing forward this well-known diffi- 
 culty, there is as much right to standing-room for Dr. 
 Colenso as for any one else, either before or contempo- 
 rary with him, whether German or English. Instead, 
 then, of calling it stale, which it will not be, until it has 
 been upset, I would confine myself to — what, for once in 
 his objecting career, a certain prestige in the objection 
 itself seems really to deserve — the task of making one 
 more attempt at its solution : which can hardly be said 
 to be superfluous yet. For whatever satisfactory answer 
 to it has been given, if there be any such, has not at 
 least had the good fortune to make its way into easily 
 accessible books, amongst the ones which are commonly 
 assigned. What these answers are, we may very fairly 
 presume to be able to gather from an able article on 
 the word 'Jehovah' in Smith's Bibhcal Dictionary; 
 which, at the end, gives an account of those ones that 
 have been considered to be the most deserving. Of 
 these solutions, the first one is that which supposes the 
 previous use of the word Jehovah to be by ' anticipation.' 
 This is that of Le Clerc. What sort of elucidating 
 meaning this account may carry to the minds of some, 
 I do not know ; but I will own, that, for myself, it seems 
 not so much an explaining answer, as a feebler way of 
 stating the difficulty itself; which is founded upon the 
 appearance of that very anticipation which is given to 
 solve it. Another one is that which supposes the first 
 
 M 2 
 
164 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 making known of the Name, whicli is attributed to this 
 revelation to Moses, to consist in a greater fulness of 
 knowledge than was possessed of it before by the Patri- 
 archs : this is the gist of many answers couched in vari- 
 ous forms, as for instance that it contained a recognition 
 of God's glory and majesty; again, that it revealed a 
 greater depth of fulness of the Divine nature, which 
 ' had not been yet understood in its essence and depth.' 
 Another one is, that it presented' to the mind His person- 
 ality and essential being : — not as it is incomprehensible 
 or unknown, but in its manifestations. This last ex- 
 cepted, these explanations, from many different authors, 
 are pretty much ahke in meaning, and sometimes similar 
 even in expressions. Kurtz and Kalisch, as quoted by 
 Dr. Colenso in this place, give answers of the same 
 character. Their adopted explanation from fulness of 
 meaning as to attributes &c. will not, however, as I 
 think would even be felt by those who allege it, meet 
 the question exactly, with whatever justice a very near 
 concern with the question may be allowed for it. And 
 it certainly has that, in spite of its contemptuous rejec- 
 tion by Dr. Colenso : who, after his usual manner, with 
 no more ado than a hne, dispatches it, as he thinks, by 
 calling it ' a mere assumption made to get over a diffi- 
 culty ;' which, however, it certainly is not, from evi- 
 dence the most obvious. Even the simple-minded reader 
 whom he supposes, if he has any sense, must immedi- 
 ately feel, on reading the 3rd and 6th chapters, that a 
 new explicitness, which the Patriarchs are not known 
 to have enjoyed, is given to the Name by God Himself 
 in His making it particularly a matter for His own 
 
FIRST PROMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 165 
 
 interpretation, as He does, when, in His answer to Moses' 
 question, ' If they ' (the Israehtes) ' say to me. What is 
 His name ? what shall I say to them ?' He replies, ' I Am 
 Who Am. Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, 
 I Am hath sent thee.' This interpretation certainly con- 
 veyed something hke what the before- cited authors 
 speak of as the attribute of self-existence — essence, essen- 
 tial being — ^which was really the notion of God as the 
 Being of beings — being itself in the absolute sense of the 
 word. This majestic idea presents the name of God 
 in a light, as all must feel, beautifully apt for it as about 
 to be made the established object for the Church's enhght- 
 ened worship. This view of it, as given by the mouth of 
 God Himself, is evidently something which indicated an 
 intention on His part to put the name in a light more fit 
 for His people's contemplation than had been done for 
 their ancestors ; which was at least, in order to some 
 more special impartment of the Name. And such an 
 evidently serious purpose in this Divine declaration, 
 should make the attempted explanation which assigns 
 it, deserving of something better than Dr. Colenso's 
 contemptuous treatment. At the same time, intimately 
 associated with the knowledge of Jehovah as is the 
 sublime idea of absolute being, declared to be the word's 
 own meaning — this being a pure theological notion 
 of God, is not itself precisely what the Scriptural lan- 
 guage intends to signify by the phrase ' known,' ' know- 
 ing the name of,' &c., which does not refer so much to 
 the knowledge of God in the abstract as the one self- 
 existent Being, or in any other absolute attributes, as 
 that knowledge which comes by the graciaus relation ia 
 
166 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 which He puts Himself to be known to the people to 
 whom He communicates Himself. That it is so, is shown 
 even in the very passa^ itself; in which Moses, when 
 asking Him, ' If they should say, What is His name ? 
 what shall I say to them ? ' is not enquiring what is the 
 theological notion of God, as signified by His Name, 
 but what was the name, which he might cite to them as 
 a guarantee or record of Him as the God of the Israel- 
 ites, who on his returning to them might enquire 
 What is His name ? What is the title for them to use 
 in designating Him, in contradistinction to the other 
 nations who had names for their gods ? And in such 
 sense is it also afforded by God Himself, who after 
 giving the explanation, ' I Am Who Am,' says in reply, 
 ' This is My Name and this is My memorial unto all 
 generations,' which is as much as to say, ' This is the 
 name by which I choose to record Myself amongst them 
 — ^My proper name for them to call Me by henceforth.' 
 Hence it is, that ifrom this time forward, in the Mosaic 
 dispensation, He is always called Jehoyah thy God, 
 Jehovah our God, the God of Israel 
 
 The knowing or being known of Jehovah must, 
 therefore, refer to Him as known in some new relation ; 
 which is not, however, found precisely in that grand 
 conception, newly developed as it is, of Him in His 
 absolute essence, as the one true Being of beings. 
 This, therefore, only very distantly meets the want of 
 the question. More akin to the real answer, as being 
 founded on the relational aspect of God, is another 
 kind, such as is that which states that the name 
 Jehovah as now made known, presented God in His 
 
FIRST PROMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 167 
 
 office as Eedeemer ; and again, that it revealed Him in 
 His several attributes, and in His true character as God 
 of the Covenant, &c. These ideas do, I believe, contain 
 the germ of the true answer, but yet so mixed up with 
 the dross of other elements, or else so faintly presented, 
 and so undecidedly developed, that whatever glimmer- 
 ing of the truth may be in them, as I am inclined to 
 think there is, their hold of it is too feeble to convey to 
 the mind that luminous conviction which would set it 
 free from uncertainty. And as these solutions have 
 deservedly won the greater favour, as being the best, 
 should there be any minds to whom their insufficiency 
 shall be apparent, such persons at least will admit that 
 there is still room for another attempt at solving the 
 question : which in undertaking, we must guard against 
 incurring the imputation of inventing suppositions for 
 clearing the objection. If it has to be solved at all, the 
 answer must be sought by a patient induction from 
 those passages in the Scripture, especially the text it- 
 self, which pertain to its subject. And this course will 
 give us a clue, which, I believe, will not fail to change 
 this bulky-looking objection, confidently affirmed as it 
 is by the Doctor, into something of less terrifying di- 
 mensions. All that it shrinks to, after undergoing its 
 critical tapping, will be found to be nothing more than 
 simply one of those not uncommon cases, in which the 
 drift of the speaker's language has been totally lost 
 sight of through an entangling word usurping all 
 attention, to the detriment of the general context : to 
 which the critical sight . thus partially appHed can 
 produce in commentator nothing but strained excuses ; 
 
168 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 and be to the unscrupulous only ground for cavils. 
 And it is such an urischolar-Hke way of looking at the 
 text, if I may say so, -wMch has been, in friend and foe, 
 the real origin of this difficulty's strength. What else 
 indeed might be even suspected, when we come to 
 think about it, from the very idea, which the notion 
 carries with it, that the whole object in the name 
 Jehovah being now so solemnly announced to Moses 
 the legislator was simply — what ? why, nothing more 
 than just to put a new word of four letters into the 
 Hebrew vocabulary ! for such is actually supposed to 
 be the whole purport of the revelation, according to the 
 objection as brought by Dr. Colenso. His argument 
 is this : — 'The word Jehovah, as a name for God, was 
 well known and commonly used before for centuries ; 
 yet here it is said to have been for the first time given 
 to Moses.' Now, does not this alleged contradiction 
 rest for its whole force upon the assumption, that the 
 grand thing now for the first time announced by reve- 
 lation in the word Jehovah, was merely a new synonym 
 for the name of God, made current for the Hebrew 
 lips to call Him by ? But what a most insignificant 
 object to imagine for an act so professedly solemn as is 
 this — the inauguration of a new dispensation ; and might 
 not this disproportion between the revelation and its 
 imagined purpose be sufficient of itself to awaken in us 
 a little circumspection as to the opinion which it is the 
 offspring of ; — whether this might not have arisen from 
 what is so usual with infidel objections, some narrow- 
 minded misconception of the speaker's scope, caused 
 likely enough by a sahent feature in the passage, 
 
FIRST PROMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 169 
 
 drawing off to itself all the attention from tlie otlier 
 parts of the text ? 
 
 And that this sort of thing is the source of the 
 difficulty will be manifest upon the more accurate 
 examination being made. Even its first attempt, when 
 apphed to the two ideas, the known previous use of the 
 name Jehovah, and its declared non-use previously, will 
 put to flight (I had almost said before the bodily eye) 
 two-thirds much in the bulk of their imposing con- 
 tradictoriness, in a better rendering being thereby 
 afforded of one single misleading word — the word 
 ' known^ as it occurs in the sentence, ' By My name 
 Jehovah was I not known to them.' For this word 
 ' known ' it is — making the sentence sound as if to 
 affirm the name Jehovah was altogether unknown to the 
 Patriarchs — which gives the^chief force to the objection 
 as put forward by the Doctor. But this ensnaring 
 expression ' known ' will be loosed of its power, by 
 being duly straightened from a general meaning into 
 another one more specific — that is, 'made known,' 
 which is the true meaning of the original word, 
 (♦nvn_i3) for its root yij. signifies as often ' to come to 
 know ' as ' to know,' and its passive or niphal con- 
 jugation as often ' to come to he known^ ' to be made 
 known,' as ' to he known.' In such a sense it can be 
 translated, and so it should be, where the sense requires 
 it. Eor a possible and customary meaning becomes 
 the certain one where it makes sense, and every 
 other would make nonsense : as it almost would in this 
 case. Such a meaning will be taken as the sense of 
 an author by any one, except him whose labour is to 
 
170 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOJ!^ AND LITERATURE. 
 
 A 
 
 make the author talk as much nonsense as possible. 
 The better motive, which supposes him to be most 
 likely consistent, should give undoubting preference to 
 the sense ' made known^ rather than that of simply 
 ' known.' This rendering of the sentence, then, gives us 
 as the amended sense, that under His name Jehovah, 
 He had not been ' made known ' by His own act. 
 Por the being made known, which is here denied to 
 have been done in the former manifestations, is the same 
 ' being made known ' which is now done to Moses — that 
 is by God Himself. And this gives us to understand 
 this fact only, that previously there had been no making 
 known of Himself under the name Jehovah hy His own 
 revelation. This making known by God's own mani- 
 festing act, is a marking feature which at one cut, and 
 that only the first one, reduces the dunension of that 
 asserted non-acquaintance with His name to such cases 
 as were themselves the acts of God alone. This limita- 
 tion would be still more expressly drawn by the force 
 of a further very hkely emendation, changing the word 
 from its passive to its reflective sense — ' I made Myself 
 known,' which is authorised by many examples, from 
 Ezechiel referring, too, especially to this very sort of 
 making known which is mentioned here. Little 
 difference in effect, of course, exists between ' I was not 
 made known by Myself,' and ' I did not make Myself 
 known,' except that the becoming known in one case is 
 represented as God's own doing, and in the other less 
 pointedly, as done by God. At the same time, the* 
 reflective form, which is as probable as the other one, 
 more directly represents the knowledge as coming 
 
FIRST PEOMULGATIOI^ OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 171 
 
 from the act of God. At the worst, the certain 
 correction from ' known ' to ' made known/ disencum- 
 bers om* question at once of aU the long Hst of cases 
 where it was used before the Flood and after the Flood 
 — of Eve and Noah, Eebekah, Bethuel, Abimelech, 
 Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the rest — in fact, all the 
 cases of the use of the word Jehovah outside the ones 
 in which God's own mouth pronounced it. 
 
 And these are left the only ones with which we have to 
 deal : — and that not as a doubtful result. For this limita- 
 tion of the idea ' known ' to that which came by God's 
 own previous manifestation of His name, is confirmed 
 by a further consideration of the passage, turning upon 
 another word in it — a word less than the word ' known.' 
 This is the little preposition ' by,' or ' in,' (b'), as sup- 
 plied in the phrase, ' By My name Jehovah ; ' for this 
 word ' by ' is not found in the original, as in the Pro- 
 testant translation, written immediately before the word 
 ' My name,' the original gives literally this : — ' I ap- 
 peared to them by or in El Shaddai, but My name 
 Jehovah was I not made known,' &c., so that if the 
 wanting word ' by ' or ' in ' is to be understood in the 
 second clause, this must be supposed to borrow it from 
 the preceding clause, where it occurs before El Shaddai 
 in the phrase, ' By El Shaddai I appeared.' In this 
 place this one preposition ' by,' then, affords in both the 
 clauses a common service, which shows the two clauses 
 about El Shaddai and Jehovah to be coupled together 
 in sense, as well as in grammar ; and this identification 
 of reference adds a stiU more strongly marked connec- 
 tion between the idea of ' appearing,' which was under 
 
172 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 El Sliaddai, and that of ' being made known,' or ' making 
 Myself known,' which is said not to have yet been 
 done under the name ' Jehovah ; ' both of which are 
 thus seen evidently belonging to the idea of the Divine 
 self-manifestation in this sentence. So that when it 
 says, ' I appeared to Abraham, &c. by El Shaddai ; but 
 My name Jehovah was I not made known by to them' 
 (as we may translate for the nonce) ; this is almost 
 the same as if it had been said, — ' I appeared by El 
 Shaddai, but by My name Jehovah did I not appear to 
 them ; ' and the making known denied of Jehovah is 
 evidently only that ' making known' such as had been 
 used for exhibiting to the Patriarchs the idea of Him- 
 self as El Shaddai, which was by His own action of 
 ' appearing.' The name Jehovah was, then, to hold the 
 same place in this revelation as had been in the previous 
 ones held by El Shaddai; and this making known^ 
 was nothing less than such a making known as 
 God's own appearing was able to effect. Thus, then, 
 there arises a new fence to the Hmitation, which the 
 idea of ' making known ' exhibits, showing that the 
 knowing meant here, was no such knowing as a mere 
 acquaintance with the four-lettered word as a current 
 title for God implied, but such a knowledge only as 
 came about by official manifestation, under that title, 
 by God Himself. -^ 
 
 But besides this, a still further confirmation of the 
 same hmitation, even to a still narrower compass, arises 
 from the pursued examination of the passage : from ' 
 which it will appear, that even these same communica- 
 tions of the Name by the Divine mouth, selected out 
 
FIRST PROMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 173 
 
 from Others as they are, have themselves to undergo a 
 sifting, in order to come within the class such as this 
 phrase ' making known ' regards. 
 
 This is evident from these revelations, which are 
 alluded to in the statement ' / appeared,' being of an 
 order that we may call first class. For such are the 
 ones in which the mode of manifestation is this ' appear- 
 ing,' as denoted by the introductory phrase ' and God 
 appeared.' This manifestation differs by a high degree 
 from that sort in which it is said, ' and Jehovah said,' 
 as to ISToah ; ' and God spohe to •/ ' and the word of 
 Jehovah ca7ne in a vision to' — as to Abraham (Gen.xx.). 
 This distinction, besides being actually found in use in 
 the various manifestations themselves, is formally de- 
 scribed (Num. xii. 6), where it is declared by God 
 Himself, that His making Himself known in a dream is 
 the more common mode, which would be vouchsafed to 
 a ' prophet ' among them less in dignity than Moses ; 
 but to Moses, as a matter of greater honour, the mani- 
 festation used was, ' mouth to mouth,' even apparently, 
 'not in dark speeches ; ' and, adds He, ' the similitude of 
 Jehovah shall he behold.' Here, then, the Divine decla- 
 ration itself designates that one which goes by the name 
 of ' appearing,' where the vision of God's presence is 
 made clear, as being the highest sort of manifestation. 
 
 Now this distinguishing mark of ' appearing,' shown 
 in the phrase, ' and God appeared,' which alone could 
 entitle the use of the name Jehovah, if found in the 
 manifestation, to be brought on a par with that now 
 made to Moses, is a feature which is not found in every 
 manifestation made to the Patriarchs before Moses 
 
174 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Abraham's experience of it seems to have been three 
 times: once (Gen. xii. 7), promising to give the land to 
 his seed ; another time (xvii. 1), in his ninety-ninth year, 
 in commanding circumcision and promising the birth 
 of Isaac ; a third time (xxviii. 1), at Mamre, on con- 
 firming the promise. Isaac found it twice : once (xxv. 3), 
 at Gerar, to confirm in him the promise made to his 
 father ; the second time (xxv, 23), at Beersheba 
 (whether in a vision or not is not quite plain), on giving 
 him assurance of protection. Jacob's experience was 
 once clearly, if any more (xxxv. 9), at Bethel, after his 
 coming from Padan Aram to renew the promise made 
 to Abraham and Isaac. This occasion is the one which 
 Jacob's citing of on his death-bed is in so solemn a 
 manner, as to show to have been the great manifestation 
 made to him.* 
 
 These five or six occasions, then, are the only ones 
 which, being distinguished by the fact of the ' appear- 
 ing,' are of such an order as could exhibit in themselves 
 the name Jehovah in that Divinely .communicated 
 dignity, as to clash with the truth of the saying, that it 
 was not made known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; — 
 nay, more, for it could not, even then, unless that word 
 Jehovah should also be found holding the same position 
 as that held there by the title El Shaddai. For it is 
 El Shaddai's eminent mode of being made known alone, 
 and no other, that is denied of the name Jehovah in 
 
 * This is not to be confounded with the manifestation made to 
 him at Penuel, when he wrestled with the angel, as the blundering 
 hostility to Scripture's consistency makes Dr. Colenso do, who out 
 of his own mistakes, like the generality of sceptics, forges matter 
 to charge for absurdities upon the Scripture. 
 
FIEST PROMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 175 
 
 the passage, ' I appeared to them ' by El Shaddai, ' but 
 by My name Jehovah I was not made known to them/ 
 i. e., in a manner comparable with the promulgation of 
 the name El Shaddai. The word Jehovah must find 
 itself like and equal in the part it plays in those ' ap- 
 pearings,' before it can be made to interfere with the 
 verity of the statement, that it was not made known to 
 them. This Hmiting condition cuts away, therefore, 
 from the class of ' made known ' ones, all such cases of 
 the name Jehovah, even when by God's own utterance, 
 as are simply there, for current and already known 
 designations of God. Properly sifted, then, the question, 
 whether the name Jehovah was or was not made 'known' 
 to the Patriarchs, reduces itself to this small compass : — 
 Did the name ' Jehovah,' as now communicated to Moses, 
 receive from God any such making known as was equal 
 in kind to that making known which was given to the 
 other name El Shaddai, as communicated to the Patri- 
 archs ? If so, it will be quite true to say, that there 
 never was any such making known of it before, such as 
 it has now, when announced to Moses ; and the verity 
 of the passage which says it will be fully justified. 
 
 Thoroughly solving to the whole difficulty as would 
 be the duly estabhshed affirmative to the question — the 
 question happily admits of a very clear answer in the 
 affirmative. We confidently answer. Yes, it did ! The 
 making known now imphed to have been given to the 
 name Jehovah, was not less in import than that which 
 was in the communication of the name El Shaddai : as 
 might easily be, considering the wide range in the sig- 
 nification of the phrase ' made known : ' for, properly 
 
176 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITEEATUEE. 
 
 understood, to 'make known/ or to 'know' a name, may 
 indicate as many different sorts of footing between the 
 knower and the known, as there are modes for knowing 
 itself to take. Which, as in the case of the Queen, in 
 regard to her subjects, may be very various. It may 
 be that of hearsay. In that case it denotes nothing 
 more than a general notoriety on the part of the object, 
 and on the other side, an opportunity of hearing. 
 
 It may be by communication of the name from one 
 to the other ; and even that is very various, according 
 as it is by a mediator, as minister, or servant ; or by 
 self, through letter or in person ; and that again may 
 be either public or private, official or informal, for 
 business, in friendship, to give vahdity to a law or 
 treaty, to lend a helping patronage to a charity, or to 
 identify the person simply in report. All these, and 
 plenty more, would of course indicate proportionate 
 degrees of fellowship and good- will. 
 
 Would, then, the particular tie of fellowship be 
 assumed, with anything Hke reasonable accuracy, in a 
 method of proceeding which bhndly presupposed the 
 same value for every case of making known ahke, 
 whether this came by signing act of parliament, or 
 being mentioned in a newspaper — whether at the 
 foot of a proclamation — by publicly heading a sub- 
 scription hst for bazaar or hospital, or by signing a 
 name in a private letter ? Its modes of presentment, 
 so div^erse, render the word 'making known' itself, if 
 left undetermined, a most absurd ground for building 
 conclusions upon in any matter whatever. And not 
 the less so in the case of God's making known His 
 
FIRST PROMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 177 
 
 name as found in Scripture, especially when we find 
 that the idea of knowing God (which ' knowing His 
 name ' is equivalent to) is taken with such intensity of 
 meaning ; as it is, for example, in Our Lord's own 
 language, when He says, ' To know Thee, Father, 
 and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent, is everlasting 
 life :' which was certainly not to be won by baldly 
 knowing that there was, or was said to be, a Father, 
 and His messenger Jesus Christ, as any infidel might 
 know ; but to know Him with that salutary knowing, 
 which is the root and representative of trust, obedience, 
 and estabhshed terms, through Christ, with God the 
 Father as the giver of eternal life ; and still more 
 expressly the phrase ' to know His name :' which is 
 accepted in such breadth and depth as even to denote 
 the being in the highest state of grace, as for example, 
 in Ps. xci. 11, where it is the ground to a person of his 
 deserving all sorts of mercy and honour — a thousand 
 falling by his side and ten thousand at his right hand, 
 no evil befalling him, nor plague coming nigh his dwell- 
 ing, being placed under charge of angels, so as to be 
 kept in all his ways, that he dash not his foot against a 
 stone, and much more of the same. And why all this ? 
 ' Because he hath known My name^ which, in the same 
 Psalm, is expressed to be ' having made Jehovah his 
 refuge, even the Most High his habitation.' 
 
 Wide, however, as is the sense which knowing the 
 name of Jehovah has in the Scriptures, no discrimina- 
 tion in its value is made at all by Dr. Colenso, who 
 omits altogether any consideration of differences. N'ot 
 a word is there to indicate in him a thought whether 
 
 N 
 
178 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 the knowing was such as the more primitive Hebrews 
 had, or that of the heathen; or whether it is a privileged 
 knowledge of a favoured person. It is all one to him : 
 all he sees is the word ' known,' and, starting from this, 
 he goes head foremost to his conclusion of an irrecon- 
 cileable opposition between the ' not known before ' in 
 the text, and the former attested knowing. Confidently, 
 however, as this damning contradiction is deduced by 
 him from the word ' known' — this Word, nevertheless, 
 has within its range of meaning one so especial as will 
 amply approve the text's asserting it of the name Jeho- 
 vah, Whose being ' not made known before ' will stand 
 clearly true — in a sense not far-ifetched nor difficult, but 
 evidently just. And what is that ? It is that according 
 to which the making known attributed now to the name 
 Jehovah signifies the formal setting of it as the cove- 
 nant name under which Almighty God would have 
 Himself understood to be a party to the covenant He 
 is now beginning to make with His newly-chosen people 
 Israel. By a 'covenant name' of God, I understand, of 
 course, the name by which He is officially declared in 
 the covenant. In all human covenants, the likeness of 
 which is observed throughout the Divine transactions 
 with men, there are not only parties — promises on one 
 side, obhgations on the other, and a sign in making the 
 agreement, but besides these a name, by which the 
 promising party is to be designated, and to be held 
 responsible for its due performance. Thus, with the 
 Christian covenant, not merely does the human side in 
 baptism receive a new name, but God Himself has edited 
 a new name, under which He promises to the other 
 
FIRST. PROMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 179 
 
 party everlasting life, which is the title of ' Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost.' This is the name under which He 
 would be appealed to, and held bound in honour for 
 His promises being performed. This is, therefore, the 
 name in which all other treaties between God and the 
 Christian are signed and sealed — the name with which 
 the Christian habitually arms himself, as with a pledge 
 of faith and hope ; and this name occupies in the Chris- 
 tian covenant the same position which El Shaddai did 
 before, and, as we are affirming, Jehovah did afterwards. 
 Such is the meaning attached to the phrase, ' covenant 
 name.' This consecration of the word to the position oi 
 the covenant title of Q^d, is a feature in this announce- 
 ment to Moses which would set the making known here 
 far above the order of any utterances whatever of the 
 name, as were less than that solemn sort of publication 
 which attended the other name, El Shaddai, as given to 
 Abraham ; and that even when these manifestations 
 were those of ' appearing ' — still more, of course, any 
 such manifestations in which that ' appearing ' had no 
 place ; and farther still — even below all comparison — 
 all cases of its use by men in merely familiar discourse. 
 Not one of the cases previous to its announcement to 
 Moses is such that it could be pretended there was in 
 them anything like an express intention of making it 
 what I have just described — ^the covenant name of God 
 to the Patriarchs ; notwithstanding what will be readily 
 allowed for the name Jehovah even in its previous 
 customary use (especially when the use of its synonym, 
 Elohim, is contrasted with it) ; a certain favouredness as 
 a title of God, when manifesting Himself in the super- 
 
 N 2 
 
180 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATUEE. 
 
 natural or redeeming order: which is traceable enough 
 to bespeak for it the honour of being adopted as the 
 covenant title of God in any system of worship He 
 might hereafter institute as part of a covenant service. 
 But no official declaration had put such an import into 
 the use of the name Jehovah yet, before the day of 
 Moses. These cases, therefore, can none of them pre- 
 sent anything to take away the position of ' first made 
 known * from any announcement of the name, if only 
 that announcement shall really be found fraught with 
 the intent of making it henceforward the covenant name 
 of God. 
 
 But as the covenant name of^od it is, that it is now 
 published to Moses : — the truth of which no difficulty 
 attends in proving, except the embarrassment of too 
 much evidence, puzzling one where to choose one's 
 opening for proof 
 
 Even without any laboured proof attempted, the idea 
 of a first publication of the name Jehovah after the 
 word's being in common use would cease to present 
 any vestige of difficulty to the mind, if it were rightly 
 considered how the religious dispensation entrusted to 
 Moses, in which the name Jehovah established for wor- 
 ship is the grand feature, stood in regard to the rehgious 
 observances before his time. These compared together 
 present it as a regular practice for customs and usages 
 already in vogue before, to be, nevertheless, taken up 
 by the Mosaic dispensation into a position sufficiently 
 unprecedented to justify the assertion that they were 
 not instituted before. 
 
 Such, for example, was the period called 'week,' 
 
FIEST PROMULGATION OP THE NAME JEHOVAH. 181 
 
 which, though not expressly named as being composed 
 of ' days,' in the patriarchal ages, was nevertheless 
 then in use, as may be assumed with certainty enough 
 from the seventh day having been hallowed and blessed 
 — from the fact of such an interval being observed by 
 Noah in sending out the raven and dove — from the use 
 of the word in the still more extended application to 
 years, as in Jacob's service to Laban. All these show 
 clearly enough, nor has it been gravely doubted, that 
 there previously did exist in customary use the period 
 of a week as a seven of days. Yet, on being taken up 
 into the position of a covenant observance, its previous 
 well-known existence fiiids no explicit reference to itself 
 made in the Mosaic covenant, either in the Ten Com- 
 mandments, or any other parts of the Mosaic legislation. 
 All this treats Sabbatical observance with such an 
 originating air, that, without attention, we might easily 
 suppose it to have no existence before its being pre- 
 scribed as part of the national covenant. 
 
 But though the thing itself, ' week,' was known, yet 
 its present form of being known for a lasting national 
 obligation was not in being before it was now prescribed 
 as part of the national covenant law. The same prin- 
 ciple explains what we find as a Mosaic institution — the 
 Levirate law ; according to which a man was expected 
 to take his deceased brother's wife, that the first issue 
 might be imputed to tlie former husband, lest his name 
 should become extinct in Israel. Yet this same thing 
 is found in customary observance in the Book of Genesis, 
 in the marriage affair of Judah's children. 
 
 So, too, the priesthood itself was an office whose 
 
182 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATUKE. 
 
 functions are distinctly seen long before Moses in the 
 action of Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. Yet this previous 
 observance is not the acknowledged foundation of the 
 Levitical priesthood organised by Moses into a settled 
 order of service : — and rightly too, considering what it 
 owes to the Mosaic organisation, which raised up this 
 same priesthood into such a new state as a regular 
 professional department of service for national purposes, 
 with such regulated and prescribed modes of action, 
 succession, andMuties, as to make it quite as just as it 
 is natural to think of it and speak of it as owing its 
 origination to no other than Moses' institution. 
 
 The same thing may be said with regard to all that 
 belonged to the priesthood, its victims, sacrifices, altars, 
 its mode of offering ; the distinction of animals into 
 clean and unclean ; the propitiatory idea signified by 
 the 'sweet savour;' nay, even the very rubrics of 
 sacrifice, as seen in Abraham's dividing all the victims, 
 but not the birds. All these things are clearly enough 
 in use before. Yet this did not prevent their being 
 counted for laws of Moses, because it was he who made 
 them into regular statutes. 
 
 Their adoption into a covenant position was not at 
 all alien to the mission of Moses as legislator. This 
 capacity does not imply necessarily that he was the first 
 inventor of all the observances which pass under his 
 name as his laws. His, indeed, to be called so truly, 
 they ought to be : and so also they will evidently show 
 themselves to be, from their Mosaic structure, to anyone, 
 however much impressed with the fact of their being, 
 as we have just described, in use before Moses' time. 
 
FIRST FKOMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 183 
 
 When the narrative of Genesis, containing the evidences 
 of this previous use, on passing under the reader's view, 
 leaves in its stead the next part of the narrative for his 
 perusal, he must, on coming to the Books of Exodus, 
 Leviticus, and ISTumbers, &c., see in the multifarious and 
 systematised detail of regulations for the Israelite life, 
 a something which is so thoroughly unprecedented as 
 fully to justify our calling its authorship an original 
 one. But yet it must be repeated that this did not 
 consist precisely in first devising the material part of all 
 the observances themselves. 
 
 The work which gives to him this real character of 
 original legislator, is the originality of the office he 
 was the first to hold among the Israelite people, of 
 having to constitute ordinances under the permanent 
 form of public law, by which the people should be 
 once and for ever moulded into that national order 
 according to which they were to regulate themselves. 
 This had been hitherto impossible before his time, for 
 want of their being in a condition of an independent 
 people : which the office of legislator requires as an 
 opening for his work. For any ordination that he might 
 make for them, to be valid as a law for them to live 
 by, should be capable of being enforced amongst them : 
 which it would not be, if they were in such a condition 
 as to be obliged to conform themselves to some alien 
 dominion, keeping them from being their own masters. 
 This requisite of independence for the reception of law 
 proper, was thus wanting to the Israelites, as long as 
 they were not yet out of the grasp of the Egyptians. 
 But now, when the Egyptian rule, by God's delivering 
 
184 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 hand, falling off from them, left them a people to them- 
 selves, capable of living according to laws of native origin, 
 this was the seasonable occasion for the same Divine Pro- 
 vidence which had dehvered them into the state of a self- 
 subsisting people, to ordain that their own national 
 laws should be given to them. And for this work 
 Moses was the minister employed. His duty, then, was 
 that of making the nation, what it had never been 
 before, a self-governed people, hving according to their 
 own national ordinances, designed expressly for them, 
 under a sanction derived from their own more imme- 
 diate Governor, which was God Himself. This purpose 
 was fulfilled by him as law-giver, in his delivering 
 to them the ordinances they were to hve by, in the 
 form of a systematic body of law, set in language, 
 stamped with the Divine obligation for all the Israehte 
 people for ever. Thus it is that we have in them the 
 system of the Priesthood : — a tabernacle planned, the 
 sacrifices ordered — the priestly succession settled — all 
 the rites detailed ; and so on for the whole social 
 existence of the Israelite, to whom he acts as universal 
 legislator. This he is in virtue of the fact, that what- 
 ever he ordained at all, was ordained by him not 
 merely as a custom worthy^ of their acceptance, but in 
 that definite form of an authorised rule which national 
 law requires for its stability. In this new national 
 movement, the uppermost feature of novelty was not so 
 much the appearance of a new religious practice, which, 
 however, was itself new in its extended shape, so much 
 as the public seal of national law, in which the re- 
 ligious observance was constituted by him. 
 
FIKST PROMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 185 
 
 So distinguished in its kind from the work of merely- 
 first inventing the fashions of their religious hfe, was 
 his authorising office, as their national legislator, as to 
 allow, without abatement of his legislative originality, a 
 very great degree of ancientness in many of the national 
 observances themselves, which he constituted into law. 
 And so largely is this admissibility of presence along 
 with Moses' instituting merit enjoyed by the ancient 
 usages of the Hebrews, that all that was practised 
 before we find appearing in what is called the Mosaic 
 dispensation : which contains not only what had been 
 already made covenant matter before — as the precepts 
 of Noah and the Abrahamic rite of circumcision, which 
 are all renewed under Moses' more modern sanction — 
 but all that had not been made covenant matter, such 
 as those already mentioned — the priesthood and its 
 affairs, sabbatical observances, &c. And perhaps it 
 would be hardly rash to think, that while there is 
 nothing in the preceding practice which does not find 
 itself put into the form of statute law by Moses' highly 
 developed constitutions, there is little in them which 
 does not point back to something in the Patriarchal 
 customs either plainly, or at least with a reference more 
 recondite. And yet, however much the practices of 
 rehgious worship were in use before, so thoroughly ncAV 
 and unprecedented is the grand system in which Moses' 
 legislative code presents them stamped to the Israelite 
 people in their new covenant, that it would be no 
 unveracity to say, that as sacredly binding ordinances 
 they had never been made known before. 
 
 The same thing, then, ' not made known before,' may 
 
186 ESSAYS OK RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 be said with equal right of what the system presents as 
 its chief article, its sun and soul — which along with the 
 rest, God now promulgates — the name Jehovah; which, 
 though so well known, and so much used even with a 
 sort of covenant-hke prestige upon it, was now for the 
 first time taken by Divine command for the authentic 
 name under which God would have Himself worshipped 
 as an object of faith by His covenant people the Israel- 
 ites, who had been delivered by Him out of Egypt, on 
 purpose that they might be consecrated to His service. 
 
 And that this idea of a covenant import, dignifying 
 God's act of making known His name, is assigned cor- 
 rectly, finds witness enough in the language of the 
 address itself, in various ways. 
 
 1. An imphcation of it is found in the text's associ- 
 ating with this making known, as fellow to it, the cove- 
 nantal act of God's appearing, when saying, ' And God 
 spake to Moses and said to him, I Jehovah, and I 
 appeared,' i. e. was seen, ' to Abraham, to Isaac, and to 
 Jacob, by El Shaddai ' — God Almighty, . ' but My name 
 Jehovah I was not made known by to them.' Now 
 this, ' I appeared by,' which the expression, ' I was made 
 known by,' has as its equivalent, denotes a mode of 
 manifestation which is especially employed by the 
 Divine speaker when revealing Himself under the aspect 
 of the covenant God, or as transacting the weightier 
 affairs of the covenant. A hke covenant value will 
 then fairly belong to that other idea, which it has 
 abreast with it in position here, as well as in meaning 
 generally, the 'making known' which is said concerning 
 the word ' Jehovah.' 
 
FIRST PROMULGATIOX OP THE NAME JEHOVAH. 187 
 
 2. And what its companionship with a covenantal 
 mode of manifestation would imply, is more visible still 
 in its own announcement here, in the very first word, 
 ' I Jehovah.' These words come in here in the address 
 God is making to Moses, after the same manner as El 
 Shaddai is found in the announcement of the covenant 
 made with Abraham, ' I am El Shaddai : walk before 
 Me ; be thou perfect.' This announcement is no other 
 than the form of a preface to the covenant ; and such 
 too, by parity, will be the burden of the similar decla- 
 ration to Moses of Jehovah. 
 
 3. This is answerably borne out, too, by the 
 sequel : which is in fact the description of the covenant 
 itself, with an express parallel drawn between it and 
 the covenant which had been introduced by the an- 
 nouncement to Abraham of El Shaddai. 
 
 ' And I established also,' He continues, ' My covenant 
 with them, to give them the land of their pilgrimage, 
 wherein they were strangers. And I have also heard 
 the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyp- 
 tians are keeping in bondage ; and I have remembered 
 My covenant.' 
 
 4. And what this covenant is, that its newly made 
 known name introduced, is immediately described. 
 
 ' Wherefore,' in pursuance of this covenant, ' say to 
 the children of Israel, I Jehovah, and I will bring you 
 out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will 
 rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you 
 with an outstretched arm, and with great judgements.' 
 
 5. And how justly the making known of His name 
 Jehovah might have call for being new, is seen from 
 
188 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 the newness of the covenant itself, which it is intro- 
 duced to sanction, of which the main feature is God's 
 taking the Israelite nation for the first time for His 
 own people, and His being to them in a new sense their 
 national God. 
 
 ' And I will be to you a God.' 
 
 This was as if God was now rising up after a long 
 silence to put a fresh hand to the covenant work which 
 He had let be for so long a time, since Jacob and Joseph. 
 For, although there had before and all along been a 
 destination of the Abrahamic family or tribe, as the 
 people of God ; the formal adoption of the nation had 
 not hitherto been made. And this new and unprece- 
 dented display of grace, in adopting the people from 
 amongst the nations of the earth, may well impart its 
 own grounds of novelty also to that publication of the 
 name Jehovah which is here officially announced to 
 celebrate it. 
 
 6. So implicated with the new act of God as making 
 alliance with the nation, is their knowing His name 
 Jehovah, as to be here actually described as consisting, 
 partially at least, if not mainly^ in that as yet uncom- 
 municated knowledge, which they were henceforth 
 to have of Him, in those acts of goodness which He 
 would do towards them, in this relation, thus newly 
 contracted under that name. 
 
 ' And ye shall know that I am Jehovah your God 
 who brought you out from under the burdens of the 
 Egyptians. And I will bring you into the land con- 
 cerning which I sware to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, 
 and to Jacob ; and I will give it now for an heritage.' 
 
FIRST PROMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 189 
 
 It was these future acts of guardian guidance, all 
 bound up in this adoption, which were to afford them 
 that experience of Him, by which they should know 
 Him to be Jehovah, their own national God. 
 
 7. And as a last and crowning sanction to this 
 promise, He sets His name again, like a signature, at the 
 end of the whole address, which He had begun by citing 
 it before — 'I Jehovah.' 
 
 How forcibly the whole address made by God to 
 Moses brings out the special meaning of the clause, ' I 
 was not made known,' will be perhaps more conveniently 
 presented to the reader in the form, inelegant though it 
 be, of a paraphrase ; which the preceding comments will 
 enable the reader to justify. 
 
 ' And God spake to Moses, when preparing to deliver 
 the people from their slavery in Egypt, and to bring 
 them out for His own people, " I am Jehovah." Such 
 is the title under which I now intend to have Myself 
 called in that alliance in which I am going to employ 
 you, Moses, as my chief hand or minister : not as I 
 chose to be called before in the covenant work, or part 
 to which I called your fathers the Patriarchs. For in 
 My covenant promise with tliem I appeared, or was seen, 
 to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, under the title of 
 El Shaddai — God Almighty. Such was the title under 
 which I subscribed My name, to pledge Myself to per- 
 form what I promised. But under the name which I 
 have just announced to you, the name Jehovah, did I 
 not make Myself known to them, as by My official name. 
 And, accordingly, I established with them My covenant, 
 which was not an instituted form of national worship, 
 
190 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 but such an one as was meet for them as Progenitors of 
 the Holy Seed, and prospectively inheritors of the land, 
 to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pil- 
 grimage, in which they were strangers — a covenant 
 preparatory to the one I am about to make with you, 
 which is to make you a people ordained to the charge 
 of worshipping Me, with a national service arranged for 
 that purpose, under a name more proper than the name 
 El Shaddai for perpetual worship — the name Jehovah or 
 self- existing Being — the Being of beings. With this 
 intent, as I vouchsafed to have respect to your fathers ; 
 so now I have heard the groaning of the children of 
 Israel, whom the Egyptians are holding in bondage, and 
 I have remembered My covenant, in which I promised 
 that the seed of Abraham should inherit the land of 
 Canaan. Wherefore, in pursuance of this intention of 
 performing My promise, give to the children of Israel 
 My newly announced name as a pledge, under which I 
 will be bound to do what I say; and say to them, " I am 
 Jehovah," and I will bring you out from under the 
 burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of 
 their bondage, and I will redeem you with an out- 
 stretched arm and with great judgements ; ' and with 
 the purpose of bringing about your inheritance of the 
 land, and your being made the covenant people, I will 
 take you to Me for a people, such as you have not been 
 before, except in destination and promise, a people to 
 worship Me — a holy people — a people of priests, and I 
 will be to you, in a more manifest manner than during 
 your captivity, a God ; not as of the Hebrews only, 
 but God of Israel, the national God, and you shall 
 
I 
 
 rmST PEOMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 191 
 
 know Me, own Me, have My name recorded amongst 
 you as the God of Israel, different from the nations 
 about you, Moab, and Ammon, and Egypt, whose 
 adopted gods are false; and you shall know that I 
 Jehovah, to be henceforth cited and worshipped by 
 you under that title for ever, am your God, Who 
 bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyp- 
 tians. • 
 
 ' And this name shall be a standard, under which I 
 will have you, Moses, to conduct the redemption of 
 them into the land of safety which I sware to give to 
 Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to 
 you, their representatives, for a heritage. This is My 
 covenant, and as assurance of its certainty, behold I 
 pledge the honour of My name — " I Jehovah." ' 
 
 In this address the Divine speaker sets forth His holy 
 name Jehovah, bearing upon itself so many covenant- 
 like characters as plainly enough show that its being 
 made known was intended by Him to stamp a higher 
 value on it for the interest of Israel ; that thus dignified 
 it might henceforth take its stand as the consecrated 
 title for God, in His alhance with Israel. 
 
 This covenant value in the name, which the earlier 
 intimation discloses, is unmistakeably exhibited also in 
 those Divine decrees to Israel, which subsequently 
 Moses, as God's mouth-piece to them, was from time to 
 time instructed to communicate. 
 
 In them the manifestations of the name are really its 
 actual applications, that carry out the intention, which 
 in first declaring it to Moses before the Exodus, the 
 Divine Author had in mind. And this intended sense 
 
192 ESSAYS OX RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 of it therefore will be luminously beheld in them^ as in 
 its destined employments, according to the mode in 
 which it shall be presented by them. 
 
 And how plainly their presentment bespeaks a peculiar 
 covenant value for the name, makes itself apparent 
 from the way in which the taking of the name as the 
 standard name for God in the covenant affairs is prac- 
 tised throughout the course of its delivery. 
 
 Here we are everywhere met with tokens, reminding 
 us how the pecuhar position of the Israelites as God's 
 aUied people, was constituted through the setting 
 amongst them of the name Jehovah ; by which they 
 were consecrated to Him. This setting is that which 
 gives the covenant character to the covenant's main law, 
 the Ten Commandments ; as is seen more clearly un- 
 der the light of Moses' own account of them in Deuter- 
 onomy. There, naming God as ' our God ' (after the 
 manner customary from God's first giving Himself to 
 be their God), he begins, ' Jehovah, our God, made a 
 covenant with us in Horeb ' — the same covenant that 
 Moses, before the exodus, when keeping Jethro's flock in 
 this very mountain, was called to the prospect of being 
 intrusted with, which was that the people should serve 
 God upon this mountain Horeb. 
 
 ' Jehovah made not this covenant with our fathers :' 
 the very same thing — ' not made with their fathers' — 
 that is said of the publishing of the name ; whose con- 
 nection with the covenant itself has thus a common 
 feature to mark it. ' Jehovah talked with you face to 
 face, in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, saying — ' 
 And here follow the covenant Ten Commandments 
 
FIRST PROMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 193 
 
 themselves, prefaced by the solemn announcement, ' I 
 am Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land 
 of Egypt, from the house of bondage.' 
 
 This heading is here put forth to present Jehovah as 
 the grand object of worship, to Whom, under that name, 
 were to be dedicated all the after-stated duties of avoid- 
 ing false gods, idolatry, profanation of God's name, 
 murder, adultery, theft, &c. And all these ordinary^ 
 duties — (bounden as the most ancient law of nature had 
 already made them, and even positive enactment) — are 
 here transformed into services of a new covenant merit, 
 capable of earning God's approbation, by the fact of 
 being dedicated to Him under this appointed name. If 
 this name, thus planted as a sanction, could so conse- 
 crate their ordinary human obhgations, that these should 
 become invested with a value so new : no less new 
 must have been the setting of the name itself, by which 
 those duties received their fresh consecration. And yet 
 it is this very hallowing of the name in the nation's 
 conscience that formed the pecuhar saving know- 
 ledge of God, which was His chosen people's privilege. 
 This Israelite knowledge of God, as Jehovah, therefore, 
 consisted not in a bare philological acquaintance with 
 the name of the Deity, but in the fact that His precious 
 name Jehovah had been set in their dutiful sense, as the 
 witnessed presence of their own remunerating God. 
 
 It is in this same spirit as of an authorising name, 
 that it is appended as God's own signature to His laws, 
 throughout the series of enactments made, as — 'Ye 
 shall keep My sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary, 
 I Jehovah;' — 'Ye shall fear every man his mother 
 
 a 
 
194 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 and his father, and keep My sabbath, I Jehovah v — 
 ' Turn not unto idols, I Jehovah;' — 'Ye shall not steal, 
 I Jehovah ;' — 'Ye shall not swear by My name falsely, &c. 
 I Jehovah ; ' — and so on throughout the statutes, as if 
 the name subscribed to the command gave it a sanc- 
 tion, as an IsraeHte rule, valid for their observance. 
 And how truly this same setting of the name to the 
 ijjDbedience of Israel, infused a special worth into their 
 duties as His favoured people, is seen in the way in 
 which all the duties that God Himself could be the object 
 of, are habitually regarded as being paid to His name. 
 It is His name that they are to sanctify — the name, 
 not of God simply, but their God — His name that they 
 are to swear by, as by a presence now made sacred to 
 all, and not to take in vain, nor to pollute, as too sacred 
 to be called in witness of a falsehood, or to apply pro- 
 fanely. It is His name — the glorious and dreadful 
 name — that they are to fear — His name, which is so 
 admirable, so great, so good, to make mention of, to 
 confess, to declare, to publish, to praise, to glorify. It 
 is His name that they should trust in, glory in, rejoice 
 in, and take as their buckler and shield, in whose 
 strength they should do battle and trust for victory. It 
 is His name that they should call upon, hope in, hallow, 
 love, and bless. A name which, as the audible image 
 of God, they should treat with every affection that God 
 Himself could have from man. And why ? Because His 
 publishing of it to Israel had made it now to be present 
 with them as His pledged memorial of their being 
 betrothed to Him in hohness. 
 
 It is this same setting^ in the spirit of which the holy 
 
FIRST PROMULGATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 195 
 
 name is proclaimed by God Himself in a formal manner 
 according to the promise He gave in answer to Moses' 
 petition, that He would show him His glory : to which 
 He replied, ' I will make all My goodness pass before 
 thee, and I will proclaim the name of Jehovah before 
 thee.' And how connected this proclamation was with 
 assuring the benefits of an alliance, is shown from what 
 follows as its comment. 'And I will be gracious to 
 whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy to 
 whom I will show mercy.' And what He promised is 
 accordingly done, upon the delivery of the second 
 two tables of stone ; when solemnly, as if plighting His 
 own honour, Jehovah descended in a cloud, and stood 
 with him there, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah. 
 And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed 
 'Jehovah, Jehovah, God, merciful and gracious, long- 
 suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,' &c. 
 This solemn announcement is of the same institutional 
 character that marks the name's estabhshed presence in 
 the people. 
 
 This same setting is the mother notion, whose like- 
 ness crops up perpetually in the course of the Penta- 
 teuch, in various exemphfying varieties of the same 
 idea ; in which localised presence is attributed to the 
 Divine Name. Thus it is said to be ' recorded ' in a 
 place. The place, the house, the tribe where God shall 
 choose to^record His name there, is everywhere found ; 
 which evidently attributes to the name an inhabiting 
 mode of existence. 
 
 Of the same character is the idea of residence, which 
 is attributed to it, as when, speaking of the angel, God 
 
 o 2 
 
196 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 says, ' My name is in him,' as a motive for their obey- 
 ing His directions. 
 
 Such again is in the idea of putting the name upon 
 the people, as where it is said (Num. vi. 27) and they, 
 i. e. Aaron and his sons, ' shall put My name upon the 
 children of Israel : ' which consisted in thrice pronounc- 
 ing the name Jehovah with benediction — 'Jehovah 
 ►bless thee and keep thee. Jehovah make His face to 
 shine upon thee, and be gracious to thee. Jehovah hft 
 up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.' 
 
 It is the same locaHsable faculty that is supposed in 
 the idea of the name's being ' called upon ' one, as 
 a pledge of God's favour — as when Jeremiah prays 
 (xiv. 9), ' Jehovah, Thou art in the midst of us ; Thy 
 name is called upon us : leave us not : ' as if in the 
 name being called upon one, or one's being called by 
 His name, a claim upon His guardian grace was given. 
 * Thy name was never called upon them' — the heathen 
 — says Isaiah, as an equivalent to — ' Thou never bearest 
 rule over them,' so that they should -have a right to 
 expect grace from Thee. In the same spirit of the 
 expression, Jehovah Himself speaks, when in the next 
 chapter He says, ' I am sought by a nation that My 
 name was not called upon,' which is here intended to 
 put to shame the unfaithful Israel, whom His name had 
 been called upon in token of their privileged aUi- 
 ance with Him. These, and many more instances, 
 which, if time permitted, might be cited, aU illustrate 
 the fact, that the peculiar knowledge which the Israehtes 
 were gifted with, in God's name being made known to 
 them, consisted in nothing less than the name's being 
 
FIRST PROMULGATIOX OP THE NAME JEHOVAH 197 
 
 given to abide amongst them as the covenant pledge of 
 the precious alHance with Jehovah's saving strength. 
 And as this rich weight of covenant meaning, which, 
 all along the covenant's delivery, habitual usage shows 
 the idea of knowing the name Jehovah to convey, casts 
 back the credit of being its original source upon that 
 grand occasion, where the first setting of the name for 
 use took place, in the revelation of it to Moses ; — this 
 first making known of it to them will, therefore, like 
 its continuing to be known amongst them, imply the 
 giving of it as the name under which God would have 
 His newly adopted people regard Him as now belonging 
 to them, in settled alliance, as their own guardian God. 
 So that for God, to make known His name Jehovah, was 
 to consecrate His name amongst them, as in its chosen 
 dwelling place where He might be worshipped with an 
 acceptable service : and for them to have the name to 
 know Him by, was really to be a people dedicated to 
 Him, under that name, as their indwelling God. 
 
 And as such a Divine fellowship with a nation, where, 
 as Moses says, God was 'so nigh' to them, had never 
 been vouchsafed before in the history of the earth, we 
 have in ' covenant name,' an idea which shows the 
 name Jehovah, as now made known to Moses, to be of 
 a signification quite on a par with that eminent signifi- 
 cation that attended the publication to Abraham of the 
 name El Shaddai : parity with which, therefore, marks 
 a dignity in the new published name of Jehovah, far 
 above the order of any such uses of the same word, as 
 occasions in previous times could show, in the Book of 
 Genesis, even where God Himself employs it, or the 
 
198 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Patriarchs ; — still more where the heathens do. These 
 instances, more than one hundred and sixty in number, 
 many and often solemn as they are, implying at the 
 same time no official knowledge of the name, have, 
 therefore, no such comparable element as could enable 
 them beforehand to preoccupy the honour of priority 
 from the making known to Moses of it, as the name 
 under which Almighty God would henceforth have 
 Himself known to His people Israel as their covenant 
 God. This unprecedented sense, making this publica- 
 tion the first of its kind, offers a light by which the 
 Scripture is fully justified in representing Almighty God 
 saying to Moses, when revealing it, that it ' was not 
 made known to the fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/ 
 These words, therefore, are not properly open to such 
 an imputation as that which is cast by Dr. Colenso ; 
 who, taking the word, in the most un-Hebrew-like 
 sense, to signify the bald knowledge of the word, has 
 used it as a ground to establish against Scripture a 
 charge of falsehood, which he calls ' un veracity' — in 
 his own eyes sufficient to condemn the whole account as 
 a forgery, piously palmed upon the credulous Israehtes 
 by some later writer. 
 
 The Pentateuch and Booh of Joshua critically examined. 
 By the Right Rev, John William Colenso, D.D., Bishop 
 of Natal {1st Part), 
 
 After so many replies to Dr. Colenso's First Part, 
 another yet added at this period of the controversy 
 may strike the reader as superfluous. ' We are tired,' 
 he wiU exclaim, ' of Dr. Colenso, and still more of 
 
DR. COLENSO'S FIRST OBJECTIONS TO SCRIPTURE. 199 
 
 answers to him. If he has been answered already, why 
 trouble us with more? If, after such a multitude, more 
 are required, it would almost seem to argue such a 
 weakness on the defenders' side as would leave it to be 
 supposed that he must be in the right.' 
 
 The reader, however, need not fear that he is going 
 to be dragged over worn-out ground in any long dis- 
 sertation in this paper. This is occupied, in detail at 
 least, upon two only of Dr. Colenso's assertions : which 
 have been purposely selected as yet capable of further 
 treatment, from its seeming to the writer that a thorough 
 refutation had not been given them : these are, the one 
 about Judah's age, and the other, more especially, about 
 the number of the first-born. These are the only ones 
 out of the First Part which now merit any particular 
 notice, as those who have taken up the cause against 
 him have repeatedly sifted and exposed the rest. But 
 though no detailed argument about them is here pro- 
 fessedly given, yet, in case any reader who has not had 
 leisure to pursue an investigation of them should wish 
 to get, in a speedy manner, an idea of the true worth 
 of the other objections — he will be enabled to judge 
 how entirely void of any formidable element they are, 
 from a short conspectus thrown in of the alleged diffi- 
 culties, with indications of the answers appended. 
 
 Ohj. I. This is about Judah's age, which is treated 
 at length in the end of this paper, to which the reader 
 is referred. 
 
 . II. That the court of the Tabernacle, which could 
 hold only 5,000 persons at most, is supposed to receive 
 the whole assembly of the congregation : which is 
 
200 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 impossible — since even the adult males alone, according 
 to the narrative, amounted to 603,500 men, which, 
 therefore, could not all be contained in it. 
 
 A71S. It was never intended to contain all. The ' all,* 
 the ' whole,' spoken of is the same sort of ' all ' which 
 is such by being deemed to be so ; as when a proclama- 
 tion made in a market-place, or demand for a show of 
 hands at the hustings, is deemed to be to all, or, to use 
 an example from Scripture, which the objector himself 
 most suicidally quotes, ' the whole congregation ' is said 
 to stone the blasphemer with stones ; which, according 
 to him, ought to mean that the 603,500 men, with 
 women and children, were to engage themselves in 
 flinging stones at him. The ' all ' here is such because 
 none were expressly excluded ; an ' all' sampled in some, 
 
 III. That Moses and Joshua are said to have ad- 
 dressed 'all the congregation' — ^which is impossible; 
 as all the congregation of two million — as much as 
 London — could not have heard them. This is proved 
 by arithmetic. 
 • Ans. The same reason suffices : the ' all ' were said 
 to be addressed, because none were intentionally ex- 
 cluded — ' all ' sampled in a representative some, 
 
 rV. That the priest is said to have to carry out a 
 whole bullock at least three-quarters' of a mile, and the 
 people to carry out their refuse to an equal distance ; 
 all whicli is incredible. 
 
 Ans. The priest is not said to carry it, but to ' cause 
 to carry ' it. And even if it did not say so, nothing 
 could be drawn from the expression, since common 
 usage attributes to the chief agent all that the agent 
 
BRIEF REVIEW OP HIS FIRST OBJECTIONS. 201 
 
 has done through his management, or which is done in 
 his name ; as, a man is said to build a house, which is 
 materially built by architect, masons, and carpenters, 
 his employes ; or, a company cuts a railway, which is 
 really done by navvies. The same sort of reason suffices 
 for the people carrying their refuse. 
 
 Y. That the shekel of the sanctuary is spoken of 
 before any sanctuary existed. 
 
 Arts. The ' shekel of the sanctuary ' — if that be the 
 true rendering, rather than ' the holy shekel ' — might 
 be spoken of in prospect, just as reasonably as in prospect 
 there could be speech made previous to its existence of 
 the sanctuary itself, or anything else belonging to its 
 order. Of this order, the shekel of the sanctuary was 
 an ingredient. If that could not be spoken of before the 
 sanctuary existed, then neither could the sanctuary's 
 rites and observances, which as yet were only in pro- 
 spect or plan. There did exist, however, a genuine 
 shekel before this, of twenty gerahs, which seems to 
 have been now adopted under a new sanction by Moses, 
 in the same way as he adopted many other preexisting 
 usages into the covenant economy of which he was the 
 dispenser. 
 
 VI. The number of persons, 603,500, who paid this 
 tribute was the same as that which is found in the 
 census some months afterwards, which looks very 
 suspicious. 
 
 Ans. The people being counted by families and 
 fifties, naturally yielded in the returns round numbers, 
 ending in hundreds and fifties, as they do here. No 
 one knows exactly — nor Dr. Colenso either — what was 
 
202 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 precisely the system in making a census of the people. 
 He quotes the right answer from Kurtz, which everyone 
 — and I suspect he himself did — ^will feel to be the true 
 one. 
 
 VII. That they are said to have had tents in coming 
 out of Egypt. This is impossible. They could not 
 have got them; nor, if they had, could they have 
 carried them. 
 
 Ans. Dr. Colenso has never proved that they could 
 not have had tents, nor that they had no means of 
 carrying them. The difficulty is entirely out of his 
 own head. 
 
 Yin. That they are said to have gone out ' har- 
 nessed.' This is impossible : they had no weapons. 
 
 Ans. We have a right to demand how he knows they 
 had no weapons. His mere conjecture on the point is 
 worth nothing. The word ' harnessed ' is, as he himself 
 well knows, most Kkely ' in orderly array,' or by fifties. 
 
 IX. The Israelites are told in one day to keep the 
 Passover. This is impossible, as no notice could have 
 been given throughout the whole nation. 
 
 Ans, They were prepared for the exodus long before, 
 — not for days only, but for weeks, nay months : we 
 may say, from what we see of Moses' constant inter- 
 course with them as their acknowledged guide, that 
 remotely even years had been spent in God's preparing 
 the people under him for that event. That they were 
 not so is merely gratuitously asserted. 
 
 The same principle of a long preparation liquidates 
 many other objections of the same character; as for 
 instance : — 
 
BRIEF REVIEW OP HIS FIRST OBJECTIONS. 203 
 
 X. That notice of the exodus is given, according to 
 the narrative, on the very night of its taking place. 
 
 Ans. Only the last command, not all the mstruc- 
 tions. 
 
 XL That without notice given, they borrow of the 
 Egyptians jewels of gold, &c. 
 
 Ans. This we know, even from explicit statements, to 
 be false. It was premeditated even as early as Moses' 
 first call (Ex. iii. 22). It was commanded days before 
 the slaughter of the firstborn (xi. 2). 
 
 And the success of the action is specially attributed 
 to a miraculous ' favour,' which God gave the IsraeHtes 
 ' in the eyes of the Egyptians ' (xii. 32). 
 
 XII. It is said that the children of Israel journeyed 
 from Eameses to Succoth, 600,000 men on foot that 
 were men, besides children, &c. — That this is utterly 
 incredible, and impossible on account of the ' in- 
 describable distress ' that would have been caused from 
 so many together, still more when we are required to 
 believe that ' in one day ' the order to start was com- 
 municated suddenly at midnight to every single family, 
 &c. &c. 
 
 Yet 'this is undoubtedly what the story of the 
 exodus requires us to believe.' 
 
 Ans. This is what undoubtedly the Scripture does 
 not require us to believe. It was not suddenly, except 
 at the last word of order, but the effect of a Divinely 
 arranged organisation under the vigilant hand of Moses. 
 With regard to the wonderful order manifested in the 
 exodus under the extraordinarily unfavourable circum- 
 stances of night ; if we take the Scripture on its own 
 
204 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 showing, and not on that of Dr. Colenso, we are relieved 
 from any further burden of explaining the wonder at 
 all, as much as we are from that of explaining Christ's 
 resurrection from the dead. Like that, this act of 
 God's bringing His son out of Egypt, with a high hand 
 and outstretched arm, is uniformly described, and cele- 
 brated as a stupendous miracle throughout the whole 
 of the Israelite history. This ' great wonder,' therefore, 
 presents only that sort of difficulty which vanishes 
 into that of believing any other miracle. The difference 
 between this and most others is, that while they are 
 usually worked in the body of one person, this was 
 worked in the body of one whole nation. Divinely pre- 
 pared under the generalship of God Himself, Wlio led 
 Israel about and instructed him as the apple of His 
 eye, as an eagle fluttereth over her nest. If the 
 eagle can take care of her yoimg, and prepare them 
 for flight in due season, surely God could with equal 
 certainty manage to bring His young child Israel into 
 freedom from captivity at the hour that He appointed 
 for Himself. 
 
 If Dr. Colenso does not believe in miracles, let him 
 say so. But let him not object against a declared 
 miracle, that it was not possible by merely unaided 
 natural agency. 
 
 The same principle explains the next, viz. : — 
 XTTT. That the narrative implies vast herds of 
 cattle as belonging to the people throughout the forty* 
 years. This is impossible, as 'such a multitude of 
 cattle ' could not find means of support for such a time, 
 under such circumstances ; i. e., as he adds at the end. 
 
BEIEF EEVIEW OF HIS FIEST OBJECTIONS. 205 
 
 ' without a special miracle, of which the Bible says 
 nothing.' 
 
 Ans. The Bible does not say nothing, at least by 
 direct implication. This is made with the same suffi- 
 ciency, as that by which the greater contains the less, or 
 the whole its part. It does not indeed say in so many 
 words, ' the cattle were sustained miraculously,' but it 
 more than admits it by describing the whole forty 
 years' wandering as a wonderfid work of God, as is 
 declared in many places that might be quoted. Let 
 those suffice which Dr. Colenso has himself referred to ; 
 as when it speaks of ' Jehovah thy God, Who led thee 
 through the great and terrible wilderness, wherein 
 were fiery serpents and scorpions, and drought, where 
 there was no water ; ' and again, ' Jehovah, Who 
 brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, through a 
 land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, 
 and of the shadow of death, through a land that no 
 man passed through, and where no man dwelt.' 
 What was done to ' thee,' Israel, was done to all the 
 whole nation, reaching to every part of their social 
 economy, even to ' their raiment,' and ' shoes,' that 
 ' waxed not old,' and to their feet, which did ' not swell.' 
 There was no need of making special mention of the 
 cattle as partaking of the universal providence, any 
 more than of the women and children. Everything 
 belonging to them was under the same guardianship of 
 a supernatural agency, guiding the national welfare. 
 If want of water for the men made the men's fife to 
 depend upon a supernatural supply, the like want of 
 water and grass made the cattle's support equally the 
 
206 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 effect of supernatural succour. Dr. Colenso might 
 have spared himself the trouble of writing, and his 
 readers of reading, the tedious demonstration of a 
 desert being a desert, a wilderness being a wilderness, 
 and of a land without water being waterless, as he 
 does by quotations at great length from Dr. Stanley 
 and others. That the place of the Israelites' journey- 
 ings was barren, the Bible teaches us in fewer words, 
 much more strikingly, when it describes the scene of 
 this miraculous guidance as ' a waste howling wilder- 
 ness,' 'a great and terrible wilderness,' 'wherein was 
 drought and no water.' 
 
 XrV. That Jehovah says, ' He would not drive out 
 the Hivite and the Canaanite, &c., from before them in 
 one day, lest the land become desolate, and the beast 
 of the field increase against thee.' 
 
 Here Dr. Colenso pretends to find a great difficulty, 
 which he maintains by a pompous array of figures 
 about the acres and population of the Eastern countries. 
 All this is brought up in aid of an aggression upon the 
 above inoffensive text, the simple meaning of which is 
 that the human occupier of the land is a natural barrier 
 against the spirit of desolation and that wildness 
 which is represented by ' the beast of the field.' And 
 such is the sentiment which is brought by him to 
 persuade us that the Pentateuch cannot be believed. 
 He is, I suppose, the first to feel, if he really did feel, 
 any difficulty in the sentiment, and we may safely trust 
 that there will be few others to share it with him. 
 The whole objection is evidently the resultof a pruriency, 
 which had been by this time increasing upon him, for 
 difficulty-mongering. 
 
BEIEF REVIEW OF HIS FIRST OBJECTIONS. 207 
 
 Xy. The objection concerning the disproportion of 
 the first-born with the number of adult males at the same 
 time is answered at full length at the end of this paper. 
 
 XVI. The next objection, which, though capable of 
 being put in a telhng manner, the Doctor lays out in 
 rather a pointless form, comes to this : — That the num- 
 ber of the children of Israel at the time of the exodus 
 was, according to the narrative, at least two millions — 
 a population almost as large as that of London — which 
 is incredible, inasmuch as two million persons could not 
 have been produced in the four generations from the 
 seventy persons who went into Egypt, as must be sup- 
 posed if the account be received. This he proves by 
 an argument, which, if gathered to a point from its 
 scattered state, amounts to this : — 
 
 1. That the progenitors of these two millions were 
 only seventy persons. 
 
 2. That between these and the two millions were only 
 four generations. 
 
 Ans. In this, the only allowable assertion is, that the 
 population were two millions. 
 
 All else in the two propositions is unproved. 
 
 1. That the progenitors were only seventy persons, 
 is an assertion for which there is no evidence, except 
 what in Scripture can never be taken for evidence — the 
 absence of any detailed account of the rest. Such a 
 reason, if taken as proof, would force us to the absurd 
 conclusion, that, because no persons are mentioned as 
 accompanying Simeon and Levi in their assault upon 
 Shechem, they had no armed attendants with them, in 
 putting the inhabitants to the sword. The absence of 
 any explicit mention of persons in Israel, besides the race 
 
208 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 of Israel proper, the genuine Jacobian breed, is nothing 
 in face of the otherwise certain inference that a very- 
 large body of people must have accompanied the family, 
 from the circumstance of Jacob's patriarchal condition. 
 
 He was very rich already, and had been for many 
 years, in flocks and herds, man-servants and maid- 
 servants — not of his own family. 
 
 He most likely also inherited all the retinue that had 
 belonged to his father Isaac ; and the fact of Abraham's 
 having three hundred and eighteen trained men, born 
 in his house, which, however, nothing but a mere 
 incidental mention happens to disclose to us, is quite 
 warrant enough for us to suppose that his heir Jacob, 
 although not explicitly stated to have been possessed 
 of them, was no less furnished with servants trained and 
 shepherds. The contrary would be most violent, and 
 would but httle consist with the idea, that his brother 
 Esau could have a company belonging to him of four 
 hundred men. The only probable supposition is, that 
 Jacob had already grown into a small nation out of 
 persons who had, by the rite of circumcision, been 
 incorporated into the body of his family household. 
 
 That there were only seventy persons as the real 
 progenitors of the Israehte people who went up from 
 Egypt, may be dismissed as at once unproved and in 
 itself incredible. 
 
 2. Then, that there were only four generations 
 between them and the two miUions, is only supported 
 by supposing that the generations of Levi and Judah 
 represent the number of the generations in the pedigree 
 of aU the rest. That there were seven between Ephraim 
 and Joshua, is clear from 1 Chron. vii., and the difficulty 
 
BRIEF REVIEW OF HIS FIRST OBJECTIONS. 209 
 
 attending the text which states it has received a most 
 ample explanation in Dr. M'Caurs httle book, in a pas- 
 sage which is perhaps the most valuable in the work. 
 
 This idea of four generations as being the utmost 
 throughout the pedigree of the Israelite people, may be 
 dismissed, and thus there remains nothing for the pre- 
 tended difficulty. to rest on. 
 
 XYII. That it is impossible that the three priests 
 could have performed all that is described to have been 
 their charge — of offering up all the sacrifices, the burnt- 
 offerings, sin-offerings, peace-offerings, &c., which were 
 to be made by them, and then again of eating in the 
 holy place all the trespass-offerings, sin-offerings, meat- 
 offerings, &c., which were their perquisites. 
 
 Alls. The three priests proper were not the only 
 persons engaged in discharging the detail of these ser- 
 vices. The whole Levitical body were, in some sort, 
 consecrated to Jehovah to a part in the priestly duties. 
 
 XYIII. That they could not have performed all the 
 duties enjoined them of sprinkling the blood of the 
 paschal lambs slain in the court of the Tabernacle. 
 
 Ans. Even upon the supposition, that the paschal 
 lamb was ever slain in the wilderness at all. Dr. Colenso 
 would still have upon his hands the impossible task of 
 proving that it was slain in the Tabernacle, or its blood 
 sprinkled by the priests. Kurtz's idea of their being 
 slain in the private dwelhngs of individuals, would still 
 be the more probable. As to its being implicitly en- 
 joined, as he pretends, in Lev. xx. 2-6 ; this only refers 
 to the burnt-offerings, trespass-offerings, peace-offerings, 
 &c. Amongst these the paschal lamb was not included, 
 
 p 
 
210 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 being of a different category altogether ; so that sprink- 
 ling of the blood by the priest would be gratuitously 
 asserted, even upon the supposition of the passover ever 
 being kept in the wilderness. And this is itself un- 
 proved, for we have no cogent reason to think that it 
 was intended, in the Divine institution of it, that it 
 should be observed, as long as the manna lasted. 
 
 XIX. That it was impossible within six months, 
 between Aaron's death and the conquest of Bashan, for 
 all the events to have occurred which are there recorded 
 to have happened : the march to Moab ; Balak's send- 
 ing for Balaam ; Israel's abiding in Shittim ; the death 
 of twenty-four thousand by the plague, &c. &c. 
 
 Ans. Dr. M'Caul's observation is quite enough to 
 meet all this — that there is no sufficient note of time to 
 ground any reliable objection upon. 
 
 Such, then, is the hst of the ' palpable contradictions' 
 and ' plain impossibilities' which Dr. Colenso fancies he 
 has so convincingly proved against the Pentateuch, as to 
 warrant his demanding from any man who can add up 
 a sum, that henceforth he should renounce all belief in 
 its truth. After an honest canvassing of the whole 
 array, I wiU not scruple to assert that he has not sub- 
 stantiated one single point. We may write ' unproved ' 
 against every one of them at the very worst, nor do I 
 recollect any that is not Open to a clearly dissolving 
 answer. After this summary, brief as it is, I do not 
 think that one is bound to suppress a manifestation, of 
 the feehng, which a review of them so naturally excites 
 in the mind, of utmost contempt for the book that puts 
 them forth ; as one which a scanty insight into Scripture 
 
HIS OBJECTION TO THE NUMBER OF THE FIEST-BORN. 211 
 
 history will enable one to detect as a congeries of mis- 
 takes, cavils, and word-catchings, which the ajQfectation of 
 arithmetical and statistical precision, so largely paraded, 
 does not conceal the emptiness. 
 
 We now come to the two chief points, which have 
 been taken for more special consideration in this paper : 
 these are : — First, That one concerning the impossibility 
 of JudaJishecoming a great-grandfather within the twejity- 
 two years from his marriage, which is supposed by the 
 Bishop to be specified for it : and, secondly, that other one 
 about the disproportion of the number of the first-born 
 in Israel with the total number of the males at the same 
 time, A few words concerning each ; and, as this 
 second objection is the more interesting of the two, and 
 the one which seems to have most puzzled the defenders, 
 I take that first. 
 
 I. It consists in this : — that we find from the 600,000 
 males, upwards of twenty years old, which was their 
 number, according to the census taken shortly after the 
 exodus from Egjrpt, that, at a fair estimation, the whole 
 number of males, including those under twenty years of 
 age, must have been, at least, nine or ten hundred thou- 
 sand ; yet, at the same time, 22,273 was all that there 
 were of first-born sons amons^st them : which, being: 
 about 22,000 or 23,000, to 1,000,000, will, roundly we 
 speaking, give one first-born amongst 40 males, or one 
 first-born brother to 39 younger brothers, so that every 
 mother must, on an average, have borne 40 boys ; and if 
 we suppose the number of female children to have been 
 equal to that of the males, she will, on an average, have 
 had also 40 girls — in all 80 children ; a number which 
 
 p 2 
 
212 ESSAYS ON EELIGION AND LITERATUKE. 
 
 we must agree with Dr. Colenso in thinking much 
 too many for one woman, and still more for each. How- 
 ever, such is the conclusion which the Biblical history- 
 justifies, according to Dr. Colenso's interpretation of it. 
 This, at first sight, is a very formidable-looking 
 difficulty : and various inefiectual attempts have been 
 made to answer it, both before and after the publica- 
 tion of his book. It has been replied : — 
 
 1. That there are modifying circumstances not re- 
 lated, which, if they were, would very likely make it 
 look quite consistent. This consideration is one which 
 it is, indeed, wise to bear in mind in almost all cases, 
 for one's individual guidance ; but, as the respondent 
 does not state what those modifying circumstances 
 were in this case, it will hardly avail against a public 
 adversary. 
 
 2. A second reply places this difficulty, along with 
 many others, under the wide solution of arithmetical 
 errors, possibly crept into the Biblical text. Unfortu- 
 nately, however, for the answer, the numbers are so 
 checked and corrected, as to render the supposition of 
 clerical error impossible. 
 
 3. A third sort assigns, as an accounting reason, 
 Oriental exaggeration in the number of the people, or 
 carelessness. But the numbers are so much the result 
 of a census, and so professedly accurate, that such 
 an apology would make still stronger, and of worse 
 colour, too, the charge of want of historical veracity 
 brought by the adversary. 
 
 4. A fourth ascribes, with Dr. M'Caul, the undue 
 proportion of the rest of the children to the first-born, 
 
HIS OBJECTION TO THE NUMBEK OP THE FIRST-BOEN. 213 
 
 to the effect of polygamy, saying that those intended to 
 be numbered were those only of the first wife, the first- 
 born of the other wives being excluded. This conjec- 
 ture is fetched from outside the case, and unwarranted 
 by anything in the history. 
 
 5. A fifth is that the number of the first-born had 
 been cruelly thinned by Pharaoh having them cast into 
 the river. 
 
 6. And, again, one quoted by Eosenmiiller is, that a 
 male first-born was a very rare thing ; so that it is no 
 wonder there were so few of them, and, besides, the 
 number of still-born males is much greater than that 
 of females. 
 
 7. The editor of the ' Jewish Chronicle' supposes that 
 the first-born numbered, were those only who would 
 be qualified for service in the Tabernacle : an idea which 
 has not even a colour of ground to favour it. 
 
 8. Another is, that many first-born would have been 
 sisters, not brothers, thus reducing the number one 
 half. This, however, does but change the form of the 
 objection, not answer it, since, if we take the sisters 
 into account, we must also take into account the whole 
 female population, with whom their number is com- 
 pared. To this, it is added, that of the remainder, 
 many would have died from slavery, and also from tlie 
 unbelief and neglect of their own parents, in not 
 sprinkling the door-posts with the blood of the paschal 
 lamb. 
 
 9. Bunsen, as cited by Dr. Colenso, admits the diffi- 
 culty existing in the Scripture statement, of which, he 
 says, ' no satisfactory explanation has ever been given. 
 
214 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 His own is as follows: — * i.e. that the first-born were 
 numbered 'from a month old and upward' up to 
 sio) or seven years only, which he supposes to be the 
 age at which such children were sacrificed to Moloch, 
 among the Syrian tribes. 
 
 All these repHes have to be thanked for good inten- 
 tions ; but they will, in the opinion of most, I, think, 
 leave as yet master of the field Colenso's objection 
 based on stern arithmetic, which, for anytliing these 
 replies afibrd, remains still to be answered. 
 
 The answer offered in this paper is one which is re- 
 ferred to by Dr. Colenso as being that of the Eev. T. Scott, 
 who assigns the same idea briefly, but does not give any 
 detailed proof of it. The proof of its truth is, so far as 
 I know, hardly hinted at. 
 
 Whether it has been given amongst those more than 
 thirty answers which have already appeared, at all 
 events, it has not won its way into anything like the 
 notoriety of a familiar solution. 
 
 This answer is drawn, not like the rest, from sources 
 simply conjectural, but from the consideration of the 
 drift of the liistory itself 
 
 And from this we find a most satisfactory explana- 
 tion of the fewness of these first-born, in the fact that, 
 though consisting, as it is said, of all the first-born in 
 Israel from a month old and ' upward ' — that ' upward ' 
 extends only so far as a few years of infancy could 
 reach. And if no further evidence in the passage were 
 forthcoming for it, it would indeed be quite clear 
 enough even from the very intention of the numbering 
 itself : which consisted in Almighty God's purpose of 
 
HIS OBJECTION TO THE NUMBER OP THE FIEST-BOEN. 215 
 
 liallowing to Himself such of the first-born as had been 
 born since the slaughter of the Egyptian first-born — in 
 fact, from the time of the first Passover. This is clear 
 from the express declaration made, when commanding 
 the substitution of the Levite tribe instead of these 
 same first-born :' — 
 
 ' Bghold,' says the Lord, ' all the first-born are Mine ; 
 from the day that I smote all the first-born in the land 
 of Egypt I hallowed to Myself all the first-born of Israel, 
 both man and^ beast : Mine they shall be.' (Numbers 
 iii. 13.) 
 
 And what is here commemorated, had been before 
 expressly commanded to Moses in the coming out of 
 Egypt :— 
 
 ' Sanctify to Me all the first-born, whatsoever open- 
 eth the womb among the children of men, both of 
 man and of beast : it is Mine.' (Exodus xiii. 3.) 
 
 And to this afterwards He alludes, when taking the 
 Levite tribe for them : — 
 
 ' On the day that I smote the first-born in the land 
 of Egypt, I sanctified them to Myself.' (Numbers 
 viii. 17.) 
 
 The persons of the first-born to be numbered were, 
 therefore, only such as, hke the firstlings of the cattle, 
 became dedicated to the Lord, as being born after the 
 slaughter of the Egyptian first-born, at the time of the 
 Passover. 
 
 And, as this had happened only a short time previous, 
 it is plain that only infants of a short age could be 
 included in the numbering. 
 
 When, then, the Lord says to Moses, * Number all 
 
216^' ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE.. 
 
 the first-born of the males of the children of Israel 
 from a month old and upward ' (Numbers iii. 40), the 
 ' upward ' would reach only within the age from the 
 coming out of Egypt : and it is nothing but a gratuitous 
 violation of the explicitly declared intention of the cen- 
 sus to pretend, as Bishop Colenso does, by insisting on the 
 words ' all Israel ' and ' upward^' that it refers^to the 
 whole male population in Israel, whether young or old. 
 
 This of itself, then, might be enough to save the 
 Scripture from the audacious attempt of fastening upon 
 it such an incredible absurdity as giving forty boys to 
 each mother, and as many girls besides. 
 
 But, fortunately, we are not reduced to depend, even 
 for our main support, upon the evident scope of the 
 census. For, consistently with this, we find also a Httle 
 fact recorded, that marks, without danger of mistake, 
 the infant age of the persons numbered : and this is, 
 the infant rate of the redemption money fixed for those 
 of them who had to be redeemed, instead of being sub- 
 stituted by the Levites. 
 
 The naming of this rate occurs in the account of the 
 substitution of the Levites for the first-born of Israel, 
 made, as we learn, from the following command : — 
 
 ' And the Lord spake to Moses, saying. And I, behold, 
 I have taken the Levites from among the children of 
 Israel : therefore the Levites shall be Mine.' (Numbers 
 iii. 11.) 
 
 And again : — 
 
 ' And thou shalt take the Levites for Me (I am the 
 Lord) instead of all the first-bom among the children 
 of Israel.' (Numbers iii. 40.) 
 
HIS OBJECTION TO THE NUMBEK OF THE FIKST-BOKN. 217 
 
 So the Levites were numbered : and the first-born 
 numbered also, and the numbers of each were com- 
 pared. But it was found, that, while the first-born 
 amounted to 22,273, the Levites only amounted to 
 22,000 ; so that there were 273 first-born who were 
 without a Levite substitute. 
 
 Accordingly, these were decreed to be redeemed by 
 ; redemption money instead; now the rate of the re- 
 demption money fixed for these 273, was Jive shekels 
 per head, without any distinction. 
 
 'And for those that are to be redeemed of the 273 
 of the first-born of the children of Israel, who were 
 more than the Levites, thou shalt take five shekels 
 a piece by the poll, after the shekel of the sanctuary 
 shalt thou take them : and thou shalt give the money, 
 •wherewith the odd number of them is to be redeemed, 
 
 Pto Aaron and to his sons.' (Numbers iii. 46.) 
 " Now this five-shekel rate taken for these first-born 
 was precisely the rate fixed for the redemption of 
 children under five years of age, as we find from the 
 rules of redemption, stated in Lev. xxvii. 6 ; where 
 there is given a graduated scale of rates for redemption 
 from vow of those who had been dedicated to the 
 Lord. 
 
 Years. Years. 
 
 From 20 to 60-j-i^ ; ; f, 
 
 K orv f male . . 20 
 
 " " I female . . 10 ^ shekels. 
 
 Month. Years. 
 
 male . . 5 
 
 I 
 
 And this same five-shekel rate, fixed at this time 
 
 •^ '^ ^ ' female . . 3 
 
2lf 
 
 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 for the 273, was afterwards made ordinary law for all 
 first-born children, according to the statute made for 
 that purpose, in which it is particularly to be re- 
 marked that though the objects of the law are pro- 
 fessedly children, the text does not state, in terms, any 
 limit to the age upward, but only from what age — 
 namely, a month old — the estimation was to boNmade. 
 
 'Everything,' says the Lord to Aaron, 'devoted to 
 the Lord shall be thine ' — i. e. Aaron's. ' Everything 
 that openeth the matrix in all flesh, which they bring 
 to the Lord, of man or beasts, shall be thine : neverthe- 
 less the first-born of men thou shalt surely redeem, 
 and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem : 
 and those that are to be redeemed from a month old 
 shalt thou redeem, according to thy estimation, for the 
 money of five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, 
 which is twenty gerahs.' (Numbers xviii. 16.) This is 
 the same five shekels which is usually supposed to have 
 been given for our Lord at the time of His presenta- 
 tion in the Temple. 
 
 . Li these five shekels, then, we have a mark of the 
 age which belonged to the 273 first-born, and, conse- 
 quently, of the whole number, 22,273 ; whose age 
 must have been under five years, suitably to the time 
 which had elapsed since the decree of the first-born's 
 sanctification had been determined. Their fewness is 
 thus accounted for from the text. 
 
 If the description of the first-born, as being children 
 born since the Passover, is met with the new difficulty 
 (as Dr. Colenso in answer to Scott objects), that in that 
 case the number 22,273 would be too many to suppose 
 
judah's age. 219 
 
 to have been born ; we answer, tliat this objection only 
 rests upon the assumption, that between that Passover 
 and the numbering there had been only the space of one 
 year ; which, however, is evidently unproved from 
 Scripture. The time of the numbering of the first-born 
 is unfixed. It is narrated in a chapter unconnected 
 with those events, which are dated as taking place ' on 
 the first day of the second month in the second year.' 
 (Numbers i. 1.) The only date, if such it can be called, 
 is what may be gathered from the following heading in 
 chap. iii. 1 : ' These also are the generations of Aaron 
 and Moses in the day,' i. e. the season, ' that Jehovah 
 spoke with Moses in Mount Sinai.' 
 
 How long this ' day,' which in Hebrew means often, 
 as it does here, not a solar day, but a ' period,' we do 
 not know precisely. 
 
 There is, therefore, no limitation of the time of the 
 numbering, except as being within the period that 
 they were still abiding at Sinai, before their first 
 removal. This would allow, therefore, time for the 
 number of first-born since the Passover, to have 
 reached the number stated in the text. 
 
 And in this is solved the difficulty brought by the 
 Bishop, about the disproportion of their number with 
 that of all the adults of Israel. 
 
 11. The second objection, concerning the impossibihty 
 of Judah's becoming a great-grandfather in twenty-two 
 years, important as it is, is one grounded on dry calcu- 
 lations about ages and dates, and its treatment will 
 bring interest only to those who are wilHng to give an 
 attention to minute details. 
 
220 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 It is supported by the objector on the following 
 grounds : — Judah being but three years older than 
 Joseph, married, as appears from the story, after 
 Joseph had reached his seventeenth year; which 
 makes Judah, at the time of his first marriage with 
 Bathshua, at least twenty years old ; but yet twenty- 
 two years afterwards, when Joseph was only thirty- 
 nine, we find, in the migration into Egypt, that Judah, 
 then only forty-two years old, had become a great- 
 grandfather, inasmuch as we find the names of his 
 great-grandsons, Hezron and Hamul, amongst those who 
 formed the company of that migration. The way in 
 which the objection is presented by Dr. Colenso is as 
 follows : — 
 
 'Now Judah was forty-two years old, according to 
 the story, when he went down with Jacob into 
 Egypt. 
 
 ' (Note.) Joseph was thirty years old when he stood 
 before Pharaoh, as governor of the land of Egypt, and 
 from that time nine years elapsed — seven of plenty, 
 and two of famine — before Jacob came down to Egypt. 
 At that time, therefore, Joseph was thirty-nine years 
 old. But Judah was about three years older than 
 Joseph ; for Judah was born in the fourth year of 
 Jacob's double marriage, and Joseph in the seventh. 
 Hence Judah was forty- two years old when Jacob went 
 down to Egypt. But if we turn to Gen. xxxviii. we 
 shall find that in the course of these forty-two years of 
 Judah's life, the following events are recorded to have 
 happened. 
 
 'Judah grows up, marries a wife at that time, viz.. 
 
JUDAIl'S AGE. 221 
 
 that is, after Joseph's being sold into Egypt ; when he 
 was seventeen years old, and when Judah consequently 
 was at least twenty years old, and has separately three 
 sons by her. 
 
 ' The eldest of these three sons grows up, is married, 
 and dies. 
 
 ' The second grows to maturity (suppose in another 
 year), marries his brother's widow, and dies. 
 
 ' The third grows to maturity (suppose in another 
 year still), but declines to take his brother's widow to 
 wife. 
 
 ' She then deceives Judah himself, conceives by him, 
 and in due time bears him twins, Pharez and Zarah. 
 
 ' One of these twins also grows to maturity, and has 
 two sons,- Hezron and Hamul, born to him before Jacob 
 goes down into Egypt. 
 
 ' The above being certainly incredible, we are 
 obliged to conclude that one of the two accounts must 
 be untrue.' 
 
 The validity of the objection rests upon tliree 
 different assumptions made concerning the Scriptural 
 statement : — 
 
 I. That Judah was only three years older than 
 Joseph. 
 
 II. That his marriage with Bathshua took place 
 when Joseph was seventeen years old. 
 
 III. That his great-grandsons, Hezron and Hamul, 
 are supposed, in Scripture, to have gone down into 
 Egypt at the same time with Jacob. 
 
 Of these three assumptions, I shaU endeavour to 
 prove : — 
 
222 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 1. The first to be demonstrably false. 
 
 2. The second unproved and unprovable. 
 
 3. The third also unproved, and a misuse of the 
 passage employed for it. 
 
 1. That Judah was only three years older than 
 Joseph, though not true, is assumed naturally enough, 
 perhaps, from the apparent fact of Joseph's having 
 been born in the seventh^ and Judah in the fourth, year of 
 that second seven years of Jacob's servitude with Laban, 
 which comprised, as it would seem, the birth-time of 
 all the twelve children (eleven sons and one daughter). 
 For Leah was taken to wife, it would seem, at the end 
 of Jacob's first seven years' servitude ; and Eachel given 
 in advance just after : so that they were wives simul- 
 taneously, from about the beginning of the eighth year. 
 Now, all the bearing of these twelve children was 
 completed in the fourteenth — the end of the second 
 seven years : so that Judah, Leah's fourth son, could 
 not well be born before the fourth year of that seven ; 
 and, as Joseph was born in the last, there will, at the 
 utmost, be but three years' difference in the ages. A 
 consideration which looks quite natural ; and, I must 
 confess, that formerly, along with many others, misled 
 by the view of these marriages, I felt forced, not with- 
 out reluctance, to conclude that, improbable as it 
 looked, the births of all these twelve children did take 
 place within the second seven years of Jacob's servi- 
 tude. 'But that this is a false conclusion, it is 
 astonishing now to me that one does not immediately 
 see, fi'om a most incontrovertible fact, exhibited in the 
 births of all these twelve children, which are clearly 
 
judah's agb. 223 
 
 narrated to have taken place in an order one after the 
 other, the same as if they had been born of one wife. 
 Tliis we have in chaps, xxix. and xxx. ; where they 
 are given, seriatim, with sufficient circumstances to 
 indicate the lapse of, at the very leasts twelve years. In 
 the first place, there is the birth of Leah's four sons, 
 Eeuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah— at least requiring 
 four years ; then Leah's non-bearing time, in which 
 Bilhah bears two sons — two years ; after Bilhah, Zilpah 
 bears two sons (when Eeuben, by-the-by, was old 
 enough to know the look and value of mandrakes) — 
 two years more, in all four years ; making the time 
 already elapsed eight years at least. Then Leah begins 
 to bear again, in which time three children are born, 
 Issachar, Zebulon, and Dinah — ^requiring, at least, 
 three years more, making eleven years ; after which, 
 Eachel bears Joseph, in, at the very least, the twelfth 
 year. This quite upsets the theory of the one seven 
 years alone being the time for the bearing of these 
 twelve children ; so that we must conclude the time to 
 have occupied the two seven years, or fourteen years. 
 By this, the true reckoning, we are at liberty to put, at 
 least, ten years seniority to Judah, the fourth son. I 
 do not wish to press upon a further point — viz., that it 
 cannot, I think, be actually disproved, though I do 
 not intend to maintain it, that Joseph's birth was not, 
 as some have thought, even at the end of the twenty 
 years that Jacob stayed in Padanaram. I will be con- 
 tent with the certain ten years. 
 
 But now to the obvious objection against all this : 
 how are we to make consistent with it the foregoing 
 
224 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 history of Jacob's marriage with his wives? For it 
 would appear from tliat, that Leah was not given to 
 wife until after the first seven years, from the follow- 
 ing way of narrating the facts : ' And Jacob served 
 seven years for Eachel, and they seemed to him but a 
 few days, for the love he had to her. And Jacob said, 
 " Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I 
 may have her as my own.'" Then followed the marriage 
 feast, and, on the discovery of Laban's fraud, of putting 
 Leah in the stead of Eachel, amongst other things, 
 Jacob says, ' Did I not serve thee for Eachel : where- 
 fore hast thou beguiled me ? ' From this, it would look 
 as if Jacob had served his seven years before Leah's 
 being given to him ; that his days of servitude had 
 been fulfilled ; and that he appealed, in his expostula- 
 tion, to these same years, already completed : so that 
 the first seven years must have already past. A strong 
 looking case, I must own, at first for the Bishop. How- 
 ever, before attempting to explain these words, so as to 
 make them consist with the fact, it may be as well to 
 call to mind a very important circumstance, that, un- 
 luckily for the objection, the very same sort of thing 
 may be urged for the second seven years also, which 
 won Eachel. In this it would appear, with equal 
 show of probability, that Eachel, also, was given not 
 in advance, but after the servitude completed. For 
 Laban says, in reply to Jacob, ' Fulfil her ' (Eachel's) 
 ' week, and we will give thee this one ' (Eachel) ' also, 
 for the service thou shalt serve with me seven other 
 years. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week, and 
 he gave him Eachel, his daughter, to wife also.' 
 
JUDAH'S AGE. ♦ 225 
 
 Hi Would it not seem, from this, that the bargain for 
 Eachel was, that she should be given after the second 
 week of seven years ; and that, accordingly, Jacob's 
 service, stated in ' he did so,' procured the dehvery of 
 Eachel to him, stated in these words, 'and he gave 
 him Eachel ? ' Simply, then, looking at the sequence 
 in narration, which the objection is grounded upon, 
 there is equal ground for supposing Eachel's marriage 
 to have followed the second seven years, as for that of 
 Leah having followed the first seven : so that, if this 
 were allowed, we must, at the same time, admit, what 
 has the same foundation, that Eachel's dehvery to 
 Jacob was after the second seven years' service. And 
 yet it was not so. For we can pretty clearly prove, 
 that Eachel was a wife, and had been for some time a 
 wife, on Leah's fourth son, Judah's being born in Leah's 
 fourth year of wifehood, as is deducible from Eachel's 
 showing, after Judah's birth, a wife's envy at Leah's 
 fruitfulness. 
 
 ' And when Eachel,' after Judah's birth, ' saw that 
 she bare no children to Jacob' (of course as a wife), 
 'Eachel envied her sister.' Nay, more, she was a 
 wife before Leah's first son, Reuhen^ from Eachel's 
 barrenness being even then an observable fact. For 
 before Leah began to bear, we find : — 
 
 'When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, He 
 opened her womb ' (the fruit of which was Eeuben) ; 
 ' but Eachel was barren.' So that both were wives at the 
 same time ; and, as this time was the beginning of the 
 fourteen years, they must both have been given in 
 advance, at the commencement of the servitude. On 
 
 Q 
 
226 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 this account, we cannot conclude, that because Jacob's 
 loving service, which seemed but ' a few days,' pre- 
 ceded, in narrative^ Leah's delivery to JacQj3, that, 
 therefore, Leah was not given previously to the first 
 ^ seven years. But then, if that be the case, what are 
 you to make of the seven years seeming but ' a few 
 days,' for the love he had for Eachel, unless this con- 
 tented service of seven years preceded, in point of 
 time, the disappointing substitution of Leah for Eachel ? 
 This seems natural enough. But equally natural is 
 another understanding of the words, according to what 
 they will mean, that in the prospect^ the idea of seven 
 years seemed to be only that of a ' few days : ' and 
 still more naturally will this present itself from a more 
 literal translation of the language itself, hj which it 
 will run thus ; ' And they were in his eyes,' or, as we 
 should say, in his view, ' as single days in his love of her.' 
 But, then, you will say, Jacob himself refers back to 
 a completed servitude, before receiving Leah to wife : 
 ' My days are fulfilled,' says he. These ' days' do not, 
 I answer, necessarily refer to the days of servitude. It 
 is a phrase like ' It is high time,' ' The time is come,' 
 that I should have her, referring, most likely, to the 
 usual days of betrothal, or courtship. You might 
 again reply, that the narrative says he had served, ' and 
 he served for Eachel seven years, and they were but 
 a few days ; ' and, besides that, Jacob himself refers 
 again to past time in his words : ' Did I not serve thee 
 for Eachel ? ' I answer : in the English it would be so ; 
 but, as the word rendered ' to serve ' is equally good 
 for 'entering service,* 'becoming a servant,' no very 
 
judah's age. 227 
 
 lated ' He served,' ' Did I not serve ? ' It may be as 
 much as to say, ' Have I not become thy servant ? ' ' Am 
 I not serving thee for Eachel ? ' 
 
 In this view, the whole passage will pretty much 
 run thus : — 
 
 ' And Jacob loved Eachel, and said, " I will be ser- 
 vant seven years for Eachel thy younger daughter." 
 And Laban said, " It is better for me to give her to 
 thee, than to another man ; stay vdth me." And Jacob 
 entered service for Eachel for seven years, and they 
 were, in Ms eyes, as single days, in his love of her. 
 And Jacob said to Laban, " Give me my wife, for full 
 is my time, that I should possess her." And afterwards, 
 " What is this thou hast done ? Have I not become 
 servant for Eachel ? " ' 
 
 In this reading, there is nothing wanting in sense, 
 and no violence to the language. The words of the 
 narrative of Leah's marriage, then, when taken in 
 conjunction with the counterpart on Eachel's side, need 
 not make us scruple in accepting what the order of the 
 twelve children's birth demonstrates so necessary — 
 that fourteen years, not seven, was the period for their 
 coming into the world. Consequently, Judah was not 
 necessarily only three years older than Joseph, as 
 Bishop Colenso assumes, but at least ten or eleven. 
 And, in that case, at Jacob's migration into Egypt, he 
 will have been not forty-two, but fifty or fifty-one. 
 This addition of seven years to his life will be so much 
 rehef to the difficulty, if it will enable us to fix his 
 marriage earlier. 
 
 ^2 
 
228 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 2. ' But it won't enable us,' the adversaiy will, o( 
 course, reply. ' For,''even supposing him to be ten years 
 or even fifty years older than Joseph, there is a fatal im- 
 possibility against his becoming a great-grandfather in 
 the time allowed from his marriage. For this was, in 
 any case, not before Joseph's seventeenth year, and he 
 was already great-grandfather before Jacob's migration 
 into Egjrpt, in Joseph's thirty-ninth. Now take seven- 
 teen from thirty-nine, and twenty-two remain ; and 
 this twenty-two is "all the space you have for getting 
 Judah into a great-grandfather.' 
 
 That twenty-two is all that is left from thirty-nine, 
 minus seventeen, I admit ; I admit that Jacob's jour- 
 ney into Egypt was in Joseph's thirty-ninth year ; and 
 also, that seventeen years was his age in the chapter 
 previous to the one which narrates Judah's marriage 
 with Bathshua. But that his marriage is, therefore, 
 dated by the seventeenth year of Joseph, as undoubt- 
 ingly inferred by Bishop Colenso, I boldly deny, for a 
 reason which, when stated, any reader, however little 
 critical of Scripture, will, I think, admit to be vaHd — 
 viz. that the chapter containing Judah's marriage is 
 entirely independent of the narrative about Joseph, in 
 the body of which jl is found. And for satisfaction on 
 this point, let any one peruse the 37th, 38th, and SBth 
 chapters, and he will immediately perceive that the 
 account of Judah's marriage interrupts the passage 
 about Joseph's departure into Egypt in a manner such 
 that no writer could, for a moment, intend for consecu- 
 tive narration, even allowing everything for transitions 
 in history. The thirty-ninth ends with an incident 
 
 J 
 
JUDAH'S AGE. ' 229 
 
 of Joseph's career, saying, that Hhe Midianites sold 
 Joseph into Egypt, unto Potiphar, an officer of 
 Pharaoh.' Then, all at once, in the thirty- eighth, we 
 are landed upon the words, ' And it came to pass at that 
 time that Judah went down from his brethren,' then 
 proceeding with his marriage with Bathshua, when we 
 are plunged into a series of details about his and his 
 sons' marriages which must have reached forward to 
 thirty or forty years ; and this goes on down to the 
 words about his sons Pharez and Zarah : ' And after- 
 wards came out his brother, with the scarlet thread 
 upon his hand, and his name was called Zarah.' 
 
 These words bring us all at once right against the 
 beginning of the next chapter, commencing with the 
 resumed incident of Joseph's journey, thirty or forty 
 years before, into Egypt under the hand of the Ishmael- 
 ites : ' And Joseph was brought down into Egypt, and 
 Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, &c., bought him, &c. 
 Thus the properly indivisible fact of Joseph's capture, 
 a matter of days, being spht into two parts, is separated 
 by a massive history, all abruptly wedged in, striding 
 over whole generations. Can any one imagine for 
 a moment that any consecution or relation is intended? 
 This thirty-eighth chapter stands out as a distinct 
 document by itself, as plainly as an article or a letter in 
 the Times does from the adjoining articles. A patch 
 of red cloth pinned on to a gown of black silk would 
 not show greater difference of colour, texture, and design, 
 than does this said chapter about Judah, in matter, 
 style, and object, from the consecutive tale of Joseph, 
 in the midst of which it suddenly appears, like a block 
 
 L 
 
230 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 of stone on a smooth path. If it should be/asked, 
 Why, then, is it in this place ? I would answer, Because 
 there was no better place for it amongst the ' generations 
 of Jacob.' Yet amongst those ' generations ' it ought to 
 come ; because the family of Judah, who was his son, was 
 a part of those ' generations ;* and if we look on through- 
 out those chapters on to the fiftieth, we should in vain 
 seek for a better place to insert it in than this little 
 time of repose between Joseph's exit from the scene in 
 his native land to reappear afterwards as a slave in 
 Egypt. This is the same sort of reason which evidently 
 has determined the place for other documents, as for 
 instance ' the generations of Adam ' in chap, v., that of 
 Esau's generations in chaj). xxxvi., the list of names of 
 Israel's sons in chap, xxxv., and that other one to which 
 we shall have to refer immediately, of the people who 
 went into Egypt in chap, xlvi., with many other places 
 that could be cited, especially in Kings and Chronicles, 
 w which, though not consecutive, have found their places 
 where they are because such were the most opportune for 
 their insertion. It is true, -indeed, that Judah's marriage 
 is commenced with the words ' at that time.' But ' at 
 that time,' ' in those days,' like ' in illo tempore,' inserted 
 by the Church before the Gospels, are often so vague 
 that they cannot be taken as any sufficient date for 
 chronological inference. The writers were not always 
 anxious to insure such precision to the time of the events 
 they are content to record. The chapter, then, dedicated 
 to Judah's descendants, though beginning with ' at that 
 time,' may be taken as a piece of history totally inde- 
 pendent of the history of Joseph's life and fortunes, and, 
 
judah's age. 231 
 
 consequently, undecided for its exact time by the fact of 
 Joseph's captivity. His seventeenth year therefore cannot 
 be taken for the date of Judah's marriage with Bathshua ; 
 and we are at hberty to suppose the time of this marriage 
 at any period which will consist with other parts of the 
 narrative. And this extra seven years of life will give 
 seven years' worth of assistance in the difficulty. 
 
 3. But now to the last charge. It may be rejoined, 
 make the marriage at what time you will, and make 
 Judah if you will ten years older than Joseph — you 
 are still confronted with the incredible result, that the 
 birth of his great-grandsons took place before the 
 journey into Egypt at Joseph's thirty-ninth year, which 
 will not allow a reasonable time for growing into a great- 
 grandfather, as he will then be at the most only forty- 
 nine or fifty years. 
 
 To this I reply : Not necessarily, unless you choose 
 with Bishop Colenso to suppose the Scripture to have 
 decided that the births of these children were before 
 that journey. Now, I contend that it cannot be supposed 
 from the passage on which he relies for proof, for a 
 like reason to that I have employed in the document 
 about Judah's marriage. This passage in chap, xlvi., 
 which is a list of names, is evidently not intended to 
 give an account of the people actually travelling down 
 with Jacob, the ' women ' and the ' children ' in ' the 
 waggons.' In that case it would not be an object of 
 such great Scriptural interest as it really is. That the 
 bulk of Jacob's family accompanied him, is likely enough 
 But we need not surely suppose that they had in their 
 company all the persons so precisely enumerated in this 
 
232 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 catalogue. The obj ect of this Hst seems naturally enough 
 to state what persons and how many constituted the 
 body of the true Israehte nation, who made this signal 
 migration from their native land into Egypt. This 
 migration, for anything the style of the document forces 
 us to imagine, may have been completed with some 
 disconnection in mode and time. It is quite true, indeed, 
 that the list occurs close to the very passage that relates 
 the journey. But it by no means follows that it there- 
 fore forms part of the original context. Its presence 
 in this place is only because the occasion of the journey 
 was a very proper one for inserting such particulars. 
 Where else could it have been put so well ? But that 
 it reaUy forms no portion of the story in which it appears 
 is sufficiently discernible. It bears upon its face the 
 stamp of being a document distinct from the narrative. 
 The narrative itself is in its style progressive, picturesque, 
 and flowing, after the manner of an easy tale. The 
 catalogue is dry, formal, square, looking Hke an extract 
 from a record, as hkely enough it is, and of a grain 
 altogether at variance with the narrative. And if you 
 take it all out (from verse 8 to verse 27), the remaining 
 context reads more like a continuation, more uniform 
 and more easy than when accompanied -by the register, 
 which is much more like a note than any portion of the 
 context. This register, then, may be and ought to be 
 taken as a separate document with a different object 
 from that of the narrative of the mere journey ; but 
 placed here, as in its most convenient place, to com- 
 memorate the names, members, and maternal parentage 
 of the Israelite people proper, who formed the substance 
 
judah's age. 233 
 
 of the grand migration from Canaan to Egypt. Any- 
 thing further, or anything less, than this is violent, and, 
 to use the expression of one of the late writers, a 
 'perverse literalness.' It is a senseless adherence to 
 words, without attention to the drift of the writer. To 
 press it, then, into such a service, as to make it give a 
 precise enumeration of the number of persons actually 
 travelling in company with Jacob, is employing it for 
 the purpose of cavil, not of truth. We cannot, therefore, 
 allow the document to be made a means of proof of 
 the actual presence of Hezron and Hamul in that com- 
 pany. Its veracity will be fully justified if we attribute 
 to it the object of registering the important part of the 
 body of the Israelites whose migration eventually took 
 place. This argument may be also supplemented per- 
 haps by the exceptional manner, so often alluded to, 
 in which the names of Judah's descendants, Hezron 
 and Hamul, are introduced into the catalogue. These 
 reasons, then, leave us at full hberty to fix the children's 
 descent into Egypt, as also their birth, at any time that 
 will make them partakers of the general migration ; 
 and this is, I think, sufficient to meet Bishop Colenso's 
 third assumption, concerning the birth of the children 
 before Joseph's thirty-ninth year. 
 
 On the whole, then, the Bishop's three assumptions 
 about Judah's not having time to become a great- 
 grandfather may be confronted with three facts : 
 
 1. That Judah was not three, but nine or ten years 
 older than Joseph. 
 
 2. That the time of his marriage with Bathshua is 
 not fixed in Scripture at Joseph's seventeenth year. 
 
234 
 
 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 3. That the bictli of his grandsons Hezron and 
 Hamul is not intended to be decided before Joseph's 
 thirty-ninth year, the time of Jacob's traveUing into 
 Egypt. 
 
 And these facts show, with regard to Bishop Colenso's 
 assumption, that: 
 
 1. The first is evidently false. 
 
 2. The second unproved and unproveable. 
 
 3. The third is a misuse of a family document 
 as being a precise picture descriptive of a travelling 
 cortege. 
 
Il 
 
 THE TEUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS AND FABLES, 
 
 By H.E. CARDINAL WISEMAN. 
 
 l^Taken by Short-hand.'] 
 
 The subject of the address which I am about to dehver 
 is as follows : Events and things which have been con- 
 sidered legendary, or even fabulous, have been proved 
 bj further research to be historical and true. 
 
 Before coming directly to the subject which I wish 
 to occupy your attention, I will give a little account 
 of a very extraordinary discovery which may throw 
 some hght upon the general character and tendency of 
 our investigation. In the year 1775 Pius VI. laid the 
 foundation of the sacristy of S. Peter's. Of course, as 
 is the case whenever the ground is turned up in Eome, 
 a number of inscriptions came to light ; these were 
 carefully put aside, and formed the lining, if I may so 
 say, of the corridor which unites the sacristy with the 
 church. It was observed, however, that a great many 
 of these inscriptions referred to the same subject, and a 
 subject which was totally unknown to antiquarians : 
 they all spoke of certain Arval Brethren — Fratres 
 Arvales. Some were mere fragments, others were 
 entire inscriptions. 
 
 These, to the number of sixty-seven, were carefully 
 
236 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 put together and illustrated by the then librarian of the 
 Vatican, Mgr. Marini. It was an age when in Eome 
 antiquarian learning abounded. There were many, 
 perhaps, who could have undertaken the task, but it 
 naturally belonged to him as being attached to the 
 church near which the inscriptions were found. He 
 put the fragments together, collated them one with 
 another, and with the entire inscriptions. He procured 
 copies at least, -^enhe could not examine the originals, 
 of such other slight fragments as seemed to have 
 reference to the subject, the key having now been 
 found, and the result was two quarto volumes,* giving 
 us the entire history, constitution, and ritual of this 
 singular fraternity. Before this period two brief notices 
 in Varro, one passage in PHny, and allusions in two 
 later writers, Minutius Felix and Fulgentius, were all 
 that was known concerning it. One merely told the 
 origin of it from the time of the kings, and the others 
 only stated that it had something to do with questions 
 about land ; and there the matter ended. Now, out of this 
 ignorance, out of this darkness, there springs, through 
 the researches of Mgr. Marini, perhaps the most com- 
 plete account or history that we have of any institution 
 of antiquity. So complete was the w^ork, in fact, that 
 only two inscriptions relating to this subject have been 
 found since ; one by Melchiorri, who undertook to 
 write an appendix to the work ; and the other in 1855 
 in excavating the Dominican garden at Santa Sabina, 
 which indeed threw great hght upon the subject. From 
 
 * Atti e Monumenti dei Fratelli Arvali, Da Mgr. Marini. 
 2 torn. Roma, 1795. 
 
THE TEUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 237 
 
 these inscriptions we learn that this was one of the 
 most powerful bodies of augurs or priests in Eome. 
 Yet neither Phny, nor Livy, nor Cicero, when expressly 
 enumerating all the classes of augurs, ever alludes to 
 them. Now, we know how they were elected. On 
 one tablet is an order of Claudius to elect a new mem- 
 ber, so to fill up their number of twelve, in consequence 
 of the death of one. They wrote every year and 
 pubhshed, at least put up in their gardens, a full and 
 minute account of all the sacrifices and the feasts cele- 
 brated by them. They were allied to the imperial family, 
 and all the great families in Eome took part in their 
 assembhes. They had a sacred grove, the site of 
 which was perfectly unknown until the last inscrip- 
 tion, found in 1855, revealed it. It was out of Porta 
 Portese, on the road to the Enghsh vineyard at La 
 Magliana. There they had sacrifices to the Dea Dia, 
 whose name occurs nowhere else among all the writers 
 on ancient mythology. It is supposed to be Ceres. 
 They had magnificent sacrifices at the beginning of the 
 year. There are tablets which say where the meetings 
 will be held, whether at the house of the rector or 
 pro-rector, leaving the date in blank, to be filled in the 
 course of the year. We are told who were at the 
 meetings, especially who among the youths from the 
 first families — four of whom acted somewhat as acolytes ; 
 and we are told how they were dressed, which of their 
 two dresses they wore. Then there is a most "minute 
 ritual given. We are told how each victim was slain ; 
 how the brethren took off the toga prsetexta, their 
 crowns and golden ears of corn, then put them on again, 
 
238 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 and examined the entrails of the sacrifices; all as 
 minutely detailed as the rubrics of any office of unction 
 and coronation could possibly be. Then we are told 
 how many baskets of fruit they carried away, and what 
 distribution there was of sweetmeats at the end, every- 
 one taking a certain quantity. All this is recorded, 
 and with it their song in barbarous Oscan or early 
 Etruscan, perfectly unintelligible, in which their accla- 
 mations were made. So that now we know perfectly 
 everything about them. I may mention as an inter- 
 esting fact, that Marini's own copy of his work on 
 the Arval Brethren, two quarto volumes, having their 
 margins covered with notes for a second edition, 
 which was never pubHshed, and filled with slips of 
 paper with annotations and new inscriptions of 
 other sorts, which he subsequently found, is now in 
 tlie library at Oscott. 
 
 What do I wish to draw from this account? It 
 is that history may have remained silent upon points 
 which it seems impossible, in the multiplicity of writers 
 that have been preserved to us, should not have cropped 
 out, not have been mentioned in some way, not even 
 have been made known to us through innumerable 
 anterior discoveries. One fortunate circumstance 
 brought to light the whole history of this body. How 
 unfair, then, is it, on the reticence of history, at once 
 to condemn anything, or to say, ' We should have heard 
 of it ; writers who ought to have told us would not 
 have concealed it from us.' For a circumstance may 
 arise which will bring out the whole history of a thing, 
 and make that plain and clear before us, which has been 
 
THE TRUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 239 
 
 scouted completely by others, or of which we have 
 been kept in the completest ignorance. 
 
 I could illustrate this by several other examples 
 which I have collected together, but I foresee that 
 I shall not get anything like through the subject I 
 propose to myself. But here is one such instance 
 bearing on Scripture truth. It was said by infidel 
 writers of the last century, ' How is it that there could 
 have been such a remarkable occurrence as the mas- 
 sacre of the Innocents without a single profane histo- 
 rian ever mentioning it — Josephus, if no one else ? ' Of 
 course the answer was, ' We do not know why, except 
 that we might give plausible reasons why it should 
 not have been noticed.' That is all we need say. It 
 is our duty to accept the fact. We must not reject 
 things because we cannot find corroboration of them 
 all at once. We may have to wait with patience ; 
 the world has had to wait centuries even before some 
 doubted truth has come out clearly. 
 
 I. The subject which I wish to bring before you is 
 one of those which, perhaps beyond any other, may 
 be said to be considered thoroughly legendary, and 
 even perhaps worse : — it is the history of S. Ursula 
 and her eleven thousand companions, virgins and mar- 
 tyrs. At first sight it may appear bold to undertake a 
 vindication of that narrative, or to bring it within the 
 compass of history by detaching from it what has been 
 embelhshment, what has been perhaps even wilful in- 
 vention, and bringing out in its perfect completeness 
 a history corroborated on all sides by every variety 
 of research. Such, however, is the object at which 
 
240 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 I aim to-day ; other instances may occupy us after- 
 wards. 
 
 It has, in fact,. been treated as fabulous by Protest- 
 ants, beginning with the Centuriators of Magdeburg 
 down to the present time. There is hardly any story 
 more sneered at than this, that an Enghsh lady with 
 eleven thousand companions, all virgins, should have 
 met with martyrdom at Cologne, and should have even 
 gone to Kome on their journey by some route which is 
 very difficult to comprehend ; for they are always re- 
 presented in ships. Hence the whole thing has been 
 treated as a fable. But the more refined Germanism 
 of later times takes what is perhaps meant to be a 
 mitigated view, and treats it as a myth, that is, a sort 
 of mythological tale. Thus the writer of a late work,* 
 entitled the History, or fable, of S. Ursula and the 
 Eleven Thousand Virgins, printed in Hanover, in 1854, 
 consider that S. Ursula is the ancient German god- 
 dess Eehalennia, and explains the history by the my- 
 thology of that ancient divinity. 
 
 But let us come to Catholics. A great number have 
 been staggered completely by this history, and have 
 said, ' It is incredible ; it is impossible to believe it ; we 
 lihist reject it : what foundation is there for it ? ' Some 
 have tried to search one out ; and perhaps one of the 
 most ingenious explanations, though the most devoid 
 of any foundation, is that which Sirmondus and Vale- 
 sius f and several other Catholics have brought forward 
 
 * Die Sage von der heilige Ursula und den 11,000 Jungfrauen. 
 Von Oskar Schade. Hanover, 1854. 
 
 f' Acta Sanct. Bolland, Oct. torn. ix. p. 144. 
 
THE TEUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 241 
 
 — that there were only two saints, S. Ursula and S. 
 Undecimilla, and that this last has been turned into the 
 eleven thousand. This name Undecimilla has nowhere 
 been found ; there have been some like it, but that 
 name is not known. The explanation is the purest con- 
 jecture, and has now been completely rejected. But 
 still many find it very difficult to accept the history. 
 If they were interrogated, and required to answer 
 distinctly the question, ' What do you think about S. 
 Ursula ? ' there are very few who would venture to 
 face the question and say, ' I beheve there is a founda- 
 tion for it in truth.' — For that is all one might be ex- 
 pected to say about a matter which has come down 
 to us through ages, probably with additions. — ' I 
 believe the substance of it ; it has been so altered by 
 time as to reach us clogged with difficulties ; still I 
 believe there were martyrs in great number who had 
 come from England that were martyred at Cologne.' 
 But there are few who like to talk about it : most 
 say it is a legendary story. Even Butler only gives 
 about two pages of history. He rejects the explanation 
 which I have just mentioned ; but he throws the whole 
 narrative into the shade, and passes it over with one 
 of those little sermons which he gives us, to make up 
 for not knowing much about a saint ; so that his 
 readers are left quite in the dark. 
 
 Then unfortunately while many Catholics have been 
 inclined to look at it as more legendary than historical, 
 they have been badly served by those who have un- 
 dertaken the defence or explanation of the event. 
 
 R 
 
242 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 There may be many here who have gone into what is 
 called the golden chamber in the Church of St. Ursula 
 at Cologne, and have seen that multitude of skulls and 
 bones that line the walls, and have been inclined to give 
 an incredulous shrug and to say, 'How could these 
 martyrs have been got together ? where did they come 
 from ? how do we know they were martyrs ? ' 
 
 We generally content ourselves with looking at such 
 things through the eyes of Mr. Murray's traveller 
 who tells us about them. Accordingly we look round 
 at these startling objects, and say, ' It is very singular ; 
 it is very extraordinary.' But there is very little awe, 
 very little devotion felt by us ; while, to a good native 
 of Cologne, it is the most venerable, sacred, and holy 
 place almost in Christendom. He prays earnestly to 
 the virgins of Cologne, and considers that they are his 
 powerful patrons and intercess9rs. 
 
 However, httle has been (ione to help us. Works 
 have been published in favour of the truth of this his- 
 tory, but then they have run into excess. The most 
 celebrated of all is one by a Jesuit named Crombach, 
 who was led to compose it by Bebius, another learned 
 Jesuit, whose papers were unfortunately burned in a 
 conflagration at the college in Cologne. Crombach in 
 1647 published two large volumes entitled ' S. Ursula 
 vindicata.' In them he has included an immense 
 variety of things. He has accepted with scarce 
 any discrimination works that are entitled to little 
 or no credit — contradictory works; he has mingled 
 them all up ; and he insists upon the story or the 
 history being true with all details. The consequence 
 
THE TRUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 243 
 
 is that the work has been very much thrown aside, 
 or severely attacked. 
 
 Yet it is acknowledged that it contains a great deal 
 of valuable information, together with an immense 
 quantity of documents which may be made good use 
 of when properly examined, when the chaff is separated 
 from the wheat. On the whole, however, it has not 
 been favourable to the cause of the martyrs. 
 
 , Now, however, there has appeared such a vindication, 
 such a wonderful re- examination of the whole history, 
 as it is impossible to resist. It is impossible to read the 
 account of 8. Ursula given in the 9th volume for October 
 of the BoUandists, published in 1858, without being 
 perfectly amazed at the quantity of real knowledge 
 that has been gained upon the siibject, and still more 
 at the powerful manner in which this knowledge has 
 been handled ; — an erudition which, merely glancing 
 over the pages and notes, reminds of the scholars of 
 three hundred years ago, in whom we have often 
 wondered at the learning which they brought to bear 
 on any one point. 
 
 This treatise occupies from page 73 to 303, 230 pages 
 of closely printed folio in two columns. I acknow- 
 ledge that it is not quite a recreation to read it, but 
 still it is very well worth reading. All documents are 
 printed at full length. Now, it so happened, that 
 just after the volume had come out, I was at Brussels, 
 and called at the Library of the BoUandists, and had 
 a most interesting conversation with Father Victor de 
 Buck, the author of this history. He gave me an in- 
 teresting outline of what he had been enabled to do. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 He told me that when they came to October 21, and 
 he had to write a Hfe of S. Ursula and her companions, 
 his Provincial wrote to him from Cologne and said, 
 ' Take care what you say, for the people are tremen- 
 dously alarmed lest you should knock down all their 
 traditions, and I do not know what will be the case if 
 you do.' He rephed, ' Don't be at all afraid ; I shall 
 confirm every point, and I am sure they will be pleased 
 with what I have to say.' He was kind enough to put 
 down in a letter the chief points of his vindication for 
 me ; but I have lost it, and so there was nothing left 
 but to read through the whole of this great work. 
 But, besides, a very excellent compendium has appeared, 
 which takes pretty nearly the same view on every point, 
 and approves of everything the author has said ; indeed 
 some points are perhaps put more popularly in it, 
 though the history is reduced to a much smaller 
 compass. I have the work before me. It is entitled, 
 ' S. Ursula and her Companions : A Critical, Historical 
 Monograph. By John Hubert Kessel. Cologne, 1863.' 
 It is a work which is not too long to be trans- 
 lated and made known. What I have to say, after 
 having gone through this preliminary matter, is, that I 
 lay claim to nothing whatever beyond having been 
 diHgent, and having endeavoured to grasp all the points 
 in question, and reduce them to a moderate compass. 
 I have changed the order altogether, taking that which 
 seems to me most suitable to the subject, and co-ordi- 
 nating the different parts and facts so as to make it 
 popularly intelligible. In this I have the satisfaction to 
 find that in a chapter at the end of the book, in which 
 
THE TRUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 245 
 
 Hpa-ken which I have adopted here. It will not be 
 necessary to give a reference for every assertion that I 
 shall have occasion to make ; but 1 may say that I have 
 the page carefully noted where the subject is fully 
 drawn out and illustrated. 
 
 Now, let me jSrst of all give in a brief sketch what 
 Father de Buck considers the real history, which 
 has been wrapt up in such a quantity of legendary 
 matter — that which comes out from the different docu- 
 ments laid before us, as the kernel or the nucleus of the 
 history, as Kessel calls it. He supposes that this army 
 of martyrs, as we may well call them, was composed of 
 two different bodies : a body of virgins who happened, 
 under circumstances which I shall describe to you, to 
 be at Cologne, and a body of the inhabitants, citizens 
 of Cologne, and others, very probably many religious 
 and other virgins who had there sought safety. It may 
 be asked, how came these English to be there ? About 
 the year 446, the Britons began to be immensely 
 annoyed by the incursions of the Picts and Scots, which 
 led to their calling in (after the manner of the old fable, 
 about the man calling in the dogs to hunt the hare 
 in his garden) the Anglo-Saxons, who in return took 
 possession of the country ; and the inhabitants that they 
 did not exterminate they made serfs. At this period 
 we know the English were put to sad straits. Having 
 so long lain quiet and undisturbed under the Eoman 
 dominion, they had almost lost their natural valour, and 
 were unable to defend themselves. There was, there- 
 fore, a natural tendency to emigrate and get away. 
 
246 ESSAYS ON KELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 They had akeady done this before ; for, as De Buck 
 shows, with extraordinary erudition, the occupation of 
 Brittany or Armorica was a quiet emigration from Eng- 
 land, which sought the continent, and also estabhshed 
 colonies in Holland and Batavia, and by that means 
 obtained a peace which they could not have at home. 
 We have a very interesting document upon this sub- 
 ject. The celebrated Senator Aetius was at that time 
 governor of Gaul ; the Britons sent to him for help, 
 and this is one passage of a most touching letter 
 which has been preserved by Gildas : ' Eepellunt nos 
 barbari ad mare, repellit nos mare ad barbaros; 
 oriuntur duo genera funerum ; aut jugulamur aut 
 mergimur.'* They were tossed backwards and forwards 
 by the sea to the barbarians, and by the barbarians to 
 the sea ; when they fell upon the barbarians they were 
 cut to pieces, and when they were driven into the sea 
 ' mergimur ' — we go to the bottom. It does not mean 
 that they ran into the sea, but that they went to their 
 ships, and many of them perished in the sea by ship- 
 wreck or by sinking — ' aut jugulamur aut mergimur.' 
 That shows that the English were leaving England to go 
 to the continent. I am only giving you the web of the 
 history, without its proofs ; but I quote this passage to 
 show it is not at all unlikely that at that moment, when 
 they were, in a manner, straitened between the barbarians 
 of the north and those coming upon them in the south, 
 a great many of them went out of the country, and that 
 especially being Christians they would wend their way 
 
 ♦ Gildas de Excidio Britannice, pars i. cap. xvii. Ed. Migne : 
 Patrologia, torn. Ixix. p. 342. 
 
THE TEUTH OF SUrPOSED LEGENDS. 247 
 
 to Catholic countries. Eeligious and other persons of a 
 Uke character, we know, in every invasion of bai'barians, 
 were the first to suffer a double martyrdom. This is a 
 supposition, therefore, about which there is no impro- 
 bability, that a certain number, I do not say how many, 
 of Christian ladies of good family, some of them, per- 
 haps, royal, got over to Batavia, or Holland (where there 
 have been always traditions and names of places in 
 confirmation of this), and made their way to Cologne, 
 which was a capital and a seat of the Eoman Govern- 
 ment, a Christian city, and in every probabihty con- 
 sidered a stronghold, both on account of its immense 
 fortifications, and on account of the river. 
 
 Well, then comes the history, very difficult indeed to 
 reconcile, of a pilgrimage to Eome, which it is said they 
 made ; but let us suppose that instead of the whole of 
 them a certain number of them mig];it go there. It is 
 not at all improbable that at that time, as De Buck 
 observes, a deputation, or a certain number of citizens 
 and others, did go to Eome to obtain assistance there, 
 as their only hope, against invasion which I shall describe 
 just now. There is no great difficulty in supposing 
 this ; and assuming that some of the English virgins also 
 went, that would be a foundation for the great legendary 
 history, I might say the fabulous history, which has been 
 built upon it. Now, there is a strong confirmation of 
 such a thing being done. S. Gregory of Tours * mentions 
 that at this very time Bishop Servatius did go to Eome 
 to pray the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul to protect his 
 
 * S. Greg. Turon. Hist. Franc, lib. ii. cap, v. Ed. Migne : 
 Patrologia, torn. Ixviii. pp. 197, 576. 
 
 «- 
 
248 ESSAYS ON REUGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 country and city against the coming invasion, as he saw 
 no other hope of safety. He must have passed through 
 Cologne exactly at that time, and, therefore, there is 
 nothing absurd, or improbable, in supposing that some 
 inhabitants of Cologne went with him as a deputation 
 to Eome, and that some of the Enghsh virgins may 
 have accompanied them. In the year following, Attila, 
 the scourge of God, the most cruel of all the leaders of 
 barbaric tribes, who invaded the Eoman empire, was 
 marching along the Ehine with the known view of in- 
 vading Gaul, and not only invading it, but, as he said, of 
 completely conquering and destroying it ; for his maxim 
 was, ' Where Attila sets his foot, no more grass shall 
 ever grow' — nothing but destruction and devastation. 
 I will say a little more about the Huns later. In the 
 meantime we leave them, in 450, on their way to cross 
 the Ehine with the intention of invading and occupying 
 France. Attila united great cunning with his barbarity : 
 he pretended to the Goths that he was coming to help 
 them against the Eomans, and to the Eomans that he was 
 going to help them to expel the Goths. By that means 
 he paralysed both for a time, until it was too well seen 
 that he was the enemy of all. It is most probable, 
 knowing the character as we shall see just now of the 
 Huns, that the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns 
 would seek refuge in the capital, and that all living 
 in the country would get within the strong walls of 
 cities. We have important confirmation, at this very 
 time, in the history of S. Genevieve,* who was a 
 
 * Vid. Tillemont, Hist, des Emp.vi.j). 151. Acta Sand. Boll. 
 Jan. torn. i. in vit. S. Genovevae. 
 
THE TRUTH OF SLTPOSED LEGENDS. 249 
 
 virgin living out in the country, but who, upon the 
 approach of the Huns, hastened,we are told, immediately 
 to seek safety in Paris, and was there the means of saving 
 the city by exhorting the inhabitants to build up walls, 
 to close their gates, and to fight. This they did, and so 
 saved themselves. That is just an example. When it 
 is known that throughout his march, Attila destroyed 
 every city, committing incredible barbarities (ruins of 
 some of the places remaining to this day), not sparing 
 man, woman, or child, it is more than probable that 
 there would be a great conflux and influx to the city 
 of Cologne, where the Eoman Government still kept 
 its seat, and where, of course, there was something 
 like order, although we have unfortunate proofs in 
 the works of Salvianus,* that the morality of the city 
 had become so very corrupt that it deserved great 
 chastisement. However, so far all is coherent. In 451, 
 after Attila had gone to France, and had been com- 
 pletely defeated, he made his way back, greatly exas- 
 perated, burning and destroying everything in his way, 
 sparing no one. Then he appeared before Cologne ; 
 and this is the invasion in which it is supposed the 
 martyrdom took place. 
 
 Having given you what the Bollandist considers the 
 historical thread, every part of which can be confirmed 
 and made most probable, I will now, before going into 
 proofs of the narrative, direct your attention for a few 
 minutes to what we may call the legendary parts of the 
 liistory. When we speak of legends we must not con- 
 
 * De Guhernatione Dei, Ed. Baluzii, Paris, 1864, pp. 140, 141. 
 
250 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 found them with fables, that is, with pure inventions. 
 We must not suppose that people sat down to write a 
 lie under the idea that they were edifying the Church 
 or anybody. There have been such cases no doubt; 
 for Tertullian mentions the delinquency of a person's 
 writing false Acts of St. Paul, and being suspended from 
 his office of priest in consequence. Such follies have 
 happened in all times. We have had many instances 
 in our own day of attempts at forging documents, and 
 committing the worst of social crimes ; but old legends 
 as we have them, and even the false acts as they were 
 called, were no doubt written without any intention of 
 actually deceiving, or of passing off what was spurious 
 for genuine. The person who first suggested this, was 
 a man certainly no friend of Catholics, Le Clerc, better 
 known by his literary name of Clericus ; who observes 
 that school exercises were sometimes drawn from 
 Martyrdoms as in our day from a classical subject, as 
 Juvenal says of Hannibal : — 
 
 I demens et ssevas curre per Alpes 
 Ut pueris placeas et declamatio fias. 
 
 Not that students professed to write a real history, 
 but they gave wonderful descriptions of deeds of valour 
 and marvellous events which had never occurred, and 
 were never intended to be beheved. In the same way, 
 at a time when nothing but a religious subject could 
 create interest, that sort of composition came to be 
 applied to acts of saints and martyrs ; so that many 
 books and narratives which we have of that descrip- 
 tion may be thus accounted for. It is much like our 
 historical novels, or the historical plays of Shaks- 
 
THE TRUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 251 
 
 peare, for instance. Nobody imagines that their authors 
 wished to pass them off for history, but they did not 
 contradict history; they kept to history, so that you 
 may find it in them ; and you might ahnost write a 
 liistory from some of those books which are called his- 
 torical works of fiction. In early times such composi- 
 tions were of a religious character. Then came times of 
 greater ignorance, and those works came to be regarded 
 as true historical accounts. But, are we to reject them 
 on that ground altogether ? Are we to say, any more 
 than we should with regard to the fictitious works of 
 which I have just spoken, that there is no truth in them ? 
 We should proceed in the same way as people do who 
 seek for gold. A man goes to a gold-field, and tries 
 to obtain gold from auriferous sand. Now, suppose 
 he took a sieve full, and said at once, 'It's all rubbish,' 
 and threw it away ; he might go on for a long time 
 and never get a grain of gold. But if he knows how to 
 set to work, if he washes what he obtains, picks out 
 grain by grain, and puts by, he gets a small hoard of 
 real genuine gold ; and nobody denies that when many 
 such supplies are put together they make a treasure of 
 sterling metal. So it is with these legendary accounts. 
 They are never altogether falsehoods — I will not say 
 never, but rarely. Whenever they have an air of 
 history about them, the chances are that, by examining 
 and sifting them well, we may get out a certain amount 
 of real and sohd material for history. 
 
 The legendary works upon these virgins are numerous 
 and begin early. The first is one which I shall call, as 
 all our ^vriters do, by its first words, ' Eegnante Domino.' 
 
252 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 This is an account of traditions, evidently written be- 
 tween the ninth and eleventh centuries. It is impossible 
 to determine more closely than this. But we know 
 that it cannot have been written earlier than the ninth 
 century, nor later than the eleventh. It contains a long 
 history of these virgins while in England, who they 
 were and what they were ; of a certain marriage con- 
 tract that was made with the father of S. Ursula, a very 
 powerful king ; how it was arranged that she should 
 have eleven companions, and each of these a thousand 
 followers ; how they should embark for three years and 
 amuse themselves with nautical exercises ; how the 
 ships went to the other side of the channel. It is an 
 absurd story and full of fable, but there are three or 
 four most important points in it. Geoffrey, of Mon- 
 mouth, comes next. He gives another history totally 
 different from that of the ' Eegnante Domino ; ' but 
 retains two or three points of identity. His is evidently 
 a British tradition, which, of course, it is most important 
 to compare with the German one ; and we shall find 
 how singularly they agree. Then, after these, come a 
 number of legends called Passiones, long accounts, filled 
 with a variety of incongruous particulars which may 
 be safely put aside ; but in the same way germs or 
 remnants of something good, which have been thus 
 preserved, are found in them all, and when brought 
 together may give us some valuable results. We next 
 meet with what is more difficult to explain — the sup- 
 posed revelations of S. Elizabeth of Schonau, and of 
 Blessed Hermann of Steinfeld. It is not for us to enter 
 into the discussion, which is a very subtle one, of how 
 
THE TEUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 253 
 
 persons, who are saints really canonised, and held in 
 immense veneration — one of them, Hermann, singularly 
 so — can be supposed to have been allowed to fol- 
 low their own imaginations on some points, while at 
 the same time there seems no doubt that they lived 
 in an almost ecstatic state. This question is gone 
 into fully ; and the best authorities are quoted by the 
 BoUandist. It would require a long discussion, and it 
 would not be to our purpose to pursue it fiu:ther. 
 These supposed revelations are rejected altogether. 
 Now, we come to positive forgeries, consisting of in- 
 scriptions, or of engraved stones with legends carved 
 upon them. One of these mentions a pope who never 
 existed, and also a bishop of Milan who never lived, 
 besides a number of other imaginary people. From 
 the texture and style of these inscriptions there can be 
 no doubt whatever that they are absolute forgeries, 
 and the author of them is pretty well discovered. He 
 was a sacristan of the name of Theodorus. In order 
 to enhance the glory of these virgins, they are repre- 
 sented, as you see in legendary pictures, as being in a 
 ship accompanied by a pope, bishops, abbots, and 
 persons of high dignity, who are supposed to have come 
 from Eome with them. All this we discard, making 
 out what we can from the sounder traditions. 
 
 And this is the result. There are two or three 
 points on which, whether we take the Enghsh or the 
 German traditions, all are agreed. First, we have 
 that a great many of these virgins were Enghsh : that 
 the Germans all agree upon ; the earliest historical 
 documents say the same. Secondly, that they were 
 
 I 
 
254 ASSAYS Oi\ RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 martyred by the Huns ; that we are told both by the 
 English and the German writers. It is singular that 
 they should agree on such a point as this ; and you will 
 see how — ^I do not say corroborated, but absolutely 
 proved it is. The third fact is, that there was a tre- 
 mendous slaughter at the time, a singular slaughter of 
 people committed at Cologne by these Huns. This 
 comes out from all the legendary histories, which agree 
 upon this point, and we can hardly know how they 
 should do so except through separate traditions; for 
 they evidently have nothing else in common. Their 
 separate narratives we may reject as legendary. 
 
 Thus we come to an investigation of the true history, 
 and see how it is proved. And first I must put before 
 you what I may call the foundation-stone of the whole 
 history on which it is based — the inscription now kept 
 in the church of S. Ursula. It had remained very 
 much neglected, though it had been given by different 
 authors ; until, when the BoUandists were going to write 
 their history, they took three casts of it : one they gave 
 to the Archbishop of Cologne, another they kept for 
 themselves ; the third — I cannot say what became of 
 it, but I think it went to Eome, having been taken 
 by De Eossi. I could not afford to have a cast brought 
 here, but I have had a most accurate tracing made of 
 it. Those of you who are judges of graphic character 
 will see the nature of the letters : they are capital, 
 or uncial, letters. First, you may ask what is the age 
 of this inscription? It is pretty well agreed that it 
 cannot be later than the year 500 — that would be fifty 
 years after that assigned to the martyrdom of the 
 virgins. De Buck, who is really almost hypercri- 
 
I 
 

 ^>s 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^-i r^ ""^ <* fa 
 
 <>^ <r uj £"-• G, '^^ 
 
THE TEUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 255 
 
 tical in rejecting, says he does not see a single ob- 
 jection to the genuineness of this inscription. There 
 is not a trace of Lombard or later character about 
 it : it is purely Eoman. The union of some of the 
 letters is just what we find about that time in Eoman 
 inscriptions. It is then, as nearly as one can judge, 
 of the age I have mentioned — about the year 500. De 
 Eossi, passing through Cologne three or four years ago, 
 examined it and pronounced it to be genuine, and said 
 it could not be of a later period than that. Dr. Enner, 
 a layman of Cologne, when writing his ' History of 
 Cologne,' could not bring himself to believe that the in- 
 scription was so old, and he sent an exact copy in 
 plaster (perhaps that was the third) to Professor Eitschl, 
 the well-known editor of Plautus, and a Protestant, at 
 Bonn. I have a copy of the Professor's letter here, 
 in which he says that he has minutely examined the in- 
 scription, and that he cannot see anything in it to make 
 it more modern than the date assigned to it, and that 
 it contains peculiarities which no forger would ever 
 hit upon, such as the double ^, and other forms. He 
 says, ' I am not sufficiently acquainted with the history 
 of S. Ursula to connect it in any way ; but I have no 
 hesitation in saying that the inscription cannot be later 
 than the beginning of the sixth century ; ' which, you 
 see, takes us back very nearly to the time when the 
 martyrdom is supposed to have occurred. Then I may 
 mention that the very inscription is copied in the next 
 historical document that we have, as being already in the 
 church. This is the translation of the inscription, of 
 which I present an exact copy : — 
 
 ' Clematius came from the East ; he was terrified by 
 
256 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 fiery visions, and by the great majesty and the holiness 
 of these virgins, and, according to a vow that he made, 
 he rebuilt at his own expense, on his own land, this 
 basilica.' Then follows a commination at the end, 
 which is not unusual in such cases. Now, every 
 expression here is to be found in inscriptions of 
 the time. For instance, ' de proprio ; ' ' votum ; ' ' loco 
 suo' (sometimes it is 'loco empto'), meaning of course 
 land which one made his own, or which was his 
 own before. There had been then a basilica — not the 
 church that now exists, but a basilica — at the tombs 
 where these saints were buried, which we shall have to 
 describe later. He rebuilt the basilica fifty years after 
 the martyrdom, destroyed no doubt during the constant 
 incursions of barbarians. It was probably a very small 
 one ; for we know that at Eome every entrance to 
 the tombs of martyrs had its basilica. De Eossi has 
 been successful in finding one or two. One was built 
 by S. Damasus, who wrote : ' Not daring to put my 
 ashes among so many martyrs, I have built this 
 basilica for myself, my mother, and sister ; ' and there 
 are three niches at the end for three sarcophagi. It is 
 universally allowed that there never was a catacomb 
 without its basilica. In fact, in that of Pope S. Alexander, 
 and SS. Eventius and Theodulus, found lately, there is 
 a basilica completely standing, and the bodies of these 
 saints were found — one under the altar — and the others 
 near it. Then from the basilica you go into the cata- 
 comb. So that nothing is more natural than that in 
 the place where these martyrs were buried, Clematius 
 should re-build their basilica. 
 
THE TRUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 257 
 
 After this monument, we proceed to the next 
 genuine document, though one of a later date, and by 
 an unknown author — the ' Sermo in Natali.' This, there 
 is no doubt, was written between the years 751 and 
 839 ; and I will give the ingenious argument by which 
 this date is proved. But first it quotes the inscrip- 
 tion I have read, with the exception of the threat at 
 the end ; in the second place, it mentions that the 
 virgins were probably Britons — that it was not cer- 
 tain, but the general opinion was that they had come 
 from Britain ; thirdly, it attributes the martyrdom to 
 the Huns ; fourthly, it insinuates what is of great im- 
 portance in filling up the history, that it is by no means 
 to be supposed that they were all virgins, but that 
 many were widows and married people. The reason 
 for fixing the earliest date at 751 is, that it quotes Bede's 
 Ecclesiastical History, which was written in that year, 
 giving apparently his account of the conversion of 
 Lucius ; though one cannot say that it is certainly a 
 copy from Bede, because Bede himself copied from 
 more ancient books, and both may have drawn from 
 the same source. Then it could not have been written 
 after 839 for two reasons. In 834 there was a tremen- 
 dous incursion of other barbarians — of Normans ; and 
 it is plain from our book that there had been no such 
 invasion when it was written ; nothing was known of 
 it, because the writer speaks of countries, particularly 
 Holland, as being flourishing, which were completely 
 destroyed by them. There is also this singular circum- 
 stance. In speaking of the great devotion to the virgins 
 in Batavia, the writer states that this happened at a 
 
 s - 
 
258 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 .^ time when Batavia was an island formed by the two 
 branches of the Ehine. Now in 839 an inundation com- 
 pletely destroyed it, one of the horns or arms being 
 entirely obliterated. Therefore that gives us a certain 
 compass within which the book was written. The 
 author himself was a native of Cologne — for in referring 
 to the inhabitants he once or twice speaks of ' us ' — and 
 he would therefore be familiar with the traditions of 
 the people. He says there was no written history at 
 that time ; he defends the traditions, and shows how 
 natural it was that the people should have kept them. 
 I ought to mention that he calls the head of the band 
 of martyrs Pinnosa. He says, 'She is called in her 
 own country Yinosa, in ours Pinnosa ; ' and there is evi- 
 dence that this was the name first given to the leader : 
 how, by what transformation, it came to be S. Ursula, 
 we cannot tell ; it is certain that up to that time hers 
 was not the name of the leader. Afterwards Pinnosa 
 appears on the hst, but not as the chief, S. Ursula being 
 the prominent name. 
 
 After that period there comes a mass of historical 
 proofs that one can have no difiiculty about. From 
 852 there are an immense number of diplomas giving 
 grants of land to the nuns of the monastery of S. Ursula, 
 at her place of burial. There is no doubt of the ex- 
 istence of that church, from other documents. Then 
 the martjnrologies repeat the whole tradition again and 
 again. Thus, then, we fill up that gap of four hundred 
 years (from a.d. 400 to a.d. 800). There is the in- 
 scription ; there is the ' Sermo in Natali ' which quotes it, 
 and gives old traditions ; and afterwards there are 
 diplomas and other testimonies which are abundant. • 
 
 ^ 
 
THE TRUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 259 
 
 We now proceed to compare the whole tradition 
 with history, with known history, for after all this is 
 our chief business. When we possess a tradition of a 
 country and people we ask, ' What confirmation, what 
 corroboration have we ? what does history tell us ? ' 
 Let us then see what history does tell. It tells us, in 
 the first place, that in the year 450 Attila was known 
 to be coming to invade and take possession of Gaul, 
 having been ejected from Italy. His army is said by 
 contemporary writers to have been composed of 700,000 
 men. It was a hostile emigration. They brought 
 their women and children in carts, as the Huns always 
 used to do, and they of course marched but slowly. 
 They went along both sides of the Danube, and got at 
 length into France. De Buck, by a most interesting 
 series of proofs, makes it almost as evident as anything 
 can be that they crossed over at Coblentz, therefore 
 not coming near Cologne. They entered, as I have said, 
 into Gaul, destroying everything in their march. Some 
 of their barbarities and massacres are almost incredible. 
 After devastating nearly the whole of the country, 
 they besieged Orleans. The inhabitants having been 
 encouraged to resist, at last succeeded in obtaining cer- 
 tain terms ; that is, Attila and his chiefs went into the 
 city and took what they Hked, but left the city stand- 
 ing. After this they were pursued by the general 
 whom I have mentioned — Aetius, a Gaul, but who got 
 together all the troops he could, Goths, Visigoths, 
 Franks, and others, who saw what the design of these 
 # horrible barbarians was. 
 
 A most tremendous battle was now fought, that of 
 
 8 2 
 
260 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Catalaunia (Ch^lons-sur-Marne), in which cotemporary 
 historians tell us 300,000 men were left on the field ; 
 but that number has been reduced to 200,000. Such 
 battles, thank God ! we seldom hear of now-a-days. 
 Attila, routed, immediately took to flight, and got 
 clear away from his pursuers. He went through 
 Belgium destroying city after city, leaving nothing 
 standing, and massacring the people in the most 
 barbarous way. 
 
 Here comes the most difficult knot of the whole 
 history. Authors agree that Attila now made his way 
 into Thuringia, that is, to the heart of Germany ; he 
 must therefore be supposed to have got clear over the 
 Ehine, and marched a long way through the country. 
 On this subject De Buck has one of the most exquisite 
 and beautiful geographical investigations, I should think, 
 that have ever appeared. He proves, so that you can 
 no more doubt it than you can doubt my having this 
 paper before me, that there was a Thuringia which lay 
 on this side of the Ehine ; he proves it by a series of 
 documents taken from mediasval writers, and from 
 inscriptions, that there was a Thuringia which stretched 
 from Louvain to the Ehine. Indeed it is impossible to 
 conceive how Attila could have got, as by a leap, into 
 the very midst of Germany. He traces the natural 
 course of march (which you can follow by any map), 
 taking the cities destroyed as landmarks, and brings 
 him to this province ; and when there, there was no 
 possible way of crossing the Ehine but by Cologne ; 
 there was the only bridge, the only military pass of < 
 any sort. So there can be no doubt that the Huns, 
 
THE TRUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 261 
 
 exasperated by their tremendous losses, and by being 
 driven out of Gaul which they intended to occupy, 
 having revenged themselves as they went on, were 
 . obliged to go through Cologne ; and if you calculate 
 the date of the victory, and consider the country 
 through which Attila passed, destroying everything as 
 he went, you bring him almost to a certainty to 
 Cologne about the 21st of October, nearly the day of 
 the martyrdom. The ' Eegnante Domino,' which attri- 
 butes the martyrdom to the Huns, corroborates all 
 this account, which is the result of a most pains-, 
 taking examination, extending over many pages. 
 
 Next, we come to another important point. Why 
 
 I attribute this massacre to the Huns ? Because there 
 was no other invasion and passage of savages except 
 that one. It accords, then, both with geographical and 
 _ chronological facts. We have the martyrs at Cologne 
 at the very time when these barbariar^s came. 
 
 But we must need say something about the Huns. 
 There is no question that the Huns were the most 
 frightful, cruel, and hcentious barbarians that ever 
 invaded the Eoman empire. They were not of a 
 northern race, Germans, or Scandinavians ; they were, 
 no doubt, Mongols or Tartars ; they came from Tartary, 
 from Scythia, and settled on the Caspian Sea ; they then 
 moved on to the mouths of the Danube, and again to 
 Hungary, and rolled on in this way towards the richer 
 countries of the West. There are several authors 
 of that period — Jornandes, Procopius, and others — who 
 describe them to us.* They tell us that when they were 
 * Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xxxi. cap. ii. 
 
262 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 infants their mothers bound down their noses and flat- 
 tened them in such a way that they should not come 
 beyond the cheek-bones ; that their eyes were so sunk 
 that they looked like two caverns ; that they scarified 
 all the lower part of the face with hot irons when 
 young, so that no hair could grow ; that they had no 
 beard, and were more hideous than demons ; that they 
 wore no dress except a shirt fabricated by the women 
 in the carts in which they entirely Hved ; it was never 
 changed, but was worn till it dropped off, under a mantle 
 made entirely of wild rat skins. Their chaussure con- 
 sisted of kid skins round their legs, with most extraordi- 
 nary shoes or sandals, which had no shape whatever, and 
 did not adapt themselves to the form : the consequence 
 was, that they could not walk, and they fought entirely 
 on their wretched horses. They had no cuisine 
 except between the saddle and the back of the horse, 
 where they put their steaks and softened them a 
 little before eating ; but as to drink, they could take 
 any amount of it. With regard to their morality, it 
 cannot be described. The writers of that age tell us 
 that no Eoman woman would allow herself to be seen 
 by a Hun. They were licentious to a .degree, and they 
 carried off all the wqmen they could into captivity ; 
 probably they destroyed a great many, which was their 
 custom when they became a burden to them. These, 
 then, were the sort of savages that reached Cologne. 
 They had another peculiarity : of all the hordes of 
 savages that invaded the Eoman empire, they are the 
 only ones that used the bow and arrow. The Germans 
 hardly made any use of the bow, except a few men who 
 
THE TRUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 263 
 
 mixed in the ranks : as a body their execution was 
 with the sword, the lance, and the pike. The use of the 
 bow was distinctly Tartar, or Scythian. Then we are 
 told that their aim from horseback was infalhble ; that 
 when flying from a foe they could turn round and shoot 
 with perfect facihty ; that they rode equally well astride 
 or sitting side- ways hke a woman ; in fact, that they flew 
 and turned just like the Parthians and Scythians from 
 ^vhom they were descended. In this great battle of 
 Catalaunia they either lost heart or steadiness, and they 
 could not fire upon their enemies, so that they were 
 pursued and tremendously routed. That their mode of 
 fighting was by the bow and arrow, you will see in 
 the representations given in the beautiful shrine of 
 Hamelink, where the martyrs are fired into by the bar- 
 barians with bows and arrows. Let us see what this 
 has to do with our question. The ' Eegnante Domino,' 
 which we have mentioned as legendary, gives a most 
 beautiful description of the mode of dealing with the 
 bodies. The writer says that when the inhabitants saw 
 that the enemy were gone they came out, and in a field 
 they found this great number of virgins lying on the 
 ground. They collected their blood, got sarcophagi, 
 or made graves and put them in : ' and there they lay, 
 as they were placed,' the writef*says, ' as any one can 
 tell who has seen them,' evidently suggesting that he 
 had seen them. Now, in the year 1640, on July 2, 
 Papebroch, an authority beyond all question, and Crom- 
 bach, whose word may be rehed on as that of a most 
 excellent and holy man, were at the opening of the 
 tombs. From all tradition this was no doubt the place 
 
 t 
 
264 ESSAYS ox RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 of the stone of Clematius ; there has always been a con- 
 vent there ; and you remember that part of the inscrip- 
 tion which threatens eternal punishment to those who 
 should bury any but virgins there. It is now called 
 ' S. Ursula's Acker/ a sort of sacred field where the 
 basihca was. Here they were buried, and so they 
 remained undisturbed except by some translations of 
 the middle ages, which do not concern us. Li 1640 
 there was a formal exhumation, and eye-witnesses tell 
 us what they saw. A nuncio came afterwards to verify 
 the facts. 
 
 I will give you the account of how these bodies 
 were found. Many of them were in graves, in rows, 
 but each body separate, there being a space of a foot 
 between them. In other places there were stone sar- 
 cophagi, in which they were laid separately. Then, 
 Crombach "describes that there were some large fosses, 
 sixty feet long, eight feet deep, and sixteen wide, con- 
 taining a large number of bodies. They were placed 
 in a row with a space between them ; at their feet was 
 another row ; then a quantity of earth was thrown on, 
 and another row was placed, and so on, until you came 
 to the fourth. Every skeleton in the three rows was 
 entire, and they all looked towards the' east. They had 
 their arms crossed up^? their bosoms, and almost every 
 one had a vessel containing blood, or sand tinged with 
 blood. The fourth, or upper stratum, consisted of 
 disjointed bones, and with these also there were 
 vessels containing blood or coloured sand. In this way, 
 the writer says he saw a hundred bodies. Then there 
 was thii remarkable circumstance about their clothes. 
 
 4^ 
 
THE TEUTII OP SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 265 
 
 Eutycliianus,* the pope, had pubhshed a decree that 
 no body of a martyr was ever to be buried without 
 
 ving a dalmatic put upon it ; and clothes in abun- 
 ^dance were found upon these bodies. 
 
 Another important discovery was, that immense 
 quantities of arrows were found mingled with the 
 bones ; some sticking in the skull, others in the breast, 
 others in the arms — right in the bones. So it was clear 
 that all these bodies had been put to death by means of 
 arrows, and there was no other tribe but the Huns 
 which made use of the arrow as its instrument of death. 
 I may add that there were no signs of burning, or 
 of any heathen burial about them. This also is most 
 important. I have said that there had been other ex- 
 humations in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. There 
 are pictures of these, and there are sarcophagi preserved 
 m which bodies were found. These are laid* in exactly 
 the same manner as others were found in 1640. Crom- 
 bach says the whole had been done most scientifically, 
 that the distances were all arranged by measure, so 
 that there was not a quarter of a foot difference any- 
 where. 
 
 Now, I ask, could those bodies have been put there 
 in consequence of a plague, or an earthquake, or any 
 -event of that kind ? Putting asi9^ the arrows found in 
 immense quantities, and the vessels containing blood, 
 we know that when people die in a plague to the 
 number of hundreds, a foss is made, they are thrown 
 in, and there is an end of them. This could not have 
 
 * Acta SS. Bolland. Octob. torn. ix. p. 139. Constant. Eom. Pont, 
 Epist. Paris, 1721, p. 299. 
 
266 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 been a common cemetery. It contained nothing but 
 the bodies of these women (I will speak of their physical 
 characteristics later), all laid in studied order, with 
 great care, and with such peculiarities, and all evidently 
 buried at the same time. After reading all this, may we 
 not exclaim with S. Ambrose, ' We have found the signs 
 of martyrdom,' and with S. Gaudentius, ' What can 
 you desire more to show that they were all martyred ? '* 
 And who does not see here confirmed the history of 
 Clematius ? Comparing the whole with traditions, both 
 English and German, it seems to me that you have as 
 much proof as you can reasonably require. 
 
 Having given you concisely the facts and corro- 
 borations of history, let me now proceed to answer 
 objections. 
 
 And, first, there is the question, Were all these 
 martyrs ? * Well, if they were to be tried by the rules 
 established very justly in the modern church, it would 
 no doubt be difficult to say; because, how can you 
 prove that each of these women laid down her fife 
 voluntarily for Christ ? The tradition of Cologne is 
 that they would not sacrifice their virtue to those 
 heathens, and that they were surrounded and shot. 
 But in those times, a wider meaning was sometimes 
 attached to the wofff^martyr.' There were what are 
 called martyres improprie dicti, where there could not 
 be the same kind of evidence as in the case of others ; 
 or martyres latiore sensu. A person was called a 
 martyr when he was put to death without his will being 
 
 * S. Ambros. class, i. epist. xxii. Ed. Ben. torn. iii. p. 927. S. Gaud. 
 Serm. in Dedic. SS. XL. Martyr, ap. Migne, torn. xx. col. 963. 
 
THE TEUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 267 
 
 consulted, as in the case of our own S. Edmund, and 
 in the case of S. Wenceslaus, who was put to death 
 without being interrogated as to whether he would 
 remain a Christian or not, and many others. De Buck 
 shows that there was nothing more common. We have 
 the remarkable case of the Theban legion — another in- 
 stance of a large number of men being surrounded and 
 cut down by soldiers without being questioned as to 
 whether they were in a state of grace, or whether they 
 were prepared to die. The deed was done in odium 
 religionis, by people who merely looked to the gratifica- 
 tion of their own passions and their desire for revenge. 
 In those days the question of such persons being 
 martyrs would be a very simple one, if it were known 
 that they were killed by the Huns in hatred, as was sup- 
 posed, of their virginity and because of their resistance. 
 We have in martyrologies the account of*Mcomedia 
 and its twelve thousand martyrs. De Buck supposes 
 that the number included all the martyrs of the per- 
 secution. And the 6,700 of the Theban legion are 
 explained in the same way. 
 
 The next question is, Were these persons all virgins ? 
 Who can know ? It is quite certain that even married 
 persons, when martyred, had sometimes the title of 
 virgins given to them. Many instances are supplied 
 by the martyrologies and offices. S. Sabina,* for in- 
 stance, is called a virgin martyr, though she was a 
 married person. It was considered that martyrdom 
 raised all women to a higher degree of excellence. 
 There are some curious questions, too, arising, which 
 * Acta SS. BoUand. Octob. torn. ix. p. 143. 
 
268 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 would not very well do for a discussion here. It is, 
 however, sufficiently proved that when there was a great 
 number of virgins, and others were mixed with them, 
 the nobler title was given to all. Just as if you have 
 a great many martyrs and some confessors united, the 
 title of martyrs is apphed to all, as they are included 
 in one office, each sharing in the glory of mar- 
 tyrdom. The ' Sermo in Natali ' expressly tells us that 
 it was not supposed at its early period that all were 
 virgins, but that there were ladies of all ranks and 
 children amongst them. Indeed, some remains of 
 children were found. 
 
 Then comes the question. Were there eleven thousand? 
 Certainly not as all one company. It is supposed, and 
 there appears nothing unreasonable in it, that when 
 once the rage of the Huns was excited they would give 
 way to an indiscriminate massacre, and that the eleven 
 thousand most probably included persons who had 
 sought refuge, perhaps their own captives, and pro- 
 bably a great number of the inhabitants of the city. 
 
 But does it not seem a frightful number of persons 
 to be massacred? Not by the Huns. In the year 436, 
 these same Huns slaughtered at once in Burgundy 
 30,000 men. They were of the same race, the same 
 family of men as Tamerlane, who had Y0,000 heads cut 
 ojQT in Ispahan. And the Turks, when they took the 
 isl^d of Chios, reduced the population of 120,000 to 
 8,000. So that those slaughters, which to us seem 
 so fearful, are not to be considered in the same hght 
 when occurring in those times. We have a frightful 
 example in the case of Theodosius and the inhabitants 
 
f 
 
 THE TKUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 269 
 
 of Thessalonica. It is said that 15,000 persons were 
 put to death in the theatre for a simple insult. The 
 most moderate calculation is that by S. Ambrose, who 
 gives the number as 7,000. Human life, of course, was 
 not then regarded as by us, especially by men who 
 devastated whole cities and burned them to the ground. 
 ■. Hence the difficulty as to the number of persons, inclu- 
 ding among them, not merely the followers of S. Ursula, 
 but the bulk of the female inhabitants, is explained. 
 
 Another question arises, were they English, or were 
 there English amongst them? That is answered unhesi- 
 tatingly. Yes. All the traditions, English and German, 
 agree that these ladies had come from England and 
 sought refuge. 
 
 I have mentioned the facilities for emigration, and 
 the way in which many went out of the country ; so 
 that there would be nothing wonderful in a certain 
 number of British women being at Cologne at that time. 
 Now there is this curious fact illustrating the subject. 
 Very lately the Golden Chamber, as it is called, adjoin- 
 ing the church, where the chief remains are deposited, 
 was visited by Dr. Braubach and Dr. Gortz of Cologne, 
 Dr. Buschhausen of Eatingen, and others, who exa- 
 mined the skulls and pronounced them to be Celtic, 
 not German. The Celtic characteristics, as given by 
 Blumenbach and other writers, are quite distinct — the 
 chin falls back considerably, the skull is very long, 
 and the vertex of the head goes far behind — quite 
 distinct from the Eomans or Germans. Moreover, with 
 the exception of ten or fifteen out of from eighty to a 
 hundred, they were all the bodies of females. Now all 
 
270 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 the writers — all that I have seen at least — say that 
 there could not have been an emigration of gome hun- 
 dreds of women without some men, some persons to 
 guard them, and these would be with them and would 
 share their martyrdom. Then, in the next place, they 
 were all young people, there was no sign of their having 
 died of a plague or any other casualty, but they ap- 
 peared to be strong, healthy young women : which, of 
 course, as far as we can judge, verifies the narrative 
 to the utmost. 
 
 I now leave you to judge how very different historical 
 research has made this legend, as it is called, appear, 
 and how much we have a right to regard it in a de- 
 votional spirit, as the inhabitants of Germany certainly 
 do. I do not say that there have not been many 
 exaggerations, false relics and stories ; but critical 
 investigation enables us to put all these aside, and to 
 sift their evidence. But certainly we have a strong 
 historical verification of what has been considered until 
 within the last few years as legendary, not only by. real 
 discoveries which have come to light, but also by 
 a right use of evidence, which before had been over- 
 looked and neglected. 
 
 The whole of what I have said relates to events. 
 But my subject embraces ' events and things.' The 
 latter part remains untouched, and I have yet to show 
 how things or objects which have been looked upon 
 as fabulous have been proved to be real and genuine. 
 
 II. I proceed, therefore, to objects which have 
 been, or may be, easily misrepresented, as if asserted to 
 be what they are not, and involving an imputation 
 
THE TRUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 271 
 
 of imposture on the part of those who propose them to 
 
 the notice or veneration of Catholics. ^. 
 
 I will begin with a rather singular example, but one 
 which, I trust, will verify the assertion which I have 
 made ; and if time permits, I will multiply the examples 
 by giving two or three other instances. 
 
 I do not know whether any of you in your foreign 
 travels have visited the cathedral of Chartres : I have 
 hot seen it myself, but I believe that it is one of the 
 most noble, most majestic, and most inspiring of all 
 Gothic buildings on the Continent. The French always 
 speak of it as combining the great effects of a mediaeval 
 church, more perhaps than any other in their country ; 
 and as my address will relate to that cathedral, I think 
 it is necessary to give a little prehminary account of it ; 
 at the same time warning you that I do not by any 
 means intend to plunge into the depths of the singular 
 mystery in which the origin of that cathedral is in- 
 volved. It takes its rise from a Druidical cavern which 
 was for some time the only church or cathedral. Over 
 that the Christians — for the town was early converted 
 to Christianity — built a church, of course, modest, and 
 simple, and poOr, as the early churches of the Christians 
 were : but in this was preserved, with the greatest 
 jealousy and with the deepest devotion, what was 
 called a Druidical image of Our Lady, which was always 
 kept in the crypt, for it was over the crypt that the 
 church was built. It was said to have existed there 
 before the building of the church ; but into that part of 
 the history it is not necessary to enter. In the year 
 1020, this poor old church was struck by hghtning, 
 
272 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 was set on fire, and entirely consumed. The bishop at 
 that time was one of the most remarkable ij^en in the 
 French Church — Fulbert, who has left us a full account 
 of what was done in his time there. He immediately 
 set to work to build another church, proposing that it 
 should be perfectly, magnificent according to all the 
 ideas, of the age ; and to enable him to do so, he had 
 recourse to our modern practice of collecting money on 
 all sides. Among others Canute, King of England and 
 Denmark, and Eichard, Duke of Normandy, and almost 
 all the sovereigns of the North contributed largely. 
 The result was the beginning of a very magnificent 
 church. The singularity of the building was this, that 
 everybody laboured with his hands, not only men, but 
 women, not only the poor, but the noble. These 
 furnished with their own hands provisions or whatever 
 was necessary for the workmen. However, after 
 Fulbert's death, like most undertakings of that class, 
 the work became more languid; and before it was 
 completed (that was in 1094), the building, in which 
 there was a great quantity of wood used, was again 
 burnt to the ground. Well, this time it was deter- 
 mined that there should be a splendid church, such 
 as had never been seen before ; and here, again, 
 that same plan of working with their hands was adopted 
 to an ©Ktent which, as stated in an account given us by 
 Haymon and one or two others, seems incredible. The 
 labourers relieved one another day and night, lighting 
 up the whole place with torches ; provisions were 
 abundantly furnished to all the workmen without their 
 having to move from their places. In fact, the writer 
 says that you might see noblemen, not a few, but hun- 
 
THE TRUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 273 
 
 dreds and thousands, dragging carts or drawing mate- 
 rials and provisions ; in fact, not resting until, in 1160, 
 seventy years after the destruction, the church was 
 consecrated; and there it remains, the grand cathe- 
 dral church of Chartres at this day. 
 
 Now, it may be asked, what was there which most 
 particularly made Chartres a place of such great devo- 
 tion, and so attached the inhabitants to its cathedral 
 that they thus sacrificed their ease and comfort so many 
 years to build a church worthy of their object? It 
 was a relic — a relic which had existed for several hun- 
 dred years at that time in the church, which made it 
 a place of pilgrimage, and which was considered most 
 venerable. What was this relic ? The name which it 
 has always borne in the mouths of the simple, honest, 
 and devoted people of Chartres and its neighbourhood, 
 and in fact of all France, is La Chemise de la Sainte 
 Vierge — that is, a tunic which was supposed and be- 
 lieved to have been worn by the Blessed Virgin, her 
 under-clothing, and was of course considered most 
 venerable from having been in contact with her pure 
 virginal flesh. However, you may suppose that you 
 require strong proof of such a relic at all, and you will 
 remember that my object is to show how things which 
 may have been doubtful, and perhaps considered almost 
 incredible, have received great proof and elucidation 
 by research. I do not pretend to say that in all re- 
 spects you can prove the relic : the research to which 
 I allude is modern, but it may guide us back, may 
 confirm a tradition, may give us strong reasons in its 
 favour, showing that it has not been received without 
 
274 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 good ground, though it may not be able to penetrate 
 the darkness which sometimes surrounds the -beginning 
 of anything in very remote antiquity. 1 am not going, 
 then, to prove the rehc, but I am going to show you 
 the grounds on which it had been accepted, and then 
 come to the modern verification of it. 
 
 The history is this. A Byzantine writer of the four- 
 teenth century, Nicephorus Calixtus,* tells us that this 
 very rehc was in the possession of persons in Judaea, to 
 whom it was left by Our Blessed Lady before her death ; 
 that it fell, in the course of time, into the hands of a 
 Jew in Galilee ; that two patricians of Constantinople, 
 Galbius and Candidus, traced it, purchased it, and took 
 it to Constantinople, where, considering themselves in 
 possession of a great treasure, they concealed it, and 
 would not let it be known (this was in the middle of 
 the fifth century) ; that the Emperor Leo, in conse- 
 quence of the miracles which were wrought,, and by 
 which this relic was discovered, in spite of those who 
 possessed it, immediately entered into negotiations, ob- 
 tained it, and built a splendid church in Constantinople 
 expressly to keep it ; and that the church so built was 
 considered as the safety, the palladium as it were, of 
 the city of Constantinople. He mentions another fact 
 which is important ; that is, that there were at that time 
 in Constantinople three other churches, each built ex- 
 pressly for the preservation of one relic of Our Lady. 
 I mention these facts for this purpose : there is a very 
 prevalent idea, I believe among Catholics as well as 
 
 * Hist. Eccles. lib. xv. cap. xxiv. 
 
THE TKUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 275 
 
 certainly among Protestants, that what may be called 
 the great tide of relics came into Europe through the 
 Crusades ; that the poor ignorant Crusaders, who were 
 more able to handle a sword than to use their discre- 
 tion, were imposed upon, and bought anything that 
 was offered to them at any price, and so deluged 
 Europe with spurious and false rehcs. Now, you will 
 observe, that all that I have been relating is referred 
 to an age quite anterior to the Crusades, or to any 
 movement of the West into the East. It is true that 
 Nicephorus Calixtus is a comparatively modern writer, 
 but he could bear testimony to churches that were 
 existing, and tell by whom they were built. The mere 
 writer of a hand-book can trace out the history of a 
 church or any other public monument which is before 
 the eyes of all : but he was not of that character : he 
 was a historian, and he tells us that there were * three 
 churches in Constantinople, just as we might say that 
 in Eome there is the church of Santa Croce, built by 
 Constantine to preserve the relics of the cross. Nobody 
 can doubt that the church was built for the relic, that 
 the rehc was deposited there, and that earth from the 
 Holy Land was put into its chapel. Monuments like that 
 preserve their own history. Therefore, when this writer 
 tells us that these churches existed from that period, 
 we can hardly doubt that he could arrive at a know- 
 ledge of such facts ; and at any rate it removes the im- 
 pression that these wonderful relics were merely the 
 sweepings, as it were, of Palestine during a fervent 
 
 * Hist. Eccles. lib. xv. capp. xxv. xxvi. 
 
 T 2 
 
"276 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 and pious, but at the same time ignorant and unenlight- 
 ened age. 
 
 Thus, we get the history so far. Now, we know 
 that there was no one who valued rehcs to such 
 an extent as Charlemagne. We see, by Aix-la-Chapelle 
 and other places, what exceedingly curious relics he 
 collected. I am not here to defend them individually, 
 because I do not know their history ; nor is it to our 
 purpose. He was in close correspondence with the 
 East, from which he received large presents ; for it was 
 very well known what he valued most. There was a 
 particular reason for this. The Empress Irene at that 
 time (Charlemagne died in 814) wished to have his 
 daughter Eothrude in marriage for her son Porphy- 
 rogenitus, and later offered her own hand to himself. 
 
 Many rehcs existed at the time of this correspondence ; 
 and as presents are now made of Arab horses and China 
 services, so were they then made of relics, which, if 
 true, monarchs preferred to anything else. Now, there 
 is every reason to suppose that among the presents sent 
 by Irene to Charlemagne was this veil or tunic* There 
 is in the cathedral of Chartres a window expressly 
 commemorating the passage of this rjehc from the East 
 to Chartres. Secondly, the relic, as you will see later, 
 was, up to a few years ago, wrapped in a veil of 
 gauze, which was entirely covered with Byzantine work 
 in gold and in silk; which had liever been taken off, and 
 it was wrapped up in it till the last time it was verified. 
 We have every reason to suppose that it had come from 
 Constantinople, and that it was delivered at Chartres in 
 
 * See note at p. 286. 
 
THE TEUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 277 
 
 that covering. In the third place, it is historical — 
 there is no question about it, for all chronicles and 
 authorities agree upon the point — that Charles the 
 Bald, the grandson of Charlemagne, being obliged to 
 leave Aix-la-Chapelle, in consequence of going to settle 
 in France, which was the portion of the empire allotted 
 to him, took the rehc away, and deposited it in the 
 cathedral of Chartres. So that, as far as we can trace 
 a transaction of this sort, there seems to be as much 
 evidence as would be accepted in respect to the 
 transmission of any object of a profane character from 
 one country to another. There is the correspondence 
 of the workmanship ; there are the records of the place ; 
 and there is the fact that the relics were brought from 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, where Charlemagne had collected so 
 many relics that he had received from Constantinople. 
 Mabillon, who certainly is an authority in matters of 
 ecclesiastical history, says it would be the greatest 
 rashness to deny the genuineness of this rehc. ' Who 
 will presume to deny that it is real and genuine ? ' 
 This is in a letter to the Bishop of Blois, in which he is 
 expressly treating the subject of discerning true relics. 
 Everything so far, therefore, helps to give authenticity 
 to this extraordinary relic which made Chartres a place 
 of immense pilgrimage. 
 
 Bringing it down so far, we may ask, what was the 
 common, and we may say the vulgar, opinion of the 
 people regarding it ? It had never been opened, and 
 was never seen until the end of the last century. The 
 consequence was, that it was called by the name I have 
 mentioned. It was represented as a sort of tunic. It was 
 
278 ESSAYS ox RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 the custom to make tunics of that form, which were laid 
 upon the shrine and worn in devotion ; they were sent 
 specially to ladies of great rank, and were so held in 
 veneration that it was the rule, that if any person 
 going to fight a duel had on one of these chemisettes, 
 as they were called, he must take it off ; as it was sup- 
 posed his rival had not fair play so long as he carried 
 it upon him. In giving an account of the building I 
 forgot to mention the wonderful miracles in connection 
 with the relic there, which are believed by everybody 
 to have taken place. It is even on record that the 
 Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche went to Chartres 
 pour sefaire enchemiser before he went to war. 
 
 In 1712 we find that the relic was in a cedar case 
 richly ornamented with gold and jewels — the original 
 case in which it had arrived. The wood being worm- 
 eaten and crumbling, it was thought proper to remove 
 and clean it, and put it in some better place. The cedar 
 case had no opening by which it could in any way be ex- 
 amined, and the Bishop of the time, Mgr. de Merinville, 
 proposed to open it. He chose a jury of the most re- 
 spectable inhabitants of the town, clergy and laity, to 
 assist. The box was unclosed, and the relic was found 
 wrapped up, as I have said, in the veil of Byzantine 
 work. The veil was not unclosed, so that they did not 
 see the relic itself. The debris of the box was swept 
 away, and the rehc as it was was put into a silver case 
 that had been prepared ; this was locked up, and then, 
 deposited in a larger shrine distinct from all the other 
 relics. The proces verbal still exists in the archives 
 
THE TKUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 279 
 
 of Chartres giving an account of all that took place, 
 from which the account I have given you is taken. 
 
 Infidelity was then spreading in France, and, as you 
 may know, a great deal of ridicule was thrown on this 
 relic. It was said that such a garment was not worn in 
 those days, that the system of dress was quite different, 
 and that it was absurd to imagine any article like this. 
 Now as no one had seen the relic, there was no way of 
 answering these reproaches. In 1793 three commis- 
 sioners came from the French Government, went into 
 the sacristy, and imperiously desired to look at the 
 relic : it was very richly enshrined, and they intended 
 to carry it off. The shrine was brought to them, as the 
 proces verbal of the second examination relates, when 
 they seemed to be seized with a certain awe, and said, 
 ' We will not touch it.; let it be opened by priests.' Two 
 priests were ordered to open the box, and they did so. 
 These men had come prepared to have a good laugh, 
 and scoffing at this wonderful relic. For antiquarians 
 had been saying that such inward clothing was not 
 known so early as the first century, but that instead a 
 long veil used to be wrapped round the body. 
 
 Well, they found a long piece of cloth 4^ ells in 
 length — exactly what had been said should be the 
 proper garment. The commissioners were startled and 
 amazed, and said, ' It is clear that this is not the relic 
 i the people have imagined ; perhaps it is all an imposture.' 
 W They then cut off a considerable piece and sent it to the 
 w Abbe Earth elemy, author of the ' Travels of Anacharsis,' 
 K and member of the Institute — a man who had made the 
 
280 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 tell him where it came from, but desired him to give 
 an opinion of what it might be. He returned this an- 
 swer ; that it must be about 2,000 years old, and that 
 from the description given him it appeared to be exactly 
 like what the ladies in the East wear at this day, and 
 always have worn — that is, a veil which went over the 
 head, across the chest, and then involved the whole 
 body, being the first dress worn. I ask, could a verifi- 
 cation be more complete than this ? And, recollect, it 
 comes entirely from enemies. It was not the bishop or 
 clergy that sought it. The relic was in the hands 
 of those three infidel commissioners, who sent a portion 
 to Paris without saying or giving any hint of what it 
 was (they wanted to make out that the whole was an 
 imposture), and the answer was returned which I have 
 mentioned, and which is contained in the proces in the 
 archives of the episcopal palace at Chartres. If any 
 one wants to read the whole history, I refer him to a 
 most interesting book just pubHshed by the cure of 
 S. Sulpice (Abb^ Hamon), entitled, ' Notre Dame de 
 France, ou Histoire du Culte de la Sainte Vierge en 
 France.' The first volume, the only one out, contains 
 the history of the dioceses of the province of Paris. 
 
 I will proceed to a second popular charge, and it is 
 one the opportunity of easily verifying which may never 
 occur again. It refers to the head of S. John the Bap- 
 tist, or shall I say, to the three heads of S. John the 
 Baptist? Because, if you read English travellers 
 of the old stamp hke Forsyth, you will find that they 
 make coarse jokes about it. Forsyth, I think, says 
 something about Cerberus ; but more gravely it has 
 
THE TRUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 281 
 
 been said, that S. John must have had three heads — 
 one being at Amiens, one at Genoa, and another at 
 Eome ; that at each place they are equally positive in 
 their claims ; and that there is no way of explaining 
 this but by supposing that S. John was a triceps. 
 
 When we speak of a body you can easily imagine 
 that one piece may be in one place, another in another, 
 a third elsewhere, and so on. That is the common way 
 in which we say that the bodies of saints are multiplied ; 
 because the Church considers that the place which con- 
 tains the head or one of the larger limbs of a saint, or 
 the part in which, if a martyr, he was killed or received 
 his death-wound, has the right of keeping his festival 
 and honouring him just as if it had the whole body. 
 Therefore in cathedrals and places where festivals are 
 held in honour of a particular saint, where they have 
 relics, which have perhaps been sealed up for years, 
 and never examined, they often speak as if they have 
 the entire body. This is a common practice, and if 
 I had time I might give you an interesting exem- 
 plification of it.* Suffice it to say, that according 
 to travellers there are three heads of S. John. Now 
 as I have said, a body can be divided, but you can 
 hardly imagine this to be the case with a head. 
 
 A very interesting old English traveller — Sir John 
 Mandeville — went into the East very early, and returned 
 in 1366 ; soon after which, almost as soon as any books 
 were published, his travels appeared. He is a very 
 well known writer. Of course you must not expect 
 that accuracy in his works which a person would now 
 
 * Since published in The Month, '■ Story of a Frencli Officer.' 
 
282 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 exhibit who has books at his command and all the con- 
 veniences for travelling. He was not a profound scholar : 
 he beUeves almost whatever is told him, so what we 
 must do is to let him guide us as well as he can, and 
 endeavour to judge how far he is right. I will read 
 you an extract, then, from Sir John Mandeville :* — 
 
 ' From thence we go up to Samaria, which is now 
 called Sebaste ; it is the chief city of that country. 
 There was wont to be the head of S. John the Baptist 
 inclosed in the wall ; but the Emperor Theodosius had 
 it drawn out, and found it wrapped in a httle cloth, all 
 bloody ; and so he carried it to Constantinople ; and the 
 hinder part of the head is still at Constantinople ; and 
 the fore part of the head to under the chin, under the 
 church of S. Silvester, where are nuns ; and it is yet 
 all broiled, as though it were half burnt; for the 
 Emperor Julian above mentioned, of his wickedness 
 and malice, burned that part with the other bones, 
 as may still be seen ; and this thing hath been proved 
 both by popes and emperors. And the jaws beneath 
 which hold to the chin, and a part of the ashes, and 
 the platter on which the head was laid when it was 
 smitten off, are at Genoa ; and the Genoese make a 
 great feast in honour of it, and so do the Saracens also. 
 And some men say that the head of S. John is at 
 Amiens in Picardy ; and other men say that it is the 
 head of S. John the bishop. I know not which is 
 correct, but God knows ; but however men worship 
 it, the blessed S. John is satisfied.' 
 
 This is a true Cathohc sentiment. Eight or wrong, 
 
 * Travels, chap. ix. p. 182. Ed. Bolin. 
 
THE TRUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 283 
 
 all mean to honour S. John, and there is an end of 
 it. We could not expect a traveller going through the 
 country like Sir John, not visiting every place, but 
 hearing one thing from one and another from another, 
 to tell us the exact full truth. But we have here two 
 very important points gained. First, we have the sin- 
 gular fact of the division of the head at all. We occa- 
 sionally hear of the head of a saint being at a particular 
 place, but seldom of a part of a head being in one 
 place and a part in another. Here we have an unpreju- 
 diced traveller going into the East; he comes to the 
 place where the head of S. John used to be kept, and 
 he finds there the tradition that it was divided into 
 three parts, one of which was at Constantinople, one at 
 Genoa, and another at Eome. Then he adds, ' Other 
 people say that the head is at Amiens.' So much 
 Sir John Mandeville further informs us : he mentions 
 the places where it was reported the head was, telling 
 us that it was divided into three. 
 
 This is a statement worthy of being verified. It was 
 made a long time ago, and yet the tradition remains 
 the same. It was as well beheved in the thirteenth 
 century in the East, at Sebaste, as it is in Europe at 
 the present moment. 
 
 The church of S. Silvestro in Capite, which many 
 of you remember, is a small church on the east side 
 of the Corso, entered by a sort of vestibule : it has 
 an atrium or court, with arches round, and dwellings 
 for the chaplains ; the outer gates can be shut at night 
 so as to prevent completely any access to the church. 
 The rest is an immense building, belonging to the nuns, 
 
284 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 running out towards the Propaganda. When the Ee- 
 pubhcans in the late invasion got hold of Eome, the 
 first thing, of course, which they did was to turn out 
 the monks and nuns right and left, to make barracks ; 
 and the poor nuns of S. Silvestro were ordered to 
 move. The head of S. John is in a shrine which looks 
 very brilliant, but is poor in reality. I think it is ex- 
 posed high beyond the altar, and the nuns kept it in 
 jealous custody in their house. The EepubUcans sent 
 away the nims in the middle of the night, at ten or 
 eleven o'clock, just as they were, with what clothes 
 they could get made into bundles : there were carriages 
 at the door to send them off to some other convent, 
 without the shghtest warning or notice. The poor 
 creatures were ordered to take up their abode in 
 the convent of S. Pudentiana. The only thing they 
 thought of was their relic, and that they carried 
 w^ith them. The good nuns received them though late 
 at night, and did what they could to give them good 
 cheer ; they gave up one of their dormitories to them, 
 putting themselves to immense inconvenience. 
 
 When the French came to Eome, they found S. Sil- 
 vestro so useful a building for public purposes, that 
 they continued to hold it, but permitted the nuns to 
 occupy some rooms near the church. I was in Eome 
 while they were still at my titular church, and went 
 to visit the nuns attached to it. Their guests asked, 
 ' Would you not like to see our relic of S. John? ' I 
 said, ' Certainly I should ; perhaps I shall never have 
 another opportunity.' I do not suppose it had been out 
 of their house for hundreds of yeai*s. There is a chapel 
 
THE TRUTH OP SUPPOSED LEGENDS. 285 
 
 within the convent which the nuns of S. Pudentiana 
 consider a sacred oratory, having a miraculous picture 
 there, to which they are much attached ; and in this 
 they kept the shrine. On examination I found that 
 there was no part of the head except the back. It 
 is said in the extract I have read to you that the 
 front part of the head is at Eome ; but it is the back of 
 the skull merely; the rest is filled up with some 
 stuffing and silk over it. The nuns have but a third of 
 the head ; and the assertion that they pretend to possess 
 the head, which travellers make, is clearly false. I can 
 say from my own ocular inspection that it is but the third 
 part — the back part, which is the most interesting, 
 because there the stroke of martyrdom fell. I was 
 certainly glad of this fortunate opportunity of verifying 
 the relic. 
 
 Some time afterwards I was at Amiens. I was very 
 intimate with the late bishop, and spent some days 
 with him. One day he said to me, ' Would you wish 
 to see our head of S. John ? ' ' Yes,' I replied, ' I should 
 much desire it.' ' Well,' he said, ' we will wait till 
 the afternoon ; then I will have the gates of the cathe- 
 dral closed, that we may examine it at leisure.' 
 
 We dined early, and went into the chapel of the 
 Blessed Sacrament, where the relic was exposed, with 
 candles. After sajring prayers, it was brought, and I 
 had it in my hands ; it was nothing but the mask, the 
 middle and back portions being totally wanting. You 
 could almost trace the expression and character of the 
 countenance in the bony structure. It was of the 
 same size and colour as the portion which I had seen 
 
286 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 at S. Piidentiana ; but the remarkable thing about it 
 is that there are stiletto marks in the face. We are 
 told by Fathers, that Herodias stabbed the head with 
 a bodkin when she got it into her hand, and here are 
 the marks of such an operation visible. You could 
 almost say that you had seen him as he was alive. 
 I ^^ave not seen the third fragment, but I can hardly 
 doubt that it is a portion of the same head, and that it 
 would comprise the parts, the chin and the jaw, because 
 there is no lower jaw in the front part, which is a mere 
 mask. The only other claimant is Genoa, and its reHc 
 I have not seen. But this is exactly the portion allotted 
 by Mandeville to that city. I have, however, had the 
 satisfaction of personally verifying two of the relics, 
 each of which comprises a third part of the head, leav^ 
 ing for the other remainder exactly the place which 
 our old traveller allots to it. 
 
 *^* Mr. Cashel Hoey, one of our learned contributors, has kindly 
 furnished me with a most interesting corroboration of this account. 
 It is an extract from the Revue Archeologique, new series, Jan. 1861, 
 p. 36, in a paper by M. Louis Moland, entitled * Charlemagne a Con- 
 stantinople,' &c., giving an account of a MS. in the library of the 
 Arsenal, anterior to the thirteenth century. 
 
 The following is the account of the relic which the emperor is 
 stated to have brought from Constantinople to Aix-la-ChapeUe. 
 
 * Li empereres prist les saintuaires tot en disant ses orisons, si les 
 mist en eskerpes {echarpes) totes de drap de sole et si les enporta 
 molt saintement avoec lui trosqu Ais la Capele en I'eglise Nostre 
 Dame qu'il avoit edifiie. La fu establis par I'apostolie {Le Pape) 
 et par les archevesques et les evesques as pelerins li grans pardons, 
 qui por Deu i venoient, Oi^s une partie des reliques que li empe- 
 reres ot aportees ; il i fu la moities de la corone dont Nostre Sires 
 fu coronas des poignans espines. Et si i ot des claus dont Nostre 
 Sires fu atachi^s en la crois al jor que li Jui le crucifierent. Et si 
 i ot de la vraie crois une pieche et del suaire Nostre Segnor, o le 
 chemise Nostre Dame. 
 
 I 
 
CHEISTIANITT IN RELATION TO CITIL SOCIETY, 
 
 By EDWARD LUCAS. 
 
 PAET I. 
 
 The complicated nature of tlie relations which arise in 
 old-established societies, between the ecclesiastical and 
 civil powers, renders it difficult for ordinary men to 
 perceive whether and where one trenches on the rights 
 of the other. The principles involved lie so deep, that 
 it is, for the most part, only men of leisure and such 
 as are accustomed to profound investigations of this 
 particular kind, who are able to penetrate and to com- 
 prehend them. 
 
 It is natural that the ecclesiastical body, both from 
 the mode in which its members are elected and from 
 their training, should produce more men of the class 
 referred to, than does the lay portion of the community, 
 although the latter is so much more numerous in itself. 
 A chief and sufficient reason being, that among the 
 laity, the men of leisure have little to stimulate them 
 to the requisite intellectual exertion ; while the men of 
 action, upon whom fall the duties of government, are too 
 much engrossed by ambition, by the labours of adminis- 
 tration, and by the practical questions of the day and 
 of the hour ; whereas, it is the especial business of ec- 
 clesiastics to master problems deeper than any which 
 
288 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 immediately concern society. Moreover, the Church 
 gauges with great nicety the capacities of her servants, 
 appointing each to the task for which his abiHty pecu- 
 harly fits him ; so that the waste of individual force is 
 less, and its development more certain, in the smaller 
 than in the larger body. 
 
 ^ JSTow, as a matter of fact, the ecclesiastical and civil 
 powers seldom agree for long together. Few states- 
 men start with even the intention of submitting to 
 ecclesiastical authority or advice on questions which 
 they deem within their own domain. The consequence 
 is, that, like other abstruse sciences, that of government 
 is explained, and the acts of governments are defended 
 upon theories and by arguments whose apparent depth 
 appeals attractively to the self-conceited, while it 
 deceives and bewilders the simple. 
 
 The necessity, however, for plain men to form a 
 udgment on these momentous questions, is so para- 
 mount and of such daily occurrence, that one feels 
 instinctively there must be some easy means of arriving 
 at sound conclusions — arguments, convincing by their 
 simplicity, and within the comprehension of most people. 
 I propose to bring forward in this paper some, which, 
 having been convincing to my own mind, I fancy 
 may be the same to the minds of others. I do so with 
 considerable diffidence, hoping they may not be deemed 
 insufficient by men who have studied these subjects on 
 more philosophical and logical methods. To me, they 
 seem to go to the root of the great question of the day, 
 viz. the relative positions of the ecclesiastical and civil 
 governments. They conduct to nearly the same, though 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 289 
 
 not quite so advanced, a conclusion, and by a different 
 route, as the late able article in tlie Dublin Review, 
 on tlie intrinsic end of civil government. The subject 
 is one which naturally falls under several heads, of 
 which the two chief are, firstly, the principles which 
 regulate the relation ; and secondly, the advisability, at 
 any given time, of enforcing those principles more or 
 less rigidly in practice. With the latter is intimately 
 connected the intermediate question, viz. how far it is 
 lawful to go in holding the principles in abeyance ? 
 This part of the subject has lately been brought into 
 great prominence by the speeches of the Count de 
 Montalembert, at Malines, and will, it is said, be treated 
 at length from another point of view, in a future num- 
 ber of the Dublin Review. The considerations which 
 I shall lay before you to-day come under the first head. 
 They are based upon the intention with which the 
 Church was founded in the first instance, and upon the 
 mode of its growth and perpetuation afterwards. Per- 
 haps it were more correct to say, they are based upon 
 the Creed. They will probably sound common-place, 
 but at any rate they have been forgotten and practically 
 denied by men both within and without the Church. 
 To avoid the antagonism which is frequently aroused 
 by the use of the word ' Church,' I shall speak of it as 
 the ' Society of Christians,' which Our Lord founded. 
 I shall offer some remarks, firstly, upon the Unity, then 
 upon the Universality of the Society ; afterwards, I shall 
 endeavour to show that these could only be maintained 
 by means of an organisation which must have begun with 
 the earliest days of the Society's existence; the object of 
 
 u 
 
290 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 the whole being to establish, that a society so organised, 
 and extending for all time throughout the world, must 
 of necessity be independent of more limited societies, 
 whose growth was the result of circumstances rather 
 than of predetermination. I shall dwell at some length 
 upon the question of Organisation, thinking it impos- 
 sible to refute too often the theory of writers of the 
 school of Mons. Guizot, that in the first ages the Church 
 - was without organisation. This plan presents the double 
 advantage of giving a less abstract form to the discus- 
 sion of this portion of the general subject, and at the 
 same time of replying to an opinion which has great 
 weight with our opponents. Afterwards, some of the 
 functions of the Society will be contrasted with those 
 of civil society, in order to prove that the latter must 
 in reahty be more or less dependent on the former : in 
 doing this, reference will be made to the above-men- 
 tioned speeches of the Count de Montalembert.* 
 
 To begin, then, with the Unity of the Society. 
 We all know that the Christian religion was esta- 
 blished to provide the entire human race with the 
 means of becoming reconciled to their ofiended Creator, 
 and we all know that they were revealed to a few 
 individuals, who, at that time, were the whole of 
 Christian Society. The revelation of the means must 
 evidently have been simple, since it was made by one 
 Divine Person, at one time, to one small body of men. 
 However manifold the means might be, the revelation 
 of them was a complete whole. How wide soever the 
 law, its universality required that it should provide for 
 * In August 1863. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 291 
 
 all the exceptions which it was intended to allow under 
 it. It would have been a mockery to reveal a law 
 which admitted of exceptions, without at the same time 
 declaring what they were. Whatever number of clauses 
 it might contain, it was only one law. It may be called 
 a law, or a code, or a body of laws, or Christianity, or 
 the Gospel ; but no matter by what name you choose 
 to designate it, still it was the revelation of but oi?e 
 law, complete and perfect in itself ; with nothing super- 
 fluous, and without omissions. When we speak of the 
 law of England, we mean the whole law — common 
 law, Chancery law. Acts of Parliament, and all else that 
 goes to make up what is understood by the phrase, 
 ' according to law.' In the same way the law of Christ 
 is all that He revealed to men, of their duties to God 
 and to each other : and there could hardly be omitted 
 from the revelation, either in germ or otherwise, those 
 of individuals, and especially those of the new Society, 
 to civil governments. 
 
 The revelation, indeed, contained something more 
 and higher than this, viz. certain truths regarding the 
 natures both of God and of the human soul, which are 
 the foundations of the law, and which, being absolute 
 and altogether beyond the influence of opinion, can in 
 no way be affected by the outward circumstances of 
 governments, or of any other persons. But it seems 
 natural to conclude that, as the reciprocal duties of 
 governors and subjects depend immediately upon that 
 human nature which is common to both, and ulti- 
 mately upon the Divine nature, from which human 
 nature springs, the Society, which has received a direct 
 
 u 2 
 
292 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 revelation concerning, and insight into, both these natures, 
 should be in the position to teach, rather than seek 
 instruction from any society which is without such 
 direct revelation, as to the reciprocal duties referred to. 
 If you deny the position, you must deny the revelation 
 altogether. The law, then, based upon the actual 
 Inures of God and of the soul, being one, the belief in 
 and the submission to it must be one. There is no 
 accepting part and rejecting part. Whoever gives only 
 a fractional assent to the terms proposed, no matter 
 how large the fraction may be ; whoever rejects one 
 clause of the submitted contract, by which God is 
 pleased to declare Himself bound to any and every 
 man, the moment he accepts it entire, cannot demand 
 the concession of the other terms — cannot claim under 
 the other clauses. Till a treaty or contract be signed, 
 so as to bind both parties to it, no treaty or contract 
 can be said to exist. And so in the subject under 
 examination : till a man accepts the terms God lays 
 before him, he is outside the contract. He has not 
 even begun to fulfil the covenants. He cannot demand 
 payment till he has delivered the goods God is willing 
 to accept as a sort of equivalent ; which goods are an 
 absolute and entire submission to the perfect law. And 
 so it is with the Society ; it is only in virtue of subjec- 
 tion that it exists at all — one subjection to one law ; 
 the law being the same to one man as to another : not 
 that all lives are to be uniform, like the impressions 
 from an engraving or the casts from a mould. By no 
 means ; the law has practical reference to all the mi- 
 nutely varied requirements of humanity, whether within 
 
- CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 293 
 
 * . . . ♦ 
 
 or beyond the Society under discussion- It is adapted 
 to all circumstances and to all characters. It foresees, 
 admits, and provides for all necessary modifications and 
 for every possible breach. Otherwise, it would be a 
 compound and therefore not a perfect law, and could 
 not claim an undivided submission. But, being a per- 
 fect law, this is required, and can only be given by an 
 .undivided Society. Whether, therefore, we prefer to 
 use the term Eevelation, or Law of Christ, or Will of 
 God ; that in obedience to which men can alone belong 
 to the Society is one, and without unity among them- 
 selves there can be none between them and the source . 
 of this revelation, law, or will. 
 
 But while the law provides for lapses on the part of 
 individual members of the Society, and while it furnishes 
 means for the recovery of those privileges which mem- 
 bers lose through disobedience to the law, no provision 
 was, or could be, made for lapses on the part of the 
 Society itself. If the Society fell away, there would be 
 no possibility of its return to the truth. Christianity 
 could no longer exist. The primary object of the esta- 
 blishment of the Society was, that it should declare to 
 the world certain truths which God had revealed to it. 
 If it swerved from the truth, it would become a society 
 of falsehood ; its connection with the truth would be 
 destroyed, and it could not possibly reinstate itself. 
 But truth being one, and the object of the Society 
 being to teach the truth, the Society must be one also. 
 Division, in regard to the truth, supposes error on one 
 side or the other ; therefore, if divisions arise, the part 
 which retains the truth is the Society : the other part 
 
294 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 or parts are cut o^from all connection with it ; they 
 cannot be the Society, or portions of the Society, in any 
 sense of the words. 
 
 Looking, therefore, to the source whence the Society 
 sprung, to the law by which it is bound, and to the 
 truth which it has to teach', unity is an absolutely 
 necessary condition of its existence. 
 
 "We will now proceed to the next division of the 
 subject, viz. the Universahty of the Society. 
 
 It is universal in four senses. Firstly, as to space, ex- 
 tending over the whole world. Secondly, as to time, last- 
 ing by the Divine promise throughout all ages. Thirdly, 
 as to rank,*' excluding none, because the promises re- 
 ceived were to all ahke. Fourthly, as to the individual 
 man in this, that no portion of his being is left unaided 
 and uncared for by the perfect law of which it is the 
 depository. That it was intended to embrace the whole 
 human race requires no proof; that to do so it must 
 continue to the end of the world is equally obvious. 
 That it should have jurisdiction over all the faculties of 
 man will demand some elucidation. But, first, let us 
 go back to the earhest days of the Society, and see how 
 its unity and universahty, as to space and time, went 
 hand in hand from the very moment that it received the 
 power of action. When, on the Day of Pentecost, it was 
 increased in the proportion of 3,000 to some 120, it 
 lost not its identity by the accession. It acknowledged 
 the same rule as before, it participated in the same 
 revelation, it looked forward wi th the same hope. 
 
 If the small Society held certain truths, and were 
 regulated by principles, axioms, or government, no 
 
CHEISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 295 
 
 addition of numbers could change either the one or the 
 other. The new members had received but an elemen- 
 tary instruction as to the aims and meaning of the 
 Society they joined. They were in no condition to 
 exercise control, or to express any opinion of weight 
 on modes of procedure, or on questions of doctrine. 
 They were learners, not teachers ; and it was in virtue 
 of submission to the teaching of those whom a miracle 
 proved to hold a Divine commission, that they became 
 members of the Society, which was increased, not 
 altered, by their adhesion. The seedling oak is the 
 same when it has lived its three hundred years ; it has 
 developed, but has not lost its identity; :^^hereas, had 
 the new men, on any principle of majorities, been able 
 to persuade the founders of the Society to swerve from 
 the primary object of the foundation, and to teach other 
 things as truths than the exact revelation they had 
 received, the Society would, ipso facto^ have ceased to 
 exist. To repeat what has been already said, it would 
 have been another Society henceforth. The new mem- 
 bers, then, were absorbed, one by one, into the mystic 
 tree which was to cover the whole world, as the 
 particles of light, and heat, and moisture are attracted 
 and assimilated by the trees of the forest. 
 
 And when the universality of the Society was prac- 
 tically commenced by the returning home to their 
 native countries of the 3,000, each one would take 
 with him the obhgations he had contracted on his con- 
 version. These would concern first his relations with 
 God, then with his family, then with the Society, after- 
 wards with the world outside and with his government. 
 
296 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Toe obligations of the Libyan would not differ, exc('[)i' 
 in detail, from thos^f Ihe Mesopotamian, the Persian, 
 the Eoman or the Jew. But since life is made up of 
 details, and since the revelation was to all men of every 
 condition, there must be some means, common to all, 
 of ascertaining the exact duties of each under every 
 variety of novel or of old accustomed circumstance. 
 Every man would find himself embarrassed with all 
 sorts of difficulties. And if the Apostles stood in need 
 of a special illumination after three years of constant 
 conversation with Our Lord ; men converted in a short 
 space of time must always be referring back to their 
 teachers fo|j| rules of conduct, to say nothing of the 
 Sacraments. In this way the Society was bound to- 
 gether while it expanded. 
 
 The very remoteness of outlying members, so far 
 from causing divisions in the Society, would be a most 
 potent means of securing union, as will more fully 
 appear when we come to the question of organisation. 
 Distance from the seat of authority could not alter the 
 inherent principle by which submission to its rules was 
 due from all. Submission to the law which held it 
 together was the only qualification for. position in the 
 Society. And when it grew and sent forth its offshoots 
 and branches to distant regions, the mutual relations of 
 the various parts were not only subordinate to those of 
 each part with the Society at large, but they existed solely 
 in virtue of the powers of the entire corporation which 
 alone had the prerogative of defining those relation- 
 ships. 
 
 Li common parlance, one says that the lesser joins the 
 
CHRISTIANITY IX RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 297 
 
 # 
 
 greater, not the greater the less. Here the 3,000 converts 
 on Pentecost joined the httle Society, which being very 
 small in numbers, was even then greater than all the 
 world besides, by the law and revelation which it pos- 
 sessed ; and until it lost them nothing could alter the 
 proportions of the world and itself. But it could not lose 
 them, because the primary intention was that it should 
 embrace and retain within itself all mankind. The 
 experience of nearly 2,000 years shows, if proof were 
 wanting, that universahty as to place could only be 
 accomplished by universality as to time. The Christian 
 Society of the Day of Pentecost is the very same which 
 exists to-day. The reasons for its creation and the 
 motives for its continuance are undiminished. So far as 
 two-thirds of the world are concerned, its final cause 
 remains unfulfilled. It stands in the same relation to 
 those two-thirds as it did to the entire world on the 
 Day of Pentecost. Whatever it needed then for the 
 conversion of all mankind, it requires now for two-thirds 
 of them. What was new then to the Eomans, is as new 
 to-day to these. What it had at that time to offer to 
 all men, it has to offer still. If enthusiastic devotion to 
 it were worthy of admiration then, it is equally so now. 
 If all mundane considerations were swallowed up in an 
 overwhelming sense of its claims, so that martyrdoms 
 were wisely suffered then, the same is equally true 
 at this moment. In short, if it were intended to 
 include all men within its pale, it must last so long as 
 njankind continues to exist. 
 
 But if it embrace men in all countries and in all 
 ages, it embraces men of all ranks. What it has to 
 
298 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOt AND LITERATURE 
 
 give is as needful to^ne man as to another. The sal- 
 vation wliich Chrisnanity offers is as far beyond the 
 reach of the beggar as of the king. The misery of the 
 one is no more a passport than the fine linen of the 
 other. It is only by obedience to the law of Christianity 
 that either can attain to salvation. However wide 
 or however narrow the limits of the Society, no rank is 
 excluded from the benefits or from the obligations 
 of membership. The one law of which we have 
 spoken above, declares the one and defines the other. 
 And, if we regard the fourth sense in which the Society 
 is universal, it will be apparent that the same reasons 
 exist for i^* supremacy over men of every rank, the 
 most exalted as well as the most humble. This sense 
 includes the whole aggregation of faculties and 
 powers of which man is composed. When human 
 nature fell in Adam, the fall was entire ; every faculty 
 of mind and of body rebelled. Thus the ear listened 
 to, and the understanding believed, the words of the 
 tempter ; the eye beheld the goodliness of the fruit ; the 
 memory banished the command of God ; the will con- 
 sented to the temptation ; the feet walked to the tree ; 
 the arm was outstretched ; the hand grasped, the mouth 
 ate, the fruit. The affections, the desires, the imagina- 
 tion, the intellect were all concerned. Every portion 
 of his being, therefore, became degraded. The dete- 
 rioration which followed the act of disobedience was 
 thorough. As the superior faculties of the soul had 
 put themselves in subjection to the inferior bodijy 
 powers, the disarrangement of the whole was hence- 
 forth complete, and in this state the new Society found 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 299 
 
 all mankind. It was to rescue jhe human race from 
 this condition that the Society was created, and if it 
 were to act with real efficacy on the fallen nature of 
 man, it must have a control over all his faculties as 
 complete and thorough as was the Fall. In order to be 
 able to rearrange, it was necessary to have the entire 
 command of aU the parts. And as the Society was of 
 -Divine institution, the powers conferred upon it could 
 not be otherwise than perfectly adapted to their end. 
 The family of man, then, being derived from one ori- 
 ginal, every member of it has the same nature, and no 
 rank can possibly escape the jurisdiction of a Society 
 whose office is to deal with every portion of that nature. 
 So far as to the universality of the Society. 
 
 Now as to the means by which the Society was to 
 be maintained and propagated throughout the whole 
 world and for all time. In treating this portion of the 
 subject, I shall, as already mentioned, give the remarks 
 I have to offer the form of a reply to M. Guizot's fanciful 
 theory, that the earliest Christians were ' a pure asso- 
 ciation of men with common behef and sentiments, but 
 without any form of discipline, or of laws, or any body 
 of magistrates.' In these phrases M. Guizot describes 
 an unorganised body. 
 
 In reality, however, there is no society without 
 organisation. An aggregation of units, unless bound 
 together by fixed laws, is not a society in any sense, as 
 a number of loose bricks are not a house. The phrase, 
 ' society without organisation,' is a contradiction in 
 terms. Society disorganised, i. e. with its organisation 
 destroyed, is anarchy, not society. The common 
 
300 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATUEE. 
 
 expression of an ' unponstituted society ' means simply 
 that the society does not yet exist ; the materials are 
 there, but, till organised, they are mere materials. 
 
 Now, no other society has ever yet been founded 
 upon a plan so ambitious (if the word be allowable) as 
 this one. The most numerous corporations, the greatest 
 conquerors, have never, even at the height of their 
 prosperity, proposed to themselves schemes of such vast 
 proportions. 
 
 For the most part, societies which have exercised 
 an important influence on mankind, and empires 
 which have become great, have begun with no idea of 
 their future "Expansion, which has resulted from oppor- 
 tunity rather than from an original intention. Un- 
 ceasing energy working upon a fundamental principle, 
 clearly defined and kept steadily in view, has produced 
 results quite beyond the contemplation of founders. 
 And it would be impossible to point to great successes 
 achieved either by individuals or societies, without 
 persevering efforts, systematically directed to a certain 
 end. But men, connected together by no stronger tie 
 than community of sentiment, . inasmuch as they have 
 no corporate existence, lack any capacity for united 
 perseverance. Each particular member may persevere 
 in his own hue. But without organisation such a body 
 has no more coherence than is found among a number 
 of men who meet together at a conversazione, where 
 topics of common interest are discussed, and who 
 retire at its conclusion to their own avocations. 
 
 In the present instance, however, there was a funda- 
 mental principle, viz. to carry the Society throughout 
 
CHEISTIANITY IN EELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 301 
 
 the whole earth, to subdue all men under obedience to 
 the revelation by which it was guided, to subject them 
 to the law of Christ. Now the very existence of such 
 a principle presupposes a society in the true meaning 
 of the term, constituted with all the conditions of 
 permanence, and having powers of attraction capable 
 of drawing within its sphere the most discordant 
 elements. It were absurd to imagine that a plan so 
 stupendous was launched into the world with no more 
 provision for its success than the fickle resolution of a 
 few men. In the moral, no doubt, as in the material 
 world, a body once put in motion continues to move 
 by its own weight long after the propelling force has 
 ceased to act. But in this case, the motion was to 
 continue even beyond the imagination of men, and the 
 opposing forces were not only external to but were 
 actively at work within the body itself. In order to 
 have a just appreciation of the difficulties which had to 
 be overcome, we must bear in mind that the necessity 
 for a revelation having arisen from disobedience, the 
 propagation of the new law must be entrusted to men 
 who were not only fully acquainted with it, but were 
 firmly determined to adhere to it, with perfect sub- 
 mission. Such were chosen for these very reasons, and 
 were endowed with supernatural powers to enable 
 them at the same time to perform their work and 
 to keep their resolutions. When, therefore, by their 
 preaching, other men were induced to join their body, 
 it is impossible to conceive that they had not rules by 
 which the new members were to be bound, and powers 
 of enforcing those rules. When any body of men 
 
302 ESSAfS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 associate to carry out an object, however limited, the 
 first thing they do is to determine, and for the most 
 part, in these days at least, to reduce to writing, the re- 
 gulations under which they shall act, and which shall be 
 binding hereafter upon themselves and their successors 
 or future associates. An executive, by whatever name 
 it goes, and however constituted, is created with the 
 power of enforcing the laws, and of inflicting pains 
 and penalties, so far as the terms may be applicable. 
 The first provide for admission into, the last for dismission 
 from, the society or association. Everyone knows that 
 this is the course adopted. Nevertheless, we are asked 
 by so grave a philosopher as M. Guizot to believe that 
 in the first age ' Christianity was simply an individual 
 behef without any form of discipline, or of laws, or any 
 body of magistrates,' and this notion is practically 
 shared in by vast numbers of people. 
 
 The idea of twelve men setting about a work, 
 plainly superhuman, in whicli they knew they would 
 have to encounter not only the hostility of the world 
 and of worldly governments, but the natural proneness 
 of men, themselves included, to disobey the law whose 
 force they admitted : the idea of twelve men of only 
 average common sense, with these difficulties before 
 them, thinking, for a single instant, of undertaking to 
 conquer the world, without a plan, with no form of 
 disciphne, without laws and without an executive, is so 
 contrary to the experience of every-day life, that it can 
 only be accounted for upon some theory of a mysterious 
 supernatural assistance which no one can explain, and 
 upon which no known sect has dared in its own case 
 to rely. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL. SOCIETY. 303 
 
 But even had the association commenced upon the 
 impossible supposition of an absence of laws, it could 
 not long have existed upon such a want of basis. The 
 Gospel narrative, however, is obviously against any such 
 supposition. A number of circumstances will readily 
 occur to every one, which point, from the first, to an 
 arrangement of parts altogether incompatible with the 
 sentimental theory. 
 
 We need not encumber the text with the examples 
 referred to. There is sufficient in the pecuHar nature 
 of the Society itself, as shown by its object and the 
 necessary character of its functions, to make an appeal 
 to historical facts almost needless. The instances 
 alluded to are nevertheless mentioned in a note, in 
 order to demonstrate that the theory and the actual 
 circumstances of the case perfectly coincide.* 
 
 In the first place, then, the revelation and the execu- 
 tive of the Society were necessarily in the same hands. 
 It could not be otherwise. With the revelation was 
 combined the duty of difiusing and perpetuating it. 
 The revelation being a declaration of God's wiU to men, 
 both as among themselves and as between men and 
 God, supposed these duties. Otherwise the revelation 
 would have concerned the Apostles only, which no 
 one asserts. Had it been only of private interpretation, 
 the command to carry it into all nations would have 
 been absiu-d. It was, then, to be disseminated ; and 
 that in such a way, as to remain for ever in the world. 
 
 * Some of the circumstances are : The appointment of Matthias, 
 the community of goods, the ordaining of deacons, the sending of 
 Barnabas to Antioch, the sending of Saul and Barnabas from 
 Antioch, the decision and letter of the Council of Jerusalem. 
 
304 ESSAip ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 It was not to be subject to almost total oblivion, as 
 the old revelations had been. Twice before had the 
 whole human race known and almost entirely lost the 
 knowledge of God's will. But this revelation of it 
 was to be perpetual. And as it was only by human 
 agencies that the perpetuation was to be maintained, 
 the duty of arranging for such perpetuation was clearly 
 imphed in the command to go into all nations and teach. 
 Now there were just twelve men who could teach, and 
 they would die within seventy years. But more, the 
 twelve could not possibly superintend the details of 
 more than as many districts at once. They must travel, 
 instruct the ignorant, satisfy the wise of this world, ex- 
 hort the lukewarm, settle disputed questions, and bring 
 back the strayed. All would require promptness and 
 decision. Except with themselves, neither the know- 
 ledge nor the authority existed. But they must provide 
 for their absence and future death. What they knew 
 and had imparted to others, without appeal to them, 
 could not spread further. Men taught at second-hand 
 would say, 'This which you tell us on such a point 
 does not agree with your other teaching. We must 
 refer to our own Apostle.' Such reference, as above 
 remarked^ could not but be a powerful means of 
 securing unity. But absence and death being in- 
 evitable, these conditions must have been prearranged 
 for. Provision must have been made in God's 
 Will from the first. It was no afterthought of men. 
 Human shortsightedness could not have failed to 
 anticipate what must so clearly arise; infinitely less 
 could God's wisdom. But what provision was most 
 
CHKISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 305 
 
 natural, most simple, and therefore most certainly 
 really made ? For absence a delegated authority, for 
 death one to succeed. Now no delegated authority 
 can be at any time independent of the power which 
 delegates. The fact of delegating presupposes and 
 includes the right of withdrawing the faculties con- 
 ferred. When, therefore, any one of the Apostles had 
 established the Society in any city, and jSnding it 
 advisable to move to a distance, had delegated to 
 some chosen man powers similar to those which he 
 himself possessed, the newly elected would be respon- 
 sible immediately to the Apostle who appointed him, 
 but in the last resort, to the recognised central authority 
 of the entire Society. If the delegation were granted 
 solely in virtue of individual powers, it could only be 
 revoked by the persons who conferred it. But if the 
 grantor acted on behalf of the Society, he could not 
 annul the appointment without its sanction expressed 
 or implied. Now, to suppose that each Apostle had 
 the power to appoint and maintain representatives 
 responsible to himself alone, is to suppose the power 
 to create not one, but twelve societies, which has been 
 shown to be impossible. And, moreover, in such a 
 case this difSculty would arise on the death of the 
 appointer : the delegate would still remain in power, 
 being answerable to no one for his conduct. From 
 such a plan confusion must inevitably arise. For 
 though each Apostle would teach precisely the same 
 doctrine, yet the teaching would fall upon ears which 
 would hear according to the idiosyncrasies of their 
 possessors, and would consequently become changed 
 
 X 
 
»■' 
 
 306 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITEEATURE. 
 
 and corrupted with very little delay, and the delegate's 
 authority and knowledge would be unhesitatingly 
 called in question. Every man would judge for himself, 
 and contradictory interpretations would at once arise. 
 
 Whereas, if an appeal lay to the college or council 
 of the Apostles, either under a presidency or otherwise, 
 the inconvenience of an authority lapsing by death 
 would be avoided, and the advantage would be secured 
 of having the concurrent judgment of a number of 
 men instead of that of one only. The mere executive 
 of the Society could not be in hands independent of the 
 corporation itself; and since its main object was (re- 
 garded from our present point of view) to propagate 
 certain unalterable teaching, we maintain that in the 
 execution of this function its officers must be as ame- 
 nable to central control as in the maintenance of 
 disciphne. ' Let all things,' says S. Paul, ' be done in 
 order.' But there can be no order without authority to 
 ordain. It cannot here be pleaded that this expression 
 refers to outward observances only, because these are 
 what objectof s make so light of. It is alleged that they 
 are the result of corruption, so many departures from 
 the first simplicity, so many inventions of interested 
 men. But if the maintaining of order in matters of dis- 
 cipline were necessarily insisted on, the argument seems 
 unanswerable that the highest application of disciphne, 
 which in its essence is the due subordination of members, 
 consists in the appointment of teachers ; that is of those 
 servants of the Society whose especial business consisted 
 in carrying into effect the purpose for which it was 
 created. 
 
CHEISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 307 
 
 Let us now take into consideration the practical 
 difficulties which the Society would have to meet and 
 overcome. 
 
 An appeal to history would be too long, otherwise 
 it would not be difficult to show that the opposition 
 which the Society has had from the first to encounter 
 was so multifarious in its forms, so persevering, so 
 insidious, so powerful, and, at times, so thoroughly 
 organised, that nothing short of an organisation in- 
 comparably more multifarious in its appliances, more 
 persevering, more cohesive, or rather so closely knitted 
 together, that each of its parts depends upon, while it 
 strengthens the rest — disciphne being inseparably united 
 with doctrine, and both with the innermost thoughts 
 and intents of the heart — could have withstood the 
 apparently overwhelming force by which it has been 
 threatened times without number. 
 
 But such an historical survey would take us off the 
 line we are pursuing. This, however, may be said, 
 that the greatest dangers to which Christianity has 
 been exposed have arisen from within itself, and have 
 been nourished with the food upon which the Church 
 has fed her own children. Her form of government, 
 her maxims, the mental training by which she regulates 
 minds, have been the most formidable weapons of 
 attack in the hands of rebellious subjects, who, having 
 first learned her methods, have afterwards used them 
 in teaching false doctrine. Every one is aware of the 
 deadly hostihty with which men, whose pecuhar duty 
 it was to maintain, have assailed the truth they were 
 bound to guard. We are not alluding to mere laymen, 
 
 X 2 
 
308 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 the sphere of whose inimical action was therefore 
 restricted ; but rather to such men as Arius, who com- 
 manded respect by their position, bewildered the 
 ignorant and half-instructed by their subtlety, and 
 deluded the simple by their pretence of submission to 
 an authority which they acknowledged while in the 
 very act of disobeying. When we read of the extent 
 to which the Arian heresy spread, so that centuries 
 after its rise, and when it was all but extinguished in 
 the country of its birth, it appeared again in force in 
 the distant West in the ranks of the barbarian invaders, 
 the conclusion is plain, that such vitality can only have 
 been the result of a very powerful organisation. A 
 similar reflection presents itself in reference to the 
 Paulicians, who, after an interval of many centuries, 
 ha^dng been driven from the East, reappeared in the 
 South of France in such numbers as to threaten the 
 very dissolution of society.* If, then, the Christian 
 Society were to be exposed to the attacks of such for- 
 midable enemies, it must have had not only proportionate 
 means of defence, but the capacity for extending its 
 conquests on one side, while it warded off assailants on 
 the other ; for Christianity was never intended to stand 
 on the defensive with the world, and in fact it never 
 has done so. The builders of the new temple have 
 worked with one hand and held the sword in the other. 
 Their attitude has been always and necessarily aggres- 
 
 * Sir James Stephens, formerly Professor of History at the Uni- 
 versity of Cambridge, says, in his Lectures on the History of France, 
 p. 239 : 'If the Albigenses had succeeded in their designs, they 
 must infellibly have substituted for the despotism of Rome an anarchy 
 breaking loose from all restraints, Divine and human.' 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 309 
 
 sive. Christianity came into the world as a conqueror. 
 Its militant character dates from Calvary, and the 
 subjection of a continent does not even modify its 
 nature. And while the world outside was being op- 
 posed, convinced, led captive, these internal enemies, 
 imbued with the spirit of the world, men who failed to 
 grasp the Christian idea, and to recognise the exact 
 concordance of part with part in the whole scheme, 
 have set themselves up as teachers of doctrines destruc- 
 tive of uniformity. Against such false teachers protec- 
 tion was required both by those within and by those 
 beyond the Society. The first, lest they should be 
 deceived and led astray by plausible arguments ; the 
 last, lest, seeing contradictions among men professing 
 to publish the same revelation, they should doubt there 
 being any revelation at all. Now to guard effectually 
 against these two dangers, the Society must have been 
 organised upon a system capable of meeting both unin- 
 tentional errors and malicious oppositions. Of the first 
 would be the natural tendency of the human mind to 
 diversity of opinion ; and of the second, systems which, 
 like the Arian, contained a large amount of truth to- 
 gether with fatal and wilful departures from it. 
 
 Now, first, as to unintentional difficulties. They 
 would arise from endeavours to graft Christian doctrine 
 upon Jewish practices, or upon certain existing pagan 
 philosophies, or from pushing real and misunderstood 
 Christian principles to unwarranted conclusions, or from 
 drawing false scientific deductions from phenomena in- 
 accurately observed and clumsily grouped. In a word, 
 from opinions treated as certainties. Now opinion, 
 
310 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 being something altogether external to truth of any- 
 kind, is absolutely excluded by revelation. It is a 
 judgment formed upon ascertained or supposed facts, 
 and is liable to variation and modification with the in- 
 crease of information. It is not truth, nor the knowledge 
 thereof, but merely a view of what the truth must be, 
 judging from certain data. It is in its nature unde- 
 pendable. The length of time during which an opinion 
 has been held, the weight of intellectual authority, or 
 the evidence of the senses in its favour avail nothing in 
 the face of more accurate research. In the calculations 
 of human science, where intellectual speculations, or 
 where physical results affecting whole races even, are 
 the entire stake, opinion is all that can be arrived at : 
 it is the ultimate term of enquiry. Even if the truth 
 be discovered, it will never be known as such. It may 
 be taken to be so, and acted upon provisionally in that 
 sense, but the feehng will lurk in the mind that there 
 may possibly be a mistake after all. If opinion be 
 allowable, it is as much one man's right as that of 
 another. It arose, in fact, within the Society, as it was 
 certain to arise ; and had there been no organised 
 authority to define the Hmits where -opinion trenched 
 upon the domain of Divine Eevelation, mankind would 
 in a very short time have returned to precisely the 
 same religious confusion wherein the Gospel found them. 
 The unendurable nature of this confusion had been one 
 chief means of preparing men's minds for the Gospel ; 
 and a revelation which left speculation free as before 
 would have been regarded, and justly so, as a mere 
 human invention. Certainty was wanted in place of 
 
CimiSTIANITY IN EELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 311 
 
 opinion — something positive upon which, the soul could 
 rely — a rock amid the quicksands of doubt. If dog- 
 matic teaching be not presented to the mind, it will 
 invent a dogma for itself. Guidance it must have, and 
 in default of a true, it will follow a false, teacher. Hence 
 the successes of those impostors, in all ages, who have 
 laid claim to Divine direction. But these men were 
 sure to arise, and there must be some way of deciding 
 upon their claims. If the Christian Society were with- 
 out organisation, it could have no means of enforcing 
 its doctrines in opposition to those who pretended to act 
 under Divine inspiration, and concerning whom any 
 opinion might be lawful, in the absence of an established 
 court of appeal on such questions. The same is equally 
 true in regard to the subjects we mentioned just now ; 
 viz. Jewish practices, pagan philosophies, and the rest. 
 But a revelation, flung into the world, and left at the 
 mercy of every man to interpret, would have no power 
 to correct errors of opinion. It seems as though a very 
 little reflection should sufiice to convince one, that a 
 most complete organisation, and one which should 
 come home to, and be felt by, all men at all times, was 
 requisite for this purpose. 
 
 J^ow as to malicious oppositions. Leaving omni- 
 science out of the question, men, with the expe- 
 rience of four thousand years to guide them, must 
 have been bhnd not to foresee that perverse teachers 
 would arise in the Society. There could be no room 
 to doubt from the first that this would happen. Can 
 one, then, imagine that S. Paul, with his wonderful 
 genius and his practical good sense, aware of the 
 
312 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 danger, should have consented to enter an association 
 which proposed to overcome the difficulty, let alone the 
 conquest of the world, without a plan, laws, or govern- 
 ment ? Even had he not received the command to go 
 into the city for instruction, which impHed authority in 
 the person who was to teach him, he could never have 
 supposed that the stupendous work before himself and 
 the other Christians was to be carried on by isolated 
 individual efforts. The idea is so absurd that one is at 
 a loss to conceive how it ever arose. One would like 
 to see some proof, not that the Apostles actually began, 
 but that they were justified in beginning, a work upon 
 which the salvation of the whole human race depended, 
 in defiance of common sense and common prudence. 
 When men adopt an eccentric line of action, the infer- 
 ence is, not that they are Divinely inspired, but rather 
 that the motive power is of another description. No 
 one asks for a justification of prudence. It is only for 
 actions clearly or apparently against it that explanations 
 are required. But it would have been presumption 
 instead of prudence if the Apostles, foreseeing malicious 
 opposition, had not prepared against it in the only 
 feasible way. We are not entering here into the ques- 
 tion, of whether or no the revelation included a code 
 of laws for the government of the Society. We are 
 supposing a society existing, possessing and charged 
 to propagate a certain revelation ; and we contend 
 that the only way in which it could continue to exist, and 
 to retain the revelation intact, in spite of the mahcious 
 endeavours of some of its members to corrupt it, was 
 by means of a wisely-planned government ; and further. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 313 
 
 that this governnent could not have been left to grow 
 spontaneously out of necessities as they arose, but that 
 it must have been instituted from the very beginning. 
 Necessities would have been local, while the Society 
 was increasing in unknown regions. To meet these 
 necessities, if local councils were held, how would their 
 decisions become recognised as binding upon the uni- 
 versal Society ? Still more, how could they have tended 
 to develop into a government which should embrace 
 the world, and have kings for its subjects ? We are 
 asked to believe the old fable of Minerva, Jupiter being 
 absent. We are told that this Society, instituted by 
 God, to outlive a hundred ages, was cast into the world 
 without laws, and yet that at some unnamed epoch it 
 appeared all of a sudden with a constitution so perfectly 
 adapted to its long career, that its greatest enemies are 
 compelled to admit its matchless practical excellence. 
 The brain from which the constitution emanated is not 
 specified. 
 
 It really seems wonderful that so many thinkers, 
 who are searching and accurate on all sorts of collateral 
 subjects, who clear the ground before them with the 
 greatest industry, advancing step by step, and branching 
 off from time to time as they proceed into the numberless 
 byways which lead off the main line of their march, 
 should suddenly seem to lose their curiosity or their 
 perseverance just at the point where reason and historf 
 combine to make palpable the absurdity of their 
 theory and the falsity of their facts. 
 
 But even these writers admit that when civilisation 
 in Europe was on the point of being extinguished, the 
 
314 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Society alone saved the world from the threatened 
 calamity. But if the contest between barbarism and civi- 
 lisation were carried on upon uneven terms ; humanly 
 speaking, that between paganism and Christianity, when 
 the former had on its side the strength of pubhc and 
 private opinion, backed by the force of the most powerful 
 government that ever existed, while the latter was 
 weak in numbers, absolutely] powerless in influence, 
 and incapable of making its strength felt even in a 
 small degree, was a thousand times more so. Consider 
 what a strong hold paganism must have had upon every 
 branch of society : on the aristocracy, whose sole reten- 
 tion of the priestly office elevated them above the masses, 
 and thus gave them a twofold interest of emolument and 
 of influence ; on the semi-intellectual, who being but 
 shghtly philosophical would not readily give up the 
 beautiful fictions of their favourite poets ; on the em- 
 ployes about the temples, whereof forty-three besides two 
 hundred and eighty sanctuaries existed in Eome in the 
 time of Valentinian a.d. 364 ; on the chents attached to 
 the noble houses ; on all who were interested, from what- 
 ever cause, in the continuance of the games and shows 
 held in honour of the pagan divinities, and which 
 will be seen to have had an extraordinary possession 
 of the pubhc mind, when it is remembered that the 
 Emperor Trajan gave such an entertainment, in which ten 
 thousand gladiators fought to the death ; on the army, 
 which had been led to victory under the invocation of 
 the national gods ; in fine, on almost the entire empire, 
 which worshipped Eome as a goddess, and firmly 
 believed in her eternity. Why, if an organisation were 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 315 
 
 requisite at the later period, when the opposing forces 
 were something Hke evenly matched in point of 
 numbers, how much more so was it in the beginning, 
 when the proportions were altogether on the side of 
 the world and against Christianity! Against all the 
 influences we have mentioned, with their thousands of 
 ramifications, it would have been folly to open a 
 contest at all, unless by an express command from God. 
 But for a body of men unorganised and without a plan 
 to have done so, would have been the height of folly. 
 Now, while, on the one hand, nobody denies the com- 
 mand to enter upon the combat ; on the other, no- 
 body pretends to produce evidence of a command not 
 to organise. The utmost that can be alleged by any 
 writer is, that he cannot find an account, which is 
 satisfactory to himself, of a primitive organisation. 
 The inabihty may be judged of in various ways. But 
 reflection confirms the prima facie view as to pro- 
 babilities, and the acknowledged fact of the early 
 existence of a perfect Society, together with the un- 
 traceableness of the steps by which its parts become 
 harmonised into a complete whole, shows, not that the 
 government was of gradual growth, but rather that it 
 must date from the first days of the Society. 
 
 Such are a few of the arguments, rapidly sketched, 
 by which the necessity for an organisation in the 
 earliest days of Christian Society may be proved. But, 
 if the One Society were organised at first, and if it were 
 to spread over the world, and to continue till the con- 
 summation of ages, it would be difficult to show that the 
 same reasons have not existed ever since its foundation, 
 
316 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 and will not in all future times remain in equal force. 
 For the purpose of the present paper, then, it may be 
 taken as established, that the Society was, and continues 
 to be, fully organised. 
 
 We come to the concluding portion of our argument. 
 "We have to maintain that a Society with the cha- 
 racteristics described, constructed after a fashion to 
 ensure the unchangeableness of the body of doctrines 
 it had to impart and by which it was bound together, 
 must not only be independent of all other societies and 
 bodies of men, but must claim a legitimate control 
 over their action in many particulars.. 
 
 In the first place, then, it is to be remarked that this 
 Society grows upon laws of its own, and that its 
 operations are regulated on principles inherent in itself 
 The particular form of its growth, and the direction 
 in which it spreads, may be modified by the fostering 
 care of external powers, or by the storms of persecution ; 
 just as a tree is sheltered, yet bounded by the wall near 
 which it is planted, or is bent from the direction of 
 prevailing winds. But this eternal tree outhves ahke 
 the decay of shelter and the perseverance of storms. 
 It borrows warmth, not vitality, from outward pro- 
 tection ; and as for the effect of the hurricane, 
 the harder it blows the more firmly does it root 
 itself. 
 
 Yet the mass of even Christian politicians start upon 
 the idea of keeping or bringing this independent 
 Society under the control of the State; not of any 
 particular State, but of ' the State ' in general. The 
 abstract idea of ' Christian Society ' is to be made 
 
CHEISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 317 
 
 subject to the abstract idea of 'the State.' That 
 Society which we have described, and which, as a 
 matter of history, has completely changed the whole 
 face of society at large, both within and beyond its 
 pale ; which for hundreds of years grew in spite of 
 the State ; whose spread was in no way hmited by the 
 frontier lines of empires ; which having first conquered 
 the conqueress of the world, afterwards subdued her 
 savage despoilers, making the obligation of gentleness 
 of manners so universally recognised, that men of en- 
 hghtenment wonder it is not felt even in pagan countries ; 
 that Society, which, by teaching governments and 
 peoples their duties to each other, has given stability 
 to the former by teaching them to look to the love 
 rather than to the fear of their subjects ; and in so 
 doing has altered the whole code of political maxims, 
 thereby showing itself superior in wisdom to the State 
 by how much the teacher is better than the taught ; 
 that Society, whose principles form the basis of all 
 modern law, is declared to be subservient to the State, 
 and to possess only so much freedom of action over its 
 own subjects as the State may choose to permit. 
 
 Of two things, one must be affirmed by these poli- 
 ticians : either that Christian Society is subject to the 
 State in the widest sense of the term, or that it is 
 subject to the Christian State. If the first be said, the 
 result must be that the very existence of Christianity 
 would depend upon the will of its enemies. There is 
 scarcely a pagan or infidel country where the State has 
 not persecuted and attempted to annihilate it. It was 
 so throughout the ancient world: it is so now in the East. 
 
318 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 The mart3n:dom of fifty thousand Christians in Cochin 
 China is a somewhat strong expression of State oppo- 
 sition. But the position is untenable. No one but 
 an avowed enemy of the Cross would maintain such 
 ground in plain terms. There is, indeed, a sort of 
 middle line, which it is possible to take, viz. to ask of 
 the infidel State to place Christian Society on an equahty 
 with other societies, in accordance with a principle 
 which was invented by the enemies of Christianity and 
 of God. I confess, this seems to me to be abandoning the 
 prerogative which of right belongs to the one universal 
 organised Society, and making its freedom dependent 
 upon the forbearance and consistency of its most 
 mahgnant opponents. It is only another way of 
 asserting the subjection of the Christian Society to the 
 State. You may conceal the principle under eloquent 
 phrases, and with a flow of enchanting oratory, but 
 there it is, and with a httle trouble will be easily 
 detected. Whether or no the late speeches of the 
 Count de Montalembert at Malines contemplated this 
 principle, cannot be decided here. But several phrases 
 which he uses, such as 'renunciation of privilege,' 
 ' reciprocal independence of the two powers,' ' free co- 
 operator,' seem to imply such a principle. Used in the 
 way in which the Count employs it in reference to Chris- 
 tian Society, the word privilege grates upon the ear. 
 Consider the meaning of the word. Privilege is an ex- 
 ceptional advantage granted. But who is the grantor in 
 this case ? The State ? Then Christian Society takes a 
 boon from a superior power! But it is Christian 
 Society which has exceptional advantages to ofier, as 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 319 
 
 will be seen developed at some length in tlie following 
 lecture. ' Eeciprocal independence ! ' There must be 
 some appeal de jure in the last resort whenever any 
 two persons enter into collision. Then where is the 
 independence in the present instance, wherein one or 
 the other must be, and where both claim to be, 
 supreme? On one side or the other independence 
 .ceases the moment the two powers come into hostile 
 contact. It can hardly be intended that in such cases 
 the infidel State is to have freedom of action over 
 Christian Society. Both cannot be free: one must 
 obey. Shall it be Christian Society? No Christian, 
 certainly no Catholic, dare say so. We are speaking 
 of obedience on questions concerning the welfare of 
 Christian Society. Shall the State be called on to yield ? 
 If so, Christian Society has a privilege. It has indeed 
 a privilege, granted by God when He revealed the one 
 perfect law. That is a privilege which there is no right 
 or power to renounce in the face of the infidel State. 
 The Universal Society may for a season withhold its 
 demand for freedom of action in the full exercise of its 
 right, but it cannot ' protest clearly, boldly, publicly,' 
 against a return to what has been conferred upon it, 
 not for the benefit of France, or of Germany, or of 
 Europe, but for that of the entire world. The right is 
 inalienable, and has attached to it an obligation which 
 Christian Society can no more escape from, than the 
 individual Christian can evade the responsibility of his 
 Christianity by an act of the will. We know that the 
 obligation only arises with the advent of power. But 
 being in a condition of weakness, if such be really the 
 
320 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 state of affairs, is Christian Society to protest that when 
 power returns, it will forego a privilege which is a part of 
 its very constitution ? For such it is : as will more clearly 
 apparent when we come, in the next lecture, to compare 
 the modes in which power is conferred upon the two 
 governments. But confining ourselves to the points 
 we have established hitherto, it seems evident that the 
 Unity, the Universahty, and the perfect Organisation of 
 the Society, suppose faculties and rights beyond any 
 which can possibly belong to smaller bodies. Now, the 
 State has the right to extend or curtail the action of 
 smaller Societies within itself: it may and it must widen 
 or limit the freedom of its individual members. It in- 
 terferes of necessity with them in various ways. And 
 in a similar manner the Universal Society not only 
 may, but must, exercise a prerogative, which is a right 
 or a privilege according as it is regarded in relation to 
 other smaller constituent Societies, or to God, Who con- 
 ferred it. We know, unfortunately, that practically 
 the history of the relations of State Churches with 
 even the Christian State is one of the concession of 
 rights on the part of the Churches. But it is hard to 
 convince oneself that this is a reason or a justification 
 for the assertion of principles in regard to infidel States 
 which are contrary to the very nature of the State to 
 which they are appUed. 
 
 There is no time to pursue the question further in 
 this direction. So far, then, for the present as to the 
 infidel or pagan State, and to that purgatory or 'middle 
 State ' to which we are led by good men propounding 
 pohcies based upon principles which are neither pagan 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 321 
 
 nor, if I dare say so, quite Christian. But if it be said 
 that Christian Society is under the jurisdiction of the 
 Christian State, the declaration carries its condemna- 
 tion on its very face. It is Society out of which the 
 State is formed, not it out of the State. Society is the 
 greater, the State is the less. Society embraces all 
 States. It is the generic term of which States are the 
 species ; as life includes vegetable, animal, spiritual life. 
 Society existed before the State was thought of ; and 
 a fortiori Christian Society before the Christian State, 
 which exists solely in virtue of the submission of each 
 of its members to the law of the Society. There was no 
 Christian State till the sovereign submitted, nor any 
 Christian Government till the ministers submitted to 
 the law of Christian Society. At what period and by 
 what means did submission become changed into com- 
 mand ? There are but two ways in which men, whether 
 kings or subjects, can become members of the Society 
 of Christians. One, by an humble request to be en- 
 rolled among the members ; the other, by baptism in 
 infancy. In the first case, if submission be promised 
 on condition of reception, how does a king, more than 
 another man, acquire the right to break his promise? 
 In the second, there can be no pretence for rejecting 
 the authority of a Society to which he claims to belong, 
 and which, by the very nature of the supposition, 
 existed before him. He may renounce allegiance ; but 
 that sort of independence is not very enviable. We 
 are not asserting here the right of any particular 
 Church to his obedience. We are speaking of the 
 Universal Society, and we say, that out of it, at 
 
 Y 
 
322 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 some time, arose the Christian State, every member 
 of which was, and is, bound by the laws of the 
 Society. 
 
 Look at the two powers from another point of 
 view. The first law of nature is that of self-preserva- 
 tion. Now, the Christian law has to do, primarily, 
 with conscience : it is only through conscience that it 
 acts on the outward forms of society ; and the moment 
 in which the last conscience should throw oflf the yoke 
 of that law would be the same in which the law would 
 cease to exist in the world. The State, on the other 
 hand, has, as such, nothing primarily to do with con- 
 science. The business of the State is to maintain order 
 and security. All that the State knows of conscience 
 it has derived from Christian teaching. Before Chris- 
 tianity, the idea of regulating State afiairs upon con- 
 siderations of conscience was nearly unthought of. 
 Conscience may be said, in a certain sense, to have 
 been the creation of Christianity, at least it was this 
 which awakened it out of its long lethargy ; and to the 
 present day it is scarcely regarded beyond the Hmits 
 of Christian Society. But it embraces the whole 
 body of Christians. The laws which regulate it, and 
 which depend for their subsistence upon the submis- 
 sion of conscience, must of necessity overleap State 
 barriers. It is not bounded by rivers or chains of 
 mountains, far less by the ever-shifting landmarks of 
 States. When, therefore, the Christian State, from a 
 notion of what is requisite for its own self-preservation, 
 enacts decrees of any kind, the Christian law steps in 
 and ask§, ' Will these decrees destroy conscience, upon 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 323 
 
 which I Hve ? ' And if it be urged that the State is 
 the best judge, in its own case, of what self-preserva- 
 tion demands, at least an equal liberty, in this respect, 
 must be conceded to Christianity. If Christian Society 
 know not what its own interest requires, how can the 
 most Christian State conceivable know? seeing that 
 all its knowledge of Christianity is derived from the 
 organised Society of which we are speaking. And if 
 the most perfect individual Christian is he who is most 
 submissive to the Christian law, does not the same hold 
 good of States ? Then, again, the safety of the Christian 
 State will be seen to depend, in a great measure, upon 
 its own retaining its just position between organised 
 Christianity on the one side, and individual Christians 
 on the other — from this : that so long as the State 
 regulates itself after this manner, it can appeal in its 
 own behalf to the individual conscience ; whereas, in- 
 subordination, on its part, shuts the mouth to such 
 appeal. But statesmen, judging by their daily ex- 
 perience of human nature, attribute to Christian Society 
 and to its executive ministers a selfishness which they 
 see to be all but universal. Occupied with the difficul- 
 ties of office, influenced by the apparent exigencies of 
 a crisis, and pressed upon by the clamours of contend- 
 ing parties, statesmen perhaps do not perceive where 
 they overstep the line of submission in listening to a 
 policy urged upon them by powerful classes of men — 
 Christian, hke themselves. They overlook the sacred 
 character of the Society with which they are dealing. 
 They attribute to it the faults of individuals ; nay 
 more, they see personal selfishness, where, in reality, 
 
 y 2 
 
324 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 there is only devotion to Christianity. While quick to 
 detect selfishness in the rulers of Christian Society, they 
 do not perceive it in themselves. They argue, because 
 every individual may and does err, that therefore the 
 corporate Society does the same. They forget that all 
 power upon earth has been given to the Divine Head 
 of the Society, which is bound together by a holy law ; 
 whereas, the State can make no such pretension. It 
 does not seem to occur to them as unreasonable to ask 
 a society regulated by a Divine, to submit to one which 
 acts only under an inferior, law. 
 
 They seem unconscious that for the Society to do so 
 would be to declare with one breath that the law is 
 binding upon all men, and with the next that a certain 
 class is exempted from obedience to it ; that it would 
 be, at once, to affirm and to deny that the law defines 
 the relations of all men to each other. Yet, in all the 
 contests between the two powers, the whole question at 
 issue turns upon that very point. The one asserts and 
 the other denies a Divine commission to declare these 
 relations. But, in so doing, the State is most inconsist- 
 ent. It admits the right up to a certain line, and there 
 it stops. It allows that every member- of the State, in- 
 cluding the statesman himself, must bow (in his private 
 capacity) to the authority of Christian Society. It asks, 
 nay, it demands, the assistance of the Society's executive 
 to enforce those rules for the maintenance of order in 
 the mutual relations of men among themselves, and of 
 submission to the civil administration which the Society 
 has laid down. It requires the Society to act as a sort 
 of police in its behalf. The State says to it, ' You have 
 
CHKISTIANITY IN KELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 325 
 
 the right to control consciences. It is your duty so to 
 regulate them, as that men shall aid and not thwart me 
 in my efforts for the benefit of all.' But when these 
 beneficent intentions, having become converted into 
 oppression, or the State, from notions of its own self- 
 interest, having set itself to interfere with conscience, 
 the Society demurs, and claims to exercise on behalf of 
 its subjects those controlling rights over conscience 
 which the State had insisted on in its own favour, 
 immediately they are declared null. The State then 
 proceeds to define conscience ; and the same men who 
 as private persons acknowledge the authority of the 
 Society, as statesmen refuse to obey it. Whereas, it 
 is clear that any executive, whose powers of enforcing 
 respect are played with in such a manner, must quickly 
 become an object of contempt, and therefore incapable 
 of performing the very work which the State requires 
 at its hands. 
 
 It may or may not be true that the One Society can 
 err in matters of policy. It is certain that it does not 
 lay claim to infalhbility in these matters, in the same 
 way as on questions of doctrine ; but that cannot release 
 statesmen or governments from the obligation of obe- 
 dience, which springs from the very nature of the 
 Society, and which arises prior to any action, good or 
 bad, on its part. This debt, being already at this mo- 
 ment incurred, for every Christian who shall hereafter 
 be born, cannot be thrown off. The tyranny of a parent 
 may drive a child into lawful disobedience. But here 
 we have a Society founded upon the truth, whose exist- 
 ence depends upon the spread of a knowledge of the 
 
326 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITEIL\TURE. 
 
 truth ; its preservation of the truth guaranteed by- 
 Divine promises ; its organisation expressly fitted to 
 defend the truth against all attacks, both from without 
 and from within. Such a Society cannot allow the 
 State to exercise an authority independent in the last 
 resort of its own. Because, whether in relation to sub- 
 sects or to other States, it must be bound to act upon 
 the maxims of truth, of which it knows nothing but what 
 it learns from the Society with which alone the truth is 
 deposited. 
 
 But, even looking merely at the relative powers of 
 judgment which one may reasonably expect the leaders 
 of the two orders to possess, one would, on natural 
 grounds alone, give the palm to the leaders pf Christian 
 Society. -^ 
 
 The statesman's vision is more or less bounded by 
 the outhnes of his own State. What he sees beyond, 
 he looks at ah extra. He must bring all foreign ques- 
 tions to the tests of the local interests of his own com- 
 munity. His traditions date back but a few centuries. 
 For him the circumstances of difierent epochs are so 
 unhke, thajt he has in ea<jj3i to work out a new expe- 
 rience for himself. His freedom of action is checked 
 by other independent powers. He judges upon partial 
 and interested representations. 
 
 4^n the other side, the Christian leaders are men of a 
 high order of intellect. As statesmen and philosophers 
 they are almost, if not quite, unsurpassed in this respect. 
 For them the world is a home ; no place is foreign to 
 them. They are, therefore, necessarily men of large 
 views, and accustomed to taking a survey over the 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 327 * ^^ 
 
 broadest possible field of affairs. They have the most 
 ancient traditions to fall back upon. With them the 
 experience of one is renewed in every succeeding age, 
 for it is their business to understand and to deal with 
 human nature, which is always the same. They ad- 
 minister the affairs of a Society with ramifications, and 
 consequently with conflicting interests, all over the 
 world. The vast variety of circumstances which must 
 for ever modify decisions, is constantly before their 
 minds. They can never forget that they are the suc- 
 cessors of the men who led the infant weakness of the 
 Society to war with all the powers of the world, and 
 who won the fight. 
 
 The further the contrast is carried out, and the more 
 minutely the respective characteristics of the two parties 
 are examined, the more will the advantage appear to 
 be on the side of the leaders of Christian Society. 
 
 Then, again, still looking at the matter from a purely 
 human point of view, there seems no reason why cor- 
 ruption, and the abuse of power, should more readily 
 arise among them than among laymen in authority; 
 while viewing the probabilities in reference to the 
 objects for which the Society has been founded, and to 
 those safeguards against lapses which are naturally to 
 be expected in a Divinely appointed constitution, one 
 would say the danger of excess would be far greater 
 among lay rulers than among ecclesiastical. 
 
 These are a few of the ideas which strike one on a 
 vast subject, which requires a much more elaborate 
 treatment than can be given to it in one or two essays. 
 It is a subject demanding examination from many 
 
328 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 points of view, in order to close the way to classes of 
 objections which only seem grave because they are not 
 met in full front by arguments which are not intended 
 to, and therefore do not, apply to them. It appeared 
 to me that the strongest and plainest arguments were 
 to be found in considering the distinctive marks of 
 Christian Society. I have, therefore, endeavoured to 
 trace its growth from its foundation, not historically, 
 but as it must necessarily have happened ; and it will 
 be found that the conclusions which I have aimed at 
 establishing in this, are of the grelltest importance in 
 further developing the subject, as I propose to do, in 
 the following Tsttt. The same remark apphes to the 
 more scattered observations at the latter portion of the 
 above pages. 
 
 PAET n. 
 
 In the former paper I endeavoured to show, from the na- 
 ture of Christian Society, from the object of its founda- 
 tion, and fro|3a the mode of its growth and perpetuation, 
 that it must needs be independent of civil governments. 
 After pointing to the Unity of the Society, and to its 
 Universahty as to time and place, I proceeded, at some 
 length, to estabhsh that these characteristics could only 
 be maintained by means of a very powerful organisation, 
 whereby the whole is united in such a way as neces- 
 sarily to place it beyond the control of the State : be- 
 cause the latter, being circumscribed and constantly 
 subject to idianges of limit, can have neither power nor 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 329 
 
 jurisdiction over a body which is nowhere conterminous 
 with its own bounds— in other words, because the less 
 cannot include the greater. I remarked that the 
 number of members of the respective corporations in 
 no way affects their comparative greatness. That the 
 one hundred and twenty Christians on the Day of Pen- 
 tecost were a society greater than the whole world 
 besides, because of the Divine law and revelation which 
 it possessed, and because of the Headship of Christ, 
 which neither is, nor can be, claimed by the State. 
 Starting, then, from the basis of the one Universal 
 Organised Society, I called attention to the tendency of 
 even Christian politicians to aim at making this Society 
 dependent upon the State, not on any State in the con- 
 crete, but upon the abstract idea of the State. It was 
 pointed out that to make Christian Society dependent 
 upon the State in the widest sense of the term, would be 
 to place it at the will of its enemies : while to put it 
 under control of the Christian State would be to place 
 the teacher under jurisdiction of the taught. But a 
 middle line was alluded to, namely that which seems 
 from certain expressions to have been intended in the 
 late speeches of the Count de Montalembert at MaUnes, 
 wherein, without expressly saying so, the infidel State 
 of modern times is by imphcation asked to grant an 
 equality between the one Divine Universal Society and 
 other societies which have no Divine foundation, as if 
 the State were in a position to give, or the Society were 
 at liberty to accept, equality. Having made this di- 
 gression, I returned to the relations of the Society with 
 the Christian State, remarking that the State having 
 
330 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 become Christian in virtue of the submission of each of 
 its members to the one law of Christian Society, 
 could hardly turn round and seek to exercise constraint 
 upon that corporation. That by allowing such con- 
 straint the Society would abandon the function for which 
 it was created, and by so doing would, ipso facto, cease 
 to exist. It was said, that the Christian law acts on 
 society only through conscience, and that the moment 
 wherein the last conscience should withdraw its allegiance 
 would be the same in which the law would be banished 
 from the world. It was further remarked that con- 
 science being world-wide, the one organised Society 
 could only act effectually upon it provided the Society 
 itself were independent : that the security of the State 
 depends in a great measure on the action of the Society 
 upon consciences : that the State weakens its own position 
 by weakening the hold of the Society upon consciences : 
 that as a matter of fact the State is inconsistent in taking 
 that line, because it is continually appealing to the 
 organised Society to influence consciences in its behalf, 
 and that it not unfrequently reproaches the Society for 
 neglect in this respect. It was said, that any errors or 
 supposed errors of policy on the part -of the Society, 
 could not release statesmen or governments from the 
 obhgation of obedience. Because, as for statesmen, 
 thedr obhgation, as members of the Society, begins prior 
 to any action, good or bad, on the Society's part ; that it 
 is in fact incurred at this very moment for all who shall 
 hereafter enter the Society ; and since governments are 
 made up of individuals, and since they know what is the 
 true relationship between themselves and their subjects 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 331 
 
 from the Society alone, they cannot escape the obhgation 
 in any way. In conckision the leaders of the two powers 
 were contrasted together, in order to show that, as a 
 matter of probability, selfishness and incapacity, which 
 are the pleas usually urged against Christian leaders, 
 are less likely to be found among them than among the 
 leaders of civil society. 
 
 It will be observed that the conclusion arrived at in 
 speaking of conscience, is more advanced than was at 
 first proposed. This was inevitable. The independence 
 of the Society cannot well be established conclusively 
 without going a step further, and asserting the depend- 
 ence of civil society. To establish this will be partly the 
 object of the present paper. I propose to bring forward 
 some arguments on the power of Christian Society, as 
 derived from its nature, according to the explanation 
 previously given : thence I shall, in conclusion, proceed 
 to the practical question, how far it is wise, or even 
 allowable, because of the hardness of the times, for the 
 Society to descend to curry favour with civil governments 
 by the abdication of a prerogative which has been con- 
 ferred upon it, in view of such contingencies. The 
 term Christian Society, or Organised Christianity, or 
 Christian Government, wiU be adhered to throughout as 
 a concession to modern democratic notions. Because 
 every man who is a Christian can feel no jealousy or 
 fear of admitting arguments which are at least as much 
 in his own behalf as any that can be used on the other 
 side. He is indeed more unalterably a member of 
 Christian Society than he is of the State : for while by 
 removing to another country he ceases to be a member 
 
332 ESSAYS ON RELIGIOX AND UTERATURE. 
 
 of his owii, and becomes an alien in his adopted State, 
 his Christian citizenship remains always and in all places 
 the same. I am defending the rights of all Christians 
 alike, those of one neither more nor less than those of 
 another, be he who he may. To claim as rights on 
 either side what are not so in reahty, would be as great 
 a folly as to deny to either side what is due to it. That 
 which every wise man must wish to see, is a just position, 
 a perfect equilibrium, maintained by every party ; by 
 individuals, by civil governments, by the government of 
 Christian Society. Where the latter is to be found, is 
 a further question ; and if, to any person, the answer 
 arising from the nature of the Society, as before ex- 
 plained, should lead to a conclusion which goes against 
 the grain, the validity of the arguments we are to con- 
 sider to-day cannot, with any show of reason, be there- 
 fore impugned. 
 
 To begin, then, at the very beginning of the subject. 
 No one of those to whom these remarks are addressed 
 will deny, that all power comes from God, both the 
 power of the civil government and that of organised 
 Christianity. That the two powers come in totally 
 different ways seems to me equally manifest. As to 
 the first, it appears clear, both from the practical origin 
 of civil governments, from the various forms they 
 assume throughout the world, and from the changes 
 out of one form into another, which have been of such 
 frequent occurrence as to prove that it is in the very 
 intrinsic nature of civil governments to be subject to 
 transformations ; it seems clear, I say, from these three 
 considerations, that the power which they hold, although 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 333 
 
 coming from God, does so in an indirect way. For, 
 first, in the transition of society from the patriarchal to 
 the civil system, it was necessary that men who were 
 really independent of each other should, from the 
 motive of some mutual advantage, have consented to 
 place themselves under the jurisdiction of an authority 
 whose title did not exist till after the consent was given ; 
 and the independent parties must have been competent 
 to choose one form as well as another. In the next 
 place, the fact of a great variety of forms having at 
 all times existed shows, that all are allowable unless 
 some direct revelation can be alleged, condemning or 
 sanctioning any particular form. That such revelations 
 have been made, as to particular governments, is ad- 
 mitted. But they have been made to one nation only, 
 and never, as if the form prescribed were binding 
 upon any other people. With this exception, if the 
 general position be objected to, the Divine right of 
 civil governments must be asserted, for it would be 
 a contradiction to deny the Divine right of a power 
 derived directly from God. The theory has, however, 
 been maintained in ancient times on the plea of pre- 
 tended revelations, and in modern times by certain 
 tyrannical princes and their partisans. 
 
 But, the compact having been entered into, authority 
 once firmly estabhshed under it, and society settled 
 upon the basis of such authority, the power is truly 
 declared to be from God, because by it alone jus- 
 tice, of which God is the head, can be maintained in 
 the civil relations of the subject members. Under 
 this authority, rights arising out of the compact are 
 
334 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 established, property is acquired, and natural liberties 
 ceded in return for equivalents which the authority 
 guarantees. To overthrow such authority, therefore, 
 is to infringe rights, to invade property ,''and to deprive 
 ceded hberties of the retribution which is their due — 
 in other words, to banish justice. It is only when the 
 authority, itself unmindful of its proper function, and 
 having itself discarded justice, that justice itself, acting 
 through the once subject members, displaces the old 
 and substitutes a new authority, to which, henceforth, 
 they must submit, the new authority or power holding 
 its place in virtue of that justice, to which its subjects 
 appealed in effecting the change. And God Himself, 
 being the Author of justice, the power i^ manifestly 
 from Him, though conferred in the indirect manner 
 described. The civil Government has, therefore, a 
 Divine right, and the error which has been made has 
 not been in the use of the term, but in attributing the 
 Divine right to individuals, instead of to the office. 
 Of practical errors on the other side, there is no need 
 to speak here. 
 
 I am quite aware that celebrated men have main- 
 tained the theory of the civil power -being derived 
 directly from God. But one fails to see how it is 
 directly conferred, in the absence of special revelations, 
 or of a revelation once for all, declaring, as in the case 
 of the sacraments, when and at what moment the power 
 descends, and by the action of what legitimate authority 
 it becomes binding upon subjects. Moreover, though 
 the theorists are celebrated, they are not numerous, nor 
 by any means of such soun'd reputation as those who 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 335 
 
 hold the indirect opinion. The mere fact of changes 
 being lawful, not to say quite inevitable, seems to me 
 to preclude the possibility of the ' direct ' theory, with- 
 out supposing direct revelations on every occasion of 
 change. But changes are, for the most part, the results 
 of injustice, which God indeed permits, but cannot 
 prescribe. The injustice, then, having been successfully 
 carried out, and the new authority established, the old 
 process with regard to rights, property, and liberties, is 
 repeated, and Justice — that is to say, God — requires 
 submission to be yielded to the new power. But the 
 power arises in the most indirect way. 
 
 Again, civil governments are very numerous, and, by 
 the nature of man in his present condition, conflicts 
 between different governments are of frequent and un- 
 avoidable occurrence. But, if the right of one be 
 Divine, so is that of all ; and in these conflicts we should 
 necessarily have one Divine right directly conferred, 
 fighting with another Divine right directly conferred, 
 which is absurd. Each has its Divine right, founded 
 on the natural justice we have described, and having for 
 its object the good of its own particular portion of 
 society, the whole being presided over by the Divine 
 Justice. But human nature requires that men should 
 live in society, and is therefore of necessity provided by 
 the Divine Justice with the means of making society 
 possible, which can only be done by the estabhshment 
 of civil governments. But the particular forms, both 
 of society and of governments, are within the choice of 
 men themselves and cannot be said to be in any way 
 Divine. 
 
336 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Organised Christianity, on the other hand, stands in 
 an altogether different relation to God. It was founded 
 by God Himself, and, as we saw in the former paper, 
 is bound together and exists solely in virtue of a law 
 directly revealed by Ilim. The law and the Society 
 are coextensive. If the former were taken away, the 
 latter would go with it ; if the latter were dissolved, 
 there would be no subject for the operation of the 
 former. The Society consists of three parts, viz. Christ, 
 wJtio is the Head ; the human members, who are the 
 body ; and the law, which is the soul of the Society. 
 The power which it holds, therefore, comes in the most 
 direct manner conceivable. It dwells, by the Divine 
 nature, in the head, and is communicated to the body 
 through the law. If the law were without power, the 
 body would dissolve into its elements. If the body 
 were without power to maintain the law, the latter 
 would cease to exist. Power, therefore, is an essential 
 attribute of the Society; and since the Society is no 
 society without Christ, the power it possesses is truly 
 Divine. 
 
 But civil society exists independently of Christ ; be- 
 cause it was before Christ came, and it continues where 
 He is unknown, and even where, being known, He is 
 rejected. This may be considered sufficient on the 
 remark that, although the two powers come from God, 
 they come in two totally different ways. 
 
 In the next place, the observation is an important 
 one, that it is almost impossible to state too absolutely 
 the power which any government possesses, in principle^ 
 under certain circumstances. That this is the case is 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 337 
 
 stated by a modern writer of authority in treating of 
 the powers of the most democratic constitution extant. 
 He declares them to be actually unlimited. The ex- 
 pression is a strong one ; nevertheless, if we examine 
 the powers of the civil government in detail, we shall 
 see that it is scarcely, if at all, too much so. Thus, the 
 questions wherein it is of the greatest moment that the 
 limits of these powers should be strictly observed, are 
 questions of hfe and death ; and especially of the life 
 and death of the executive members of organised 
 Christianity. Personal hberty, property, the right of 
 declaring war, and all other subjects, are less momentous 
 than questions of life and death. Now, in the absence 
 of Christian, it is clear that the civil, government has 
 the most absolute power of life and death over its 
 subjects. Because, although it can act only in con- 
 formity with its own laws, yet the legislative power rests 
 with itself It alone can define crimes ; and if it be 
 said that the civil government is restrained by the 
 natural law to which it owes its origin, the reply is 
 conclusive, that, in the absence of an independent court 
 of conscience, the State is the only possible interpreter 
 of that law. But if, Christian Society being constituted, 
 an exception be claimed on behalf of its executive 
 members, I answer that there are certain extreme cases 
 where the Society's executive is powerless to control its 
 own members, and that in such extremities the civil 
 government has a lawful power to act even against the 
 life. The civil government has a lawful control over 
 the lives of all its subjects, under some possible circum- 
 stances or other. It does not weaken the argument to 
 
 z 
 
338 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 admit that, in the extreme cases supposed, both govern- 
 ments must be in agreement. Because, the right of 
 action is a natural one, and is not derived in any way 
 from organised Christianity, but from the necessity for 
 social existence which supposes the right of taking the 
 steps needful for its own preservation. 
 
 It is of importance to recognise this principle in 
 regard to civil governments ; because the argument will 
 be found to tell with equal or greater force on the other 
 side, by-and-by. I am anxious that the widest exten- 
 sion of which they are capable should be admitted on 
 behalf of the rights of the civil government ; and I do 
 not see what other right can be demanded larger than 
 the one now in question. 
 
 Let us now regard the relations of the two powers 
 from another point of view. Government, practically 
 speaking, is an art ; the art of regulating society, of 
 producing an harmonious action among its members 
 for the general peace and well-being of each and all, 
 individually and collectively. In another relation go- 
 vernment may be called a science ; but practically 
 speaking^ it is strictly an art. Now, all art is the re- 
 sult of experience. While it bears certain relations to 
 both nature and revelation, art is subordinate to both. 
 It acknowledges in each fixed laws, which it must 
 apply, but which it cannot alter. The province of 
 science is, to study nature. If I may so speak, it 
 seizes hold of nature, turns it on every side, examines 
 it minutely, tests one phase of it by another, experi- 
 ments upon it, and so endeavours to master the laws 
 by which it works, and to understand the connection 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 339 
 
 between them and the phenomena which result from 
 their operation. This being done, art proceeds to frame 
 laws for enabling men to make use of those natural 
 laws of which science has discovered the existence 
 and mutual bearing. To become an artist, i. e. one 
 thoroughly versed in his art, a man requires to acquaint 
 himself with the theories, the experience, arid the rules, 
 of those who have gone before him. He treasures up 
 the sayings and views of former artists : he heaps 
 together facts, groups them, generalises upon them, and 
 aims at finding out wherein, why and how far his 
 predecessors have failed : the whole range of human 
 knowledge is not too wdde for him, because from any 
 side a ray of light may penetrate the twihght in which 
 he works. To perfect himself in the art of govern- 
 ment, the statesman confines himself to no country, to 
 no age, to no language. He finds practical illustrations 
 in his own country, and in his own epoch, of the maxims 
 of ancient times and other nations. He calls to his aid 
 the poet, the philosopher, and the historian. He builds 
 up from their records a theory more or less apphcable 
 to the circumstances in which he is placed. But when 
 all is said and done, he has, and can have, no code to 
 which he can refer, as if it were perfect. At the best, 
 his work is but a compromise between the desirable and 
 the practicable. His experience, so far from teaching 
 liim to look for perfection in any system, shows him 
 the impossibility of finding it at all. Other arts, dealing 
 with matter only, leave durable monuments to be seen 
 and handled, and as examples open to all the world, to 
 be emulated and improved upon for thousands of years. 
 
 z 2 
 
340 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 But the art of government has to deal with evanescent 
 combinations of circumstances, which are never precisely 
 repeated in history, and with minds operating upon and 
 operated upon by facts and changes, whose proximity 
 gives them false proportions in the eyes of men 
 naturally ignorant of matters which do not concern 
 their daily life. Nor is it necessary for the statesman 
 only to acquaint himself with the history of former 
 times, and with the causes of present manners. He 
 must, as Cicero says, never cease from studying and 
 cultivating himself — for the mind of the governor is 
 reflected upon the governed ; and the success or failure 
 of his government will depend upon whether he make 
 a true or a mistaken estimate of the work before him, 
 and his judgment will depend upon his natural cha- 
 racter, his education, and his habits. He must, then, 
 learn that never-perfectly-discovered problem, to know 
 himself. So that, if not even material arts can be 
 brought to a state in which they are incapable of 
 further improvement, much less can that of civil govern- 
 ment, with all its complications, public as well as 
 personal. If we consider the various forms it assumes, 
 we shall acknowledge, as Cicero continues, that each 
 has a precipitous and sHppery passage down to some 
 proximate abuse ; and that every form is but an im- 
 perfect system of checks upon both governors and 
 governed. But the government of the Christian Organi- 
 sation is no art, it is a science, and one not based upon 
 experience or investigation. All the investigations of 
 ancient times ended in the most disheartening conclu- 
 sions ; and no progress has been made in modern times 
 
CHEISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 341 
 
 apart from revelation to render experience more fruitful, 
 or investigation more successful, in results. I endea- 
 voured in the former paper to establish, that Christian 
 science embraces, not only the knowledge of God's will 
 to men, both as among themselves and as between 
 Him and them, but in addition certain rules, either in 
 germ or otherwise, for the government of the Society, 
 which would enable it to last through all time, to ex- 
 tend throughout the world, and to overcome every kind 
 of hostihty. There was no room for investigation : the 
 Society was placed in the world composed of men — igno- 
 rant according to worldly knowledge — but yet bound 
 to carry out a programme which required the very per- 
 fection of wisdom. With such a Government, investiga- 
 tion could add nothing to the adaptability of its laws to 
 their intended object. It could only prove how per- 
 fect were the rules revealed, and how certainly they 
 would, if simply followed, work to a successful end. 
 Experience could only be a Hght shining out of the 
 past over the present and the future, and lending a 
 natural clearness to the supernatural certainty of faith. 
 Experiment could hold no place in a system pro- 
 vided from the beginning against every possible contin- 
 gency. From this point of view, then, it is plain how 
 far superior one government is to another ; the govern- 
 ment of the Christian Organisation to that of civil 
 society. The superiority can only be denied by first 
 replying to the arguments by which the primary or- 
 ganisation of Christianity was estabhshed in the former 
 per. 
 
 We will now examine some of the pleas put forward 
 
342 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 on behalf of the civil power, in proof of its superiority 
 to the spiritual, in matters of State ; and we shall find 
 that, so far from confirming the position they are in- 
 tended to maintain, they lead directly to the opposite 
 conclusion. 
 
 The first is a semi-philosophical allegation, to the 
 effect that it is the State which protects all citizens in 
 their rights to Hfe, liberty, and property, which the 
 citizens therefore hold, subject to the supreme protector's 
 claim to take them when the public welfare demands 
 their cession. The plea is specious, and contains more 
 truth than its propounders probably imagine. 
 
 It is, no doubt, true that the supreme protector (such 
 is the phrase in use among asserters of the civil prero- 
 gative) has the power of life and death for the public 
 good. It is declared above that the State has these 
 rights, even over the Christian Society's executive, and 
 one reason has been given, which seems conclusive on 
 the point. We cannot get away from the fact, that the 
 power of the civil Government is Divinely conferred. 
 Of the pretence, that its power comes from the people, 
 it need only be remarked, that the arguments used 
 above, seem to undermine the ground upon which the 
 advocates of this notion take their stand. It may be 
 added that, to give force to any argument on the sub- 
 ject of rights, an appeal must be made to justice. Even 
 perverse men, in seeking rights by crooked methods, 
 appeal to the justice of their cause. As Brutus says 
 of the murder of Csesar, ' What villain touched his 
 body, that did stab, and not for justice ? ' Now, the 
 court of appeal is, in all cases, of higher authority than 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 343 
 
 any appellant. Since, therefore, the civil jurisdiction 
 appeals to, and, as said above, is based upon justice, it 
 can only be said to be derived from the people, who are 
 appellants^ in a secondary sense. To say so in an abso- 
 lute sense would be an obvious fallacy. But God and 
 justice being one, the civil power comes from God, 
 though indirectly. Let there be no misapprehension. 
 While anxious to give the civil power all the preroga- 
 tive it can claim, and to magnify its office in presence 
 of the Christian Organisation to the utmost possible 
 extent, consistent with truth, I have declared that the 
 Divine right of kings has been unduly insisted on. But 
 now comes the question, Which of the two powers is 
 in reality the supreme protector ? It will be remem- 
 bered, that in allowing extreme penalties to rest in the 
 hands of the State, the admission of the undeniable 
 feet was not based upon the character of supreme pro- 
 tector which the State claims. That could not be 
 done with any regard either to the facts of history or 
 to reason. 
 
 The history of the world furnishes numbers of in- 
 stances wherein the State itself has required a pre 
 tector ; wherein it was utterly incapable of defending 
 itself against attacks from without, and against dissolu- 
 tion from within, when it has been unjustly absorbed 
 by more powerful States, and when it has fallen to 
 pieces from inherent weakness. But nothing of the kind 
 has taken, or can take, place, with organised Christi- 
 anity. True it is, that countries once Christian, have 
 become again infidel ; that branches have been lopped 
 ofi* the mystical tree ; but the life and organisation 
 
344 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 of Christianity have not been impaired or afiected 
 thereby; for while these very events were occurring, 
 the growth of Cliristianity was more rapid in other 
 directions ; its organisation was developed, and it 
 was enabled to exercise, with greater plenitude, that 
 jurisdiction which it always possessed, but which, in 
 its infant state, remained in abeyance ; just as the 
 Divine power of its Founder, plenary though it were 
 in the crib of Bethlehem, was not exhibited to the 
 world till He came to manhood. But scarcely was 
 Christianity recognised as a power by the State, when 
 it was called upon to take the State under its protec- 
 tion. It was within one hundred years of the conver- 
 sion of Constantine, and within fifty of the death of 
 Julian, that the invasion of Alaric took place. The 
 civil power, having at its command all that it coidd 
 collect and concentrate of the material force of the 
 State, was powerless to repel the invader. The very 
 capital was sacked and burned to the ground. Then 
 was seen how organised Christianity wielded an influ- 
 ence more potent than the State in defence of the 
 State, over which it threw its shield. It was at this 
 time that S. Augustine, an eye-witness of, and a sufferer 
 by, the barbarian invasions of Africa, which ended in 
 leaving the country an easy prey to the Saracen hordes, 
 was writing, taunting the heathen with the powerless- 
 ness of their gods, and appeahng to well-known facts 
 of recent occurrence, in proof of the power of Chris- 
 tianity to protect even its enemies. ' Are not,' he ex- 
 claims, * these adversaries of the name of Christ, the 
 very same men whom the barbarians spared for Christ's 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 345 
 
 sake ? ' The sepulchres of the martyrs, the basilicas 
 of the Apostles, which, in the devastation of Eome, 
 received even their enemies who fled to them, prove 
 what I say. So far raged the bloody foe ; there his 
 mm-derous fury was stayed. Many falsely assumed the 
 name of Christian in order to avoid the present penalty. 
 How many would have escaped but that they feigned 
 themselves to be the servants of Christ ? ' Look now,' 
 he continues, ' at the history of the wars before and 
 since the foundation of Eome. Eead, and show of a 
 city taken by strangers, who spared those whom they 
 found in the temples of the gods.' 
 
 He then gives a number of instances to attest the 
 weakness of the old rehgions — I do not say to protect 
 the State in its utmost need, but even to defend them- 
 selves. On the one side, he says, were murder, devas- 
 tation, spoliation, affliction ; on the other, the very bar- 
 barians themselves, choosing out the largest basilicas, as 
 places of safety for the conquered — whence none might 
 be taken and where none might be molested — in short, 
 the right of sanctuary (whatever modern calumny may 
 say) actually enforced, even against the enemies, not 
 only of Christianity, but of the State, which lay at their 
 mercy. One need scarcely go further to prove which 
 of the two powers is supreme protector in the last 
 resort. Nevertheless, I will quote two writers, both 
 more or less hostile to the Church, in support of my 
 argument, looked at historically. The first shall be 
 M. Guizot, and the second, Mr. Hallam. 
 
 Speaking of the times in which S. Augustine lived, and 
 a little later, M. Guizot remarks that ' Had there been 
 
340 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 no Christian Church, the whole world would have been 
 abandoned to material force. The Church alone exer- 
 cised a moral power : she did more, she kept up and 
 diffused the conviction of a rule — a law, superior to all 
 human laws. She professed that belief, so essential to 
 the well-being of mankind, that there exists above all 
 human laws, another law, at different times, and from 
 a difference of morals, sometimes called reason, some- 
 times the Divine law, but which everywhere and always 
 is the same law under different names.' Such is 
 M. Guizot*s appreciation of the protecting power of 
 organised Christianity, for he admits a complete organ- 
 isation long before this period. Christianity alone 
 saved the world from the domination of brute force ; 
 and in so saving the world, she saved the civil govern- 
 ment, which could never continue to exist upon a 
 system of mere brute force. Following in the same 
 line, Hallam corroborates the declarations of Guizot. 
 After many pages of hostile remarks, he at length 
 admits, that ' the influence of the bishops upon the 
 barbarians wore down the asperities of conquest, in the 
 fall of Eome, and saved the provincials half the shock 
 of that tremendous revolution.' He continues, ' As 
 captive Greece is said to have subdued her Eoman 
 conqueror, so Eome, in her own turn of servitude, cast 
 the fetters of a moral captivity upon the fierce invaders 
 of the north.' In illustration and corroboration of this 
 observation, it will be enough to name S. James of 
 Nisiba, S. Loup of Troyes, S. Aignan of Orleans, the 
 same S. Loup and S. Germain I'Auxerrois in this 
 country, and Pope S. Leo in connection with Genseric 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 347 
 
 and Attila. But if the external enemies of the empire 
 
 were held in check by the rulers of Christian Society, 
 
 it is no less true that the internal ones were equally so. 
 
 When S. Ambrose, by refusing the Holy Communion 
 
 to the Emperor Theodosius, compelled him to make 
 
 what pubhc amends were practicable for a barbarous 
 
 massacre, he took the best way possible to save the 
 
 Government from the effects of its own crime. He, 
 
 and Christian Society in his person, held the shield of 
 
 justice between the State and that violence which its 
 
 own act countenanced and invited. There was no 
 
 question of humbling a monarch, probably not even of 
 
 serving the State. As a Christian teacher and ruler, 
 
 he had a simple duty to perform, between Christ, Whose 
 
 officer he was, and the Emperor, whose subject he was, 
 
 and in performing it, he consciously or unconsciously 
 
 did the State a material service. He read a lesson not 
 
 to the Emperor alone, but to society at large, in that 
 
 higher law to which M. Guizot refers, and which, 
 
 while guarding subjects against the oppression of 
 
 princes, saves the State from the consequences of that 
 
 despair which subjects feel who lie at the untempered 
 
 mercy of rulers. It may be said that this was but an 
 
 instance of individual independence in a subject, acting 
 
 upon the mind of a prince truly noble in character. But 
 
 such is not the case. S. Ambrose acted not as a 
 
 subject of the State, but as a ruler of Christian Society, 
 
 not as the nominee of the civil power, but as an 
 
 executive member of the great Christian Organisation. 
 
 As an imperial delegate, he must yield or run the risk 
 
 of degradation : as delegated by the central authority 
 
848 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 of Christendom, to yield would be to incur degrada- 
 tion. To allow men in high positions to exhibit con- 
 tempt for the rehgion of which the bishops were the 
 heads, would have been fatal to society. I believe it 
 would be impossible to point to an instance of a single 
 nation which has become great, whose greatness was 
 not founded upon a strict obedience to some religion. 
 But at the period of which we are speaking, the old 
 religions had fallen into contempt ; there was little or 
 no practical reference in hfe to supernatural govern- 
 ment — men lived without God in the world. Chris- 
 tianity had, however, stepped in, and with marvellous 
 activity had seized hold of society man by man, giving 
 to each new and more exalted notions of duty, purify- 
 ing the unselfishness which had made men ready to 
 sacrifice themselves for the State, by presenting to 
 them a higher object for which to make a more com- 
 plete sacrifice, and in so doing had created, or rather 
 had become, a power in the State which could alone 
 save it from utter anarchy. At such a moment espe- 
 cially, to allow a relaxation of the laws of the Society 
 must have had a most pernicious tendency. And the 
 history of S. Ambrose and Theodosius is only one out 
 of a thousand instances, daily occurring, wherein the 
 Society enforced its rules with a perseverance and a 
 minuteness of detail absolutely necessary, but at the 
 same time perfectly efficacious for the permanent main- 
 tenance in the Society of the influence which it ex- 
 ercised with such wonderful results at that desperate 
 epoch. We come back once more to the point from 
 which we started, viz. that the Society was founded to 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN EELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 349 
 
 teach the true relations of men to each other and to 
 God, and we may well say that a corporation which is 
 able to cause these two relationships to be observed 
 between governors and governed, under such circum- 
 stances, is a protector far more deserving of the title 
 of supreme protector, than the State can possibly be ; 
 and we may confidently appeal to history in proof of 
 our contention. 
 
 But while referring to history, one feels that the 
 reference is almost superfluous. The homage which 
 every statesman pays to religion by appealing to the 
 people's sense of religion on every suitable occasion, is 
 an admission more conclusive than any argument 
 drawn from history, that civil rulers themselves ac- 
 knowledge its superior power. Indeed, unless religion 
 be a sham, there can be no power equally potent to 
 prevent excesses, either on the side of the people or of 
 their rulers. And it is in the avoidance of excesses that 
 the security of States consists. This portion of the sub- 
 ject has already been dwelt upon in reference to con- 
 science, and I therefore pass on now, merely remarking 
 that if the power of any religion be as great as I say it 
 is, that of the Christian religion, with its Divine origin 
 and its perfect organisation, must be indefinitely 
 greater. 
 
 If, therefore, it be true that the supreme protector, 
 and no other, has, as such, the power of life and death 
 over subjects for the public good, it would follow that 
 jurisdiction would He not with the State at all, but 
 with the State's protector — a conclusion altogether at 
 variance with the theory, on which we shal have 
 
350 ESSAl^ ON RELIGION AND UTERATURE. 
 
 something to say presently, of the mutual independence 
 of the two powers. It will be borne in mind that in 
 stating this plea on behalf of the civil government, I 
 have exactly copied the words of an existing constitu- 
 tion entirely opposed to the idea of a church. On the 
 other hand, while admitting the truth of the plea, and 
 while allowing in accordance therewith the power of 
 life and death to rest in organised Christianity, it is 
 necessary to call attention to a most important distinc- 
 tion which exists between jurisdiction and the exercise 
 of it. It is desirable, on this point, just to quote the 
 memorable saying of Balmez, where, in repelling an 
 old and well-known calumny, he says that although 
 ' armed with a tribunal of intolerance, the popes have 
 not shed a drop of blood.' They had the power and 
 the opportunity, which does not always accompany 
 jurisdiction, but they did not employ it ; or rather 
 they used it to save, not to destroy life — to reprieve, 
 not to condemn. 
 
 In the same way, though the powers of the Pre- 
 sident of the Federal States of America, hke those of 
 the Eoman Dictator of old, are declared to be at 
 certain times unlimited, and very dangerous, and 
 though he could not be impeached for illegality in 
 practising excess, yet is he restrained by prudence 
 from the harsh use of faculties he unquestionably 
 possesses. Having mentioned this distinction, I hope 
 I have sufficiently guarded myself against misconstruc- 
 tion, and I sum up on this branch of the subject thus : 
 If the highest functions of government belong to the 
 highest powers, the Christian Organisation must have 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 351 
 
 jurisdiction over the State, so far as tlie cliaracter of 
 supreme protector gives it jurisdiction ; for the title 
 cannot be fairly claimed by the State in any but a 
 secondary sense, virhich must be apparent to any- 
 one. 
 
 We will examine but one other, and that the most 
 popular, allegation in regard to the two powers. It is 
 urged with an appearance of high principle which would 
 be captivating were it not absurd, and ludicrous were not 
 so many people deceived by it, that the government of 
 Christian Society, having to do with spiritual affairs only, 
 must not mix itself up with secular questions, which 
 come only within the cognisance of the civil govern- 
 ment. Now, as far as the two governments are con- 
 cerned, it is difficult to see in what way one is more 
 immaterial than the other. Government is not in 
 any correct sense of the term a thing to be looked 
 at and handled. Essentially it is an operation of the 
 mind. It is mind that governs. Macbeth talks perfect 
 philosophy when he speaks of ' the mind I sway by.' 
 Where superior mental capacity is wanting for long to- 
 gether, government ceases. Exalted intellects survey 
 the condition of inferior understandings, and of 
 material objects, and upon the view taken proceed to 
 regulate the relations of each. It is the same with 
 both orders. The ruling mind issues its commands in 
 words almost as immaterial as itself, and forthwith in- 
 ferior minds proceed to execution. In whatever way 
 the ruling mind is enlightened, there is nothing material 
 in either case. Those ruhng minds which regulate 
 secular and material affairs, do so by a purely intellectual 
 
352 ESSA^ ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 operation. Except in barbarous states of society, the 
 ruler is not the executive. He does not personally en- 
 force obedience to his own laws. He works with the 
 hands of others ; and the whole difference between him 
 and the spiritual ruler is in the mode of employing the 
 same tools. The former acts through the general and 
 the magistrate, the latter uses the same officers through 
 the civil ruler when coercion becomes necessary. But 
 coercion, either for spiritual or secular ends, is rendered 
 for the most part needless by moral convictions. The 
 knowledge that force will be used saves its employment 
 in the general business of life. Its use is exceptional 
 even with the civil ruler. The spiritual ruler, no 
 doubt, brings convictions of a higher order, and such as 
 are out of the reach of the civil governor, to bear upon 
 subjects. But that by no means excludes him from the aid 
 of those which are within the domain of the civil ruler. 
 The employment of supernatural does not exclude that 
 of natural fear by the spiritual, any more than that 
 of material excludes that of moral force by the civil, 
 ruler. There is, therefore, nothing in the material 
 nature of the one and in the immaterial nature of the 
 other which can be adduced as a reason for dividing 
 the sphere of their operations. Furthermore, man 
 being a compound existence, there is nothing so spiritual 
 as not to have for him its physical, nor anything so 
 material as not to have its spiritual, connection. To en- 
 deavour, therefore, to cut off the spiritual government 
 from a voice in the secular, is not only contrary to 
 that natural order of things whereby the inferior is sub- 
 ordinated to the superior, but it is even to abridge the 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 353 
 
 superior of its connection with the inferior, by one half 
 the object of its creation, viz. that of teaching and 
 enforcing the duties of men among themselves. If the 
 duty of man to God could be separated and marked off 
 by a broad line from his duty to his felLow-men, there 
 might be something in the pretension. But so long as 
 it is admitted that Christianity has to regulate duty to 
 neighbours, it is absurd to deny to the Organised 
 Society a voice in, and even an appellate jurisdiction 
 against, the secular Government whose whole and sole 
 function is to regulate human relationships, except when 
 called upon by the Christian Government to exercise a 
 higher office. When under the old Pagan governments 
 decrees were passed in honour of the gods, the object 
 was purely civil: to honour them for their own sake 
 was not contemplated. The worship had in view the 
 protection they were expected to afford to the State in 
 return for the homage offered. The welfare of the 
 State was the ultimate aim. There was no religious 
 jurisdiction, independent of the State, to which appeal 
 could be made as against the State. The very laws 
 which estabUshed the particular religion were tlie 
 creation of the State. The gods themselves were many 
 of them only immortahsed men, who were reputed to 
 have deserved well of the State. But when Christianity 
 arose, a power was called into being independent of, 
 and therefore above, the State : it received a law from 
 God, which it communicated to the State, and to 
 which the State and every member of it is amenable. 
 This is not denied within what men of high principle 
 are pleased to call the domain of the spiritual power. 
 
 A A 
 
354 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 But it is contended that the civil has a jurisdiction 
 independent of the spiritual power ; and this is to a 
 certain limited extent true. It is not deniable that 
 even the inferior officers, in an army, in a municipahty, 
 or even in sijp.^er self-governing bodies, have certain 
 rights and exercise certain functions without reference 
 in a general way, and in ordinary times, even to their 
 immediate superiors, much more so without reference 
 '* to the commanda^r-in-chief or to the head magistrate or 
 functionary. If this be allowed in the case of such 
 "inferior ranks, the first officers of the State, having a 
 wider range of duties and more important and multi- 
 farious interests to secure, will naturally have a so much 
 wider hberty of action. If, however, the inferior officer 
 overstep the limits of his authority, and an appeal against 
 him be carried to a much higher tribunal, it will be 
 vain for him to allege the superior exaltation of the 
 court and to say : ' Your business is to legislate, to 
 declare war or to maintain foreign relations, and gene- 
 rally to attend to the highest duties of State, and not to 
 interfere with me. I appeal to men of my own rank : 
 let them decide : you have no right to meddle with such 
 small affairs.' In the same way there is no question of 
 the Christian interfering with the civil government, till 
 the former has passed, or is about to pass, a line within 
 which its action is free. It is only when interests are 
 affected altogether within the cognisance and control of 
 organised Christianity, that the latter protests ; and for 
 the State to demur to its decision, on the plea of the 
 purely spiritual nature of its functions, is to set itself up 
 as judge of those many spiritual questions which in the 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 355 
 
 same breath it acknowledges to belong to the other 
 power. Two strangers are independent of each other, 
 but if one sees the other commit violence upon a third, 
 the mutual relations are changed; the independence 
 ceases, and the peaceful man becomes an officer of 
 justice as against the wrong-doer. In such a case, 
 who would listen to the violent man's protest against 
 the interference of the stranger ? Now, this would be 
 the relative position of the two powers, were the State 
 really a stranger to the Christian government. But 
 this is not the case. If changes are made in the civil law 
 concerning marriage or education, for example, such 
 changes are declared to be in accordance with Chris- 
 tianity. Even questions regarding 'the holding or con- 
 fiscation of certain property, are discussed on a professed 
 respect for the interests of Christianity. The State, 
 therefore, is always to a certain extent under Christian 
 tutelage. And if it proceed to act in violation of that 
 revealed law which is deposited with organised Chris- 
 tianity, the latter has a right of interference tenfold 
 greater than the peaceful has over the violent citizen. 
 But, observe, its only mode of interference is by 
 exercising an intellectual and moral influence over its 
 own subjects. If the State refuse to place its material 
 at the command of the spiritual power, the latter has 
 no means of compulsion ; it can only persuade. Passive 
 obstruction may be offered, and even in extreme cases 
 the supreme protector may call upon subjects for 
 support as against the rebelhous State. It will be for 
 the supreme protector to decide at what point the 
 case has assumed gravity enough to call for the exercise 
 
356 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 of such opposition. But it would be absurd to ask 
 the spiritual power, the supreme protector, to decide 
 whether the Christian rehgion would suffer most by 
 blind submission to the State on questions directly 
 affecting that religion, or by the probable troubles arising 
 from opposition to the State. To propose such submission 
 would be equivalent to asking the Christian government, 
 the supreme protector, to abdicate its functions. And 
 as the only possible weapon in the hands of Christianity 
 would be a spiritual one, it is difficult to see upon what 
 principle its use could be objected to, consistently with 
 the assertion that the domain of the spiritual power 
 must be strictly spiritual. Eemember, we are not 
 talking of this church or of that — ^but of that organised 
 Christianity the necessity for whose existence we proved 
 in the former paper ; and we say that if to the spiritual 
 weapons of the Society, the State oppose its material 
 ones, it may be able in a great measure to destroy the 
 Christian Organisation in that particular State, but in so 
 doing the State ceases to be Christian. It throws off 
 its obedience to that government which holds the Divine 
 revelation. And any Christian subject of the State has 
 a right to exclaim : ' Much as I prize my allegiance 
 to the State, I value my character of Christian more, 
 and I call upon the government of Christian Society to 
 defend me, my friends, and my posterity to the best of its 
 ability against the encroachments of the State, and I say 
 that if it fail herein, I stand unprotected and at the 
 mercy of an infidel power. I do not ask the State to 
 judge for me on these spiritual questions, because if it 
 were able to judge I should be no less so, having as 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 357 
 
 much light as the State. I demand, then, of the Chris- 
 tian government to judge for me ; to let there be no 
 doubt as to the Hue of conduct my duty demands. I 
 speak in my ow^n interest, apart from any I may feel 
 for the Society. If I have a right to call on the State 
 to protect me against outward violence, I have an 
 equal or a greater right to protection on the other side 
 against the violation of my conscience, and I require it 
 at the hands of the Society with all the energy of my 
 soul. I do not lie at the foot of an ambitious clique 
 of spiritual usurpers. I do not surrender my intellect 
 to a set of designing men. On the contrary, I use it 
 with all the keenness I may possess, and I conclude that 
 if God meant the revelation to have been in the hands 
 of the State, He would have said so in plain terms. 
 I weigh the accusations of ambition and such like, and 
 I perceive that the very men who bring them are 
 themselves inflated with ambition, and full of designs 
 for their own aggrandisement. I perceive also a curious 
 phenomenon, viz. that these external supporters of the 
 civil as against the spiritual power are no real friends 
 of the former, but only as against the latter, being ever 
 as ready to overthrow the one as the other — men who 
 hate all authority, and who only seem to take the side 
 of the State because it, too, is impatient of control. I 
 see moreover that one State never appears to question 
 its right to interfere with the purely internal affairs of 
 another, whenever a party can be found in the other 
 State, either truly or falsely to declare itself oppressed. 
 The only doubt is as to the policy of intervention. That 
 once settled, the indefeasible right to come to the aid of 
 
858 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 the oppressed is acted upon without the slightest mis- 
 giving, and no party in the transaction protests against 
 the principle. The ordinary grounds of demur are 
 themselves an admission of the right. It is answered 
 that the oppression is imaginary, or else that severity is 
 rendered necessary by the turbulence of the complainants. 
 But the natural right based upon the fraternal bond 
 which unites the whole human race into one family is 
 not denied : governments perfectly unconnected with 
 the subjects, and having no authority over them what- 
 ever, demand redress of other governments as inde- 
 pendent as themselves, and failing to obtain satisfaction 
 proceed to enforce their demands by arms. Neverthe- 
 less, so soon as the spiritual power, the government of 
 organised Christianity, protests on behalf of me, its own 
 subject, against the tyranny of the State, immediately 
 the cry is raised of usurpation, arrogance, imperium in 
 imperio, allegiance to a foreign power, national rights, 
 independent power, and the rest. As if it were not 
 quite as natural, and a thousand times more imperative 
 on the Christian government, to defend its own subjects, 
 and to enlighten and safeguard their consciences, than 
 it can possibly be in any State to act on behalf of 
 strangers. In one case there is a natural right, but cer- 
 tainly no necessary obligation to interfere ; in the other, 
 intervention is a condition of the existence of the Chris- 
 tian Organisation, and that not only in obedience to the 
 natural law of self-preservation, but in the sense of duty 
 too.' Such is the language in which any Christian has 
 a right to plead on his own behalf 
 
 From what has been said, it would appear that the 
 
CHRISTIANITY I^^ RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 359 
 
 Society, so far from holding the position of being de- 
 pendent upon the State, occupies precisely the opposite 
 relation of having the State dependent, in a great 
 measure, on itself If time allov^ed, it v^ould not be 
 hard to prove that this is, in reality, the case even in 
 countries whose governments have thrown off all con- 
 nection with the one Universal Organisation. 
 
 There are many other points which deserve exami- 
 nation, and which, mdeed, ought to be debated, as to 
 the principles upon which the relations of the two 
 powers repose. But time presses, and I hope those 
 already laid down are sufficiently marked out (notwith- 
 standing the obvious incompleteness of their treatment), 
 to render clear the truth of the remarks I now proceed 
 to make on the Malines speeches, according to the 
 plan announced at the beginning of this lecture. 
 
 We have now the two Governments, civil and 
 Christian, fairly before us, and before each other, 
 face to face. Both administered by fallible men, but, 
 the former, many in number and various in form ; 
 the latter, one : the former, bounded by seas and 
 rivers ; the latter, universal : the former, liable to 
 change and destruction ; the latter, indestructible and 
 incapable of change, as is the case with everything 
 Divine : the former, subject to human laws ; the latter, 
 to the one Divine law : the former, having for its end 
 the preservation of human justice ; the latter, having 
 for its end to repair the infraction by mankind of the 
 Divine justice : the former, frequently in the hands of 
 men rebellious to the law of Christianity ; the latter, 
 organised expressly to enable it to grapple successfully. 
 
360 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND yiERATURE. 
 
 not only with rebellious civil powers, but even with the 
 defection of its own officers ; the former, an imperfect 
 result of imperfect experiments, and worked out upon 
 an imperfect knowledge of facts ; the latter, founded 
 by God upon the most perfect knowledge of all the 
 facts, and constituted for the purpose of acting in 
 reference to them ; one of the foreseen facts being, the 
 imperfections, the weaknesses, the ignorance of admi- 
 nistrators : the former, holding a power derived from 
 God through its subjects; the latter, invested with 
 power immediately from God : the former, incapable 
 •of maintaining itself without the aid of the latter; while 
 the latter, having fought its way against all the power 
 of the former, for hundreds of years, became, from the 
 moment of its ascendency, even by the admission of 
 enemies, the supreme protector of the former, and yet 
 there is a question of the so-called mutual independence 
 of the two Governments, and even of making the Chris- 
 tian subordinate to the civil power ; of giving up the 
 ground conquered by thousands of martyrdoms, and 
 held against the enemies of the State itself for so many 
 centuries, because an hostihty arises, which is as a 
 mole-hill to a mountain, when compared with the 
 tlireatened subversion of society, at a time when the 
 spiritual power had but just emerged from what one 
 may call its infancy. 
 
 It will be observed that the contrast, so far as it is 
 here presented, only extends to those marks of the two 
 Societies which have been treated in the foregoing 
 pages. To complete it, the holiness of Christian Society, 
 and the want of this characteristic in Civil Society, 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 361 
 
 require elaboration. I intend to make this the subject 
 of a future paper or papers. 
 
 In the former paper, I called attention to certain 
 phrases, which seemed to imply a whole set of ideas 
 altogether at variance with the intrinsic natures of the 
 two powers, as explained or hinted at in both lectures. 
 I will now bring before your notice other expressions 
 of the same kind ; and after referring to explanations 
 which have been given of the use of these phrases, I 
 will point out wherein the fallacies they contain appear 
 to me to consist. This can only be done, too shortly, in 
 the few minutes which remain. I will, therefore, with- 
 out more loss of time, plunge in medias res. 
 
 The Count de Montalembert begins by enunciating 
 a motto, which it is impossible to translate into English 
 in accordance with the principles we have been con- 
 sidering. His title and motto is, ' L'Eglise libre dans 
 I'Etat libre.' That must either mean a free Church in 
 a free State, or the Church free in the State free. The 
 first form would be to ignore the Universality of the 
 Church. Speaking of the Christian Organisation, you 
 cannot use the particle 'a.' It is the only entity of the 
 kind : other organisations are partial; this stands alone, 
 and must have the definite article. The expression, 
 'A Church,' would imply either that portion of the 
 Universal Organisation which exists in any given place 
 or country, and whose local rights we are not dis- 
 cussing, or a sort of courtesy-title, allowed to some 
 aggregation of men who profess to belong to the 
 One Society, but who do not in reahty belong to 
 it. We may, then, dismiss this translation. The other 
 
362 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 is as objectionable for an opposite reason. The 
 Church in the State. Here, ' the State ' must be either 
 an individual State, or the State in the abstract. In 
 either case the formula would put the greater in the 
 less, tjjg universal in the particular, the Divine in the 
 human. In the first translation, the Church is reduced 
 to the dimensions of a State ; in the second, the State 
 is expanded beyond the dimensions (if it have such) of 
 the Church. When, therefore, the Count announces 
 that the phrase has become and w^U remain for ever 
 historical, one may be permitted to hope that it will, with 
 all convenient speed, be consigned to that portion of 
 history which is past. In selecting a device for the 
 banner under which we are to fight, it is of the first 
 importance to choose one whose meaning shall be in 
 no way equivocal ; one which can be defended on all 
 grounds and against all attacks, and this seems to me to 
 be more than can be said of the one in question. I 
 venture to suggest that it has not yet taken sufficient 
 hold of the pubhc mind of Europe for it to be con- 
 sidered as the watchword to which all defenders of 
 Christianity are bound to rally. Let us trust that this 
 misfortune may not become an accompHshed fact. 
 
 But it may be thought that I am hair-sphtting, in 
 dwelling upon a phrase which most people think they 
 understand. Unfortunately, such is not the case,*for the 
 Count expressly says, that the formula is the ' symbol 
 of our convictions and of our hopes,' by which I under- 
 stand, ' an abstract, or compendium ; the creed and 
 summary of his politico-religious faith,' and nothing in 
 the character of the author warrants us in doubting 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 363 
 
 that the words have been well weighed, and carefully 
 rehearsed, before they were given to the world. It 
 seems a certain portion of the audience before whom 
 the speeches under consideration were dehvered, ap- 
 plauded the sentiment, which was immediately followed 
 by the declaration, that by the motto he intends, ' the 
 liberty of the Church founded upon pubhc liberties.' 
 
 Now, I showed before, that so far as the beginning 
 of modern society was concerned, organised Christianity 
 was its defender and preserver. The subject might 
 have been pursued there, but that I had it in mind to 
 quote the words of our President, where, in the third 
 lecture on Concordats, delivered at Moorfields in 1855, 
 His Eminence says : ' So far were our ancestors from 
 any jealousy of the liberty of the Church, that they 
 considered the very first step towards obtaining civil 
 hberty, was to grant to the Church the utmost possible 
 extent of that gift ; and there is scarcely a charter to 
 which we look back, as a noble monument of our an- 
 cestors' love of freedom, which does not base the whole 
 of its system of enfranchisement of the thrall and 
 liberty of the subject upon a firm basis of hberty for 
 the Church, and the full exercise of all her rights, un- 
 trammelled and unfettered ; ' and this assertion is proved 
 by convincing quotations. 
 
 Are we, then, wilHng to reverse the old-established 
 order of things, and in place of public Hberties, founded 
 upon those of organised Christianity, to allow pohtical 
 liberties to be regarded as the basis of those of re- 
 ligion ? Are we to enter upon a course precisely the 
 opposite of that which history proves to have succeeded 
 
364 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 during so many centuries ? Are we to experimentalise 
 upon an idea diametrically opposed to that of a Uni- 
 versal Society capable of withstanding all the shocks of 
 time, all the hostihties of States, all the aberrations 
 of eve^L its own rulers — a course, besides as fatal to 
 political as to religious liberties ? The proposition is 
 one which, if seriously intended, goes to estabHsh the 
 permanent upon the changeable — the house upon the 
 sand. But it may be we are misapprehending the 
 author's meaning. Perhaps it is so ; but we are told 
 almost immediately of the 'reciprocal independence' 
 of the two powers. Now, reciprocity means a giving 
 up on both sides, and implies, therefore, a certain de- 
 pendence on both sides. Consequently, to talk of 
 reciprocity between the two powers, is to suppose the 
 temporal able to give something to the spiritual, equal 
 in value to what the latter gives, and which the latter 
 is supposed to give in return. Now, this is a great 
 mistake. The Christian Organisation, as we tried to 
 show, is not only independent of the State, but actually 
 has the State, in a great measure, dependent upon itself. 
 The State has nothing whatever to give or to withhold 
 which is of any value to the spiritual power ; and the 
 latter has nothing to hope or to fear from the State. 
 The State is either Christian or infidel. K Christian, it 
 must, both in the persons of its members and in itself, 
 submit to the Society out of duty. The gifts the states- 
 man bestows, in bestowing them upon Christian Society, 
 he bestows upon himself, as a member of the Society, 
 and what the State has to offer it has already received 
 the power of giving from the Society. It gives protec- 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY, obo 
 
 tion by means of laws based upon the Divine law of 
 the Society ; or, at the least, upon the natural law 
 interpreted by the Christian revelation. It has to 
 invoke the influence of the Christian code upon con- 
 science, in order to convince subjects of the justice of 
 its own code ; for without such a belief, submission 
 would not be yielded, nor could it be enforced. So 
 that the Christian State can only return what it has 
 already received from the Society. 
 
 If the State be infidel, as indeed nearly every State 
 is, either it gives nothing, or it gives persecution, or 
 it gives just so much protection that it hopes to receive 
 more of some sort in return. It gives what the power 
 of the Society can make it part with, if one can use 
 the expression ; for in reality it parts with nothing. 
 In the first case, nothing can come of nothing. In the 
 last, the bolder the stand made, and the greater the 
 vigour and force exhibited by the Society, the more 
 will be conceded. But of the second case it will be 
 said, if the infidel State misapprehend the attitude of 
 the Society, it will probably proceed to persecution. 
 WeU ! certainly the Society wiU never tear down the 
 imperial edict — it will act with all possible prudence 
 and circumspection — but it is more than doubtful 
 whether the Society has ever lost anything worth 
 saving, by any persecution. For individuals who are 
 capable of being persecuted into abandoning their 
 faith, are a bad leaven which will sooner or later 
 infect surrounding members ; and societies which are 
 so capable are already infected past cure. Martyrdom, 
 as the Count quotes, was an invention of Heaven to 
 
366 ESSAYS ox RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 conquer the lords of the earth. Nevertheless, that is 
 no reason why martyrdom should be invoked and 
 persdBution courted. But in order to avoid either the 
 one or the other, it is not allowable to propound 
 erroneous principles ; and it is to an inexactness of 
 expression, which, with the majority of minds, and 
 especially with the young (to whom the Count par- 
 ticularly addressed himself), would lead to false conclu- 
 sions, that I am at present objecting. It is too grave 
 a danger to encounter, according to my apprehension, 
 that of educating whole generations of men in the 
 habit of using vague and ambiguous language on these 
 all-important topics ; and of defending before enemies 
 their candour, and the straightforwardness and honesty 
 of their intentions, in the profession of principles which 
 will not bear scrutiny by either party. I can conceive 
 no better mode of preparing society, ages hence 
 perhaps, for arriving at a condition as incapable of 
 withstanding a persecution carried on by men of en- 
 lightenment, as were the people of this country in the 
 sixteenth century. I do not now find fault with any 
 principle M. de Montalembert holds. It is no business 
 of mine to judge him. He is besides, too tried a 
 champion of the cause for which we are all fighting, 
 to be open to anjrthing even distantly approaching to 
 hostile criticism. But when expressions are employed 
 which are at least liable to misconstruction, and their 
 continual repetition counselled, one is at liberty to call 
 attention to the danger into which he is leading his 
 followers. 
 
 What could anyone possibly understand by the 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 367 
 
 assertion that ' the Chiirch can no longer be free except 
 in the midst of general freedom,' than this, that its 
 freedom depends upon some cause outside itself? 
 Whereas the Christian Corporation was from the 
 moment of its constitution self-existing ; that is to say, 
 having Christ for its Head, and being assured of a con- 
 tinual accession of members to its ranks, it became 
 imperishable. So that it could never be anything but 
 free. It will be said this is true in a certain sense, but 
 not in that in which M. de Montalembert writes. I 
 shall reply to that objection presently, merely remark- 
 ing in the meantime that the so-called reciprocal 
 independence is a favourite idea in France, dating 
 back at least as far as Bossuet's posthumous work, 
 ' The Defence of the Declaration of the Gallican Clergy 
 on the Ecclesiastical Power ; ' that it is found in various 
 French writers since his time, and at the present day ; 
 and that it is also the Protestant notion of the relation- 
 ship of the powers in question. 
 
 So far, then, there is no hair-splitting. We have 
 had Istly, the formula ; 2ndly, the formula described as 
 the symbol of our convictions ; 3rdly, the liberty of 
 the Church founded upon public liberties ; and 4thly, 
 the reciprocal independence of the two powers. All 
 seems consistent, every point agrees with its prede- 
 cessor, and will be found to agree with what follows, 
 viz. the necessity which is said to exist for the ' sup- 
 pression of privilege ' for the Christian Organisation. 
 In the former paper I pointed out that the freedom of 
 the Christian Corporation is a right, and not a privilege ; 
 that to call the full practical recognition of its rights a 
 
308 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 privilege, is to suppose the State possessed of a power 
 and position superior to that of the Christian Corpora- 
 tioii)which we have seen to be untrue and absurd. 
 It was pointed out, that to call this body privileged is 
 a correct expression in relation to God, Who has, 
 indeed, conferred upon it privileges far superior to 
 those of any other corporation; but for that very 
 reason, the term is incorrect when applied to it by the 
 State, or by men speaking of it as politicians, and also 
 because none but a superior can confer privileges, and 
 the State is certainly not that superior. Now to speak, 
 as M. Montalembert does, of the ' suppression of 
 privilege,' involves the idea of privilege, in his sense of 
 the word, actually existing somewhere. This can only 
 be in a country wholly or almost entirely Christian, 
 where to suppress it would be deliberately to place 
 Christianity on a worse footing than it at present occu- 
 pies ; and this is what I understand to be desired in 
 view of certain contingent advantages to be gained 
 elsewhere, though what precise advantages would be 
 gained by banishing so-called privilege from such 
 countries, one does not quite see. But very possibly 
 this is not the Count's intention, for I do not know 
 that any single passage can be quoted to the effect 
 supposed. At the same time, it cannot be well denied 
 that to ordinary readers, the impression I have sug- 
 gested would certainly be conveyed. If such be not 
 the speaker's wish, it would be well to have an explicit 
 denial on an early occasion. Because it is certain that 
 unless this be really his meaning, a misapprehension 
 on the point is very widely prevalent. The question is 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL 'SOCIETY. 369 
 
 one of too much importance to be left in doubt ; it 
 ought to be cleared up with as little delay as m^y be 
 convenient. It is the more necessary this should be 
 done, because the same ambiguity of expression pre- 
 sents itself when M. de Montalembert comes to treat 
 of hberty of conscience. Thus, on the one hand, it is 
 applauded in the most general terms, and the triumphs 
 of rehgion in America and England are favourably 
 contrasted with what are denominated its ephemeral 
 and equivocal empire in Spain, where Protestantism 
 has hardly ever set its foot ; and on the other the 
 Count de Maistre is quoted approvingly, as saying that 
 it is almost too trivial a truth to repeat, that to allow 
 Protestantism to enter a Catholic country is a misfor- 
 tune. We seem to see just where the author's religious 
 instinct prevents him from logically carrying out the 
 principles involved in his own formula, and in the 
 other phrases I have quoted. But the language 
 is not exact, and we know not whither he would 
 lead us. 
 
 At this point he seems to have fallen into a singular 
 misconception, such as one would hardly have expected 
 to meet with in a French author. He says, that liberty 
 of conscience was created and put into the world on the 
 day when the first pope replied to the first of the per- 
 secutors, ' Non possumus : we cannot but say what we 
 have seen and heard, we cannot but obey God rather 
 than men.' To my apprehension, that was the very 
 day when conscience, which had been only too free 
 before, was declared bound. Freedom of conscience 
 was at an end. It was no principle of liberty that was 
 
 B B 
 
370 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 invoked. What S. Peter alleged was, a revelation 
 fron^^od, and a strict command to publish it. He 
 announced, not conscience at liberty, but conscience 
 bound to speak. As against Pagans he could demand 
 liberty for Christians ; but not as a principle for Pagans 
 and Christians alike. He was commanded to speak ; 
 and as God requires nothing impossible, the command 
 implied the right to hberty. On the other side, there 
 was no command to speak : and therefore, a liberty of 
 the same kind and derivation could not possibly be 
 implied. Depend upon it, nothing was ever further 
 from the mind of S. Peter when he said, ' We must 
 obey God rather than men,' than to assert a hberty 
 which should allow a Christian State to permit the 
 entrance of heresy within its borders, because of pos- 
 sible advantages in other countries, arising from the 
 fact that Christian leaders are able to point to such 
 liberal conduct in Christian States. 
 
 Such are the principles against which I protest, 
 and which appear to be announced in the speeches 
 delivered at Malines. I do not say that the Count de 
 Montalembert holds such principles, nor even that 
 he has expressed them unintentionally. . All I say is, 
 that to me they seem to be involved in the words 
 employed. 
 
 Two explanations are offered of the line taken by 
 the speaker ; but it is not easy to adopt either. The 
 first is to the effect, that the author may not have 
 sufficiently correct ideas on subjects to which he has 
 not specially applied himself; the second runs in this 
 way. Do you not see that you and he are talking of 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 371 
 
 different things altogether? You are talking of scien- 
 tific principles — he only of certain practical questions 
 touching the conditions of modern society, and how 
 the difficulties, dangers, and facts of the age are to 
 be met and combated. When he speaks against the 
 Inquisition, persecution, and privilege, he is throwing 
 dust in the eyes of our adversaries. On these points 
 he does not mean what he seems to say. He is advo- 
 cating your cause. He is a special pleader in your 
 behalf, and it is not wise to expose the fallacies his 
 phrases seem to contain. 
 
 Such explanations place one in a dilemma. Of the 
 first I will only say, it is a personal explanation, which 
 may be allowable in the mouths of those who have 
 proposed it. As to the other, to imagine that it is 
 part of his plan to give expression to sentiments which 
 he does not entertain, and that in such language as 
 scarcely admits of a double interpretation, would be to 
 suppose a want o^ candour quite unworthy of the man. 
 And, besides, his own declaration is so pointed, that 
 one cannot accept the explanation suggested. He says 
 distinctly, ' I am, then, for liberty of conscience, in the 
 interest of Catholicism, without arriere pensee, as 
 without hesitation. I accept freely all those conse- 
 quences which pubHc morality does not reprove, and 
 which equity demands.' 
 
 We are, then, driven to the conclusion that it is the 
 Count's wish, merely to propound a poHcy appHcable 
 to the times, reconciling the principles of the Christian 
 Organisation with those of modern society. But the 
 idea of endeavouring to reconcile Christian principles 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 with the theories of the world and of the enemies of 
 Christy is so repugnant to one's every notion of the 
 functions of religion, that one is at a loss to understand 
 the advantage of making the attempt. And when we 
 are told that in order to exercise a salutary and fruit- 
 ful action upon it, we must know how to accept the 
 vital conditions of modern society, and when we are 
 •further told how necessary it is clearly, boldly, publicly 
 jto protest at every turn, against a return to what 
 lirritates and disquiets modern society, I cannot but 
 /repudiate the sentiments so far as I comprehend them. 
 i It is undoubtedly true, that, in order to exercise a 
 j salutary influence on the society of any epoch, its 
 / tendencies must be studied and thoroughly understood. 
 ■ What it may be to accept the vital conditions of modern 
 society, I do not quite know. And as to the society of 
 the present day, if it be in so highly excitable a state 
 as to be easily irritated and disquieted, why I do not 
 see that we are called upon to watch it, or to hang 
 upon its lips, or to stand and crouch under its testy 
 humour. If, with all its enhghtenment and science, 
 it do not understand what are the vital conditions of 
 the Christian Organisation, or if it refuse to make itself 
 acquainted with the requirements of Christianity, it 
 must be made to learn. The truth is, modem society 
 knows a great deal more than is supposed. Look at 
 its composition. It is divided into three great classes. 
 Those who belong to the Christian Organisation ; those 
 who, not belonging to it, are men of good will, and 
 from among whom the Organisation gains its recruits 
 in all parts of the world ; and those who are its avowed 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 373 
 
 enemies. Of these tlie first and the last understand it 
 well enough. It can hardly be pretended that the first 
 class will be scandalised by a denial of modern notions 
 respecting freedom of conscience, coercion on behalf of 
 religion and peculiar privilege as it is called. If they 
 would be startled at the utterance of right Christian 
 principles, the reason is, they have been so surrounded 
 by enemies, that they have not heard the truth on these 
 questions fairly discussed. The remedy so far as they 
 are concerned is, not to join in the cry which is for 
 ever raised at the sound of names which seem to con- 
 vey ideas, but which only do excite blind passions and 
 prejudices ; but rather to grapple with these false and 
 rash judgments, to demonstrate their fallacy, to expose 
 the hoUowness of their foundations ; to repeat con- 
 stantly, at all seasons, in all societies — on every possible 
 occasion to reiterate, that the history and principles 
 upon which they are built have been falsified for cen- 
 turies upon a plan, deliberately and of set purpose ; 
 that many of the prominent notions of the day, which 
 have been elevated into principles, are mere questions 
 of expediency; that it is absurd to yield up inde- 
 pendence of thought to bow before a tyrannical public 
 opinion, which may change at any time, and which for 
 that, among other reasons, has no claim to resjDect ; 
 that the true line to be taken by Christians, is to turn 
 the weapons of our enemies against themselves, by 
 exposing the untruthfulness of then: gravest authorities, 
 and the ignorance, the inconsistency, and the hypocrisy 
 of their leaders ; in a word, that our attitude must not 
 be one of. defence and apology, but of attack and 
 
374 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 exposure, of taunt and of ridicule. By this means at 
 least two good effects will be produced : one, that a 
 more manly tone wiU come to pervade the weaker 
 portions of the Society. Such members will acquire 
 the ' arts of self-reliance, and of self-control.' It will 
 no longer be true, as the Count says, it is at present 
 tliat 'incessantly and everywhere they are excelled, 
 surpassed, conquered, and duped, by their competitors, 
 their antagonists, or their oppressors, sometimes by 
 unbelievers, and sometimes by Protestants, here by 
 democrats, and there'by despots.' * 
 
 They will no longer experience embarrassment and 
 timidity in face of modem society ; they will neither 
 love it, nor fear it, nor fall into its ways. And why 
 should they ? What have they to gain by so doing ? 
 M. de Montalembert himself supphes us with an answer 
 when he says, ' The less sohdarity exists between the 
 Church and any power whatsoever, the less she in- 
 vokes the support of any external power, the stronger 
 and more popular she will appear.' That is perfectly 
 true, and, therefore, boldly to face the power of modern 
 society, and to refuse any solidarity whatever with it, is 
 the way to give courage to our own brethren, and at 
 the same time to prove to the second of the two classes 
 that her and our independence is thorough : indepen- 
 dence of despots on the throne ; of despotic democrats ; 
 and of that social despotism, by which every one of us 
 suffers, but which must be braved and overcome. The 
 respect of these people will be gained, and, as a certain 
 consequence, their prejudices will be removed. The 
 very shocks they experience in the constant encounter 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETr. 375 
 
 will lead to research and conviction, gradual, but sure. 
 We speak of an every-day experience, not as in esti- 
 mation of what may be, but of what we know is set 
 down in the history of the last twenty years in this 
 country : here, where the fight has been all up-hill, 
 against an overwhelming majority; against unreasoning 
 hostility and genuine fear ; against pohtical tradition 
 and social ostracism. It may be safely said that the 
 bold pohcy has been the successful one in England. It 
 is, therefore, with regret one sees proposed anything in 
 the shape of a compromise with modern society on the 
 Continent ; where the three classes are in quite different 
 proportions ; where the second class is in a small mi- 
 nority, existing chiefly in certain large cities and dis- 
 tricts, and where the fight has to be carried on between 
 the Christian Organisation and a minority of avowed 
 enemies of all rehgion. These are men with whom it 
 is impossible to keep any terms. To concihate them is 
 impracticable, and they do not require convincing, for 
 a large proportion of them, the leaders especially, know 
 weU the truth against which they are sworn, or in 
 league. This is that destructive democracy of which 
 the Count speaks, and whose other name is ' the Eevo- 
 lution.' It is a class whom we have to consider no 
 further than as a powerful unscrupulous foe ; but whose 
 strength consists, first, in the secrecy of their move- 
 ments ; and, secondly, in the ignorance and timidity of 
 their opponents. To combat these with success, there 
 is no need to adopt their principles and demand their 
 apphcation to ourselves. We know that when in 
 power they will never grant our demands; they will 
 
376 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 falsify their principles without hesitation against us; 
 they not only will^ but they do. The Count declares 
 it. It is to us, he says, that are refused freedom of 
 education, freedom of association, liberty of the press. 
 And, therefore, it were a waste of timey^and a great 
 mistake to appear, even, to ask for ^y one of these 
 things, as for an inherent right belonging to all and 
 every citizen, in virtue of his citizenship or of his man- 
 hood. For no conceivable reason, except inability to 
 hold out against us, will this party ever allow free scope 
 to organised Christianity in these respects. All we can 
 do, therefore, and all we have a right to do, is to over- 
 whelm them with argumenta ad hominem ; for, dis- 
 honest as they are, each one tries to conceal his 
 character. It is not easy for them to look one another 
 in the face while proposing or upholding a direct 
 palpable breach of principles, which are incessantly 
 invoked. No ! Falsehood ever puts on a goodly 
 outside. And our strength consists, not in suing for 
 equahty of privilege, but in tearing the mask from 
 the face of hypocrisy. Moreover, there is, in demand- 
 ing equahty, where we have a right to superiority, upon 
 a hundred titles, a most discouraging confession of 
 weakness. The condition of things is this : we are in 
 danger of being dispossessed, and of relapsing into the 
 regime of sixteen hundred years ago — when our fore- 
 fathers in the faith were asking for equality before the 
 State, which, till then, had found no superior. Our 
 Divine Society, having conquered the old, and having 
 raised up, out of conflicting elements, a new human 
 Society, leavened by the Divine power, and as nearly 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 377 
 
 perfect as any Society that is ever likely to exist, may 
 naturally conceive that, apart from its Divine nature, 
 it has claims to superiority over all new comers and 
 experimentalists ; claims founded upon social benefits 
 bestowed on mankind. At any rate it was in undis- 
 puted possession, when, some century ago, or less, cer- 
 tain perverse men arose, who proposed to more than 
 undo the work of over seventeen hundred years. They 
 determined not only to overthrow the Society, but, with 
 it, all rehgion whatever, to banish God out of His own 
 world, and to create such a Society as has never existed 
 since the Deluge, if even it did before. These are the 
 men who propounded the principles of Eighty-nine. 
 They have attracted to themselves a body of adherents 
 all over the world, from Santiago, in Chili, to Moscow ; 
 they have seized upon Governments, which they possess, 
 and which they use to enable them to seize others. And 
 it is for fear of these new men, these usurped Govern- 
 ments, that we are counselled to renounce privilege 
 once and for ever ; being told that to claim for our 
 Society a privileged liberty is to create for it the most 
 redoubtable of dangers. We are invaded, besieged ; 
 our patrimony spoiled, and we are called upon to make 
 terms and truce with our foes, the enemies of Society 
 and of God ! 
 
 It appears to me, that if the Count de Montalembert 
 has been inaccurate in the use of certain expressions, he is 
 even more mistaken in the policy he advocates. I say 
 this, while fully admitting, what one must be blind not 
 to see, viz., how full the speeches are of excellent, accu- 
 rate, and profound observations; how many original 
 
378 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 remarks they contain ; and how much may be learned 
 from a diligent perusal of them. And I speak with the 
 more confidence, as knowing that, if my criticism has 
 been in any respect erroneous, in the opinion of more 
 competent judges, they are here to correct me. 
 
 There is no time now to enter into a discussion of the 
 real principles which should regulate hberty of the 
 press and of association, power of holding property, 
 freedom of education and worship, and of using tlie 
 secular arm in support of the spiritual power. They 
 are all questions which shoidd be gone into in detail in 
 connection with these speeches ; and they are all inti- 
 mately connected with the practical working of the 
 principles upon which the relations of the One Uni- 
 versal Organised Society with the civil power have 
 been shown to be founded. Great advantages are to 
 be gained by the dissemination of definite notions on 
 all of them. We have been accustomed to hear praise 
 or blame lavished in so absolute a fashion in reference 
 to them, that it is impossible many among us should 
 not have been carried away by one or the other. 
 
 But out of a mass of matter, only a selection can be 
 made in a paper like the present. I shall therefore 
 conclude by calUng attention to an idea which seems to 
 run through the whole of the speeches. The Count 
 appears to take it for granted that a uniform policy 
 can be wisely applied in every European country. Is 
 not this a fallacy ? 
 
 In Spain, where, in spite of certain despotic acts com- 
 mitted at distant periods, and notwithstanding the per- 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 379 
 
 secution which rehgion has suffered there, heresy has 
 never been able to gain a footing among the great body 
 of the people : in Austria, where Protestantism, having 
 once become established, is treated with justice, and has 
 no present or hope of acquiring future power of perse- 
 cution : in Prussia, where, though Protestantism is in the 
 ascendant, the press is as free for the Church as for the 
 sects : in Sweden, where there prevails a rigour in 
 order to the exclusion of the faith more tremendous 
 than the Inquisition : in England and America, where, 
 politically speaking, with some exceptions, perfect liberty 
 of the press, of association, and of worship exist, it 
 appears impossible to adopt a policy which should be 
 suitable to each one of these diverse conditions, and 
 should at the same time be applicable to France and 
 to the Italy of to-day, where the press is free except on 
 the side of the Church, where all sorts of associations 
 are allowed, but where charity is put under the ban, 
 where in short the revolution is on the throne and 
 where religion is systematically persecuted. The condi- 
 tions of each country, the temper, the power, and the pro- 
 portionate numbers of the different parties, the wishes 
 of the people in regard to liberty of speech and action, 
 their political constitutions, and their more restricted 
 local circumstances, are so various, that no policy could 
 be invented to embrace the whole. Everywhere, as 
 before remarked, there are two parties outside the Church 
 — one to be opposed, the other to be concihated. Is it to 
 be imagined that the former can be made more bitter 
 and hostile by any line that can be adopted, or by any 
 
380 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 
 
 argument that can be brought forward in support of 
 Christian principles? Can one trace the present op- 
 pression in Naples to the conduct of Ferdinand I. or 
 Ferdinand II. ? the suppression of the religious houses 
 in Piedmont to the repressive system of Charles Albert ? 
 or that of the Society of S. Vincent of Paul in France 
 to any repressive acts past or anticipated in that country? 
 I think not. 
 
 The only real danger to be guarded against is this : 
 that the hostile should gather strength from the neutral 
 party, in times when the public mind is excited, and 
 thus be enabled to carry measures into effect for which 
 their own unaided strength would be unequal. But in 
 one country more hberty, in another less, may be taken 
 ^/ with the prejudices of those outside the Christian Organ- 
 isation. It is a question for each country on each 
 occasion. 
 
 In this country friendly outsiders are coming over in 
 considerable numbers : in France itself, especially in 
 Paris, a more rapid increase of strength is visible : in 
 Spain the Government, formerly so hostile, has put itself 
 in agreement with the great body of the population, who 
 were never unsound : if in Germany less movement in 
 the right direction be observable, the cause is to be 
 sought in the rehgious indolence of the people, not in 
 disabihties from fear of Christian principles. In these, 
 as in aU countries, pohtical maxims, pubhc law, and 
 civil liberties may and must be used in order to gain 
 recognition of the rights of organised Christianity, or 
 to extort them when needful. But nowhere and at no 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 381 
 
 time should members of the Society let the idea enter 
 their minds that the rights in question depend in any 
 way upon the constitution, or the forbearance, or the 
 patronage of States. To guard effectively against such 
 a notion becoming current, it should never be forgotten 
 that in throwing dust into the eyes of our enemies, the 
 danger is incurred of blinding our friends. 
 
 
 LOXDON 
 PRIKTBU BY ElOXXlSWOOBJi; iUD CO. 
 NKW-aTEBJEI SQUAKE 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 I 
 
 3j«<C 
 
 Lately published by Messrs. Longman & Co. 
 
 THREE LETTERS TO ANGLICAN FRIENDS : 
 
 1. THE CEOWN IN COUNCIL ON THE ESSAYS AND 
 
 REVIEWS. Is. 
 
 2. THE CONVOCATION AND THE CROWN IN COUNCIL. Is. 
 
 3. THE WORKINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE 
 • CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Is. 
 
 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT THE CENTRE OF IMMU- 
 TABLE TRUTH. Is. 
 
 Also, 
 SERMONS ON ECCLESIASTICAL SUBJECTS. (Duffy.) 6s. 
 THE LOVE OF JESUS TO PENITENTS. (Duffy.) 2s. Qd. 
 THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE, (Bur^s.) 5s. 
 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. (Duffy.) 6d. 
 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSOS. (Duffy.) 6d. 
 
IN STACKS IfC 3*70 
 
 ^j^ ^, „ ,, ._: -^ 7 8s4) 4185^-107 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, 
 or on the date to which renewed. Renewals only: 
 
 Tel. No. 642-3405^ 
 Renewals may be made 4 days priod to date due. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 iRO^LD JANlb/t-lZPW » 
 
 I 
 
 JAN IS i37i 4 4 
 
 'i| 
 
 LD21A-60m-8.'70 UniS^S'if'SiiSrnia 
 
 (N88378l0)476— A-32 ^^^^^"^^^J^*^'°^^